By Siv O'Neall

03 November, 2010
Axis of Logic

“The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission – founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller – and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens.”

Preparing for World Dominance

The planning for the days of the Unites States asserting itself comfortably as the lone global power, influencing trade, resources, and living conditions all over the world, is anything but recent history. Still, you often read words implying that the U.S. began its serious role as the Predator of other nations’ resources, altering their way of life and taking over the running of their economies, after the end of the old colonialist era. The arrogant U.S. takeover of nations became institutionalized with the PNAC(2) conspiracy, which made their openly imperial ambitions known to the whole world.

The underground mafia that began its devilish scheming during the reign of the Hollywood actor president with the friendly people’s smile, was doing its secret planning for the century to come. The man with the smile was the label man who was covering up the cold calculations of the think tank that was going to twist the world into obedience, with money or with bombs. What the U.S. couldn’t buy up or steer into their own galaxy, they figured they could always get at with military might.

The Project for A New American Century was certainly a clear signal to the world that ‘Here we come – throw away your hand plows. We are bringing you the real tools to dig up the goods and to teach you how to live the good life.’ That was the open message. What it actually stood for was just plain greed and determination to own the world. Nothing less.

After this presumptuous beginning of taking over the world had gotten under way – in modern times taking a good head start during the Reagan era – living conditions in the countries concerned just went down and down. Human rights as well as justice and equality in general deteriorated badly.

US Imperial Planning to ‘Control’ the ‘Grand Area’

However, conscientious planning by the U.S. imperialists began long before the era we usually call the neoliberal era. While the focus is now on trade and multi-national corporatism, it was, in the previous decades, rather on geopolitical domination.

In a book entitled ‘Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy’ (by Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter – published in 1977), the authors explain how extensive studies were conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department during the period of 1939 - 1945.

An excerpt from a "Marxist" analysis of the power and influence of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR):

“Over fifty years ago, in the wake of the First World War, a group of wealthy and influential Americans decided to form an organization. The Council on Foreign Relations, as it was subsequently named, was designed to equip the United States of America for an imperial role on the world scene. Great Britain had dominated world politics during the nineteenth century, not only through its colonial empire, but also through an even wider informal sphere of influence. In a similar fashion, so felt these American leaders, the United States would play a dominant role in the years following the war.”

However, by 1919, it was found that the United States was not yet adequately prepared for world leadership. The project was put on ice, but it re-emerged during World War II – as documented in the report entitled: ‘The Council on Foreign Relations and the US State Department: Studies of American Interests in the War and Peace (1939-1945)’(3)

Now was the time when the United States was clearly going to emerge as the world-dominant power. The conclusions drawn by the Council on Foreign Relations planners are hair-raisingly rational and have one goal only in its field of vision – imperial domination at whatever the price might be. No sentimental by-thoughts of compassion, no presence of any admission of the suffering that will inevitably be caused by U.S. intervention in the ‘Grand Area’.

The most amazing thing has been the lack of attention paid to these records which were all the time public, just not paid attention to.

Says Horhey, commentator, who has put together a selection of quotes from the book ‘Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy’ at Political Forum.com:

“US planners were virtually unanimous in the view that the nation should claim a dominant position in the post World War II world. The planners and analysts concluded that in the postwar world the United States would seek “to hold unquestioned power.””

Among Horhey’s quotes from ‘Imperial Brain Trust’ – Shoup and Minter(4):

“The foremost requirement of the United States in a world in which it proposes to hold unquestioned power is the rapid fulfillment of a program of complete re-armament.”
…

“the United States must accept world responsibility. The measure of our victory will be the measure of our domination after victory.”

Council President Norman Davis, asserted in May 1942 that it was probable that:

“the British Empire as it existed in the past will never reappear and that the United States may have to take it's place.”

General George V. Strong expressed the opinion that:

“the United States must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own terms, amounting perhaps to Pax-Americana.”

In this context, let’s not forget that Pax Americana is and has always been a benevolent-sounding slogan, meaning exactly the opposite, namely eternal war and huge profits for the U.S. economy – that is a war that profits U.S. and multi-national Big Corporations and turns its back on any thought of moral rights and the effects of this never-ending war on people at home and in the invaded countries. While always aiming at the enrichment of the Big Corporations and making the rich richer, Washington is always careful to try to convince the U.S citizens – in the first place, and then the rest of the world – of the boundless magnanimity and concern for its people’s well-being that will allow the government to continue its destructive policies without interference from the U.S. citizens.

USians are more or less generally convinced that their government does what is good for them and good for the people who are being invaded and whose countries are being destroyed, because leaving the running of the resources and the economy in general to the United States is for the good of the people. It is, in fact, for the benefit of all the people in the world that U.S. culture, democracy and freedom should be spread all over the planet. U.S. generosity is boundless and without the U.S. government shoring up the rest of the world, there would be a general collapse of peaceful living, sound business and essential law and order.

To convince its own people and much of the rest of the world of the inherent goodness of the United States government, a carefully planned system of misinformation has been put in place, involving the corporate takeover of the mass media and the government-run ‘ministry of propaganda’ (far more efficient than anything Goebbels could ever have dreamed of) that works non-stop on convincing people that The United States is inevitably the one superior nation with the best intentions and that it should, for the benefit of the rest of the world, run the business of the planet. World dominance is the natural right and the moral duty of the colossus in the West.

Back to ‘Imperial Brain Trust’ – Shoup and Minter, returning to the era of World War II.

Memorandum E-B19 concluded with a statement on the essentials of United States foreign policy, summarizing:

“the component parts of an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States in the non German world. (Remember this was taking place during World War II)

Horhey’s comment:

“The conception that they developed is what they called "Grand Area" planning. The Grand Area was a region that was to be subordinated to the needs of the American economy.”

As one planner put it, it was to be the region that is:

“strategically necessary for world control.”

Here we must draw a parallel with the imperial ambitions that have been highly visible in today’s contest for world domination. The ‘Imperial Brain Trust’ (Shroup and Minter) says “strategically necessary for world control”, stating quite clearly that the U.S. has the power and the implicit right to take control of whatever region it considers strategically important. Such as the Middle East/Central Asia region where it is at this time entangled in unwinnable wars. For Washington it’s a given that the reins must be in their hands. The conscientious and long-time effort for the Unites Sates is to convince the rest of the world that this is an undeniable fact. The center of gravity is the Big Corporations in the West, most of them run by U.S. companies, essentially in a Siamese twin relationship to the U.S. government and all its various agencies (EPA, FDA, anti-trust laws, etc.)

Developing the concept of ‘The Grand Area’

A major element was:

“the coordination and the cooperation of the United States with other countries to secure the limitation of any exercise of sovereignty by foreign nations that constitutes a threat to the minimum world area essential for the security and economic prosperity of the United States and the Western Hemisphere.”

Here we get into the reasoning behind the Monroe Doctrine (introduced on December 2, 1823 by US President, James Monroe), where Washington high-mindedly declares that any European interference with countries in the Americas would be considered as Aggression against the United States, requiring US intervention.(5)

Horhey’s clarifying comment:

“Of course, when we talk about "economic prosperity", we don't necessarily mean the people of the United States; we mean whoever dominates and controls, owns and manages the American economy.”

Yes, let’s by all means make it clear that we are not talking about economic prosperity for the people of the U.S. or of the rest of the world. This is the most essential point that we must all understand correctly. It’s not the people who are at the receiving end of the cornucopia of goodies that are siphoned into the United States and the Corporations via world domination and eternal war.

The ‘Grand Area’ was considered a core region, which could always be extended to include more countries. As one of the planners said in May 1941:

“It would be the aim of American policy to spread the organization of the Grand Area.”

Says Horhey –

“the Grand Area was also to include Southeast Asia, Western and Southern Europe and the oil-producing regions of the Middle East; in fact, it was to include everything, if that were possible. Detailed plans were laid for particular regions of the Grand Area and also for international institutions that were to organize and police it, essentially in the interests of this subordination to U.S. domestic needs.”

So here we are. The enormous importance of the Middle East/Central Asia region was already crystal clear, as well as the economic importance of monopolizing the riches of South-East Asia for the valuable raw materials produced in The Philippine Islands, the Dutch East Indies, and British Malaysia. The creation of these international financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank(6) (institutions set up at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944) also followed as part of the parcel to assure the proper functioning of the world economy. These worldwide financial institutions were necessary for the purpose of:

“stabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital investment for constructive undertakings in backward and underdeveloped regions.”

How quaint. ‘Constructive undertakings in backward and underdeveloped regions’. And thus, neo-colonialism was born. The facilitators of this grand project were to be the IMF and the World Bank. These men with demonstrably no sense of the human being as someone with needs and demands for justice and equality, but exclusively as a cog in the production chain, have developed into a most powerful group of conscientious plundering machines the world has ever seen.

In ‘The Council on Foreign Relations and the US State Department: Studies of American Interests in the War and Peace (1939-1945)’ it was made explicitly clear that the dominance over those strategic areas, now called the Grand Area, must at all costs be secured to keep other powers at bay. The planners warned that:

“the interests of America would be gravely prejudiced should Southeast Asia be controlled by an unfriendly or monopolistic nation, because of the need for access to rubber, tin and other resources.”

So there is the true reason for the never-ending war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, unambiguously stated already during World War II, as well as, long before that, the taking over of The Philippines from Spain during the Spanish-American war in 1898. This war was of course also intended to be the opening of the gates to Latin America, which from then on would be seen by Washington as ‘America’s backyard’.

However, today more than ever, the United States is centering in on keeping Russia and China from obtaining too big a piece of international dominance. It is watching with a great sense of unease the spreading influence of those countries in the critically important Central Asia region, as well as on other continents, such as Africa and Latin America.

Propaganda is born

However – back to the World War II era – for the unending wars that were already seen as essential for the domination of the ‘Grand Area’ (which in the following decades grew to include more and more territories not included in the first version of the project), there was one big imperative: The American people had to be convinced of the necessity for these wars and the ability of the U.S. military to win them.

Thus the propaganda industry was born – actually a concept heralded and developed as a quasi-scientific method by Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, a resident of the United States, who coined the term ‘the engineering of consent’ which he saw as ‘the very essence of the democratic process’. The term ‘propaganda’ was first used in 1922. Edward Bernays’ carefully developed theories were of great use to the warmongers during and following World War II.(7)

In ‘Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy’ Shoup and Minter point to the importance of spreading the message of the benign influence of the United States to all corners of the planet. Not only Anglo-American imperialism must be propagandized, but also …

“The interests of the other peoples should be stressed, not only those of Europe, but also of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This would have a better propaganda effect.”

Zbignew Brzezinski, one of the founders, along with David Rockefeller, of the trilateral commission (the executive arm of the Council on Foreign Relations) wrote the book 'The Grand Chessboard’ to lay out the main lines for controlling the ‘Grand Area’. No attempt at obfuscation here. The objectives are clearly laid out. 'The Grand Chessboard’ equals ‘How to Conquer the World – and barely being noticed’.

Horhey’s concluding comments:

“The trilateral commission, an executive arm of the CFR controls this administration. Obama, as soon as he took office appointed 11 members, and it was one of the top censored news stories of the year.”
…

“The Trilateralist Commission is international ...[and]... is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateralist Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power - political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical.”

Conclusion

What we can hope for today is that exactly the thing Washington fears the most is actually going to come true. Other powers, far from negligible on the international scene, such as China and Russia, but also Brazil – particularly considering its recent alliance with Turkey, and also Iran – have, from the U.S. point of view, fearful means of counteracting U.S. global dominance and thus seriously cutting short its monstrous ambitions to own and control the planet.

From a crass military/economic point of view these new power houses are extraordinarily important geopolitically.

However, we must leave behind us the quasi-religious belief that the one thing that matters is controlling the planet (and why not outer space, while we are at it?). The enormous fight we are up against in the world today is the psychopathic and deep-rooted misconception that PROFIT and CONTROL are the supreme goals of all powerful nations. This twisted and inhuman belief has to go. The one and only important issue in the world is the fate of human beings and of course the environment. Equality and justice for all is the one big goal.

In today’s world, beside the big powers that are competing with the United States for global dominance, first and foremost there is Latin America, a huge continent where hope is being reborn, hope that we will one day soon live in a world where the people are going to count as a reality factor in political planning, a world where they will at last count as human beings with lives that matter, where living is what life is all about, not profit.

There is no way the Unites States will once again be able to consider this enormous continent as their own backyard, where they could play their game unopposed by the needs and desires of simple human beings. Where human dignity and pride were to them unknown qualities that will, in the end, never be quashed.

In all of Latin America, definitely including Central America, Washington thought it could pose and depose dictators and enemies of the people at their own will. Colombia and some other temporary victories set aside, Washington will never again play on those strings. Colombia is a pawn that will fade away the day the power of the United States begins to crumble. And that day is here now.

The United States is already far from being the lone superpower, the monolith, the role that it has forever had such colossal ambitions to play. The Über-nation that no other nation could even begin to assail or ever doubt its unbeatable power. The ‘superpower’ is in its death throes, even though on its surface it still keeps the looks of a giant. Underneath the veneer, the country is collapsing. We have seen the signs again and again. Its politics are in a tumultuous meltdown. The politicians who were crying out loudly for law and order have now lost all control. There is only confusion and lawlessness in the big country in the West.

Dona nobis pacem. Give us peace and let us live like human beings. Let the monstrous robots see that it is time for them to be put in their graves, as the criminal offenders that they have been, all along. Life is not a chess game. Life is living. We will take our lives back.

Siv O'Neall is an Axis of Logic columnist, based in France. Her insightful essays are republished and read worldwide. She can be reached at siv@axisoflogic.com