February 24, 2005


Imagine the following scenario: a covert Nicaraguan assassination team enters the United States and methodically kills Casper Weinberger, Duane Claridge, Oliver North, John Poindexter, Thomas Clines, Robert McFarlane, and other figures connected to the Contras, a U.S. supported paramilitary group responsible for killing an estimated 30,000-50,000 Nicaraguans (in a country of 3.5 million).

Of course, considering the current government of Nicaragua, this is not likely to happen, but what if it did? What do you think the response would be in the United States?

Bomb Nicaragua.

Consider the following from the Washington Post< http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48522-2005Feb23?la
nguage=printer >: "The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there, administration officials familiar with the plan said."

Disregarding the squabble between the Pentagon and the State Department, consider what this means: Special Operations forces are covertly entering countries and conducting "military operations," that is to say killing people the Pentagon doesn’t like. Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, and other countries listed as "rogue regimes" come to mind.

In all fairness and the rhetoric of "terrorism" aside, if Special Operations forces started killing off the Iranian mullahs and their supporters and Iranian covert agents entered the United States and revenged these killings by assassinating U.S. officials, would there really be any room to criticize the Iranians? Fair is fair, after all.

This is precisely what Ward Churchill was talking about. If you kill people you should not be surprised if they return the favor.

Problem here is, since these operations will be "covert," that is to say we will not know about them since the Pentagon will have no accountability to Congress or the American people, any revenge operations will be considered prima facie terrorism and serve as an excuse to attack Iran or whatever country reacts in kind. Only knowing half the story—they attacked us unprovoked—the American people will sign off on larger and more deadly military action.

In fact, such half stories comprise much of the history of the United States. Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin come to mind. FDR goaded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor and there were no North Vietnamese attacks against U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. It was fiction the same way Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction were a fiction.

Finally, imagine you live in Finland or Brazil (some of you reading this may). Upon reading the Washington Post article about covert operations in foreign lands—maybe even where you live—what is your reaction? I can hazard a guess—the United States is the most arrogant, self-righteous, and dangerous country in the world. In fact, recent polls reveal many people in the world consider the United States (and Israel) the most dangerous and indeed "rogue" countries in the world.

It is not difficult to imagine a day when countries band together and attempt to put an end to this murderous business. Imagine and economic embargo on the United States. In fact, in a way, this is already happening for different reasons as the euro increasingly becomes the monetary unit of choice. If the United States really pisses off the rest of the world, it would not be too difficult to put the thumbscrews to its economy. China floats U.S. debt. If they decide for whatever reason to no longer do this the United States is certain to crash and become a second-rate economic power.