- © Copyright, 2000, From The Wilderness Publications,
www.fromthewilderness.com. All rights reserved. May be copied, distributed
or posted on the Internet for non-profit purposes only.
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- (FTW) -- All over the world, both internationally and
here at home, the wheels are coming off of the Bush Administration's plans
for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And Bush Administration responses
to recent events appear to be moving a tense international situation into
a new phase where chaotic, scattered and increasingly bloody violence may
spread risk to civilian populations and the estimated 80,000 to 100,000
U.S. troops that have been forward-deployed in anticipation of the attacks
for months. U.S. troop deployments in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,
Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Djibouti, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and a Kurdish controlled region of northern Iraq -- once offensive staging
points or strategic postings -- are now becoming vulnerable defensive liabilities
as world sentiment mounts against the U.S. invasion. Britain is also reported
to have troop deployments in Oman on the Southeast tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
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- At stake is a nation which holds 11 percent of the world's
oil and which is one of only two nations capable of quickly increasing
production in time to avert a major economic collapse for the U.S.
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- A recently reported coup attempt in Qatar, perhaps the
most vital country to a successful U.S. invasion plan, has raised serious
questions about whether the administration can afford to wait much longer
without risking the entire collapse of both its prestige and a plan which
has recently been shown to be years in the making.
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- The assassination today of the head of the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID) in Amman, Jordan follows on the heels
of recent attacks in Kuwait, the Philippines, South Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan
and Bali, most of which have been reportedly linked to terrorist organizations
sympathetic with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. An interpretation
not offered by the administration, but which has been voiced by some Islamic
foreign nationals contacted by FTW, is that the flimsy justification for
invasion offered by the U.S., along with what is perceived as successful
international opposition leading to vacillation by the administration,
have encouraged attacks from some quarters that have had minimal or no
connections to Al Qaeda.
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- These events are reminiscent of a warning issued by Pentagon
hawk, Richard Perle, who stated in an Aug. 18 Washington Post story, "Timing
is everything when you do this. If you launched [a public campaign] too
far in advance and nothing followed, that would raise questions and fuel
a debate that would not be helpful to the administration...If you join
the debate now, but don't act for months, you pay a worse price."
Perle's prediction is coming true just two months after he made it.
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- In spite of routine denials USAID has regularly been
linked to the Central Intelligence Agency and has reportedly served as
a cover for CIA operations. Jordan remains a particularly sensitive country
for the U.S. because of its geographic position between Israel and Iraq,
its perceived status as a U.S. ally, and the fact that as many as 6,000
U.S. troops have been positioned in Jordan since late-August in anticipation
of the U.S. invasion. FTW reported on Aug. 21 that the total number of
U.S. troops, as reported by the Jordanian news agency Petra and other Mid
East news sources had topped 6,000 and included light armor, medical detachments
and Special Forces troops. An on-the-record eyewitness statement confirmed
visual sightings of U.S. troops in the country.
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- [For additional coverage on troop deployments and war
plans please visit:
- http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082102_deployment.html.]
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- Jordan, like many other countries in the region, has
been sending ambiguous signals about the role it will or will not play
in the U.S. invasion. These mixed and often changing positions, shifting
like the sands of the desert, clearly reflect the tectonic pressures that
are mounting in the region each day that an invasion is not executed. A
Reuters story on Aug. 12 indicated that Jordan was being considered as
a launch point for the Iraqi invasion at a time when the Jordanian military
was engaging in joint exercises with U.S. troops. However, a July 10 Associated
Press story indicated that Jordan would not participate in any U.S.-led
invasion.
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- Amid repeated stories that the U.S. intends to "Balkanize"
the region, splitting Iraq and possibly Saudi Arabia into several kingdoms
divided between Hashemite, Sunni Arab, Kurdish and Shiite ethnic groups,
tensions between Muslim countries in the region have been steadily mounting.
[For more information:
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- http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082102_saudi_arabia_1.html].
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- On Oct. 22 Reuters reported that a Jordanian journalist
had been sentenced to death in Qatar for allegedly spying for Jordan and
reporting on U.S. troop deployments in that country. Qatar is home to the
multi-billion-dollar, state-of-the-art Al Udeid air base. According to
numerous press reports and published photographs, Qatar is virtually sinking
under the weight of U.S. military equipment, including M1A2 Abrams main
battle tanks, which have been positioned there for the Iraqi invasion.
That move came after Jordan recalled its ambassador in August from Doha,
the Qatari capital, and closed the Amman offices of Al Jazeera, the feisty
Arab news organization based in Qatar.
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- A COUP ATTEMPT IN QATAR?
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- On Oct. 16 the Arabic News issued a story stating that
reports from Cairo and several Persian Gulf states had resulted in the
Oct. 12 arrest of "scores of Qatari army officers" after an attempted
coup by pro-Taliban elements against Qatari leader Sheikh Hamad bin Khaleifah
al-Thani. The coup was reportedly suppressed with the assistance of "American
personnel in civilian costumes." An Oct. 24 New York Times story clearly
stated the Qatari position. It carried the headline: "A Tiny Gulf
Kingdom Bets Its Stability on Support for U.S." Stories about the
massive Al-Udeid air base and its intended use as the headquarters of the
U.S. Central Command for the Iraqi invasion have been circulating for months.
On Sept. 12th, the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb reported that Central
Command had announced a plan to send 600 personnel in November from Florida
to Qatar for a readiness test of the headquarters facility.
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- A Reuters story dated just 10 days after the reported
coup attempt stated that the planned exercise had been moved from November
to an unspecified date in December. While making no mention of the coup
attempt the story did state that, "The Gulf region is bristling with
U.S. troops and weaponry"
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- Upon learning of the coup attempt, FTW made an immediate
request to the White House asking for comment. In a rare return call, which
took place within two hours, a spokesperson for the National Security Council
stated, "We [the NSC] are not even aware of a coup attempt. No comment."
A spokesman for the Department of Defense said, "We don't know anything
about any coup attempt, and U.S. forces were not involved."
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- The subscription intelligence service Stratfor stated
in an Oct. 24 story that it received confirmation of the coup attempt from
Qatari and Russian intelligence sources. It also added some twists which
indicate the quicksand-like nature of Middle Eastern alliances. Translating
from the Egyptian daily al-Joumhoreyah, Stratfor reported that members
of the Qatari ruling family had been taken into custody and that that they
had recently expressed opposition to the regime's pro-U.S. policy. As it
turns out Sheikh al-Thani took power in a bloodless coup in 1995 from his
father who remains a good friend of Saudi Arabian elements that oppose
the invasion of Iraq.
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- Tensions between the two countries reached a high point
in September when Riyadh recalled its ambassador from Doha. Saudi Arabia
remains the ultimate ambiguity in its support for the U.S. invasion on
a measure equal with glaring recent contradictions in stated U.S. support
for the kingdom which contains 25 percent of all the oil on the planet.
[For additional information:
-
- http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082102_saudi_arabia_1.html].
.
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- Withdrawal of support for the U.S. invasion in Qatar
would most likely make the invasion of Iraq an impossibility. The support
offered by other Middle Eastern nations, already under intense pressure
from their populations, would likely evaporate completely. Even Turkey,
a staunch NATO ally has been strongly signaling its reservations in recent
weeks, and it is not capable of single-handedly hosting the invasion.
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- DIPLOMATIC POWER PLAYS DEEPEN CRISIS
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- Moves by Russia, France and China to delay a U.N. vote
favorable to the U.S. plan have been extremely successful on the world
stage. Prolonged negotiations and a delayed vote in the U.N. Security Council
on a resolution needed by the Bush Administration to keep its fragile alliance
together are producing responses from the administration that sound more
like whining than leadership. Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin
arrived late -- a major diplomatic snub -- for a summit at President George
W. Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch and failed to give him the endorsement
for action against Iraq that Bush so desperately needs. This move apparently
gave strength to continuing opposition from France and Russia in the U.N.
Security Council.
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- And the backroom arm-twisting, carrot-offering, wheeling
and dealing of the administration to divide the spoils of an Iraqi conquest
has also failed to produce the desired outcome: a global blessing for the
Empire to do what it wants to do. [For additional information, please visit:
-
- http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/101802_the_unseen.html.]
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- American major media, trying desperately to put a positive
spin on what is increasingly a major diplomatic defeat, continue to report
that the U.N. is making progress in getting what it wants. But each minute
of delay weakens the U.S. position economically, politically and militarily.
Today the president was seen almost whining that the U.S. would act without
U.N. approval if necessary even as CNN wrote, "The U.S. game plan
on Iraq was encountering significant Security Council resistance."
Bush's position today is on its face no different from what he said in
his speech to the U.N. Sept. 12, yet no action has been taken.
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- AT HOME AND ABROAD
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- In the meantime major demonstrations took place on Oct.
26 all over the United States and around the world protesting the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. In Washington, D.C. a crowd estimated by police at in
excess of 100,000 loudly protested the war on which the administration
is betting all of its political chips. In San Francisco an estimated 75,000
people turned out while other large demonstrations were reported in cities
all over the country. Following on the heels of previous anti-war crowds
of 400,000 in London and more than 1 million in Italy, protestors filled
the streets in Berlin, Frankfurt and Amsterdam to establish that the U.S.
and the world are anything but united over this war.
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- This is the first time in modern American history that
there has been a vocal anti-war movement before the war even started.
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- In Brazil yesterday, former Marxist and Workers' Party
candidate Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva scored a landslide victory
with 61 percent of the vote, becoming president of the largest democracy
in South America. Da Silva's victory, another political slap in the face
to the Bush Administration, follows on the heels of a second recent, failed
coup attempt against Venezuela's independent President Hugo Chavez, an
often vocal critic of many U.S. policies in South America.
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- It is clear that global and domestic opposition to the
invasion of Iraq is growing. But it is not a given that these developments
have rendered the administration impotent or weakened its resolve. As FTW
has been saying consistently since the administration took office -- and
especially since 9-11 -- the degree of criminal, unconstitutional and aggressive
behavior by the administration only serves to guarantee that its future
moves will only be more illegal, more dangerous and more costly of human
lives.
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- Some activists and analysts have openly speculated that
the recent tragic death of Sen. Paul Wellstone, perhaps the administration's
most vocal and committed critic in the Senate, was a murder perpetrated
by a ruthless regime capable of stealing a presidential election and complicit
in allowing the attacks of 9-11 to take place in order to provide it with
a pretext for what is happening now. [FTW will have a story on a number
of major inconsistencies in the Wellstone tragedy sometime this week.]
Last week this writer had conversations with two Democratic Party members
of the House of Representatives and both unhesitatingly expressed their
belief that Wellstone was probably murdered.
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- Recently an anti-war activist was asked why no one was
making a point of the now documented and glaring inconsistencies in the
Bush Administration's actions, statements and conduct since the attacks
of 9-11. "It's irrelevant," the activist said. An angry response
came from the internet, "If you had paid attention to all the warnings
and evidence of administration complicity in 9-11 we would not be looking
at the coming murder of tens of thousands of people in the Middle East."
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- The point, well taken, was that the people in control
of the U.S. government are capable of anything. And while these recent
developments show that the administration is not omnipotent, it does not
make it any less dangerous, any less capable of horrific actions, either
overseas or right here at home. And the rest of the world, following the
U.S. example, is showing increasing signs of instability that could unleash
a variety of conflicts, the outcomes of which cannot be predicted.
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- http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102802_wheels.html
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