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We are America [1]. We are our own worst Enemy. Who needs Friends when we can manufacture Enemies at will?

`Axis of Evil'?[2] -- We made Iran what it is today![3] We made Iraq what it is today![4] We even made Korea what it is today![5][6] And, as if that wasn't enough, we made America what it is today.[7]

Who needs Friends when we can manufacture Enemies at will? We are our own worst Enemy. We are America[1].

First Morning Thoughts
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Leif Erlingsson

NOTES:

(1): ``At some point we may be the only ones left. That's okay with me. We are America.'' -- George Bush, January 31st, 2002, At Camp David, Advise and Dissent, Washington Post A01, http://unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2002/wpost013102.html , http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A64802-2002Jan30¬Found=true , http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A64858-2002Jan30¬Found=true

(2): The ``President's'' State of the Union Address, George W. Bush, The United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., January 29, 2002, http://whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html: ``Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.''

(3): New York Times Special Report: The C.I.A. in Iran by James Risen, http://nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html and http://holycrime.com/EnglishPlotIran1.pdf plus http://holycrime.com/EnglishPlotIran2.pdf . Also see Kermit Replaced Mossadegh with the Shah, http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue51/articles/51_14-15.pdf

(4): Foreign Policy, January | February 2003, An Unnecessary War, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, http://foreignpolicy.com/wwwboard/walts.html : ``In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, "[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had "no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait." The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did. ... The United States backed Iraq during the 1980s-when Saddam was gassing Kurds and Iranians-and helped Iraq use chemical weapons more effectively by providing it with satellite imagery of Iranian troop positions. The Reagan administration also facilitated Iraq's efforts to develop biological weapons by allowing Baghdad to import disease-producing biological materials such as anthrax, West Nile virus, and botulinal toxin. A central figure in the effort to court Iraq was none other than current U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was then President Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East.''

(5): The Global System -- Deterring Democracy: Chapter 3 [1/5], http://zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c03-s01.html : ``The Korean war, shortly after, provided "an excellent opportunity...to disrupt the Soviet peace offensive, which...is assuming serious proportions and having a certain effect on public opinion"''

(6): 2. The General Outlines -- Deterring Democracy: Chapter 11 [2/7], http://zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c11-s02.html : ``Quite apart from the superpower confrontation, the United States was committed to restoring the traditional conservative order. To achieve this aim, it was necessary to destroy the anti-fascist resistance, often in favor of Nazi and fascist collaborators, to weaken unions and other popular organizations, and to block the threat of radical democracy and social reform, which were live options under the conditions of the time. These policies were pursued worldwide: in Asia, including South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina, and crucially Japan; in Europe, including Greece, Italy, France, and crucially Germany; in Latin America, including what the CIA took to be the most severe threats at the time, "radical nationalism" in Guatemala and Bolivia. Sometimes the task required considerable brutality. In South Korea, about 100,000 people were killed in the late 1940s by security forces installed and directed by the United States. This was before the Korean war, which Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings describe as "in essence" a phase -- marked by massive outside intervention -- in "a civil war fought between two domestic forces: a revolutionary nationalist movement, which had its roots in tough anti-colonial struggle, and a conservative movement tied to the status quo, especially to an unequal land system," restored to power under the U.S. occupation.''

(7): Homeland Security Act: The Rise of the American Police State, by Jennifer Van Bergen, Tuesday, December 3, 2002, http://truthout.org/docs_02/12.04B.jvb.hsa.2.htm : ``One does not need to look into the Council on Foreign Relations, however, to discover the hidden agenda behind the Homeland Security Act. David Armstrong recently wrote a detailed article for Harper's Magazine on "Dick Cheney's Song of America: Drafting a Plan for Global Dominance." ... "The plan," according to Armstrong, "is to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful." ... When the Plan was leaked in March 1992 to the New York Times, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden criticized its proposal of "a global security system where threats to stability are suppressed or destroyed by U.S. military power." ... From military "base force" and a tentative "forward presence" to "preemptive strikes" and "unwarned attacks." ... Armstrong notes: "This country once rejected "unwarned" attacks such as Pearl Harbor as barbarous and unworthy of a civilized nation." Armstrong further states that we "also once denounced those who tried to rule the world." ... The Plan, finally, envisions unilateral action without alliances. Coalitions are relegated to "ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted." Where it cannot get others to agree with its goals or decisions, the United States will "act independently" to address "selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends." Coalitions "must not determine the mission." American interests, according to the Plan, include "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism."''

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Updated 27 October 2003