Part 3

A hint from British intelligence

Some months ago, on a flight from the Middle East to America, by chance I found myself sitting next to a tall, strongly built British fellow who, when I asked about his work, told me he worked for British intelligence.

He was stationed in America—on loan, it seems—and was just returning there from Iraq. We chatted a bit, and I floated an offhand comment that perhaps the war in Iraq was less about weapons of mass destruction and more about petroleum. He corrected me: Not petroleum—geostrategy.

I’m sure that wasn’t classified information. And I didn’t probe for any. Nor did I really know what he meant.

I now have a somewhat better idea.

There’s a fascinating book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, formerly National Security Advisor to President Carter, called The Grand Chessboard, published in 1997. There Dr. Brzezinski, obviously a brilliant man, articulates the core of America’s geopolitical agenda.

In essence: For America to retain its standing as the paramount military, political, and economic power in the world it must exercise a controlling influence in Eurasia (the broad expanse of the European and Asian continents).

“About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world’s GNP and about three fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

And on the grand chessboard of Eurasia, the fate of the Middle East—southeast of Europe … northeast of Africa … south of Russia and the former Soviet Union … west of India and China … (and right in the middle of the world’s largest known reserves of oil)—is obviously crucial.

Pretexts for war

Would the men who lead America in pursuing its objectives invade a sovereign Middle Eastern country on the pretext of combating global terrorism? Now that we know for sure that Iraq’s fearsome weapons of mass destruction never existed, the answer seems clear.

For countries to attack one another on a pretext is nothing new. Other countries do it, and certainly America as well.

The notion that American leaders had foreknowledge of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor is still a subject of dispute. That American Marines in 1893 invaded Hawaii on the pretext of "protecting American lives and property"—but actually to secure a monopoly on the sugar crop—is mainline history. And other such examples (the Spanish-American War comes to mind) are not hard to find.

That remark still haunts me: The state executive heads “try to bring about a war in a peaceful society. They have no ambition other than personal aggrandizement. . .”

I have nothing against America. Great country. But if I’m to believe the Bhagavad-gita—which I do—America (like every other country in the world) has two kinds of people: the godly and the demonic. And when leaders with demonic ambitions prevail, the limit of the villainy to which those leaders may go defies our power to describe, or even fathom.

“The demonic, their minds crippled, their souls lost, promote ghastly, noxious, horrible deeds that bring destruction to the world.”

The words of the Bhagavad-gita

Yes, I believe that. I don’t trust conspiracy websites, or videos that purport to show the World Trade Center exploding from within, or the Pentagon being hit by a missile rather than a plane, or theories that the world is run by a handful of men sitting somewhere in New York. How can we know? ²

But I do trust the Bhagavad-gita. So I don’t trust men who’ve dedicated their lives to consolidating power and money. Once you get to a certain level—once you’re talking about billions of dollars and whole countries full of resources—the stakes get too high for me to trust that power-seekers and plutocrats act mainly for global benevolence. I’m sorry.

In the words of the Gita, “They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime need of human civilization. And for that end they’ll pull money together by any despicable means.”

What is there they wouldn’t do? For wealth, for power, for lust, kings and heads of state have killed their fathers, sold their sisters, locked their brothers in the Tower. What is there they wouldn’t do?

What levels of loss?

Would the leaders of America invade a sovereign Middle Eastern country on the pretext of combating global terrorism? We’ve answered that already, haven’t we? We know from the war in Iraq.

But for whatever the purpose, would America’s leaders sacrifice innocent civilian lives? We know that too.

After undertaking an on-the-ground survey of deaths in selected areas of Iraq and using the results to reckon the total deaths in the country, a team of researchers wrote in the November 2004 issue of The Lancet, the London-based medical journal, “Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

Further, most of those deaths were from violence, “and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.”

And still further: “Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children.”

That of course is beyond the 1,835 fatalities in the US-led coalition as of this May (1,655 of them American) and the 12,348 Americans reported by the Department of Defense as wounded in action.

Presumably, American political leaders who plan for war have reasonably accurate estimates beforehand of what the military and civilian casualties will be. And for the goals they hope to achieve they must think the losses worth it.

What other losses might be worth it?

One of three things had happened

As I thought more, back in 2001, about how strange America looked from my perch in the Middle East and I thought about the World Trade Center attack and the global war on terror, and as I thought about how certain vested interests stood so much to profit—from oil pipelines, from defense spending, from hidden agendas—it looked to me like one of three things had happened:

• That evil renegade Osama Bin Laden had demolished the World Trade Center, and American political and military leaders had taken the opportunity to do precisely what they must have been hoping to do all along: send off their armies to secure military and political primacy in the Middle East.

Or else—could people really do these things?—

• Not willing to wait for a pretext, forces within or affiliated with the American government had themselves engineered the attack.

Or else perhaps a third alternative:

• “We’re going out of town on Tuesday, Osama. The key is under the mat.”

In the logic of war…

I might put the question like this: Would persons of a demonic character sacrifice two big buildings and the lives of 3,000 American civilians for the opportunity to secure political, military, and economic primacy in the oil-rich and geostrategically crucial Middle East?

Back in 1997, Dr. Brzezinski had written:

“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion,except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being.”

The italics are mine. The thoughts are his.

I’m not criticizing Dr. Brzezinski or accusing him of anything. He is known as a political and military realist, and he’s just stating facts. But in the pursuit of power, what might persons of a demonic nature do? The Gita says of them, “They don’t know what they must do, nor what they must not.”

Two big buildings, 3,000 civilians. In the logic of war, not much.

According to the Gita, “The demonic person thinks: ‘So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will grow in the future, more and more. He is my enemy and I have killed him, and I shall kill my other enemies also. I’m in control. I can enjoy. I am perfect, powerful, and happy. I am wealthy and aristocratic. Who else is there like me? I shall sacrifice, I shall give charity—and I shall rejoice.’ In this way, such persons are deluded by spiritual ignorance.”

With insights from the Gita (and our friend from the CIA)

Well, there you have it: one man’s odd view of 9/11, seen from a distance and with some insights from the Bhagavad-gita.

What will I do about it? Not much. I’m not going to go off on a campaign, or devote my life to hopeless investigations, or hold hands in a circle with conspiracy theorists. The history of politics has always been a history of lies. Whatever happened on 9/11, my goals in life are the same, and they have nothing to do with staying forever in this material world.

But as long as I’m telling you the story, I might add one more little item.

I have a friend who under colorful circumstances developed an intimate friendship with a former CIA officer, a man who’d spent twenty-six years with the agency and had a one-dash-one security clearance (as high as you can go). And that man, without unprofessionally disclosing details, would sometimes tell a bit about his life with the CIA.

Since the agency’s job, he said, was to gather intelligence, at least in part for national security, the people there were naturally strong for schemes that would help them keep closer tabs on American citizens: things like internal passports, for example.

The problem, he said, was that as soon you’d try to move an inch in that direction, Americans would start hollering about infringements on their civil liberties, and so you’d have to back off.

And therefore, he said, the agency had this in mind: Employing “the strategy of tension” (create a problem so that people will embrace your solution), they intended to create an incident that would have the American people begging them to increase internal security.

And I tell you this only because my friend told it to me, about a year or so before two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center.

 

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