The Backroom Boys

I came across some interesting background info that puts the Iraq War in a larger perspective, and frankly, it's pretty disturbing. Maybe some of you readers are already aware of this stuff, but it's something I wasn't aware of.

First there was this article from CBC News Online:
Reality Check: A New American Century. Here's an excerpt:

Long before Sept. 11, influential neo-conservatives wanted to see America as an enlightened ruler, unchallenged, astride the world. Long before Bush was elected president, they got together and they wrote down a manifesto. The document was effectively a charter of the Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank in Washington.

That apparently led to this document: The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Essentially, it's the official rationale for preemptive action (which Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, has lampooned so successfully).

The disturbing thing is that the people who formulated this report concluded that what was needed to jumpstart the new pax Americana was a domestic cataclysm along the lines of another Pearl Harbor. And this was before 9/11.

Now, I'm not saying they engineered 9/11. I'm not that cynical. But still, it shivers me.

The policy initiative, spearheaded by people like Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz of the Defence Department and Richard Perle, head of the defence advisory board, was also explored in a series I caught on CBC. It was PBS-produced Frontline series called The Long Road To War. You can view parts of it archived on their site.

Very interesting stuff.

This Richard Perle fellow has been getting ink elsewhere too. In Slate, Jack Shafer writes about Perle's threat to launch a libel suit against investigative journalist Seymour Hersh for an article Hersh wrote in The New Yorker.

In a previous piece in Slate, Shafer had dared Perle to sue Hersh. (btw, you may have heard that Perle, who's also a director of media megalith Hollinger International, had described Hersh to CNN as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist." Gee, at least he isn't trying to chill the press!)

As Shafer writes:
"The [New Yorker] article examines the potential conflict of interest posed by Perle's dual roles as official Bush adviser (in the form of non-paid chair of the Defense Policy Board) and as managing partner at Trireme Partners, a venture capital firm. Trireme appears to invest in businesses that deal in enterprises 'that are of value to homeland security and defense,' according to Hersh's piece. As a special government employee, Perle is subject to a federal Code of Conduct, Hersh writes, and '[t]hose rules bar a special employee from participating in an official capacity in any matter in which he has a financial interest.'

The article doesn't accuse Perle of breaking any laws, but it explores the unseemly nature of advocating a war on Iraq while engaged in a business that could financially benefit from such a war."

Interesting, no?

And then there's this part:
"One former high-level intelligence official spoke with awe of Perle's ability to 'radically change government policy' even though he is a private citizen. 'It's an impressive achievement that an outsider can have so much influence, and has even been given an institutional base for his influence.'"

Isn't that lovely. And Americans' tax cuts are being rolled back to pay for this war! I seem to recall something from a long time ago about taxation without representation. Now here's tax-payer supported warmongering without accountability.

This stuff truly makes me feel ill.