THE MOTHER OF ALL WAR
SHOWS
The Black Commentator
Issue Number 27 - January 30, 2003
When it comes, the U.S. assault on Iraq will explode as global spectacle,
an awesome
pyrotechnic display of rolling thunder and lightening death intended
to shock and cow
the entire planet. The effect, the planners fervently believe, will
be comparable to that
which occurred when cannon clashed with spears and arrows on the ever-expanding
frontiers of European empire: incomprehensible devastation, soul-consuming
terror,
complete political disintegration, followed by abject submission. In
the grand imperial
scenario, the satraps and sultans of the Earth, heads bowed at angles
of unmistakable
subservience, will gather up their robes and beseech the Americans
for life on any
terms.
Iraq's oil is important, but not the real prize of war. If a sustained
flow of Iraqi oil were
so vital to the U.S. and global economy, the production infrastructure
would not be put
at such risk of immediate immolation. Iraq's oil facilities can burn
as easily as did
Kuwait's, in the last days of the previous Gulf War. Capitalism went
on to boom and
bubble in the Nineties.
Dick Cheney's Halliburton corporation and the rest of the pirate pack
are ready and
eager to do a multi-billion dollar, postwar makeover of Iraq's oil
facilities, at U.S.
taxpayer expense. Invoices will be submitted to American Occupation
authorities - part
of the "cost" of war that the White House refuses to "speculate" about.
Oil is overrated as the root cause of the impending conflagration. Saddam
Hussein has
always been eager to pump much more of it, at no higher price than
the next guy,
while the U.S. has strangled Iraqi production by every means at its
disposal for over a
decade.
The prize is nothing less than world domination: all the riches above
and below the
earth and seas.
The real show is in the show, itself. The people who created George
Bush's ridiculous
War Face are not just playing crazy to gain transient advantage over
Frenchmen and
Russians. They are Hell-bent on proving to the natives (all of us)
that they are capable
of unimaginable destruction. We must see it to believe it - which is
why this war is all
but inevitable. In the aftermath of horror, the world will become malleable,
ready for
reshaping in the not-yet-defined New Order.
That's the plan. The pirates are confident they can improvise the post
war details at
their leisure, later. What we are witnessing is essentially the buildup
to a global
consciousness-searing U.S. military demonstration - the Mother of All
War Shows. If
we search for the military or economic objectives of the conflict on
anything so crude
as a map, we have missed the point.
An epochal announcement
The Bush men intend to show the world what Armageddon looks like. The
time is
nearly at hand, the clocks synchronized to the movements of armies
and fantastic
machines that hold even their masters in thrall. For the moment, Bush
directs the
world's attention to Colin Powell's February 5 appearance at the United
Nations, in
New York, where the game of diplomacy will lurch toward its foreordained
end.
Then the event will occur, signaling the end of the Old Order. The world
will pause in
"Shock and Awe."
The War Party telegraphed its plans on January 24 - a practice they
indulge in to
further the momentum of war and thus prevent the timid from attempting
last minute
reversals in course. The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald offered
this concise
account:
The US intends to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally
and
psychologically" by raining down on its people as
many as 800 cruise
missiles in two days.
The Pentagon battle plan aims not only to crush Iraqi
troops, but also
wipe out power and water supplies in the capital,
Baghdad.
It is based on a strategy known as "Shock and Awe",
conceived at the
National Defense University in Washington, in which
between 300 and
400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day
for two consecutive days.
It would be more than twice the number of missiles
launched during the
entire 40 days of the 1991 Gulf War.
"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a Pentagon
official told
America's CBS News after a briefing on the plan.
"The sheer size of this
has never been seen before, never been contemplated
before."
According to the architect of "Shock and Awe", military
strategist Harlan
Ullman, the plan would rely on an extensive array
of precision-guided
weapons.
"We want them to quit, not to fight," Ullman said,
"so that you have this
simultaneous effect - rather like the nuclear weapons
at Hiroshima - not
taking days or weeks but minutes."
A senior Bush official confirmed that Shock and Awe "is the concept
on which the war
plan is based," according to CBS News.
Like Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and the entire
pirate
crew, strategist Harlan Ullman is in the business of war. He and his
colleagues at The
Defense Group Inc. have a contract to create the conditions for a New
World Order that
no nation or combination of nations can resist. Through its The Rapid
Dominance
Study Group, the company has constructed an order of battle that closely
resembles
the current U.S. forces surrounding Iraq, but is actually designed
for Permanent War:
The Rapid Dominance Study Group has outlined a first
cut Rapid
Dominance force for fighting and winning a major
regional conflict. That
force design consists of roughly 250,000 personnel
and would be
employed in five waves. These waves can be brought
to bear at any point
in the peace, crisis and conflict continuum. The
first wave of a Rapid
Dominance capability could strike anywhere on the
globe, within 30 to 40
minutes of being ordered, regardless of whether
U.S. forces were already
deployed in the crisis region. The subsequent waves
would continue to
deploy power relentlessly on the adversary to affect
his will and
perception through imposing a regime of "shock and
awe." The final wave
could include deploying a heavy corps or expeditionary
force for physical
occupation of territory.
Ullman's strategy - now the Pentagon's blueprint - is available to every
English reader
in his book "Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance". The whole volume
is
posted on the site of the Command and Control Research Program (CCRP)
of the U.S.
Department of Defense. (Note: We are listing several links because
in researching this
document we discovered for some unexplained reason the Website appears
unstable
and the Table of Contents page is not always available. If the Table
of Contents link
does not work, try the Forward or the Prologue.)
CBS anchor Dan Rather tagged his "Shock and Awe" story: "We assure you
this
report contains no information that the Defense Department thinks could
help the Iraqi
military."
That's the whole point. The War Party wants the world to know that there
is no escape
from the raging superpower. Very soon, the U.S. military will stage
a show more
shocking and awful than can be imagined, for the benefit of a global
audience. As
Ullman envisions, it will be "rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima."
The intent
is to break the will of the species. Iraq is merely a convenient stage,
Saddam Hussein
an extremely unfortunate prop.
A kind of rapture
The Bush cabal devoutly believe they are at a Hiroshima-like juncture
in history - that
they have at their disposal the means to start the world over in an
apocalyptic spasm
of swift and terrifying violence. The War Party believes itself to
be embarked on an
epochal, world-altering mission, and they are determined that this
moment not be
squandered. In the interval, Colin Powell can give his speech. When
the set is ready,
George Bush will flip the switch and the sky will flash and glow over
Iraq, a warning to
the world.
The Bush men believe humanity will first recoil, then cower - that the
world has no
choice but to surrender in "Shock and Awe." The opposite is true. By
initiating
Permanent War, Bush presents the world - including, ultimately, the
American people -
with no choice but to turn on their tormentor, and remove him and his
pirate class.
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