Governments are finding themselves in a pickle with this war in Iraq, aren't they.  Increasingly people don't believe their political leaders any more for the very good reason that we know they're lying.

And haven't they been caught out in some porkies! Did Tony Blair really expect to pass off a ten year old plagiarised paper as a damning dossier of "the latest British intelligence"?  Even US government officials and analysts are very unhappy about the president and his cabinet using "cooked information".

Only simpletons believe the war against Iraq is because Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. This war has been planned for a long time. Lusted after, in fact, in the same way as the American generals lusted after a war with Cuba. That it has been planned is the subject of this talk.

In October last year a successful American businessman chided me for having the audacity to criticize the most moral nation on earth, the United States for its belligerence towards Iraq.  His deeply held convictions can give us an insight into the mind of a patriotic American. He said:

Europe is the moral cesspool of the world and since God blessed America with super powers like Superman, America is obliged to protect the world from evil. With the blessings of such strength come obligations. So Americans will protect the world from al Qaida whether the rest of us like it or not. America is stationed throughout the world to be partners with God in making the world a better place by rooting out evil.

He thinks Rumsfeld is a beautiful, decent, bible-believing Christian and says it's understandable that non-Americans are just jealous of America. The rest of the world doesn't accept America's hegemony because children always resent their parents. Americans don't dominate because they're too moral to do so. They just lead.

Now that's the sincere viewpoint of an American businessman. OK, so he's just one man.

Here's a well known American historian, Robert Kagan,  "as good children of the Enlightenment, [Americans] still believe in the perfectablity of man, and they retain hope for the perfectability of the world....  Americans ... will defend the townspeople, whether the townspeople want them to or not."

Here's another academic, Donald Kagan, "You saw the movie, High Noon? ... We're Gary Cooper".

And recall President Bush's words after September 11, "How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America? I'll tell you how I respond: I'm amazed. I just can't believe it because I know how good we are."

"How good we are". This conviction of their righteousness is why the Bush administration believes that they are not only morally entitled, but duty bound to run the world.

Back in 1992 Paul Wolfowitz wrote a blueprint for a new world order under American authority  backed by military force.

He outlined how the US should deter potential competitors, including 'allies' such as Germany and Japan, from even aspiring to a regional let alone a global role. He called for deterrence and containment to be replaced by domination. He supported pre-emptive attacks and didn't rule out using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against potential rivals. He saw ad hoc coalitions replacing traditional alliances.

Fast forward to today's 'coalition of the willing' - or COW seeing as the Americans love acronyms. Is John Howard aware that that the US policy justifying this war was written over ten years ago? Is he aware that the policy caused a scandal when it was released? That the Europeans were shocked?  And that Bush Snr rejected it because it was so radical?

After Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 Wolfowitz went back to academia until the second Bush was elected in 2000. He's now deputy Secretary of Defense.

Evidence of America's plan to oust Saddam Hussein first appeared in a report for the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu written by three Americans - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. They recommended "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq" to foil Syria's regional ambitions."  That was in 1996.

They weren't just any Americans. Until yesterday Perle chaired Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, Feith is an undersecretary of Defense, and Wurmser is an assistant to the undersecretary of State for Arms Control.   Did anybody mention a conflict of interests here? Pat Buchanan isn't the only person who's noted that the Likudniks are running Bush's foreign policy. 

Another 1996 article revealed the mindset of  the neoconservatives who currently lead the United States. William Kristol and Robert Kagan deplored that the American public "was more intent on cashing in the peace dividend, than on spending to deter and fight future wars."  For the neocons, peace is for wussbags.

Insanely, they even deplored the lack of a visible threat to US interests, and to world peace. They fretted that defense spending was less that 20 percent of the federal budget when back in 1962 it ran at almost 50 percent!

What should America's international role be, they asked? "Benevolent global hegemony". They said any criticism of that hegemony should be regarded as a compliment - and a guide to further action. They reasoned the more Washington spends taxpayers' money on showing foreigners that it's futile to compete with American power, the cheaper the defense budget is in the long run!

They were afraid that if the United States stopped throwing its weight around, the American people would want cuts in the defense and foreign affairs budgets.

As for John Quincy Adams' warning to America not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, they said, "But why not?" Why not when "America has the capacity to contain or destroy many of the world's monsters."  In their warped minds the American republican virtue of leading by example is a policy of cowardice and dishonor.

What if America alienates the whole world with its wars?  Bush Jnr has already considered it. "At some point we may be the only ones left," he told his closest advisers, "that's OK with me. We are America."  (I don't know about you but that reminds me of the old joke about Johnny's passing out parade: "Look", says his mum proudly, "our Johnny's the only one in step!")

But the most notorious of these documents calling for Saddam Hussein's removal is one published in September 2000 -  one year before those horrific attacks. It's by an organization called 'The Project for the New American Century'.

The Project was established in 1997 as "a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions". One of those fundamental propositions was that American leadership is good for America and good for the world .

You won't be surprised to know that two of the directors are Kristol and Kagan. Nor that it's funded by three foundations closely tied to Gulf oil and the weapons and defense industries.

According to the Project, the United States should seize the opportunity of its military supremacy to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests. They go on, "Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power" but America must accept the responsibility of global leadership and bear the costs.

The scary bit is that the Project's 1997 Statement of Principles was signed by people many of whom now hold high office in Bush Jnr's administration:   Dick Cheney is  vice president;  Cohen and  Libby are on  Defense Advisory Board ; Donald Rumsfeld is Defense secretary; and Paul Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary. They all signed it.

As did Zalmay Khalilzad. He's Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan, and soon to 'free Iraq'.  He hosted meetings with the Taliban and Unocol in Texas in December 1997 about the $2 billion pipeline but the deal fell through. Apparently the Taliban wanted too much money. And we all know what happened to the Taliban.

But these wars have nothing to do with oil. As one American commented during the war against Afghanistan,  "If the chief export of this area were broccoli do you think this stuff would be going on?"

In 1998 these same people - Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc - wrote to President Clinton urging him to attack Iraq. They said given the magnitude of the threat posed by Hussein military action was needed in the near term because "diplomacy is clearly failing." They said "removing Saddam Hussein ... now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy [emphasis added]."  That was said in 1998.

They didn't win Clinton over but they got a consolation prize. Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act which made trying to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power in Iraq US policy.  That Act provided a cool $97 million dollars for groups trying to overthrow the Iraqi government - a clear violation of Iraq's sovereignty and a clear violation of international law.

But hey! who cares about international law when you're the boss cocky of the world!

The Project's principal author, Thomas Donnelly, acknowledged his debt to Wolfowitz's notorious 1992 paper saying its basic tenets remained sound: America should preserve and extend its global leadership by maintaining US military pre-eminence.

He listed the US military's four core missions:

1. Defend the homeland
2. Fight and decisively win multiple simultaneous wars
3. Perform constabulary duties to shape the security environment in critical areas - and that's what they're trying to get away with right now in Iraq
4. Transform the US forces for their role as enforcers of the American peace.

Here's a quick overview of the thinking of the neoconservatives according to this Report: As the bipolar world is dead it's in America's interest to deter the rise of any competitor.  It's time to end the Clinton fiction that US operations in the Gulf are temporary, because the US is there to stay.   Arms control measures are for wusses.  America should remain the world's pre-eminent nuclear power to deter other countries from acquiring WMDs.  Interestingly Donnelly acknowledged that such weapons were the so-called rogue states' only hope of resisting American domination, - or what he called "the American peace".   American political leadership should take precedence over the UN's.

As for Iraq, they couldn't have been clearer: " the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein". 

In other words, Saddam Hussein has to go so the United States can establish a friendly regime that will host US bases in Iraq. A US Air Force presence in the Gulf is "vital" for US military strategy and it's time to stop pussyfooting around Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The scope of America's 'interests' is breathtaking. The United States doesn't want Europe to develop an independent defence policy ;  and they want to increase their forces in Southeast Asia to cope with China.  South America's airfields will be at their disposal .

Australia gets a mention. Because the United States wants a stronger naval presence in Southeast Asia they'll need a semi-permanent home port, "perhaps in Australia, the Philippines or both.  It would be good if Australia could also host an Air Force base because sending long-range bomber operations out of Australia would greatly enhance American operations in East Asia.  An Australian base could even include the special maintenance facilities needed to operate the B-2 and other stealth aircraft.

But that's not all!  They want to base a second Marine Expeditionary Force with the proposed naval carrier battle group that will be stationed in Australia, the Philippines, or both.

The United States wants to control space and have the abilty to deny others the use of space.   It also thinks the development of a bioweapon that can target specific genotypes would be a useful development. Yes you heard right. Here's the quote: such weapons "may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."  ("We're so good!")

In short America's new security perimeter encompasses the world.  But they faced a big problem:  how to get Congress to approve the huge increases needed to realize America's new role?  Donnelly lamented that, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" it's going to take a long time.

When pressed to elaborate on what "a new Pearl Harbor" meant the Project's assistant director replied, "They needed more money to up the defense budget ... Without some disaster or catastrophic event neither the politicians nor the military would have approved.

Fast forward to 911 - and let's remember we still don't know who did it because there was never a proper investigation. Whatever the truth it's pretty obvious that  911 provided the excuse for these neo-conservatives to seize the moment. They got their catastrophe; they got more money; and now, after the Afghanistan sideshow in which more people died than in the 911 attacks - they've got their war against Iraq.

On September 12th 2001, the day after the attacks,  one of the 1997 signers called William J. Bennett told CNN that America was in "a struggle between good and evil". He said the United States should declare war on militant Islam and use overwhelming force against Lebanon, Lybia, Syria, Iraq, Iran and for some reason - China. That none of those countries had anything to do with the attacks didn't seem to worry Mr Bennett.

In fact the neoconservatives' responses to 911 were so absurd and over-the-top that they've generated widespread scepticism about the official story all over the world.

Within hours of the attacks American authorities had blamed one man: Osama bin Ladin. But a lot of people have noted how Osama seems to just fade in and out of the story as needed. Producing a new video of the very photogenic Osama  is guaranteed to distract Americans from their dead duck economy and threatened dollar.

A few days after the attacks Wolfowitz made a case for war against Iraq instead of Afghanistan because Iraq was "doable".  But they attacked Afghanistan anyway.

As Jonah Goldman, another neocon stupidly said, "The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region and Iraq makes the most sense.  It does? This unsavoury character is also on record as saying, "Every ten years or so the United States needs to pick up some crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business."   ("I just can't believe it because we're so good.")

Remember, dear people, these American neoconservatives claim to be engaged in a battle with evil. They think they're the good guys. The ones wearing the white hats.

Just nine days after the attacks the same old gang wrote to President Bush singing the same old song. They admitted there was no evidence connecting Saddam Hussein to the attacks, but said  any response to terrorism must include removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. 

A year later Norman Podhoretz, who's one of the leaders of the pro-Israel neoconservatives, called for "richly deserved" regime changes not only in the 'axis of evil' but also in Syria, Lebanon and Libya. For good measure he tossed in the US "friendly" countries of Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well as the Palestinian Authority.

Were the neoconservatives embarrassed by talk about regime changes in US-friendly governments? No. Referring to the President of Egypt, Richard Perle insultingly said, "Mubarak is no great shakes. Surely we can do better than Mubarak."

These are the champions of democracy? It's not that they don't know that their arrogance infuriates their allies and enemies alike. They don't care.

And for all the charges of anti-Semitism hurled at their critics  it was Podhoretz who made the Israel link. He approvingly described the four pillars of the Bush doctrine as:
1. the rejection of moral relativism
2. the necessity for a military response to terrorism
3. the right to pre-emptive strikes
4. the assimilation of Israel's war against terror into the United States' war against terrorism.

He said there's not a smidgin of difference between what the United States was doing in Afghanistan and Sharon sending forces into the West Bank.

Podhoretz also said America must impose a new political culture on the defeated parties. Note the plural, Mr Howard.

Podhoretz scorned anybody who wanted evidence of Iraq's complicity with 911 before America could "attack Saddam Hussein and do unto his regime what we had just done to the Taliban in Afghanistan."

He's not the only one using such cadences in his speech. Richard Perle's language is equally bizarre. Listen to this: "All this talk about how first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq ... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

Incredibly, the Project people have vehemently denied any influence on Bush's foreign policy. Kagan said the group had wanted to change US foreign policy but had failed. 

Bush's National Security Strategy document (NSS) , released on September 20 2002 makes the neoconservatives' denials farcical.  All the phrases we heard in the documents I've covered are in this one: deterrence isn't appropriate any more; pre-emptive attacks are legitimate; US military forces must be transformed.

Without any irony this document lists the characteristics of rogue states as ones which:
* brutalize their own people and squander their national resources for the personal gain of the rulers. (So why did the United States support Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, the Shah in Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua, Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile,  and Mobutu in Congo/Zaire.... Currently they're supporting  Uzbekistan, a country with an appalling human rights record, because it's convenient for US bases. )
* display no regard for international law; threaten their neighbours; and callously violate international treaties.
*  are determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction, along with other advanced military technology.
* sponsor terrorism around the globe.
* reject basic human values and hate the United States and everything for which it stands.

What about the human rights of all those men languishing at Guantanamo Bay? Literally locked up in cages with the keys thrown away.

The bottom line

For all the fine rhetoric about democracy, freedom, respect for human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state (!), free speech,  and peaceful relations with other states - the bottom line of this document is all about ...... opening up markets.

This document arrogantly proclaims that in the 21st century there is one "single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise." It says the United States will use this moment of opportunity ... to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the globe.

It praises Indonesia for opening up its markets. It promises Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Colombia that economic integration will advance security and prosperity, though it doesn't say whose.  It promises to help Latin American countries adjust their economies. Like Argentina's perhaps? Exports are up, and so are children's deaths from malnutrition.

The United States will encourage foreign countries to adopt:
* pro-growth legal and regulatory policies to encourage business investment ...
* tax policies - particularly lower marginal tax rates - that improve incentives for work and investment;
* strong financial systems;
* sound fiscal policies to support business activity;
* investments in health and education (note how the key word is investment)

How does all this American interference and unasked for 'help' square with genuine democracy? It looks like the world's people will be denied any freedom in how they order their societies because this bullying document says,  "Policies that further strengthen market incentives and market institutions are relevant for all economies - industrialized countries, emerging markets, and the developing world."

The King of Bhutan would beg to differ: he ranks his country's Gross National Happiness higher than its Gross National Product.  Since when did one size fit all?

Many Australians would also beg to differ. People aren't all the same.  The default setting for a human being isn't an American capitalist. Americans revere wealth to a degree that many Australians find repulsive.

Australians have traditionally achieved more through co-operation than competition. Contrary to Christian teaching, Americans really do admire 'winners' and really do despise 'losers'. An American friend of mine was mystified when our small town celebrated the retirement of a local man who'd spent his life working for one employer.. Why? Because he was "just a grocery clerk." That he was a good man didn't mean anything to the American.

Remember the name of this document is the National Security Strategy of the United States. It's about their welfare, not the rest of the world's.

Robert Kagan admitted that "America did not change on September 11. It only became more itself. ... America's 'isolationist' tradition is ... a myth. Expansion of American territory and influence has been the inescapable reality of American history."

The war against Iraq marks the next phase of American expansionism. If the bottom line of this document is opening up markets then that's what this war against Iraq is about: America's global economic and political domination backed by force. As the Report boasted , "On short notice, Air Force aircraft can attack virtually any target on earth with great accuracy and virtual impunity."

Does it matter, particularly as Australia is the US's most obsequious ally? Well if you believe in national sovereignty it does.

If Australia runs foul of the US we'll be in trouble, traditional ally or not. Far fetched? Not according to one top analyst. Referring specifically to Australia he said, "You are not currently incurring the wrath of the United States but if in a week or a month or a year on some major issue, such as the post-war withdrawal of your forces from Iraq, you were to disagree with the Americans, believe me you would feel the heat." 

That's why John Howard's behaviour has been not only shameful but dangerous to Australia's long term national interests. The powerful always treat lapdogs with contempt.

Bar this NSS document which actually mentions trade, all the other neoconservative documents I've referred to have stressed principle and proclaimed America's fight is against evil. So let's look at a few of the key players. Are they truly good people, as Mr Bush claims?

Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney has made an art form of working the revolving door between big business and high public office. And a fortune.

When Cheney was Secretary for Defense in 1992 the Pentagon paid Halliburton - the world's largest oil services company -  almost $4 million dollars to produce a classified report on how private companies (like itself) could provide logistics for American troops in potential wars around the world.  The Pentagon generously paid
Halliburton another $5 million to upgrade the report.

When he left the Pentagon in 1995 Cheney became the CEO of Halliburton.  He took his former Chief of Staff, David Gribbin with him to become chief lobbyist for the company.

Between 1998 and 2000, Cheney made almost $30 million in salary and share options, not bad "for a man with no previous experience in running a company, let alone an oil multinational."

If you're impressed with what Cheney did for Cheney, just look at what Cheney did for Halliburton. In the five years before Cheney's arrival  the company received $100 million in federal loans and insurance subsidies.  Taxpayers' money. In the last two years under Cheney Halliburton received $1.5 billion dollars in federal loans and insurance subsidies. Halliburton also doubled its government contracts (from $1.2 billion to $2.3 billion) over the same period.

Cheney was one of the architects of economic sanctions against Iraq. It didn't stop Halliburton doing deals worth $23 million with Iraq through its foreign subsidiaries.

When George W. Bush became president Cheney went back to the White House as Vice President and the ever faithful Gribbin was given a governnment job too until he left to head the Prosperity Project - which has nothing to do with the American people's prosperity; its a big business lobby group.

As one critic fumed, "The Bush-Cheney team have turned the United States into a family business.... Have they no grace, no shame, no common sense? Why don't they just have Enron run America?"

Donald Rumsfeld