War on Terrorism: Geopolitical Interests Beyond Ideology

Introduction: Ideology as Cover for Geopolitical Aims

The War on Terror is a war unlike other wars. It is not a war on peoples or places. It is a war on ideology. And it is more than that. As Kayhan Barzegar notes, the "concept of terrorism" has been manipulated and used by policy writers to serve as a cover motive for real geopolitical aims. The War on Terrorism was given full-fledged support and encouragement on September 20, 2001, by leading members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), William Kristol and Richard Perle among many others of the so-called "neo-conservative" alliance, when they signed a letter to President G. W. Bush calling for a "war on international terrorism."

Pat Buchanan, one of the few political voices to warn against such an aim, criticized PNAC as a "cabal of intellectuals" out to revolutionize America. Kristol would later set his sights on eliminating oppositional voices, such as Buchanan and Ron Paul, admitting in 2012 at B'nai Jeshurun synagogue that he had been "encouraged" when Buchanan had been marginalized in the Presidential Elections and would be "happy" if Ron Paul were to "go". So while on the face of it, the War on Terrorism is a necessary battle against al-Qaeda and affiliates (ISIS, etc.), underneath, it is a political ruse—a gambit formulated by a highly-motivated group of Washington insiders and foisted on the American people through the strong arm of mainstream media. This paper will describe what the War on Terrorism is and what it is not.

PNAC's Blueprint: From Theory to Military Intervention

William Kristol, PNAC chairman and editor of The Weekly Standard, Donald Kagan, Project co-chairman, Eliot Abrams of the National Security Council, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Thomas Donnelly, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others formed PNAC in 1997 and wrote the blueprint for the "war on terror" in the 2000 paper called "Rebuilding America's Defenses." The ninety-page paper called for "American global leadership" and anticipated a "new Pearl Harbor" as a catalyst for beefing up the Pentagon and maintaining "American military preeminence" in the world.

PNAC pushed for the invasion of Iraq, and PNAC member I. Lewis Libby promoted the reporting of fake evidence of yellowcake uranium being smuggled into Iraq to justify military intervention. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson challenged Libby and the White House, investigated the claims independently, and proved them false in the national media, Libby outed Wilson's wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, jeopardizing both her and her contacts abroad. Libby would later be convicted for this crime, but the "evidence" for mobile weapons labs in Iraq would be sold, with the help of Colin Powell, to the American people. The public would eventually learn that no weapons of mass destruction ever existed in Iraq—but that did not matter to the PNAC members. The American invasion of Iraq was part of their geopolitical plan.

Kristol admitted to purging Congress of anyone who was anti-Israel, which means the War on Terrorism had at its core a group of people supportive of one of the biggest sources of regional conflict in the world.

Orwellian Rhetoric and Middle East Strategy

The political rhetoric of the past decade has become increasingly Orwellian. Political pundits, candidates, and representatives alike spout a "War IS Peace"-style propaganda. Senator Lindsey Graham called America a "battlefield," and the usage of chemical weapons in Syria nearly took American forces into direct confrontation with the Middle Eastern allies of Russia and Iran. A peace plan did prevail at the eleventh hour, largely thanks to an off-the-cuff gaffe made by Kerry and the quick pickup of Kerry's proposal by Russia.

Syria, however, remains within the crosshairs of the PNAC members, and recent talks with Iran have upset Israeli leaders, who believe their Middle Eastern neighbors are still planning to develop nuclear weapons. Israel continuously calls for more aggressive action, and had Netanyahu had his way, the Republican candidate Mitt Romney (whom Netanyahu openly endorsed) would have won the White House and begun an all-out offensive in Syria and Iran. That did not happen, but it very well could have, and the call for action is evident in the PNAC papers.

The real goal of the War on Terrorism is perpetual war, and perpetual war is good for business—business for the military-industrial complex (MIC). President Eisenhower warned of the rise of the MIC before he left office, but every administration since has continued to foster its ascent. In fact, the MIC was even powerful before World War II was ever contemplated. General Smedley Butler toured America in the 1930s denouncing the MIC, or the war profiteers as he called them. These same profiteers feed off the War on Terrorism today.

The Military-Industrial Complex and Perpetual War

Companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Halliburton (former Vice President Dick Cheney's own contracting company, which L. Steel called "the world's largest war profiteer") all make up the new military-industrial complex. The MIC needs perpetual war just as badly as the Israeli lobby pushes for perpetual conflict in the Middle East: destabilizing countries is good for business. "Fighting Terrorism" is just a ploy.

Perpetual war has been the party line since 9/11, and the War on Terror is the perfect excuse for such. How can one win a war against an ideology known as Terror? It is a fanciful title designed to put fear into patriots. Episodic bombings and violent episodes remind the public that the War is not over. Proxy wars are fought over territories that offer geopolitical gains.

Ukraine and NATO Encirclement: Beyond Counter-Terrorism

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Ukraine. Unspeakable violence has erupted in a country that borders Russia. The U.S. has thrown its full support behind Russia's neighbors and portrayed Putin as a "new" Stalin. But it was not Russia which shot down a civilian airliner. It was not Russia who overthrew a democratically elected leader in Kiev. It was not Russia who had sights set on eliminating the Russian port in Crimea and cutting off Russia's access route to the Mediterranean where it has ships ready to protect its Syrian ally. Ukraine is about NATO encirclement of the "Bear," not about "ending" Terror.

How can the West even think about ending Terror when it itself engages in the very activities that it claims to be trying to halt? The new face of Terror (ISIS) received training, weapons, and funding from the West and Western-backed puppets (Saudi Arabia), just as al-Qaeda did. The goal of these militant groups is, supposedly, to behead Westerners and praise Allah. The reality is that they provide the West with an excuse to bomb and destabilize a region through which important energy routes are planned for the "competition." The War on Terrorism is about "business." Russia and China have recently signed a massive energy deal that will benefit both countries for years to come. In a zero-sum game, which is the only game the West knows how to play, this cannot be allowed. Hence, NATO encirclement of Russia (and the West is desperately trying to "accept" Ukraine into NATO—even though the country does not even come close to meeting the requirements) and naval ships in the Pacific. Cold War rhetoric is on the rise (and one can see that the War on Terrorism rhetoric is gradually being replaced by this).

Who benefits from all of this? Not the citizens of the West.

Costs to Citizens: Economic and Constitutional Consequences

The War on Terrorism is bankrupting the country. Billions of dollars are sent overseas to countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel; billions are spent on military payrolls and on the services of mercenaries hired to fight proxy wars so that politicians back home can look good for "bringing home the troops." Billions are spent on technology that is never used (see the no-bid contracts doled out to companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and dozens of others for planes that never fly, ships that never sail, and weapons that are never fired). The amount of waste generated by the never-ending War on Terror, not to mention the domestic inflation and militarization, is beyond belief. Yet healthcare still remains prohibitively expensive in America.

Westerners have also given up their so highly-touted "freedom" out of deference for a new kind of "protection" against "evildoers." Indeed, the language of the 9/11 Commission Report set the stage for a new era of police activity: "September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States. The nation was unprepared. How did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy again?" The fact that the Commission had the audacity to state that the nation with the most heavily-defended airspace in the world and with the greatest network of intelligence in the world was "unprepared" is telling of the kind of simplistic and disingenuous mentality that went into drafting the Report.

But the reason for adopting such a mentality is clear enough: it was to prepare the nation for the coming restrictions. To ensure "safety," U.S. citizens would have to forego their Constitutional rights as well as their sense of human dignity. No longer would they be able to board airplanes without scrutiny by the TSA. No longer could they expect their lives to be free of constant surveillance, their every move monitored. No longer could they trust in the right of free speech or their right to have an attorney. The new era of counter-terrorism did not allow it.

Redefining Terrorism: Sociological Perspectives

Since 9/11, the ways in which the term "terror" raises flags have shown to be more diverse and amplified than in the decades that preceded. The ceaseless coverage by mainstream media of all things terror-related (and the numerous networks devoted to supplying viewers with non-stop updates on "terror" threats emanating—as we are told—from the Middle East) may well be categorized as hysterical if it were not for the fact that a great majority of the public appears to be desensitized to modern hysteria. What is the reality of "terrorism"? Wolf Dombrowsky's "view that disaster is not and never was a reality and that it is a word that describes something we perceive within the space and time we observe" may equally apply to a view of "terrorism" if we consider the fact that "terrorism" received a gigantic connotative meaning in the wake of 9/11.

Indeed, guarding against terrorism in the 21st century has become in many ways like guarding against "disaster." Yet, the sociological aspects of confronting "terrorism" may be deeper than we realize—especially when one considers the extremes to which state-run media ratchets up public fear by constantly playing into the mythology that "terrorism" has acquired. Playing fast and loose with the idea of "terrorism," like demonizing "disaster," is something that both Dombrowsky and Neil Britton believe needs to be avoided: "Some influential segments of society have the need to conjure up demons or insist on demon definitions, and here I am thinking particularly of the current US Administration and its bizarre rhetoric in its so-called war against terrorism."

Wolf Dombrowsky contends that "terrorism" is a term that needs to be viewed from a sociological perspective, especially in a post-9/11 world, where media communications lend "terror" and "disaster" a changing, subjective, and almost mythological significance—a significance that can be exploited or used damagingly by state-regulated institutions and even charitable organizations such as the Red Cross. The underlying fear in Dombrowsky's assessment is that sociological studies are being marginalized for the preferable viewpoint of pragmatic conceptualizing—which, Dombrowsky contends, is ultimately unrealistic. The final point to remember is that no matter what the conditions of "terror" are, the proper response plan should be neither generic nor assuming. Neither should it be subject to media representation.

Syria as Case Study: Hidden Policy Objectives

Those media representations overwhelmingly influence public perception of the War on Terrorism (which takes the West to so many different countries in the Middle East who just so happen to be "enemies" of a certain Middle Eastern state founded in 1948). The case against Syria is a simple example.

The Bush Administration had very clear reasons for initiating conflict with Syria, outlined by such neo-conservative think tanks as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (members of which were highly placed in the Administration itself). And yet when the American public was addressed by the White House, those reasons were often marginalized in favor of more generic motives, such as humanitarian aid, the spread of democracy and liberty, and the suppression of suspected nuclear reactors and terrorism. What then was the real policy of the Bush Administration with regard to Syria and why was it not presented as such to the American people by the Oval Office or the mainstream media? In consideration of the overwhelming amount of "faulty" intelligence used to justify U.S. invasion of Iraq, one must wonder at the underlying issues that truly led the U.S. to war in the Middle East in general and into conflict with Syria in particular.

A brief outline of the Bush Administration's interest in Syria will help frame this discussion. On May 11, 2004, President Bush issued for immediate release through the Office of the Press Secretary to the Congress of the United States the announcement "that I have issued an Executive Order (order) in which I declared a national emergency with respect to the threat constituted by certain actions of the Government of Syria." In the same letter, Bush references the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SAA), which he signed into law on December 12, 2003, and which gave the U.S. the power "to effectively confront the threat to U.S. national security posed by Syria's support for terrorism, its military presence in Lebanon, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and its actions to undermine U.S. and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq."

From such allegations, it may be surmised that the Bush Administration was neatly lumping Syria in with Iraq, Iran, and al-Qaeda. The letter summarized the situation tersely with a regurgitation of PNAC ideology: "These policies by the Government of Syria directly threaten regional stability and undermine the U.S. goal of a comprehensive Middle East peace." In the light of independent journalists and alternative media (as well as the PNAC papers themselves), the line could easily be interpreted to read: Syria undermines the U.S. goal of destabilization (i.e., American-Israeli hegemony) in the Middle East.

Alfred B. Prados reasserts the basic neo-conservative perspective of Syria and its role in the Middle East when he states that the country's importance may be seen in "the course of Arab-Israeli talks; questions of arms proliferation; Syrian connections with terrorist activity; Syria's role in Lebanon; and Syria's opposition to the U.S. occupation in Iraq." Each of these is a standard neo-conservative talking point, which makes it no surprise when Prados next considers Syria's importance in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict: "Since the outbreak of fighting between Israeli military forces and the militant Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah organization on July 12, 2006, U.S. officials have increased their criticism of Syria's political and logistical support for Hezbollah." And here is the crux of the matter, according to Prados: "U.S. officials and Members of Congress have blamed Syria for acting as a conduit for the transfer of rockets and other arms to Hezbollah units, thereby enabling Hezbollah units to engage in military action against Israeli targets." The importance of Syria to the neo-conservative position (which is essentially the position of the Bush Administration) is thus made clear: Syria is influencing Lebanon against Israel; thus, Syria is an enemy. Israel's well-being is at the heart of the neo-conservative agenda. One should not wonder at Prados' allegiance: he refers to Lebanese forces as "militant"—but not Israeli forces, which could just as easily be classified so.

The 2011 Syrian "uprising" was touted as an extension of the so-called Arab Spring. Assad was portrayed as a murderous tyrant who had begun to slay his own people. Again, the West was pictured as the hero of humanitarian aid, democracy, and liberty, thwarted only by the intervention of Russia and China, whose vetoing power had blocked the UN from adopting any resolutions. In 2011, President Obama (with what is essentially the same Bush Administration just with a new face and name) ordered sanctions against Syria, designed to curtail the country's "use of violence against its people and begin transitioning to a democratic system that protects the rights of the Syrian people." And yet evidence contradicted U.S. accusations that Assad was massacring his own people.

Syria's resources have much to do with its placement in the geopolitical realm of the Middle East. As Ryan Dawson observes, "Syria signed off on a $10 billion pipeline deal that breaks the BTC monopoly of Turkey and Israel. And Syria holds Russia's last naval base on the Mediterranean." In other words, Syria is geographically situated to block Israeli control of oil pipelines in the Middle East and help opposition to the West. Pepe Escobar states that "virtually all current geopolitical developments are energy-related." Essentially, Syria is another domino in "Eurasian integration"—and control of the integration appears to be a source of conflict between the East and the West: indeed, "keeping Russia, an energy powerhouse, from developing close relations with the oil-rich Persian Gulf oligarchies has been a priority in Western strategies through the past several decades."

Nonetheless, Syria has tried to maintain an amicable relationship with the U.S. The relationship became severely strained in 2005 following the Bush Administration's accusations that Syria was aiding terrorists. Syria has attempted to work with the U.S., but as Alfred Prados notes, as long as Assad remains anti-Israel, it remains an obstacle for the Project for the New American Century—which is one reason Secretary of State Clinton pushed so hard for regime change in Syria. Syria's stance, however, remains the same as it was during the Bush Administration: then as now, Assad "derided U.S. claims of creating a new Middle East and warned that 'future generations in the Arab world will find a way to defeat Israel.'"

Conclusion: Deep Politics and Future Policy

Peter Dale Scott gives a final judgment on the effects of the War on Terror and the ultimate lesson that must be remembered: The U.S., "which historically flourished by being less class-bound than Europe, has now surpassed the Old World with respect to income disparity" (xvi). The cause is primarily located in the "deep politics" of our time—the forces which have been named in this paper, but briefly, and which have cemented their power in Congress and in Administration after Administration. Their policy is the one that must be dealt with by future policy makers, if future policy makers are to have this country's best and real interests at heart. As Scott iterates, "our supposed open society is in fact partly driven by deeper forces many of us do not clearly see, especially in matters of foreign policy" (xvi). These forces are uncontrolled and unaccounted for. They are manifest in the covert operations of the CIA, in the runaway spending of the Pentagon, in the intense militarization of America, and in the "deep state," which has plotted a new direction for America—a direction intent on imperialistic conquest, of a new world order in which a tiny cabal pulls the strings and levers and sets the machinery in motion.