My Political Journey Part 4: America’s Rogue Turn and Exile to Internet Forums

9/11, Neo-Conservatives and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Salafi Extremism, the Defenestration of Gaddafi, Libertarianism's Failure, and the Retreat to the Forums

I’ll never forget this day because that morning I had to stay at home as we were getting our internet upgraded from dial-up to cable and the installer showed up just after the first tower got hit

“America is going rogue”, I thought to myself.

The realization dawned on me only days after the 9/11 attacks, when the CNN and the Big 3 TV networks were giving airtime to neo-conservatives like Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, and others. Without any evidence or investigation, they were already calling for the head of Saddam Hussein, despite claims of ‘credit’ from Osama Bin Laden on behalf of al-Qaida.

“Why would they try to remove a largely secular head-of-state that would create a vacuum to be exploited by groups such as al-Qaida, the one already declared guilty of the attacks that are being used against Saddam?”, I wondered. There was not going to be a war on Radical Islam. But there was going to be war for American Empire in the Middle East.

This became rather obvious when one saw the composition of George W. Bush’s administration. Where his father had tried and tested foreign policy realists like Brent Scowcroft and James Baker III on his side (both of whom came out publicly against the neo-conservatives in the regime), Dubya’s team was the marriage of Big Oil and the Israeli Likud Party, US Chapter. This was personified in the man many suggested was actually running the White House, VP Dick Cheney. He had come out of Big Oil and worked for Bush the Elder where he had expressed alignment with realist foreign policy sentiments, but during the Clinton Interregnum he had joined the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), which was neo-con central.

JINSA had a lot of overlap not just with the Dubya Administration, but also with the Project For a New American Century, a neo-con think tank that published a blueprint for American Hegemony in the post-Cold War era. Of its 25 original signing members, 10 went on to serve in the Dubya Administration. Combine Big Oil with the powerful Israeli Lobby on Capitol Hill, and add to it the Military-Industrial Complex, and you have a convergence of interests that signed a death warrant for Saddam Hussein. But first, a step back…..

The Uses of 9/11 for US Empire

9/11 came as a shock to almost everyone. It wasn’t that Muslims managed to conduct a terrorist attack on the USA, but rather that it was so spectacular in its achievement. I have no desire to re-debate what exactly happened that day, but for those who are curious, I will simply say that there are a lot of unanswered questions and that there was not only warnings given to the USA, but foreknowledge of the attacks. After all, many of these terrorists served in CIA ops elsewhere around the world.