The New American Empire [Paperback]

The deep worry is that, imbued as they are with the wish for Armageddon (in the belief that they, as pure Christians, will be the only survivors in their ascent to Heaven) they will get to a point where they will care not what happens to everyone else on earth. They possess all the destructive power they need to bring that about.

Bush is not an aberration to the past. The policy of the States for at least a century has been concerned with interfering in the affairs of other countries and working surreptitiously to overthrow them by whatever foul means are necessary. I was in Uganda for two years during the sixties and, through the USIS and other bodies, even possibly the Peace Corps, they were hard at work in that part of Africa sticking their fives in. The Marshall Plan had its dark side, certainly where Britain was concerned, and I do not feel as sanguine as the author does about the globalising institutions that have carried US officials and power into all corners of the globe. American intrigue to start wars was not limited to the Gulf of Tonkin (1964). There seems to be evidence that Roosevelt knew in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbour and decided to let it go ahead.

Now, given the neo-cons' openly declared awareness of the advantages of staging (in line with Hitler's assertions of seventy years previously) some damaging attack upon the populace, in order to convince it of the presence of outside terror and the need to mobilise against it, the circumstances of the 9/11 attack cannot be let go for what it has been officially declared as. For me, the film of Bush amongst the school children, when the news of the attack is conveyed to him, does not show the face and behaviour of an innocent man. Coincidence is a dodgy concept when it conveniently suits authority to parade it as proof of non-guilt.

Dr. Tremblay's book is so clear about the lying capabilities of the Bushites - perhaps better written as the Bu-shites - that I can't see that we should shy away from the probability of any further lying on their behalf. He is clear about the conniving cleverness of Karl Rove: I sense that absolutely nothing should be taken as gospel dropping from the lips of these cynical hot gospellers.

The villains of the Renaissance do not, I fear, have the drop on this present bunch of villains.

However, what intrigues me most about this book is the 625 year cycle of empires. That suggests there are deeper patterns at work in the human story than any of us can gainsay.

Fifty or more years ago I read a Penguin paperback generally summarising the overall history of the human race. It suggested that this history threw up cyclical patterns, and that the twentieth century was at the end of one of the longest understandable human cycles - one lasting six thousand years, starting with the shift of human beings into agriculture and settled abodes. It was suggested that the end of the cycle was likely to be marked by cataclysm and military dominance and dictatorship.

From that book I began to work out my own theories of eras and ages - the last of which, the Renaissance, exactly works in with Dr. Tremblay's time-assessment of Western Empire. I saw also the cycle starting with the arising of Christianity. And others. But what mostly struck me was that they all seemed to be coming to their end at the present time. This led me, decades ago, to the awareness that now represents what is probably the most important moment of change in human affairs since Mesopotamia.

So much is at the end of its cycle and so much therefore is waiting to begin. The corollary to this is that, if all change is dangerous, then the moments of cyclical change are more dangerous, and moments of multiple cyclical change are the most dangerous of all, and cannot help but be threatening to the continued existence of the human race....

"The New American Empire" states its case dispassionately, and with much conviction. It charts ground that others too are working over with precision and clear-headedness. It details connections that mainstream commentators are mostly afraid to look at... It is also part of a clarion call to all who want the world to survive in an honest, decent, sharing fashion to get their noses above the parapet and to have their individual and collective voices heard, and their actions, on whatever possible scale, paid attention to, through the miasmas of deliberate corporate confusion. Strongly recommended.

The author's answer is found in his assessment of the manner pro-Israel neocon ideologues have succeeded in taking over U.S. foreign policy and de facto merging it with Israeli foreign policy.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Neocons saw an historic opportunity to redirect American military power toward the Middle East in order to buttress Israel's fragile geopolitical position vis-a-vis hostile neighboring Arab countries. If the U.S. could be persuaded that Israel's interests in the Middle East coincided with American interests, especially as to the objectives of establishing permanent military bases there and securing oil supplies from the whimsical OPEP producers, this would be a tremendous achievement for securing Israel's position in the region. The big brother would then take upon himself the task of destroying Israel's enemies, at no cost to Israel itself, even though the U.S. stature in the world was bound to take a nose dive.

How come a relatively small cabal of neocon ideologues was able to pull off such a trick? This will be a question to be debated for decades to come. Undoubtedly, this has been the coup of the century.

To begin with, the Neocons have been smart enough to cloak their fundamentally pro-Israel objectives in the mantle of overall "American interests."

On January 26, 1998, for example, the Neocons (Richard Perle, William Kristol, Robert Kagan ..etc) wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton that said:...[U.S.] strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power. "

On September 20, 2001, with the American public fuming after the events of 9/11, the same group led by Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William Kristol came back with a letter to President George W. Bush, urging a march on Baghdad, even though Iraq had had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks by al Qaeda. Their sale pitch was clear: ".. even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."

As a consequence of the neocon influence in the U.S. government and in the media, the author sees the glorification of wars in the U.S. as a clear sign that the United States is becoming the new Germany, a country that considers itself above international law and bound to attack other countries at will, -a will of power. The U.S. under Bush II and his Neocons is therefore becoming a full-fledged imperialist and militarist country.

For the Neocons, the times of the Crusades is back. Hitler style preventive wars are back. They subsribe to Mao Ste-Tung's dictum that "revolution sprang from the barrel of a gun." For them, the law of the jungle is the best of laws!

Constrained by no law, the U.S. under neocon influence is thus becoming a dangerous neo-fascist militarist country. In real terms, its defense spending is presently 23 percent higher than it was during the height of the Cold War, even though there is no more Cold War and even though the fight against terrorism requires relatively low-tech means.

No true democrat can remain indifferent to what is happening in the United States today. I recommend that everyone read this informative book.

Well, this is precisely what highly classified British documents, published last May 1st (2005), have revealed. Half a dozen official memos and option papers, written by top aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have indeed provided the definitive proof that President George W. Bush and his neocon advisors had decided to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein, whatever the circumstances and whatever the costs, as early as the fall of 2001, and even before. That's the reason the author could say that the entire diplomatic exercise of going to the United Nations during the fall of 2002 and in early 2003, supposedly to avoid a war, was truly a charade and a deception.

As a matter of fact, the Bush administration and Bush himself were lying openly when they repeated ad nauseam that war was their choice of "last resort". We now know that war against Iraq was rather their first choice. Sir Richard Dearlove, the Head of the British CIA (called the MI-6 spy service) confirmed, after a visit to Washington, that the Bush administration was fixing "the intelligence and facts ... around the policy", which was to invade Iraq, whatever the legality or the morality of such a policy. They [the Bush administration] were "scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al (Qaida)" and that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, knowing full well that this was false. But that's what they told Congress and the American people. Bush and his Neocons knew from the start that they were going to have to manufacture excuses to justify a war against Iraq.

What now? A lying President? a duped Congress? a misinformed American electorate? an illegal and immoral war?

"The New American Empire" is an eye-opener. Its author succeeds admirably in placing everything in the proper context, so the reader has a complete picture of the real motives behind a war which has already killed 1,741 American soldiers (more than 13,000 wounded) and brought death to as many as 100,000 Iraqis, directly or indirectly. I encourage you to read this book.