Interesting analysis brings to mind "threat inflation" .....

[Postman]

snip:
British and American foreign policy is itself based on a series of highly improbable conspiracy theories, the biggest of which is that an evil Saudi millionaire genius in a cave in the Hindu Kush controls a secret worldwide network of ‘tens of thousands of terrorists’ ‘in more than 60 countries’ (George Bush). News reports frequently tell us that terrorist organisations, such as those which have attacked Bali or Istanbul, have ‘links’ to al-Qa’eda, but we never learn quite what those ‘links’ are. According to two terrorism experts in California, Adam Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud, this is because they do not exist. ‘In the quest to define the enemy, the US and its allies have helped to blow al-Qa’eda out of proportion,’ they write..........

(my response)-isn't this the same MO-(threat inflation)that was used during the Cold War to try to link EVERY movement for political or economic independence away from the corporate masters in Washington as a SOVIET inspired COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY/INSURGENCY?
This propaganda model fits nicely with the NEED TO SPEND BILLIONS on WAR MATERIAL (who just happen to be heavy political campaign donors)and the keeps the FEAR FACTOR out in front of all other issues regarding foreign policy-(whose going to protect us from the inflated boogeyman? A Democrat or a Republican?)

snip:
It is also odd that opponents of conspiracy theories often allow that conspiracies have occurred in the past, but refuse to contemplate their existence in the present. For some reason, you are bordering on the bonkers if you wonder about the truth behind events like 9/11, when it is established as fact that in 1962 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman L. Lemnitzer, tried to convince President Kennedy to authorise an attack on John Glenn’s rocket, or on a US navy vessel, to provide a pretext for invading Cuba. Two years later, a similar strategy was deployed in the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident, when US engagement in Vietnam was justified in the light of the false allegation that the North Vietnamese had launched an unprovoked attack on a US destroyer. Are such tactics confined to history? Paul O’Neill, George Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, has just revealed that the White House decided to get rid of Saddam eight months before 9/11.

[Postman]

1. link

http://www.antiwar.com/spectator/spec30.html

[RainDog]

2. not to mention

Gen Smedley Butler's testimony before Congress about a plot to assassinate FDR which included members of two of the richest families in this nation: the DuPonts and J.P. Morgan...

this was a fascist coup attempt, as Butler acknowledged, and they wanted him as a figurehead.

This is a part of American history, though not a part which is ever taught in classrooms when students learn about the threat of fascism...the threat was always "elsewhere" and never here.

Past is prologue.

Members of the press corps were smeared in the 1980s regarding their claims of genocide on the part of "freedom fighters" in Central America who were, in fact, fascists.

Since then, people in those countries have dug up the bones and released records which show that Reagan and Bush Sr. funded genocide and drug smuggling, and that Reagan, contrary to what his hagiographers want everyone to believe, had knowledge that he was in contempt of Congress by the actions he approved.

John Kerry was called a conspiracy theorist when he investigated the largest bank fraud in history, but it, in fact, turned out to be true that BCCI funded terrorism, hid CIA drug running money, funded dictators around the world, defrauded millions, and, bascially, worked as a ponzi scheme in the same way that Enron did.

Now, with all the continuing connections between the Bush junta and those connected to terrorism, with people who were known to be involved in Iran/Contra, such as Elliot Abrams, currently occupying positions of power within the Bush administration, with former republican, then dem, now republican Theresa La Pore, madame butterfly ballot and former stewardess for Iran/Contra/Saudi bagman Khassogghi helping to deliver "Jews for Buchanan" in 2000...

[jmcgowanjm]

3. Latest CT Updates and Confirmation

Of course 911:
"This is beginning to look like a whitewash,"
Kristen Breitweizer, who lost her husband Ron
in tower two of the World Trade Center, told
United Press International
9/11 director gave evidence to own inquiry
http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=20040115-024012-7011r

"If what is happening with natural gas would happen with
crude oil, we'd have declared war on OPEC by now."chemical
industry spokesman The New York Times of December 13th
http://www.peakoil.net/Newsletter/NL37/Newsletter37.html

Jan. 14, 2004
Report: US considering armed intervention in Syria
The Defense Department is considering punitive aerial
attacks and Special Forces incursions.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1074053868626&p=1008596981749


'If Disintegration in Iraq Takes Place, We Intervene'

Ankara, Bagdat (Baghdad), TURKEY,IRAQ, January 15, 2004 -
Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said yesterday

[SlavesandBulldozers]

4. and lets not forget

FDR had a little LIHOP of his own in Pearl Harbor.