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Shadow War – Chaos as the New American Way.
For years now
the Internet has been abuzz with hints of an imminent US attack on Iran that never seems to materialize. It seems that every season produces a crop of articles alleging that the dire deed is near at hand. This season is no different. A casual browse around the net will see articles claiming that NeoCon strategists continue to argue for a hard line, indeed a new war front against Iran. Of late we’ve had the UN Report claiming Iran has not complied with requirements to halt enrichment, new and more severe sanctions that will do nothing to solve the problem, Dick Cheney making ominous threats about everything being on the table, BBC reports about insider buzz on the attack that could come “any day now.” Beyond this, there is always someone watching the movement of US Carrier battlegroups, and whenever two flattops get together in the Gulf Region they sound the alarm. Scott Ritter, former UN weapons Inspector, has gone on record again saying an attack is inevitable, and only a matter of time. To all of this Russian Defense Minister Lavrov has chipped in with a warning that the US should not contemplate attacking Iran. China seconds the motion. These are two countries that do have nuclear weapons, so it might behoove us to listen.
Meanwhile, Congress continues to prove itself incapable of exerting any real influence on foreign affairs. They hold the power of the purse, but are unable to reduce spending on Iraq for fear of being scolded for not supporting “our troops.” Just before Memorial Day ‘08 they signed off on another $165 billion for Iraq while here at home forclosures continue their exponential growth and food and gas prices follow suit. Both sides of the aisle quarrel like embittered spouses, and when one tries to push any meaningful legislation through to stop this crazy war, the other raises “the troops” who have become the poor children of a broken home, used like a flail in the debates to curtail action against the war. Even nonbinding resolutions have been stopped by the Republicans, who continue to support Bush in his endless campaign even though they lost control of both houses of congress for that stubborn and misguided policy, and 80% of the nation now opposes the war. Go figure. Just who are these politicians beholden to, the people they represent or the big corporate interest who have been feeding on this war like pigs rooting for truffles? The House finally passed legislation limiting war funds to August of 2008. Good luck with the Senate, and of course, Bush immediately vowed to use his veto. See how powerless congress actually is?
The grand strategists, Cheney chief among them now, remain steadfast. They will do whatever they choose, with or without the approval of congress or the UN or Russia or the American people. When will folks realize that they are not working for the best interest of this nation, but for the vested interests of powerful men, running even more powerful corporations who have a game to play out in the Middle East involving energy, oil and gas. Beyond the billions in national treasure, the ante we must make to stay in that game, includes the lives of three to five men and women in uniform each day, and fifty times that number of dead Iraqis. Then we get this talk of the next front, perhaps the final front, concerning Iran before Bush leaves office.
Speculation abounds. Will there be a new “Gulf of Tonkin” incident, a staged event that can be blamed on Iran just as 9-11 was blamed (wrongly) on Iraq? Will it be a domestic event, or something in the Gulf? We’ve already seen 15 British soldiers seized on espionage charges as the brinksmanship continues. Could a similar incident involving US troops be used as justification for the attack? On a broader scale, the government has rehearsed a number of alarming scenarios with exercises involving a potential nuke in a ship off an American port, and a massive cyber attack aimed at bringing down the Internet after a domestic terror incident. They’ve even been drilling over how to cope with IEDs planted here at home. Can you imagine a few roadside bombs going off in the midst of LA rush hour traffic…day after day as they do in Iraq? The ease with which “the war” could be brought home in a way Americans could feel it astounds. I am continually amazed that our enemies fail to understand and exploit the many vulnerabilities of our society—and equally amazed that the men so intent on attacking Iran don’t realize just how bad things could get if their chaos continues to spread in the oil rich Middle East. In spite of the fact that all credible military advisors have indicated the insanity of an attack on Iran, that consensus has had about as much impact on events as the Democrats winning back the Senate and House—zilch. Talk of war abounds.
Israel recently issued a warning to its citizens traveling in a host of Middle Eastern and Asian countries, advising them to leave at once. Then they conducted a 133 city national air raid drill in
the event of a massive missile attack. Hummm... I wonder why? Everyone thinks Israel will be the attack dog when the showdown with Iran finally turns hot. Could they really be so brash, so heedless and possessed that they would
actually contemplate a major bombing campaign against one of the world’s leading oil and gas producers? To quote a former Defense secretary: “You betcha.”
 There’s a kind of Babylon 5 mindset going in the inner circles of the
administration, a metaphor that will take a moment to explain. In that popular science fiction serial, a long war was fought between the Shadows
and a loose confederation of free planets backed by a super race called the “Vorlons.” The Shadows were old rivals of the Vorlons, over many
centuries—a bit like the hostility of great powers in a long cold war that gets suddenly hot. At first each side uses proxies in this war, backing minor states as they work
out petty rivalries. Then the gloves come off and the Shadows get involved for real, their stealthy, spidery ships appearing from wormholes and blasting the hapless minor states to bits. Sound familiar?
 The underlying philosophy driving this conflict involves two perspectives on
how civilization should change and move forward. The Vorlons, shown here in their Fu-Manchu “encounter suits,” are supposed to be the good guys.
They opted for slow, peaceful evolution, where order, cooperation, negotiation and economic means reigned as the primary energy of change.
The “evil” Shadows adopted a theory of chaos as their means of effecting change. They would start wars, renege on treaties, infiltrate and overthrow
governments, foment clan rivalries, and sew mischief wherever they could, playing hostile minor powers off against one another to divide and conquer.
Out of this chaos they believed they alone would have the strength to re-shape the cosmos as they desired. Their superior technology allowed them to ply the dark regions of space, appear at a
moment’s notice to deliver a devastating attack, and then vanish.
One might be tempted to cast America as the Vorlons, the super race supporting the intrepid
humans in the UN like outpost of Babylon 5—but that would be a mistake. I would say the Chinese, with their persistent economic deal making, face saving diplomacy and quiet patience are the
Vorlons in this picture. If anything, America has been acting much more like the Shadows—in fact, our track record parallels the Shadow theory of change through chaos very nicely.
While the US goes about preaching negotiation, democracy, rule of law, and human rights, its behavior has, in fact, been quite opposed to these virtues. Our current administration has
circumvented our own congress by asserting executive authority, ignored the UN, and started wars with two minor powers in the oil rich Persian Gulf region, an area where we have played both
kingmaker and assassin over the years to suit our “interests.” The great powers do what they wish, come what may, creating their own rules and reality as they go, all according to the NeoCon plan.
Sometimes they have the strength to ride the whirlwind that results from their meddling, sometimes not.
After WWI, Britain presided over the partitioning of the Arab states, drawing artificial lines on a map
to suit France and Russia, doling out spoils of war to the victors. That these lines cut across tribal and ethnic clusters never entered into the thinking of the British. After all, they were “Great Britain”
and all these desert folks were simply backward peoples sitting on resources and trade routes the empire needed at the time. After Britain’s decline, America inherited the deeply fractured rivalries of
Sunni and Shia, Turk and Kurd that the British created by their arbitrary map-making adventure. We were wedded to the region in a deal cut by Roosevelt with the first Saudi King, long ago. The result
was a company called Aramco, which quickly became the world’s leading oil producer. Since then the interests of Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Shell have presided in the Gulf, and there was always a great
power lurking in the shadows of Saudi tents and palaces. Britain and America worked through proxy sheiks and strong men for decades, overthrowing an elected government to install the Shah in
Iran—until their meddling resulted in a backlash in the 1980s and the Iranians threw out their Western leaning masters to embrace the Ayatollah Khomeini. Shadowy Chaos theory continues to dominate American foreign policy.
 To look at it simply, we send in covert forces to begin destabilizing a
government we don’t like and build opposition movements within the targeted nation. We use money as a lure and trade economic favors for military basing rights so we can have legions close at hand for additional
persuasion. If the target remains opposed, then the gloves come off and our real Shadow nature appears. We devise a pretext, then send in our air force and bust up the infrastructure, collapsing basic human services like
food, water, transportation nets, communications, and electrical grids. This internal chaos is meant to pressure the minor power, and precipitate the fall of governments that will not do our bidding. The
theory is to bust them up, break them down, cause internal strife and foment violence. Through it all we insert our own imperial storm troopers, believing that we can “mold” events on the ground to our
own liking in this chaotic environment.
The theory looked like it was working at first in Iraq, as Saddam’s government was quickly run to
ground, and sent scurrying into spider holes. But the challenge of Iraq has proved impossible for even the US to control—if indeed we ever desired to do what we claimed: to support the freedom of
the Iraqi people, promote democracy, and rebuild the nation our “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign smashed up in 2003. I have long argued that this was never the plan. Instead the plan
was to remove a recalcitrant, fallen away strong man who no longer served US interests, then to re-assign all the oil and gas contracts to US and British corporations, cutting Vorlons like Russia and
China out of the deals, then to build bases to carry out the next Shadow chaos maneuver, the busting up of Iran, that great strategic land bridge between the Caspian oil and gas fields, and the Gulf.
That’s why all this talk about war with Iran is so persistent—because the plan is so transparent, so obvious. Do you honestly think the US could not subdue, conquer and control a little nation like Iraq
if it put all its real muscle and resources to the task? Do you think a few thousand stubborn insurgents could frustrate the will of a nation like the United States if we were determined to prevail?
If Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Macarthur were alive today, holding the reins of power, the campaign in Iraq would have been over in six months. I look at the half-hearted war effort, the bungled
rebuilding program, and remain astounded that we accept this as the best America can do. Previous generations put shoulder, sinew and real muscle to the task when America walked tall in
the world. Now we seem so incompetent that it’s embarrassing.
We have made only a tiny military commitment to Iraq relative to power projected by this nation in
earlier eras, one comprising a single WWII corps sized force, perhaps 3 to 5 divisions in all. Eisenhower had over 90 divisions at his disposal in Europe during WWII. The saddest fact about all this is that it seems intentional. We have made no real effort in Iraq, because the plan was never to
do so. From the very first Rumsfeld desired to slim down the army and fight war on the cheap. We would put in just enough force to create chaos, and then use the army to influence the outcome. I
now argue that the plan, which seems such a complete disaster; the war that has been labeled the greatest failure of US foreign policy in a hundred years, is far from failing indeed. One might argue
that it is exactly on track, and ready to create even more chaos with Iran. So far we’ve got the army in the heart of the Middle East, we’ve got all the oil and gas development contracts reassigned, a lot
of US corporations are getting very, very rich, and we’ve got wonderful new air bases to stage the next Shadow attack and ratchet up the chaos—break the long-standing political lines that Great
Britain drew in the sand and create a whirlwind that will reshape the region for the next century.
Out of that chaos a new Middle East will be born, and the gamble is that, given our assets and
bases in the region, we alone will be in a position to influence events there, draw new lines, and eventually exert enough control in the maelstrom to get the oil and gas we so desire—oil and gas
we need to keep Wal-Mart open over here, to keep all the freeways running, the TV sets glowing, and the iPods and cell phones humming. We will create chaos, and then feed upon the carcass of
whatever results like a vulture. It won’t be pretty, or pacific, or have the vaguest resemblance to
“democracy” but we never really cared about all that. Our current “leaders” care, first and foremost,
about making sure the one day sale over here never ever ends. Strange to think of the “Land of the Free” acting in this manner—like a vulture, not an eagle in the world, but that’s what’s been
happening, and that’s what will happen again soon, as the NeoCon Shadow war plan enters it most dangerous evolution yet. Our Shadow fleets and stealth planes are assembling even now, and the
pretext has been well laid with all this fuss about Iran’s nuclear program, just as it was with Iraq.
Israel’s little three week war with Lebanon was the trial run. They sent in the air force, busted
Lebanon up, rattled sabers, made a half-hearted commitment of troops on the ground, all in the hope of creating enough chaos to eliminate Hezbollah. In the end they had the good sense to pull
out of the fight on the ground, arguing that the Lebanese Army should police their long time antagonist, achieving little for all their US built ordnance expended. Now we are about to fry the
biggest fish in the Middle East, Iran, and the Chaos that will result is going to set the parameters of what the new world order will really end up looking like in the 21st century.
What will happen when the F-16 Falcons and F-18 Hornets next fly, with F-15 Eagles on top cover? What will happen when our stealthy F-117s and B-2s slip out of the wormhole to bust up Iran? The
“plan” calls for much more than taking out a few reactor sites to set back the Iranian enrichment program. No sir. Well take down roads, airfields, ports, major bridges, rail centers, communications
towers, all to get that sweet energy of chaos flowing and really put the heat on Ahamedinijad and the Mullahs. Like Israel, if we insert any troops it will be just to control a few key border sites like
Khoramshar or the oil terminals on the Gulf coast. The theory is to simply bust the place up, let the rhetoric fly, and dare anyone else to try and stand in the wind that follows. It’s what we’ve been
doing…it’s what we are planning now…it’s what we will do very soon, if all these rumors of war have any substance. But will the chaos be confined to the turbulent Gulf region? Will the war stay over
there, in other people’s living rooms and gardens, while we sit and watch it all on TV?
I wonder if the heavily insured oil tankers will continue to slip in and out of the gulf, laden with the
energy we need to keep living the good life over here? Something tells me the chaos that is about to be created in the Gulf will be more than the NeoCon Shadows bargained for. The repercussions,
largely unfelt here with the Iraq war, could be very severe. Suppose oil flows were interrupted for weeks, or even months, should Iran refuse to take a beating and fight back like Hezbollah?
Suppose they just don’t knuckle under when we hit them with shock and awe? What if they start lobbing Shahab IIII missiles in all directions? Chaos indeed. If you’ve been worrying about little
things like the flat housing market, get ready for the real show, coming soon to FOX News in one of those 24 hour crisis broadcasts designed to rivet the nation’s attention and sell the chaos to the
folks at home. I’ll bet they’re working on the sidebars and screen graphics even now.
A real oil shock from another major Gulf war will certainly be felt at home this time. (Speculators
and traders have already pushed the price of oil over $135. as of May ‘08.) Watch a few oil tankers get blown up in the Gulf. Watch Iran refuse to ship any oil or natural gas to the US or its “allies.”
What would the gas prices climb to here? A real oil shock, where the barrel price breaks $150 or $200 and keeps rising, would place enormous strain on our already jittery economy.
Jittery economy? The market is at last edging back in a “correction” from the artificially induced highs of late 2006. With 8 of the last 9 days in decline, stocks have tumbled nearly 700 points. The housing market continues to decline, with the pain rippling up into the financial markets where 25
lenders who jumped on the sub-prime loan game have now declared bankruptcy since January 1. There’s nothing exciting about employment numbers either, though the pain has not really
manifested itself there yet. “Consumer confidence” is plummeting as legions of shoppers seem to have already replaced their Sony Trinitron CRT TVs with LCD flat screens and plasma. Now they all
have our very own movie theater where they can sit in the muted light and watch Netflix DVDs while the economy begins to slowly wind down in one sector after another. Durable goods orders were
down a whopping 7.6% at the last tally. Talk of recession is increasing as the Greenspan inspired game of low interest rates, home equity loans and trips to Lowes and Home Depot is now long over.
But here’s the real news that the more sinister analysts quietly whisper…That is all part of the plan as well. How else to explain all the other subtle and devious things the Bush administration has
been doing these last six years? Little things like the Patriot Act, (I and II) the setting up of military tribunals, the rendition program, erosion of 4th amendment rights, circumvention of Posse
Comitatus and Habeas Corpus, the creation of a Homeland Security Department, the creation of a new military command structure to oversee military operations on American soil, the building of
detention facilities in regional centers all over the nation, the massing of information on citizens into huge computer databases, the eavesdropping on all our phone calls, finances, Internet
transmissions…little things like that. Could it be that the consequences of chaos in the Middle East have indeed all been carefully measured, evaluated, planned for—consequences here at home, to
our “American way of life?” Could it be that they know exactly what they are doing after all, and that this seemingly disastrous policy in Iraq is just what they intended? It’s pretty good money to bet on
the Democrats taking the White House in 2008, and this may all be ready to come tumbling down in their lap, so they can take the blame for four embattled years before the endgame begins and the Shadows return in 2012.
We may be on the brink of finding out just how far the these devious men are really planning to go before the grand Poopah Shadow in Chief must leave office in early 2009. In true “Seven Days In
May” fashion, several generals and admirals are reputed to be threatening to resign if the president orders an attack on Iran. It would be a very dramatic a suspenseful moment if our military ever
decided that they would simply no longer obey this reckless and thoughtless commander in chief. Thus far, most generals and admirals have remained mute…until they were retired, fired or
otherwise removed from command. Once liberated from the onerous chains of duty, they have roundly criticized the war effort, policy, and procession of one half-measure plan after another.
Perhaps they, too, realize that these plans were never meant to accomplish what they advertised. They were merely meant to keep the kettle bubbling over there, while the Shadows play out their deadly game of chaos.
Article by:
John Schettler – March 2007, updated for May, 2008
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