World War IV
May 20, 2003
On November 16, 2002, former CIA Director James Woolsey declared that the U.S. was engaged in World War IV, World War III having been the Cold War. Speaking at the University of California Los Angeles as part of a tour sponsored by Americans for Victory over Terrorism (http://www.avot.org), Woolsey stated that the United States would be at war for many years. His words echoed those of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Woolsey, however, was specific. "This fourth world war, will last considerably longer than either World War I or II." This is a war against "terror," Woolsey remarked, that will not "go away until we change the face of the Middle East." Specific targets include: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Libya.
Also speaking with James Woolsey was L. Paul Bremer, former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, who was appointed recently by President George Bush to be the civilian administrator in Iraq. Bremer took charge immediately. Leaving no doubt that this was to be an extended and extensive U.S. occupation, Bremer declared on Friday, May 16, that the plan to form a new Iraqi national assembly and an interim government would be put off indefinitely. He also issued an order banning 15,000 to 30,000 ranking members of the Ba'ath Party from holding government jobs, many of whom had served at the top ministers in the country's ministries, hospital and universities.
In "World War IV," we examine the role of the category of terror, document significant relationships among those who promulgate it and explain the significance for workers and the oppressed throughout the world. We also document that the recent "terrorist" attacks in Saudia Arabia and Morocco are part of U.S. and Israeli rulers' plans to "remake the Middle East."
On line are excerpts from the 3-hour special prepared for the WBAI Spring Fund Drive. "World War IV" expands upon such prior Taking Aim programs as "Why War," "The World's Crisis is the Crisis of Imperialism" and "Masters of Deceipt: U.S. Imperial Design from Baghdad to Beijing."
Learn more about historic conferences such as those organized by Benjamin Netanyahu (later to become Prime Minister of Israel) which created the ideological foundation for permanent war. Among those in attendance at the second international gathering, June 24, 1984 in Washington D.C., were then U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, Congressman Jack Kemp, Senators Alan Cranston and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, F.B.I. Director William Webster, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirpatrick, Israeli officials Moshe Arens (who served as Minister of Defense and Israel's Ambassador to the U.S.) and Yitzhak Rabin (then Minister of Defense, who had been Israel's Prime Minister and Ambassador to the United States).
Also among the participants were prominent journalists who would go on to promote this agenda: Ted Koppel (ABC-TV), Bob Woodward and Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post), Daniel Schorr (CBS-TV and CNN-TV), Norman Podheretz (editor of Commentary magazine), George Will, and Arnaud de Bourchgrave (Washington Times).
It was at this conference that Secretary of State George Schultz articulated the policy of "preemptive" strikes, now official U.S. policy. "It is time to think long, hard, and seriously," Schultz (the former Bechtel president and now director) said, "about more active means of defense - defense through appropriate preventive or preemptive actions against terrorist groups before they strike."