The United States maintains, after the announced end of the Cold War, an open policy of supporting coups, destabilizations, and “violent low-intensity conflicts” in every corner of the globe. The secret wars of the CIA continue unabated. U.S. society is said to be drowning in a sea of drugs and an official Drug Czar is engaged in a “war” against the criminal czars. This war was been used to justify the invasion of Panama and significant changes in the U.S. legal system in favor of secrecy and arbitrary governmental power at the expense of civil liberties. Integral to the other broad problems facing our society —the collapse of the U.S. economy, the arms race, the CIA’s secret wars—is the systematic destruction of our environment, a seemingly inherent characteristic of the military-industrial complex.
The U.S. leadership is faced with a stirring and awakening of the American people to the cynicism with which their pockets have been picked while their social services have been curtailed to a point far below that of other industrial nations. People are recognizing the long-term damage that has been done to the nation’s economy and to the environment. They are growing restless. Historically, this has been the setting in which our leaders have turned to dramatic foreign adventures that will distract the people. Faced with similar crises in the past, our
leaders have, time and time again, taken the nation to war.
In 1897, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend: “In strict confidence...I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”We know how these ingredients work. Our history is clear to all who can or will make the time to read the books that are now available. In spring 1989,1 was able to predict the invasion of Panama nine months before it happened. In the winter and spring of 1990, I was able to predict that the U.S. leadership would have to conjure up a war before 1992 to distract the people from the domestic problems facing the nation, and from our leaders’ cynical failure.