Senator Levin, you and other Democrats in the Congress have voiced fears that you simply don’t have enough for the large increases in defense that the Pentagon is seeking, especially for missile defense. Does this sort of thing convince you that an emergency exists in this country to increase defense spending? Donald Rumsfeld berating Senator Carl Levin, then chairman of senate armed services committee, eve of 9/11
What if American people learn the truth that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security? That it never changes from one administration to the next? What if war and preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests? What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan? ... What if diplomacy is found superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America? Ron Paul, address 12th February 2009
We cannot allow our sons and daughters to be sent to die in a banksters’ war. Anthony J Hilder
There’s not a lot to cheer about. Because war is on the way. Regardless of what they say or what we do. This is intentional. This war was planned by Bush and the Boys from the Brotherhood of Death. Blair, Bush, they are as guilty as sin. Guilty of murder in the first degree. Anthony J Hilder, 9/11: The Greatest Lie Ever Sold
An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland. Adolf Hitler
Under Bush a military coup had taken place in the United States giving the Pentagon unprecedented powers. Daniel Ellsberg
The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age. Zbigniew Brzezinski, interview The NewsHour 11th January 2007
War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world’s first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions. Zbigniew Brzezinski
In my lifetime in Washington, which is now a quarter of a century, the most amazing thing I have ever seen is to see the oil-bearing wing of the Republican party – particularly identified with Mr Bush and Mr Cheney – change its mind completely, having run against Al Gore, against nation-building, against humanitarian intervention, against this kind of co-operation, change its mind completely and go to war with the status quo. Christopher Hitchens, lecture Islam and the West
I understand that they want the American public to believe that the invasion of Iraq was the response to September 11th. I think it is a lie. I believe that it is part of a Neo-Conservative agenda to assert that American hegemony is untouchable. And September 11th gave them the opportunity to put in play plans they had been considering since the first Bush administration. Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1997
What policies will make us more safe? So the fear is legitimate but is manipulated: and that is the core of the Bush policy. Robert Jensen
There is no War on Terror, that’s the first thing to understand. It is not a war on terrorism. It’s a war to deepen and extend American power around the world in which terrorism is the justification. It has nothing to do with terrorism. Robert Jensen
Since the September 11th attacks on the US, Israel’s PR strategy has been to frame all Palestinian action violent or not as terrorism. To the extent that they can do that they have repackaged an illegal military occupation as part of America’s War on Terrorism. Robert Jensen
The problem for the Bush administration is that plans had already existed for regime change in Iraq had to be justified. They couldn’t just go in without public support. The public support was created by connecting Saddam Hussein to those fears of terrorism. Robert Jensen
The current Bush administration is probably the worst administration that we have had in the twentieth century. By that I mean it is the most unrestrained by public opinion or the most unrestrained by world opinion. It has the tightest little constellation of right-wing people that we have seen in government. And it seems to be absolutely determined to be at war. Howard Zinn, Liberty Bound 2004
Some day people will look back on 9/11 and sure they will see it as the first terrible act of terrorism committed in the United States by some foreign group, but they might also see 9/11 as the beginning of the disintegration of the American Empire. ibid.
And so what happens is the Bush administration singles out a country Afghanistan where probably some terrorist cells, some of the many many many terrorist cells, exist and bombs Afghanistan for a year killing several thousand people. Probably killing as many people who were killed in the Twin Towers on September 11th. What does that do to combat terrorism? Nothing. Does it diminish terrorism? ... Imagine how tough the United States must be to be the most powerful military country in the world and to be able to bomb Afghanistan, one of the poorest more miserable countries in the world. ibid.
We need regime change in the United States. We need democracy. We need a government that’s peaceable. We need a government that will take the enormous resources that the United States has and instead of using it for war use it for human needs. Millions of people are dying in Africa. ibid.
We need a regime change in the United States. We need something to make the American people proud. You can’t be proud of a military victory over Iraq. You can’t be proud of spending the resources of a government for more and more and more military weapons. Yes, so I think the American Empire is on its way down. And that will be a good thing one day. ibid.
This country is in the grip of a President who was not elected, who has surrounded himself with thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the Earth ... The so-called war on terrorism is not only a war on innocent people in other countries, but it is also a war on the people of the United States: a war on our liberties, a war on our standard of living. The wealth of the country is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of our young are being stolen. And the thieves are in the White House. Howard Zinn
You can’t make war on terrorism. Terrorism is not that sort of thing. It’s not a country. It’s not a place. It’s not something finite, identifiable. It’s an ideology. Howard Zinn
In my opinion, treason! The cabal of Neo-Conservatives at PNAC who planned this war – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Perle ... this cabal knew the American people would not stand for a war against Iraq unless there was, as they put it in their own documents, a New Pearl Harbor. 9/11 supplied that. Robert Bowman, former Democratic contender
Americans flatly accepted following New York the invasion of Afghanistan that had already been planned to the smallest detail. New American Century, PSTV 2007
Seen from up close the official versions soon started to show some serious weaknesses. Too many curious events, too many inconsistencies, too many coincidences pointed at the possibility the Truth was somewhat different from what we had been told. ibid.
But who are the Neo-Cons? The Neo-Conservative school of thought can be traced to the University of Chicago’s Professor Leo Strauss, who began enunciating its principles by the end of the sixties. ibid.
The novelty introduced by the Neo-Cons however was that for the first time in history the adversary would be the entire world. ibid.
The Wolfowitz doctrine which established the right of the United States to engage in pre-emptive war anywhere in the world in order to avoid other nations challenging their authority. ibid.
Rumsfeld managed to convince Gerald Ford to create an independent group to re-examine all the information the CIA had gathered about the Russians from the beginning. The group was called Team B. ibid.
The western media however had already made up their mind [Osama] bin Laden was the guy, and from him anything could be expected at that point. ibid.
September 11 was not the first time American was drawn into a war by an ambiguous incident ... In 1898 the United States went to war against Spain in order to take control of the Caribbean area. The pretext came from the sinking of USS Maine ... Only in 1980, almost a century later, would America recognise that the Spanish were not responsible for the attack. ibid.
In 1915 it was the sinking of the USS Lusitania ... It appears however that the US had secretly slipped to the Germans the information. ibid.
In 1941 there was the infamous Pearl Harbor attack to generate a wave of indignation large enough for President Roosevelt to declare war on Japan ... History would later reveal that the administration knew of the attack in advance. ibid.
In 1964 the United States decided to officially declare war on North Vietnam ... The so-called Tonkin Gulf incident ... But [Robert] McNamara forty years later would openly confess that the attack on the Maddox never took place. ibid.
The US secretly informed Saddam that they had nothing against him taking over the oilfields of Kuwait ... Saddam took the bait. ibid.