Bush’s own personal janjaweed
By Chris Floyd
Sept. 7 — If you would know the hell that awaits us —
and not far off — there’s no need to consult ancient prophecies,
or the intricate coils of hidden conspiracies, or the tortured arcana
of high-credentialed experts. You need only read the public words, sworn
before God, of top public officials, the great lords of state, the defenders
of civilization, as they explain — clearly, openly, with confidence
and pride — their plans to foment terror, rape, war and repression
across the face of the earth.
Earlier this month, in testimony before Congress, the Bush Regime unveiled
its plans to raise a host of warlord armies in the most volatile areas
in the world, Agence France-Presse reports. Bush wants $500 million
in seed money to arm and train non-governmental “local militias”
— i.e., bands of lawless freebooters — to serve as Washington’s
proxy killers in the so-called “arc of crisis” that just happens
to stretch across the oil-bearing lands and strategic pipeline routes
of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and South America.
Flanked by a gaggle of military brass, Pentagon deputy honcho Paul Wolfowitz
told a rapt panel of Congressional rubber-stamps that Bush wants big
bucks to run “counter-insurgency” and “counter-terrorist”
operations in “ungoverned areas” of the world—and in
the hinterlands of nations providing “sanctuary” for terrorists.
Making copious citations from Bush’s 2002 “National Security
Strategy” of unprovoked aggressive war against “potential”
enemies, Howlin’ Wolf proposed expanding the definition of “terrorist
sanctuary” to any nation that allows clerics and other rabble-rousers
to offer even verbal encouragement to the US’s designated enemies
du jour.
Any rogue state that countenances such freedom of speech within its
borders will become a prime target for “the path of action,”
said Wolf, quoting Bush’s most ringing Hitlerian phrase from the
2002 manifesto. To relieve the overstretched US military, the “action”
will be carried out largely by Bush’s new hired guns: religious
and ethnic militias, tribal forces, mercenaries, cultists, insurrectionists,
druglords, pirates—basically anyone willing to slit throats and
terrorize populations at the order of the Oval One.
A more sinister — not to mention stupid — policy can scarcely
be imagined. One of the most spectacular miscalculations in modern history
was the US decision to create an international army of Islamic extremists
to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Together with the repressive militarists
of Pakistan and the head-chopping religious tyrants of Saudi Arabia,
US leaders armed, funded, supplied and shaped the global jihad —
beginning before the Soviet intervention, which the bloody religious
insurgency successfully provoked, as Washington intended. The CIA ended
up fighting cheek-by-jowl with the likes of Osama bin Laden, helpfully
providing the holy warriors with extensive training in “asymmetrical
warfare” — i.e., terrorism. These rabid chickens came home
to roost with a vengeance on Sept. 11, 2001, and are now running wild
all over the world.
Meanwhile, the Afghan warlords thus empowered by Washington proceeded
to tear the country to shreds, killing more than 50,000 people in Kabul
alone during their post-Soviet factional frenzy, creating a hell so
dire that even the Taliban’s vicious moralism seemed a welcome
relief for a time. These same warlords are back in the saddle again,
paid by Bush as they re-establish their petty fiefdoms of repression,
religious obscurantism, rampant crime, factional violence — and
dope-dealing on a record-breaking scale, the Independent reports.
The “victory” in Afghanistan has deteriorated so badly that
this week the UN’s own staff workers called on the organization
to leave the country because it is too dangerous, the BBC reports. This
follows the July pull-out of Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Nobel-winning
medical aid group that managed to survive in Afghanistan for 24 years,
through the anti-Soviet jihad, the murderous civil war and the depredations
of the Taliban. But with Bush’s paid proxies now in control, even
the redoubtable doctors have had to quit the field.
There’s nothing really new in Bush’s murder-by-proxy scheme,
of course; America has a long, bipartisan tradition of paying local
thugs to do Washington’s bloodwork. For example, just this week,
Guatemala was forced to pay $420 million in extortion to veterans of
the US-backed “paramilitaries” who helped Ronald Reagan’s
favorite dictator, right-wing Christian coupster Efrain Rios Montt,
kill 100,000 innocent people during his reign, the BBC reports. The
paramilitaries, whose well-documented war crimes include rape, murder
and torture, had threatened to shut down the country if they weren’t
given some belated booty for their yeoman service in the Reagan-Bush
cause.
But Wolfowitz did reveal one original twist in Bush’s plan: targeting
the Homeland itself as a “terrorist sanctuary.” In addition
to loosing his own personal Janjaweed on global hotspots, Bush is also
seeking new powers to prevent anyone he designates a “terrorist”
from “abusing the freedom of democratic societies” or “exploiting
the technologies of communication” — i.e., defending themselves
in court or logging on to the Internet. As AFP notes, Wolfowitz tactfully
refrained from detailing just how the Regime intends to curb the dangerous
use of US freedom, but he did allow that “difficult decisions”
would be required. (Perhaps a stateside version of those rigged “military
tribunals” now serving up prime kangaroo meat down in Guantanamo
Bay?)
No doubt the arrogant Bushists believe they can control the mercenary
dogs of war they’re now unleashing. But history shows that armed
bands driven by religious, ideological or ethnic fervor — or just
the ordinary lust for loot and power — rarely follow the script
set for them by their elitist paymasters. Bush’s morally depraved
“path of action” leads straight to chaos, desolation and hell.
Chris Floyd is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. His new book, Empire Burlesque: The Secret History
of the Bush Regime, is now available at www.globaleyefloyd.com.
Source: CounterPunch
