http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/090606.html

Election 2006 & World War III

By Robert Parry
September 7, 2006

As Americans go to the polls in two months, they should have one thought
fixed in their minds: they will be voting on whether to commit the nation to
fighting World War III against large segments of the world's one billion
Muslims. Beyond the cost in blood and treasure, this war will mean the end
of the United States as a democratic Republic.

Those are the stakes that were made clear by George W. Bush in an alarmist
speech to an association of U.S. military officers on Sept. 5. He declared
that the United States must battle not only likely or even possible threats
from terrorists, but the most fantastical dreams of Osama bin Laden and
al-Qaeda about a mystical global "caliphate."

Adopting some of the most extreme rhetoric favored by his neoconservative
advisers, Bush also broadened the "war on terror" beyond al-Qaeda-inspired
terrorists and the Sunni-dominated Iraqi insurgency to include the
Shiite-run Hezbollah movement in Lebanon and the Shiite government of Iran.

"As we continue to fight al-Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by
their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists,
who are learning from al-Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness and stepping
up their threats," Bush said.

"This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as
hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of
hegemony across the broader Middle East," Bush continued. "And the Shia
extremists have achieved something that al-Qaeda has so far failed to do: In
1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating
its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation's resources
to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda."

Bush also cited his determination to defeat Hezbollah, a Shiite movement in
Lebanon that is now a prominent part of the elected Lebanese government and
broadly popular because its militia battled the Israeli army when it invaded
Lebanon in July.

Bush referred to Hezbollah's leader as "the terrorist Nasrallah," suggesting
the United States has joined Israel in its determination to kill Sheikh
Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah who was rated the most respected leader in the
Middle East by an August 2006 poll in Egypt, which is considered one of
Washington's staunchest regional allies.

Ranked second in that Egyptian poll was Iran's president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, another target of the Bush administration. By contrast, Egypt's
pro-American president Hosni Mubarak wasn't even in the top 10, coming in
11th. Polls across the Middle East also have shown almost universal
disapproval of the Bush administration and its policies.

So, Bush has set the United States on course to battle not only the
stateless terrorists of al-Qaeda and the stubborn insurgents in Iraq but
Islamic political leaders who have widespread support among the Muslim
masses. How the United States would win such a war or even assemble the vast
numbers of soldiers needed is hard to comprehend.

'World War III'

Bush's virtual declaration of war on the Islamic world ranks as possibly the
most ambitious military plan in American history - and without doubt the
most reckless. This so-called "long war," which Bush's followers hail as
"World War III," would mean fighting large portions of a religious movement
that has the allegiance of about one-sixth of the planet's population.

Muslims are concentrated in nations from northern Africa to East Asia, but
also include large numbers in Europe and North America.

Nevertheless, in his address to the military officers, Bush talked bravely
about how confident he is that the United States will win this war. "America
will not bow down to tyrants," he declared to applause.

Bush's experience over the past five years, however, suggests that his
strategy would require a full-scale transformation of the United States into
a warrior nation, committed to a virtual endless struggle against any and
all Islamic extremists who harbor thoughts of power, no matter how fanciful
those imaginings might be.

A key point in Bush's argument is that al-Qaeda has expressed a dream of
creating a "caliphate" reaching from Spain to Indonesia. Bush described the
steps to this empire as starting with "numerous, decentralized operating
bases across the world, from which they can plan new attacks, and advance
their vision of a unified, totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and
eventually destroy the free world."

But the reality is that prior to Bush's presidency, al-Qaeda was a marginal
movement in the Islamic world, driven out of countries across northern
Africa, hounded by secular governments in the Middle East, and expelled even
from the Sudan.

In summer 2001, as Bush brushed aside CIA warnings about bin Laden's plans
to strike inside the United States, al-Qaeda leaders were holed up in caves
in Afghanistan, literally chased to the ends of the earth.

Then, after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington - and the U.S.
counterattack in Afghanistan - bin Laden fled to the mountains of Tora Bora
where he apologized to his followers for leading them to what looked like
defeat both militarily and politically, since the vast majority of Muslims
had joined the rest of the world in condemning the 9/11 attacks.

At that crucial moment, the Saudi terrorist leader set off on horseback
along with a small band of supporters and was surprised to find that Bush
hadn't ordered in U.S. troops to cut off al-Qaeda's escape routes. Bush
already was shifting his focus to Iraq, which was governed by a secular
dictator who had persecuted Islamic extremists like bin Laden. [See, for
instance, Ron Suskind's account in The One Percent Doctrine.]

Military Blunder

The failure to trap or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora might rank as one of
modern history's worst military blunders. But in his Sept. 5 speech, Bush
instead cited other historical failures - what he called missed
opportunities to eliminate Lenin and Hitler when they were living in
obscurity and writing about their improbable dreams of power.

"In the early 1900s, an exiled lawyer in Europe published a pamphlet called
'What Is To Be Done?' - in which he laid out his plans to launch a communist
revolution in Russia," Bush said. "The world did not heed Lenin's words, and
paid a terrible price. .

"In the 1920s, a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he
explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take
revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews. The world ignored Hitler's words,
and paid a terrible price."

But the problem with Bush's history lesson is that wiping out some future
Lenin or Hitler would require killing or imprisoning anyone who wrote about
political change in a way that rulers considered objectionable or
threatening at that time. While "predictive assassination" might eliminate a
Lenin or a Hitler, it also might kill a Mandela or a Jefferson.

What Bush appears to be advocating is the end of free speech and free
thought, or at least the regulation and punishment of speech and thought
that he disdains. Bush is extending his concept of "preemptive war" -
launching attacks against countries that might present a future threat to
the United States - to "preemptive thought control," eliminating political
opponents who might pose some future threat.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the U.S. government
from criminalizing speech. But Bush is indicating that he and his political
followers believe that, amid the "war on terror," it is justifiable to do
just that.

Al-Qaeda Plot

In another chilling passage in his speech, Bush laid out a scenario for
labeling criticism of him in the U.S. news media as part of al-Qaeda's
terrorist strategy. Bush claimed that bin Laden wrote to Taliban leader
Mullah Omar about launching "a media campaign . to create a wedge between
the American people and their government."

Bush said this media campaign would send the American people messages,
including "that their government [will] bring them more losses, in finances
and casualties." Bush continued that bin Laden's media plan "aims at
creating pressure from the American people on the American government to
stop their campaign against Afghanistan."

Bush cited this supposed al-Qaeda manipulation of the U.S. media as one of
the reasons that "bin Laden and his allies are absolutely convinced they can
succeed in forcing America to retreat and causing our economic collapse.
They believe our nation is weak and decadent, and lacking in patience and
resolve. And they're wrong."

As Bush defines domestic criticism of his war's costs "in finances and
casualties" as part of a terrorist scheme, it's not hard to imagine how
Bush's
devoted followers will react. Any expression of concern that Bush is
charting a course toward mad destruction will be attacked as somehow acting
in concert with terrorists.

Though Bush has said that his goal in waging his vague and seemingly endless
"war on terror" is to defend freedom, the reality behind Bush's grim vision
is the emergence of an American totalitarianism where objectionable thought
will be repressed and dissent will be equated with treason.

The President has now made clear that he wants the Nov. 7 congressional
elections to be a referendum on whether Americans will follow him into this
dark future.

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the
Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of
the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999
book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson