Apocalypse Now and the Brave New World

Richard Moore, 21 Sep 2005, http://cyberjournal.org

We are now on the cusp of one of the most momentous historical episodes of
all time — the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are about to ride. Peak oil is
the primary underlying condition forcing change, and Apocalypse is the
action plan ruling elites have chosen as their response to that condition. Not
only does this response make a great deal of sense, from their Machiavellian
perspective, but by their recent actions they have clearly signaled the scope
and direction of their intentions. Furthermore, their planned response is in
complete alignment with earlier responses to similar situations in the past —
by these same people or by their direct predecessors.

The Four Horsemen of this Apocalypse:

Collapse
Genocide
War
Fascism

References:

Brzezinski, Zbigniew, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its

Geostrategic Imperatives , Basic Books, New York, 1998.

Chossudovsky, Michel, The Globalization of Poverty: Impacts of IMF and

World Bank Re-forms , Second Edition, Global Outlook, Shanty Bay, Ontario,
2003.

Engdahl, William, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New
World Order , Revised Edition, Pluto Press, London, 2004.

Higham, Charles, Trading with the Enemy , Dell Publishing Co., New York,
1984.

NSSM 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and
Overseas Interests
,http://web.archive.org/web/20041122015841/http://www.africa2000.com/
SNDX/nssm200all.html .

Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses,

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defensenationalsecurity.htm .
Historical background

“History teaches by analogy, not identity. The historical experience is not one
of staying in the present and looking back; rather, it is one of going back into
the past and returning to the present with a wider and more intense
consciousness.”

— Daniel Estulin, investigative journalist

Peak oil is real. That is to say, we have reached the point where our annual
consumption of oil is considerably greater than our annual ability to develop
new sources. While global consumption continues to increase, potential
sources can only decrease. No matter what anyone does, our oil-based global
economy cannot continue for much longer in its current form — at current
population levels. At the same time, we must remember that the remaining
reserves are vast — perhaps the same amount remains as has ever been
pumped, although it will become increasingly expensive to extract.

The fact of peak oil, in itself, does not necessarily imply that apocalypse is
inevitable. If humanity were to face this problem in a sensible way, there is
much that could be done to alleviate the crisis, re-organize our societies and
economies, localize our production and consumption, reduce our wasteful
practices, move to appropriate technologies, develop alternative energy
sources and transport methods, etc. But it is not ‘humanity’ that is in the
driver’s seat.

As we have watched the arrogant and radical behavior of the Bush

administration over the past five years, it has become apparent to all that
the neocon clique that dominates the White House is pursuing an agenda of
its own, an agenda that is partially described in their PNAC document,
“Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, which they proudly display on their
website. This is not an agenda that ‘humanity’ has chosen, nor have the
American people chosen it. In fact people and nations all over the world are
resisting and protesting this agenda, Bush’s popularity is at an all-time low in
America — and none of this makes any difference to the pursuit of the
agenda.

For the moment at least, we can all see that a clique is setting the world’s
course, a clique that acts in its own self-interest, following an agenda that in
no way has any kind of democratic legitimacy. Many people assume,
however, that this situation is an aberration from our normal political
process, something unique to Bush and his crowd. Some see the sinister
hand of a Zionist plot, and some point to the Bush family history of
collaboration with the Nazi regime. If only we can get Bush out of office, such
people think, we can return to some kind of sanity. If only it were so simple.
If we want to understand what we are facing, we need to be a bit more
careful in identifying who are the ultimate movers and shakers behind world
events. In fact, we are not looking at a Zionist plot, and we are not looking at
a recent aberration. A careful examination of history over the past century
reveals that a very specific elite clique has come to totally dominate and
control world affairs. The neocons are not that clique; they are its agents,
eagerly pursuing their assignment because of the looting opportunities
thereby made available to themselves and their corporate cronies.

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the
laws.”

— Amshall Rothschild

The elite clique I refer to include the top financial circles in New York and
London — the people who control financial institutions like Chase Manhattan,
Citibank, HSBC, Rothschild’s, and Lloyds TSB. We’re talking about a handful
of people, blessed with inherited wealth, and operating mostly behind the
scenes. The Rockefeller brothers are the most obvious members of this
clique, due to their uncharacteristically high profile in public affairs. As with
the Rockefellers, whose wealth came from the 19th Century exploits of oil-
baron J.D. Rockefeller, this clique exhibits considerable continuity through the
decades, both in terms of its approach to maintaining its power, and in terms
of the family trees and connections that characterize its membership.

I won’t repeat here the story of how this particular elite gained its power.
Suffice it to say that the financing of wars, when governments are desperate
for funding, has been one of the primary vehicles by which this clique has
gained its wealth and power. It would be a gross understatement to say that
this clique “influences governments”. It would closer to the truth to say that
the U.S. and British governments are owned, lock stock and barrel, by this
clique, a fact which is symbolized by this thing we call ‘national debt’. The
Federal Reserve Bank, the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank are
all directly controlled by this clique and its agents and banks. Presidents and
Prime Ministers are groomed in their careers, and selected for their turn in
office, based on which particular agendas are being pursued at any given
time.

The Bilderberger meetings, the Council on Foreign Relations, and a network

of think tanks and foundations serve to rationalize and promulgate the
agendas of this clique among lower-level echelons and officials. Through
ownership, investment, and other means of influence, this clique controls the
mainstream global media and the spin that is applied to the important
stories. With their ability to set interest rates and credit availability, and their
domination of exchange markets, they exercise decisive control over global
finance generally. Their power is extended still further by their close fraternal
relationships with key players in the Anglo-American oil cartel and in
American and British Intelligence circles.

It is important to make a distinction between ordinary corporations and

banks, between corporate power and the power of finance. Ordinary
corporations are in the business of making money, and they favor policies
that generate economic growth and development. Apart from weapons
manufacturers, corporations tend to favor peace and stability in world affairs,
as that’s when they can grow and develop their markets. When recession
hits, corporations suffer, or even go under.

The situation for the big banks is quite different. Banks gain in both good
times and bad. In all conditions banks make loans of money they don’t
actually have, and then collect both the principal and interest. In good times,
they also make money on their investments in productive enterprises. In bad
times, even though the paper value of their assets may temporarily decline,
they are able to foreclose on failing enterprises, pick up bargains by buying
faltering enterprises, and they can make money by short-selling assets just
before they go down, based on their insider knowledge and their ability to
manipulate markets. Economic cycles are like a two-phase pump, and both
phases benefit the banks. The banks understand that money is simply an
accounting system. For them money is not so much an end in itself, as it is
for ordinary corporations, but is more a vehicle of ownership and power. Wars
and economic collapses have been intentionally engineered by this elite
Anglo-American banking clique throughout the past century, as this elite has
systematically sought to maintain and consolidate its power.

The reason why the Anglo-American bankers in particular are running things,
as opposed to other financial elites elsewhere, has to do with the immense
wealth and influence that was accumulated during the heyday of the British
Empire, the close fraternal relationships between London and New York
banking circles, and a particular strategy of financial dominance. That
strategy has very much do with oil, but oil profits are not the main issue. The
main issue is that every nation, since the early 20th Century, must have oil
to operate.

The strategy is very simple and very effective. If you can control the sources
of oil, and if you also control the currency in which oil is traded, and the price
of oil, then you have your hand on Archimedes’ lever: “Give me a lever long
enough, and a fulcrum, and I can move the world”. Yes the profits from oil
are considerable, but control over oil is much more important — it gives you
control over every nation’s economy, their ability to wage war, etc. This
strategy was adopted by British elites prior to Word War 1, was also adopted
by American elites, and has been the core geopolitical strategy of the
dominant Anglo-American alliance to this day.
We are not talking here about a gross mechanism, where elites say, “Do
what I want or I’ll withhold oil from you.” The game is more subtle, having to
do with the price of oil, and the kind of loans a nation can get to deal with its
development needs, etc. Ultimate power is financial power, and oil-
dominance, in today’s world, is the key to financial power. Through intrigue
and pressure from this clique, OPEC nations accept payments for oil only in
dollars. Every nation must therefore accumulate dollars, making dollars
artificially valuable, and thereby financing U.S. deficits. This influx of capital
is called “petrodollar recycling”. This petrodollar wealth then finds its way to
London and enters the ‘Eurodollar market’, where funds can be recycled into
unregulated global investments. Thus both New York and London banks are
able to grab their share of the profits from the oil-dominance strategy. Oil
company profits are simply one more source of funds that end up being
invested in banker-controlled investment portfolios. Ordinary corporations
are powerful, but they play within the game whose rules are set by the
banking elite.

This is the context in which we need to examine current events. It is this

historical context that leads me to interpret current events in terms of the
Four Horses.

Collapse

Let us consider the first Horseman: Collapse. In this regard there are two
primary things to consider. The first is peak oil, and the second is the oil
shock of 1973.

Up until 1973, oil was treated as an inexhaustible commodity — the game

was to pump as much as possible, sell it at a relatively low price, get
everyone addicted to oil and automobiles, and make money on volume —
lots of money. This strategy fit in perfectly with the post-World War 2
economic regime, which was based on economic growth and development.
This was the era in which suburbia was invented, and rail systems were
dismantled in the USA and Britain. This was a major growth phase of the
economic pump, enriching banks and corporations alike. But in the early
1970s the bloom was off the growth cycle, Japan and Germany were gaining
economic power, and our Anglo-American banking elites decided the time
had come for an adjustment.

Using the diplomatic talents of Rockefeller protégé Henry Kissinger, our

banking elites were able to stir up a war between Israel and the Arab states,
engineer an oil boycott, and raise the price of oil nearly overnight by 400%.
Here we can see demonstrated the power of finance, and the efficacy of the
oil-dominance strategy. As intended, economic growth in Europe and Japan
was sharply curtailed, and as intended, third world nations were forced to
dedicate their budgets to oil imports and debt repayments, rather than to
developing their own economies. We know these things were intended,
because the program was discussed in some detail at a Bilderberger meeting
several months before the Yom Kippur war broke out.

The price increase made exploitation of the North Sea oil sources
economically viable, much to the benefit of the London banks that had
invested in that project. In addition, the price increase created the
petrodollar phenomenon. All in all, the oil shock of 1973 was a very
successful, and well masked, coup. It ushered in an era where growth was no
longer the dominant paradigm. There has been relatively little real growth in
the global economy since that time, as regards industrial production and
trade in goods. The banks began focusing more on debt collections, and
developing the speculative global markets.

From another perspective, we can view the 1973 oil shock as being an early-
warning sign of peak oil. That is to say, oil has always been a finite resource,
and the oil companies have been aware of that more than anyone else. By
the early 70s everyone was adequately addicted to oil, and it was about time
to hike up the price of the remaining reserves. In this regard the dynamics
are the a bit like with drug pushers: the first hit’s free and after that you pay.
Cheap oil got you hooked, and now you can dig a bit deeper for your next fix.

We are told that ‘market forces’ are responsible for all price increases, but
that is a gross oversimplification. The Anglo-American oil cartel, in covert
collaboration with the Saudis and other ‘friendly’ OPEC states, decides how
much oil will be pumped, and at what price it will be made available. ‘Market
forces’, so called, are themselves manipulated by the banks — that’s what
financial power is all about. ‘Market forces’ are simply the current rules of the
game, sometimes protectionist and sometimes free trade oriented,
sometimes with liberal credit availability and sometimes not — depending on
current elite agendas. More relevant than ‘market forces’, to the price of oil,
is the principle of ‘all the traffic will bear’.

A major economic adjustment must occur at some point, due to peak oil, and
there are clear signs that now is the time that has been chosen. We have
seen sharp increases, even before Hurricane Katrina. And now, with the well-
publicized damage to oilrigs and refineries in the Louisiana region, further
increases are fully expected and being ‘predicted’ in the mainstream media.
Already trucking companies are complaining that they will be forced out of
business by the rises that have already occurred. In addition, we read that
interest rates are ‘expected’ to go up.

We are now much further along on the oil-peak curve than we were in 1973,
oil addiction is as strong as ever, China is threatening to become the world’s
largest economy, and the global economy is greatly over-extended with
speculative investments — including over-leveraged home mortgages. An oil
shock at this time, combined with an interest rate hike, would once again
radically transform the global economy, much to the advantage of the Anglo-
American alliance.

This oil shock will be much more dramatic in its consequences than the
shock of ‘73. That’s why this Horseman is called Collapse. The global
economy is much more volatile now than it was in the ‘70s, indeed it is a
speculative house of cards, reminiscent of 1929. It cannot stand a major oil
shock, combined with an interest rate hike. Stock markets will tumble,
recessions will hit the West, and the third world will dive even deeper into
poverty — if that can be imagined. China will be hit hard by the oil rises, but
more important its export markets will be sharply curtailed by recessions in
the West, particularly in the U.S. Unemployment will rise globally, many
mortgage holders won’t be able to pay their increased variable-rate
payments, and the housing bubble will burst. One thing will lead to another,
bringing global economic collapse, reminiscent of the Great Depression. This
will bring a feeding frenzy for the big banks, like the one they enjoyed during
the 1930s, and bad news for the rest of us.

If we consider these consequences along with the implications of the PNAC

agenda, we are beginning to see the outline of the elite clique’s Final
Solution to the problem of peak oil. Peak oil implies, sooner or later, a
desperate global struggle for the remaining reserves: the PNAC agenda is
largely about grabbing control of as many reserves as possible — now rather
than later. Peak oil, in the absence of what the rest of us would call a sensible
strategy, implies a general collapse of the global economy, sooner or later:
this Shock of 2005 will begin that process now, while vast oil reserves still
remain, so that the banking clique can manage the collapse to its own
advantage. Our oil-based economy can be compared to a condemned
building, and a controlled demolition makes more sense than simply letting
the building rot of its own accord: this enables the owner to develop
something else on the site. Similarly, if the economic collapse is brought
about early, then the vast remaining oil reserves will be available for the
construction of some kind of post-Apocalyptic, elite-friendly, world order.

Genocide

“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the

third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing
amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”

— Attributed to Henry Kissinger, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of

Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests”, April 24, 1974

A search on Google reveals hundreds of hits citing the above quotation.

However, on downloading and reading the memo, NSSM 200, I was unable to
find that particular passage. Perhaps the quote is a hoax, or perhaps it was
deleted before the memo was declassified and made public. I’ve nonetheless
featured the alleged quote, because genuine or not it serves as a very good
summary of what the full NSSM 200 document is actually about, if you read
between the lines. Consider this passage,which explains why U.S. planners
are so concerned with population levels:

“The real problems of mineral supplies lie, not in basic physical sufficiency,
but in the politico-economic issues of access, terms for exploration and
exploitation, and division of the benefits among producers, consumers, and
host country governments.”

That is to say, the U.S. wants to ensure its own access to resources, and it
wants that access to be on favorable terms. The document explains in great
detail why high population levels interfere with such access, and is therefore
a threat to U.S. “security and overseas interests.” The actual policy proposals
in the public NSSM document are not genocidal; they emphasize voluntary
measures. However those voluntary measures have clearly not been
successful, nor could they realistically have been expected to be. The
following passage suggests that stronger measures, not fully specified, may
be required:

“There is an alternate view which holds that a growing number of experts

believe that the population situation is already more serious and less
amenable to solution through voluntary measures than is generally
accepted. It holds that, to prevent even more widespread food shortage
and other demographic catastrophes than are generally anticipated, even
stronger measures are required and some fundamental, very difficult moral
issues need to be addressed.”

Let’s review some of the developments ‘on the ground’, that reveal the
nature of these “stronger measures.” In his book, The Globalization of
Poverty , economics insider Michel Chossudovsky describes how IMF policies
intentionally devastate third world economies, leading in Africa to massive
famine and genocidal civil wars. The recently announced plans for “third-
world debt forgiveness” are a sham: what they are really about is
reimbursing the banks for their uncollectible loans to the third world. These
reimbursements will then be subtracted from foreign aid budgets, so that the
third world will actually be worse off than before the “forgiveness” program.
And in order to ‘benefit’ from this ‘forgiveness’ program, the third-world
nations must agree to still further, extremely harmful, IMF privatization
programs. The genocidal civil wars we read about in Africa are partly a result
of this intentional impoverishment program, partly a result of arms sales to
African warlords, and partly the result of covert CIA operations. The West’s
counter-productive responses to the AIDS epidemic, and the massive use of
depleted uranium munitions by U.S. and British forces in former Yugoslavia
and Iraq also contribute to depopulation, both among the local populations
and among the Western cannon-fodder troops.

Within the context of peak oil, and from the perspective of our callous
banking elite, it is easy to understand why a sharp decrease in world
population would be highly desirable. I’ve seen several reports that a target
of “80% reduction by 2020” has been adopted in elite circles, but I haven’t
been able to track down that particular claim to any reliable source.
Nonetheless, such a program would certainly change the parameters of the
peak oil phenomenon, and pave the way for constructing some kind of new,
post-Apocalyptic system. In any case, based on what they say and what they
do, I think it is impossible to escape the conclusion that population reduction,
a euphemism for genocide, is indeed a primary elite priority

If systematic genocidal depopulation is an elite agenda, as it seems to be,

then we must recognize the obvious fact that nuclear war would be one of
the most efficient ways to pursue that agenda. This brings us to the next
Horseman.

War

By their actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the neocons have made it clear that
they are totally serious about their PNAC agenda — but Afghanistan and Iraq
represent only the beginning of that agenda. The agenda is about global,
‘full-spectrum’ dominance. The agenda explicitly declares that the U.S. must
prevent the rise of any power that could challenge U.S. hegemony, even if
only regionally. China and Europe are specifically mentioned as powers that
must be kept down. The PNAC document does not refer to the time-honored
Anglo-American strategy of oil-based dominance, but we need to take that
strategy into account here as well.

China is clearly the power most threatening to the PNAC agenda at this time.
China is moving effectively to establish itself as ‘the’ regional power in Asia
with a wide-range of alliances, and Russia is selling its most advanced
weapons systems to China. The two nations have conducted joint military
exercises and they are making arrangements to trade Russian oil and gas for
Chinese cash and investments. Although China is making use of the free-
trade global economy for its own economic benefit, it does this within the
context of its own nationalist goals, and keeps tight control over its internal
economy and currency. China is rapidly upgrading its military forces, and has
adopted an ‘asymmetric strategy’, whereby it aims to deter U.S. power
without the expense of competing in every category of weaponry. The
Pentagon, meanwhile, is spending billions on missile defense systems and
space-based weaponry, and these costly initiatives only make sense in the
context of an eventual military confrontation between the U.S. and China. All
of this is in addition to the fact that China is rapidly gaining on the U.S.
economically, and at current rates will soon become the world’s largest
economy.

If China is not confronted, one way or another, the PNAC agenda will be
thwarted. The longer China is allowed to increase its military, economic, and
geopolitical power, the more difficult a confrontation will become. This
scenario is highly reminiscent of the pre-World War 1 scenario, where a
rapidly growing Germany was threatening British financial and military
hegemony. Britain dealt with that crisis by surrounding Germany with secret
alliances, ensuring the outbreak of war — and on terms that were to its own
advantage. Washington, with its overwhelming military power, can act
unilaterally without such alliances, but its strategic outlook toward China
cannot be very different than Britain’s was toward Germany in that earlier
scenario.

Both China and America are clearly preparing for a war between them,
although China would presumably prefer that mutual deterrence be the
result of these military build-ups rather than actual warfare. The neocons, on
the other hand, must take China down, one way or another, or else give up
their plans for total global dominance. When we consider the elite’s
‘population reduction’ agenda, we must suspect that an actual nuclear war
with China may be their preferred ‘takeout’ option. Before that option can be
viable however, the Pentagon must be able to ensure that such a war could
be managed so as not to annihilate the world’s entire population from
radiation fallout. The esoteric space-based weapon systems currently being
developed — and to some extent already deployed — by the Pentagon are
intended to provide the kind of ‘full spectrum theater dominance’ that would
be needed for that kind of ‘war management’. In addition, neutron bombs
offer the advantage of killing populations without causing property damage
or undue fallout.

We cannot be sure whether or not the Pentagon considers itself adequately

prepared as yet for this possible war, but we can imagine the preferred
Pentagon scenario when the preparations are complete: a surprise first
strike, begun with a high-altitude burst that disables all electronic devices in
China, followed up by a massive nuclear strike with neutron bombs, and
accompanied by the use of space-based and other esoteric systems to
minimize China’s strategic response from any submarines or long-range
missiles that might survive the first strike. A depopulated China, with intact
infrastructure, would dramatically advance elite Anglo-American objectives,
as regards both hegemony and population reduction. And clearly the U.S.
would take possession of China, and its resources, in the aftermath.

The situation becomes more complex when we take into account as well the
currently developing oil shock, and the likely collapse that will follow. These
measures go a long ways toward stopping China’s advance without the need
for outright warfare. China is of course well aware of all of these scenarios,
and is endeavoring to defend itself as best it can on all fronts. It is in this
broad context that we need to consider the situation vis a vis Iran. Iran is of
central strategic importance in all of these considerations.

China’s defense against the oil shock — and against the Anglo-American oil-
dominance strategy generally — takes the form of an aggressive campaign
to secure sources of oil that are independent of the Anglo-American Seven
Sisters cartel. In this regard we might recall China’s recent bid to acquire
Unocal, which Washington quickly quashed. The oil and gas arrangements
with Russia are an important part of China’s oil-acquisition campaign, and so
are the deals China has developed with Iran and Venezuela. There’s not
much Washington can do about the arrangements with Russia, short of a
large-scale military confrontation. On the other hand Washington could easily
prevent oil shipments from Venezuela, by either blockade or intervention,
whenever it chooses to do so. Iran, with its immense reserves, is the ‘hot
spot’ in this struggle over oil sources. That is where the neocons can do
something to thwart China’s oil-acquisition campaign, and where doing
something will be a non-trivial operation.

Iran today is like the Balkans prior to World War 1 — it is the place where the
designs of the two protagonists ‘meet on the ground’, where armed
confrontation is most likely to begin, and where the potential for escalation is
very high. China, in cooperation with its newly reconciled Russian ally, has
been supplying Iran with advanced missile systems, in an attempt to deter
an American invasion. America meanwhile is beating the war drums,
announcing a policy of ‘first use’ of nuclear weapons, and attempting to stir
up support for its fantasy that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, despite
the egg Washington still has on its face from its fictitious Iraqi WMDs.

Iran may indeed already have nuclear weapons — in the warheads supplied
by China and Russia with their advanced missiles. But this possibility, and
the Chinese-Iranian alliance generally, are never mentioned in Washington’s
anti-Iranian propaganda campaign — because Washington does not want to
draw attention to the actual geopolitical situation. Similarly, Washington
never discusses the obvious fact that the PNAC agenda and oil were primary
in its decision to invade Iraq. WMD fantasies provide both an excuse and a
cover story for invasion, as regards both Iraq and Iran.

There can be little doubt that an American invasion of Iran is imminent. Such
an invasion is the obvious next step in the PNAC-oil-dominance agenda, and
if that agenda is abandoned Washington would be giving up on its drive for
total global domination. I think it is safe to assume that the neocons, and
their elite backers, are not prepared to throw in the towel. The question as
regards an invasion of Iran is not if, but rather when and by what scenario.
As regards when, the evidence indicates very soon. Israel has already been
supplied with ‘bunker buster’ bombs, which would presumably be used in a
first-wave assault. Covert terrorist operatives are already conducting
sabotage in Iran, and an arrangement has been worked out with the Turks
and the Kurds by which Kurdish separatist fighters will be concentrating their
operations in Iran, with American financial support. America’s new forward
bases in Iraq provide a very convenient launching platform for an aerial
assault. The various necessary preparations for invasion seem to be well
advanced. With Washington’s announcement of a ‘first use’ policy for nukes,
the U.S. is in some sense ‘telegraphing its punches’ as regards an invasion.
This is something we would expect them to have delayed until near the
intended time of invasion, so as to minimize the political fallout in the
interim. There have been numerous reports that U.S. military leaves have
been cancelled, which if true would also indicate that the time is nigh. Bush’s
declining popularity, and the quagmire situation in Iraq, would also be
reasons to undertake the invasion now rather than later, thus shifting all
attention to other matters.

The planned scenario for the invasion seems to be very clear: a phony
terrorist event will be staged in the U.S., Iran will be blamed, and the
invasion will follow immediately — with no nonsense about the UN,
sanctions, or diplomatic channels. Homeland Security has announced
repeatedly that it ‘knows from intelligence sources’ that a major terrorist
event in the U.S. is ‘expected soon’, most likely involving some American
nuclear facility. Credible reports have circulated indicating that Cheney has
put in place specific battle plans for an invasion of Iran in the event of such
an incident, regardless of whether Iranian complicity can be established.
‘Establishing complicity’ will in any case not be a problem, as Washington will
simply blame Iran based on ‘intelligence information that we cannot disclose
due to security considerations’, or else they will produce an Iranian passport
‘discovered’ in the vicinity of the incident. Just as with 911, all attention will
be on the ‘terrible attack on America’ and there will be negligible political or
diplomatic resistance to whatever ‘retaliatory’ action Washington might
‘deem necessary’ to ‘fight terrorism’. I think it is clear that Washington has
signaled this scenario, and it is a scenario that makes a great deal of sense.

The scenario becomes less clear once the invasion begins. We can be sure
the invasion will be nuclear (neutron bombs to preserve the oil fields), partly
because of the new U.S. first-use policy announcement, and partly because
of the quagmire in Iraq: there is no way the U.S. could manage any kind of
extended campaign in Iran. What is unclear is how widely the conflict will
escalate. Iran has made it very clear that in the event of any attack, it would
retaliate with all means available. We can assume that Iran has scattered
and hid its advanced missiles around its territory so that they would be
unlikely to all be disabled before they could be launched. The obvious targets
would be Israeli cities, U.S. carriers, and U.S. forces in Iraq — all of which
would be easy targets for Iran’s advanced missiles. In addition, Iran would be
able to sink shipping in the Gulf and create a global oil crisis by making
tanker operations impossible until after the mess had been cleared away.

This much escalation is clear. But would it stop there? Would the U.S. want it
to stop there? Would Israel want it to stop there? Would Russia and China
allow it to stop there? We cannot be sure how any of these questions are
likely to be answered. If the Pentagon feels it is adequately prepared for a
confrontation with China (and by necessity Russia), then Washington might
choose to go the whole hog at once, blame China and Russia as well as Iran
for the staged terrorist incident, and launch its first-strike plan against China
and Russia at the same time as the attack on Iran.

Israel, although it usually is kept on a tight American leash, might

nonetheless follow its own lead and escalate at least to Syria. Once one of its
cities has been struck by Iranian missiles, it is difficult to predict how Israel
might respond, perhaps intentionally forcing Washington into a larger war
than the neocons had in mind at this time. Sharon has the right mentality to
play the role of Commander Jack. D. Ripper, in a real world Dr. Strangelove
scenario.

From Russia and China’s point of view, the question would be about
appeasement. Just as with Nazi expansionism, where Britain and France had
to draw the line somewhere, Russia and China know they will need to resist
the PNAC agenda of aggression sooner or later. Could Iran, as was Poland in
1939, be the line they have drawn in the sand? By supplying Iran with
advanced missiles, they at least suggest the possibility that this might be so.
I have seen one report, not confirmed, that Putin has told Washington that
any attack on Syria or Iran would lead to the total destruction of Israel by
Russian nuclear missiles. We do know that China has said it would initiate
nuclear action against the U.S. if Washington interferes in any conflict
between China and Taiwan. This proves that China has the balls to draw a
nuclear line somewhere, making it difficult put limits on how China might
respond to an attack on Iran. Iran is, after all, ‘vital to China’s strategic
interests’ — to cite a phrase that Washington uses routinely to justify its own
interventionist policies. None of us know what secret warnings and counter-
warnings might already have been exchanged between Washington, Moscow,
and Beijing.

If the neocons do ‘get by’ with their attack on Iran, without immediate large-
scale nuclear conflict, tensions between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing
will certainly not be reduced. The neocons will be even more confident in
pursuing their PNAC agenda, and Russia and China will be under even more
pressure to take a hard line, the alternative being eventual capitulation to
total American hegemony.
If for any of these reasons the conflict escalates, perhaps with a delay, into a
full nuclear confrontation, then we are clearly in a truly Apocalyptic scenario.
For now, let’s consider the ‘lesser’ scenario, where the conflict is confined to
the Middle East.

With shipping in the Gulf blocked — and with Iranian oil production brought
to a halt — the oil shock already in progress will be greatly accentuated.
Indeed, the invasion of Iran, besides moving the PNAC agenda one giant step
forward, would also, in retrospect, be seen as the cause of Collapse. The
attack would contribute as well to the depopulation agenda, with the people
of Iran being sacrificed at the altar of the elite clique’s designs.

Fascism

“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 economic self-
denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even
among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to
democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard , p.35

In the event of a major domestic ‘terrorist’ incident, and particularly with a

nuclear war underway in Iran, and a major oil crisis in the works, there can
be little doubt that martial law will be declared in the U.S., with normal
political processes suspended, and the nation put under the control of some
combination of the Pentagon and Homeland Security. Such a takeover is
explicitly called out as the mission of Homeland Security in the event of a
‘Red Alert’, which will clearly be in effect under the circumstances we are
considering. And such a takeover will be very easy to justify, and will by most
Americans probably be welcomed (at first), under these very frightening
circumstances. Under such a takeover, Homeland Security is explicitly
empowered to take control of all food, transport, fuel, and communications,
to forcibly relocate and detain citizens, and to basically do whatever it might
want to do with no kind of legal restrictions or due process.

The Patriot Act and the Homeland Security apparatus amount to a very clear
recipe for a fascist takeover. Only in the shadow of the dramatic events of
911 was it possible for such measures to be justified under the smoke screen
of ‘fighting terrorism’. What do these measures in fact have to do with
terrorism? Britain, which suffered under a very real terrorist campaign during
the Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, saw no need for such extreme measures,
despite outrageous bombings of innocent civilians in London — and the
assassinations of public figures — by a secretive terrorist organization (the
IRA).

Britain then, and the U.S. without the Patriot Act, already had sufficient police
power to undertake whatever surveillance or detainment might be helpful in
curbing terrorist plots. No judge would refuse, even on the flimsiest
evidence, to order the incarceration of anyone who seemed to pose a real
terrorist threat. The problem with terrorist organizations is that they are
highly secretive and compartmentalized. Infiltration and covert surveillance
are helpful tools in fighting such groups, much more so than the power to
indefinitely detain citizens against whom no evidence can be found. These
Patriot Act powers have in fact produced no breakthroughs in terms of
stopping terrorism, but they have served excellently to create precedents for
fascist police powers.

Such a ‘fascist solution’ is nothing new to our ruling elite clique. When
Mussolini took over in Italy, and assured the banks in London and New York
that he would make sure that war reparations would be paid in full, J.P.
Morgan & Co. promptly solidified his fascist regime by loaning him $100
million. Similarly, the Nazi regime was maneuvered into power in Germany
by funding from the Anglo-American banking clique, and by financial
manipulations that ensured the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Not only did
Hitler pay up on Germany’s reparations obligations, and not only did Nazi
remilitarization provide very profitable investment opportunities for the
banks and American corporations, but the European World War 2 theater —
which was primarily a conflict between Germany and the USSR, despite what
we might assume from U.S. and British war films — served Anglo-American
interests very well indeed.

It is from this perspective that we need to view the recent events

surrounding Hurricane Katrina and the fate of New Orleans and its poorer
residents. The threat posed to New Orleans by a major hurricane was very
well known; indeed this was the specific subject of a major FEMA exercise
carried out several months before the actual Katrina event. Nonetheless,
when the category-5 hurricane began to approach New Orleans, FEMA made
no attempt to assist residents to evacuate, nor did it bring in supplies and
personnel to help with the predictable aftermath. Instead, after Katrina
struck, FEMA turned away help that was offered by the Red Cross, the Coast
Guard, the Navy, and many volunteer organizations and individuals — just
when it was most needed — leaving unknown numbers to die unnecessarily.
In addition, many local residents claim that they heard explosions just before
the 17th Street levee collapsed, and that it was intentionally breached —
long after the storm had passed — ensuring that the poorest neighborhoods
would be flooded while assistance was being withheld.
When Federal ‘assistance’ finally did arrive, it arrived in the form of heavily
armed troops, who brought no supplies with them to assist the victims, and
who treated the survivors more like criminals than victims. While the
wealthier residents had been able to evacuate on their own, most of those
left behind were loaded onto busses and shipped off to heavily guarded
detainment centers. This has not been reported in the mainstream media;
instead we are treated to the success stories of the relatively few who were
allowed to relocate into civil society. Weeks after all of these events, a more
humane policy was adopted, and we now read about how those who
managed to remain in New Orleans are being helped to rebuild their lives.

While media reports invite us to interpret these events as resulting from

‘incompetence’, such an interpretation is not credible. One might suppose
that the lack of timely Federal assistance could be chalked up to
incompetence, although this seems unlikely given the preceding FEMA
exercise. But incompetence can hardly be an excuse for the intentional
spurning of assistance from other organizations, when thousands of lives
obviously hung in the balance. Nor is incompetence involved in the forced
detainment of the survivors, and the cover-up of this program in the elite-
controlled mainstream media. Far more likely, what we have seen in New
Orleans is a live-test exercise of Homeland Security’s protocols for dealing
with the War and Collapse scenarios.

A little-publicized fact is that prior to the hurricane, FEMA had been moved
under Homeland Security, and stripped of its primary role: disaster response.
FEMA was told that disaster response would become the responsibility of
some other agency, yet to be established. Recently, after Katrina, President
Bush announced that military troops would in future have primary
responsibility for disaster response. In fact, that shift of responsibility had
occurred prior to Katrina, as was evident in the actual response events. What
seems clear is that the main priority of this militarized disaster-response
regime will be to manage the survivors, rather than minimizing the
casualties in the first place. While such a policy was not actually necessary
with Katrina, it will become necessary in the larger scale disasters that can
be expected as a result of War and Collapse, where preventing casualties will
be either impossible or impractical. By intentionally creating large numbers
of casualties in New Orleans, Homeland Security, with military forces under
its command, was enabled to practice its new response protocols in a ‘live
exercise’.

Another little-publicized item is the role of foreign troops in the aftermath of

Katrina. I’ve seen reports of German troops, Mexican troops, and others,
positioned at various places in the U.S., ready to be called up by Homeland
Security when needed. I found these reports hard to believe myself until I
read an article in an Irish newspaper about an Irish relief organization, where
it was mentioned as an aside that 500 Irish troops were being dispatched to
New Orleans. The idea of America, the most powerful military nation in the
world, inviting in foreign troops to help with domestic disasters seems
bizarre, to say the least. These words of Henry Kissinger shed some light on
this development:

“Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to

restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they
were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or
promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of
the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one
thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario,
individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well
being granted to them by their world government.”

— Henry Kissinger speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992 Bilderbergers meeting.
Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting.

For years, right-wing conspiracy buffs have been claiming that UN troops
were going to be the agents of a military takeover in America, and that this
represents a conspiracy by the “liberal establishment” to create a “socialist
world government”. I always dismissed these theories, partly because of the
actual nature of the UN, and partly because of the actual nature of the ruling
elite clique, which is anything but liberal or socialist in its outlook. But behind
the fantasies and disinformation in these right-wing conspiracy theories,
there seems after all to be an element of truth.

One development we should note in this regard is the changing role of the
UN, a development being actively pushed by Washington. As recently as the
conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the role of UN troops had always been a
passive one, with relatively light armaments, whereby their mere presence
was intended to calm tempers, separate combatants, and minimize conflict.
But since the events in Yugoslavia, and particularly recently, UN troops have
been taking an increasingly aggressive role, so that today their actions can
no longer be distinguished from those traditionally carried out by Western
troops in their role of imperialist domination. As the nature of the UN has
dramatically changed in this way, as the result of U.S. initiatives, the right-
wing conspiracy theories, or at least parts of them, begin to make a little
more sense.

Whenever tyrants have violently suppressed populations with troops, one of

the problems that has arisen has been the tendency of troops to refuse to
fire on their fellow citizens. When the Soviet Union was suppressing the
Hungarian uprising in the 1950s, for example, the Soviets found that even
their own Russian troops were responding in this way as regards the
Hungarian people. So the Soviets brought in troops from remote Siberia, and
these troops didn’t give the Soviets any trouble. The less related the troops
are to the population, the easier it is to deploy those troops against the
population. In suppressing the Iraqi people, American troops serve very well.
In suppressing the American people, non-American troops can be expected
to perform more reliably.

In addition to foreign troops, we need also to consider the role of hardened

mercenaries. Among the security forces now deployed in New Orleans, for
example, can be found mercenaries from Blackwater USA, many of whom
were flown in from Iraq. These forces were selected for this first-response
duty rather than elements of Louisiana’s own National Guard who are
stationed in Iraq, many of whom had been demanding to be returned home
to help out, as is the traditional role of the National Guard. Blackwater
mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and
they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences.
Elements of the Louisiana Guard have subsequently been called home, now
that the live test has been completed.

U.S troop levels are being stressed in Iraq, and to fill the gap unprecedented
numbers of National Guard troops have been deployed in combat operations,
greatly depleting domestic National Guard resources. With the quagmire in
Iraq continuing without sign of let up, and with the neocons intent on
pursuing their PNAC agenda, there is no reason to expect this domestic force
depletion situation to improve, indeed it can only get worse. And as we enter
into the War and Collapse scenarios, the need for domestic security forces
will increase dramatically. As we see foreign and mercenary troops being
used domestically in preference to bringing home the National Guard, we can
see that Kissinger’s predictions, or perhaps we should call them advanced
policy announcements, are beginning to be realized.

Fascism doesn’t necessarily imply cult-nationalism or appeals to racial

superiority. Those themes just happened to harmonize with the fears and
sentiments of downtrodden Germans in the terrible 1930s. What fascism is
really about is an acceptance, on the part of the population, that the state is
all-powerful and can do anything it wants. Hitler accomplished that in one
way, but we can see it being accomplished in our own time by different
means. With the Patriot Act firmly in place, with Homeland Security and the
military in charge of disaster response, with what we have seen of Homeland
Security’s response protocols, with the forced detention of disaster survivors
from Katrina, and with the deployment of foreign and mercenary troops
domestically — there seems to be little doubt that a neo-fascist regime — in
all but name and rhetoric — will be established in America as the Collapse
and War scenarios unfold.

The Final Solution to Peak Oil

Even if the initial nuclear conflict is confined to the Middle East — with oil
tanker shipping and Iranian oil production out of commission — we can
assume that an oil-shock-driven global economic collapse will follow
promptly. With America under Homeland Security regimentation, and with all
communication systems — including telephone, media, and the Internet —
either closed down or tightly controlled, the neocons, on behalf of their elite
sponsors, will be in a position to proceed with their plans for the aftermath,
totally unconstrained by any domestic political considerations. In America
politics will be suspended, as will any concept of freedom or civil liberties.

The situation in the third world is difficult to predict. With so many people
already living in poverty, and many on the edge of starvation, the effects of
collapse, and most likely a total lack of fuel, will be devastating. We can
assume that any nations blessed with domestic oil supplies, such as
Venezuela and in West Africa, will see those supplies seized by American
forces very early on. If the third world is simply left alone at that point, the
elite depopulation agenda will proceed of its own accord. If the elite clique
decides to help that process along, with outright genocidal actions, the rest
of the world would most likely be unaware of the fact. A few neutron bombs
here and there could cheaply and efficiently eliminate millions overnight,
leaving infrastructures intact for future uses.

Conditions in Europe and the rest of the West are unlikely to be very different
from those in the U.S. Even though these political climates are currently
quite unlike the proto-fascist climate in America, an oil shock and general
collapse will create crisis conditions very quickly. With massive
unemployment, transport and electricity grids largely non-functional, and
food distribution disrupted, some form of marital law will be necessary if only
to enable survival of the populations. There is of course the additional
possibility that nuclear war might have affected parts of Europe, depending
on how the conflict between Washington-Tel Aviv and Moscow-Beijing
proceeds.

In addition, we must take into consideration the fact that Patriot Act-like
‘anti-terrorism’ measures have already been enacted throughout most of the
West, at the urging of Washington, and enabled by various unprecedented
‘terrorist’ incidents (e.g. Madrid and London bombings), all of which could
easily have been arranged by Anglo-American intelligence operatives. In this
regard we must keep in mind that Al Qaeda was created by the CIA, and has
been used repeatedly since by the CIA to assist in destabilization operations,
including in Kosovo and Macedonia, and presumably currently in Iran.

As in America, Europe’s ‘anti-terrorist’ measures have little to do with

terrorism, and everything to do with facilitating a regimented society. How
this scenario develops is likely to depend more on the chain of command in
NATO than it will on the sentiments of Europe’s current political leaders. With
American forces in command of all European oil supplies, it is unlikely that
NATO or European leaders would attempt to resist any demands made on
them by Washington. In this scenario, as in the post-911 scenario, America
will appear to be the victim, responding to events, rather than the
perpetrator of those events.

By employing a combination of famine, stirred-up civil wars, biological

warfare, and nuclear annihilation, the clique will be able to reduce global
population levels arbitrarily and relatively quickly. An 80% reduction, well in
advance of 2020, would be very easy to arrange, particularly during the final
confrontation with China and Russia. Presumably Western populations will be
largely preserved, apart from cities lost to nuclear attack — and selective
culling of ‘undesirable minorities’ is very likely. In this regard Katrina serves
as a kind of prototype, where it was mostly poor blacks who bore the brunt of
the disaster and who were then carted off to tightly-guarded concentration
camps — excuse me, detainment centers — to meet whatever fate might be
in store for them there. They’ve been told they’ll be forced to remain there
for the next five months, by which time we’ll be fully into the era of
apocalypse, and anything will become possible.

The Brave New World

With vast oil reserves still untapped, the Anglo-American financial clique will
at this point be in a position to establish the framework of their own design
for a post-apocalyptic world order. As Kissinger and right-wing conspiracy
buffs have predicted, we will most likely see a centralized world government,
perhaps using the name ‘United Nations’, but fully under the control of the
clique. We can also expect a single global currency, a single global
militarized police force, and some kind of regime of enforced birth control,
depending on elite plans for future population distributions.

As outrageous as these scenarios may seem, even more amazing is how

these developments are likely to be perceived by the survivors, and by future
generations. Just as with Word Wars 1 and 2 — both of which were planned
and arranged by the Anglo-American clique — the perception of Westerners,
and the story told in history books, will be that of a heroic West, bravely
resisting aggression by terrorists and by the Sino-Russian axis of evil. And as
in those previous wars, little attention will be paid the fates that were
suffered by third world populations. With all the hundreds of films we’ve seen
about these earlier wars, how many have examined the events from any
perspective other than that of victorious populations and troops — apart
from those that have been aimed at demonizing the defeated evil enemy?

The period of harsh military rule in the West will not last long, and memories
of that interval will be soon replaced, as in New Orleans, by images of troops
helping people rebuild their lives. Rather than perceiving a fascist takeover,
people will be grateful, as Kissinger predicted, that the military ‘maintained
order’, and they will see the new world government as a wonderful advance
for civilization, finally eliminating international warfare. The ruling clique, as
usual, will remain behind the scenes, and people will believe that
‘democracy’ still prevails, as most believe it prevails today, despite
overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The political process will appear to have changed only slightly in the West,
with one more level of government added, as the EU level was added earlier
in Europe. All important decisions, such as those regarding finance, policing,
budgets, taxation, environmental policy, corporate regulations, migration of
populations, the use of genetic-engineering and nuclear technologies, etc.,
will be made by the remote world government. People will feel totally
detached from this centralized process, just as today’s Europeans feel
detached from the decisions made in Brussels. People will be encouraged to
focus their attention on their disempowered local governments, as in the EU
today, and as in Britain, with its phony devolution regime. Whatever suffering
the centralized government might impose on Westerners will be blamed, as it
is today in the EU and Britain, on ‘mismanagement’ by these disempowered
local governments.

Although the political process will seem to have proceeded with considerable
continuity, we can be sure that the elite clique will take full advantage of the
transition process in order to take the remaining populist bugs out of their
pseudo-democratic system. Trial by jury is sure to go, as it gives ordinary
people far too much power. Continuing the propaganda regime that is
already exemplified by the popular CSI and courtroom television dramas,
people will come to understand that ‘incorruptible investigators’ and
‘impartial judges’, can provide more reliable justice than that delivered by
‘error-prone juries’ and ‘self-serving lawyers’. Elections will of course be
carried out by means of electronic voting machines, whose software will be
unavailable for independent audit, and whose results will be pre-determined
centrally. Most likely, all citizens will be implanted by chips at birth, and this
will be justified on the basis of protecting your children from abduction. Any
objectors will obviously be ‘unfit parents’, and their children will be taken
away from them and put into ‘responsible’, chip-friendly families.

The mass media will continue more or less as it is, carefully managed by
elites. The Internet will be tamed, and will be used mostly for commerce and
entertainment, with government licenses required for websites and mailing
lists, as they are currently required for television and radio broadcasters. All
private communications will be openly subject to surveillance — as they in
fact already are. Private use of encrypted communications will be a terrorist
crime, equivalent to bringing a gun on an airliner. Any attempt at popular
activism will be considered a form of terrorism, as it in fact already is in the
fine print of most of our ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation. All of these political
refinements will be accepted without much fuss, because they will all be
carefully sold as ‘democratic and humanitarian reforms’, aimed at making
our lives safer and more convenient. With the Internet tamed, those who
understand what’s really going on will have no effective venue in which to
voice their views, and will assume they are alone in their convictions, as
most of us did prior to the Internet.

Despite this grim picture, let me emphasize once more that the general
public perception is likely to be far from grim. Survivors will welcome this
brave new world, free at last from warfare, particularly after the harrowing
times they’ve recently lived through. Vast territories, depleted of population
by the intervening holocaust, but with many infrastructures intact, will be
available for colonization and reconstruction, leading to a glorious period of
adventurous migration, development, and economic growth — making the
post-World War 2 boom pale by comparison. As with the Victorians in the age
of the British Empire, and the off-worlders in Blade Runner, there will be
ample opportunities to go off to new lands and begin prosperous new lives in
un-crowded surroundings.

With greatly reduced world population, peak oil will no longer be such a
pressing issue. Nonetheless, since the strategy of oil-based dominance will
no longer be required by the elite clique to maintain its power, it is likely that
we will be permitted to enjoy an ecologically enlightened new era, where
sustainability is embraced, global warming is recognized, and amazing new
forms of energy — currently kept hidden — will be ‘discovered’. It is really
absolute power that the elite clique is after, and once they have that, they
will have little incentive to continue destroying the world that they too must
live in.

Even capitalism itself is likely to be tamed of its excesses, or eliminated,

since it is inherently incompatible with sustainability in its current form.
Society is likely to evolve toward a structure reminiscent of land-based
aristocracies of the past, which is a more stable arrangement than
capitalism. The ancient Greeks experimented with aristocracy, democracy,
and dictatorship as forms of government. Their conclusion was that
aristocracy is the most stable, and that democracy and dictatorship tend to
oscillate between one another — with democracy being undone by coups,
and dictatorships being undone by popular revolts. Our elite-sponsored brave
new world is likely to have the political trappings of democracy, the
economic dynamics of a land-based aristocratic system, all under the control
of a highly centralized government. In this way elites can enjoy the
advantages of tyranny, the stability of aristocracy, and the public-acceptance
that characterizes democracy.

After a few generations, all popular memory of previous systems will be

gone, and we will have only propaganda histories to tell us about how bad
everything was before the new enlightened age emerged out of the nuclear
holocaust caused by our earlier primitive societies. Only among those at the
top of the aristocratic pyramid, which will of course be headed by the
descendents of the current elite clique, will stories be told to new
generations of how the current system came to be, so that the next elite
generation can appreciate the historical significance of its own privileged
position, and not be tempted to get sentimental and consider making
democratic changes. In that regard, nothing will have changed.

Can Apocalypse be averted?

I can imagine only one way, at this late juncture, that these scenarios can be
avoided. There is only one organization in the world that has the power, and
the necessary command-and-control, to alter the course that has been set.
That organization is the Pentagon.

There have been reliable reports, and considerable evidence, that some
career professionals in the CIA and the Pentagon are ‘in revolt’ against the
neocons, taking the form mostly of leaks to trusted journalists. It is most
certainly true that the neocons have been conducting a systematic purge of
key people who can’t stomach the neocon agenda. There have been less-
reliable reports, and some actual evidence, that at least one military
commander tried to promote a coup, was thwarted, and was relieved of duty
on a trivial charge.

By and large, career military people are not by nature rapacious imperialists.
Some are, but most are people who actually believe in what America is
supposed to stand for, who consider themselves to be patriots, and who
have devoted their lives to protecting our freedoms. Officers rise in the ranks
not because of their personal agreement with the White House, but because
of their willingness to take orders, and their skill in carrying out assignments.

If ever there was a time for true patriots to come to the defense their
country, and of the world, that time is now. If a few brave Generals and
Admirals were to seize control, put the neocons under arrest, shut down the
corporate media, and articulate their cause to the American people and the
people of the world, they would find themselves greeted by overwhelming
support and gratitude — from American citizens, from the people of the
world, and from within the ranks of their own troops.

---

1994 UN Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide

defines genocide as "the destruction and extermination of a culture", it is instructive to
consider that it also includes five activities considered to be genocidal:
 # Killing members of the group.

# Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

# Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part.

# Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

NSSM 200:

IMPLICATIONS OF WORLDWIDE POPULATION GROWTH

FOR U.S. SECURITY AND OVERSEAS INTERESTS

December 10, 1974

CLASSIFIED BY Harry C. Blaney, III

SUBJECT TO GENERAL DECLASSIFICATION SCHEDULE OF
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11652 AUTOMATICALLY DOWN-
GRADED AT TWO YEAR INTERVALS AND DECLASSIFIED
ON DECEMBER 31, 1980.

This document can only be declassified by the White House.

----------------------------------------------------------

Declassified/Released on 7/3/89
-----------
under provisions of E.O. 12356
by F. Graboske, National Security Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
World Demographic Trends

1. World Population growth since World War II is

quantitatively and qualitatively different from any
previous epoch in human history. The rapid reduction in
death rates, unmatched by corresponding birth rate
reductions, has brought total growth rates close to 2
percent a year, compared with about 1 percent before World
War II, under 0.5 percent in 1750-1900, and far lower rates
before 1750. The effect is to double the world's
population in 35 years instead of 100 years. Almost 80
million are now being added each year, compared with 10
million in 1900.

2. The second new feature of population trends is the

sharp differentiation between rich and poor countries.
Since 1950, population in the former group has been growing
at 0 to 1.5 percent per year, and in the latter at 2.0 to
3.5 percent (doubling in 20 to 35 years). Some of the
highest rates of increase are in areas already densely
populated and with a weak resource base.

3. Because of the momentum of population dynamics,

reductions in birth rates affect total numbers only slowly.
High birth rates in the recent past have resulted in a high
proportion in the youngest age groups, so that there will
continue to be substantial population increases over many
years even if a two-child family should become the norm in
the future. Policies to reduce fertility will have their
main effects on total numbers only after several decades.
However, if future numbers are to be kept within reasonable
bounds, it is urgent that measures to reduce fertility be
started and made effective in the 1970's and 1980's.
Moreover, programs started now to reduce birth rates will
have short run advantages for developing countries in
lowered demands on food, health and educational and other
services and in enlarged capacity to contribute to
productive investments, thus accelerating development.
 4. U.N. estimates use the 3.6 billion population of
1970 as a base (there are nearly 4 billion now) and project
from about 6 billion to 8 billion people for the year 2000
with the U.S. medium estimate at 6.4 billion. The U.S.
medium projections show a world population of 12 billion by
2075 which implies a five-fold increase in south and
southeast Asia and in Latin American and a seven-fold
increase in Africa, compared with a doubling in east Asia
and a 40% increase in the presently developed countries
(see Table I ). Most demographers, including the U.N. and
the U.S. Population Council, regard the range of 10 to 13
billion as the most likely level for world population
stability, even with intensive efforts at fertility control.
(These figures assume, that sufficient food could be
produced and distributed to avoid limitation through
famines.)

Adequacy of World Food Supplies

5. Growing populations will have a serious impact on

the need for food especially in the poorest, fastest
growing LDCs. While under normal weather conditions and
assuming food production growth in line with recent trends,
total world agricultural production could expand faster
than population, there will nevertheless be serious
problems in food distribution and financing, making
shortages, even at today's poor nutrition levels, probable
in many of the larger more populous LDC regions. Even
today 10 to 20 million people die each year due, directly or
indirectly, to malnutrition. Even more serious is the
consequence of major crop failures which are likely to occur
from time to time.

6. The most serious consequence for the short and

middle term is the possibility of massive famines in
certain parts of the world, especially the poorest regions.
World needs for food rise by 2-1/2 percent or more per year
(making a modest allowance for improved diets and
nutrition) at a time when readily available fertilizer and
well-watered land is already largely being utilized.
Therefore, additions to food production must come mainly
from higher yields. Countries with large population growth
cannot afford constantly growing imports, but for them to
raise food output steadily by 2 to 4 percent over the next
generation or two is a formidable challenge. Capital and
foreign exchange requirements for intensive agriculture are
heavy, and are aggravated by energy cost increases and
fertilizer scarcities and price rises. The institutional,
technical, and economic problems of transforming
traditional agriculture are also very difficult to
overcome.

7. In addition, in some overpopulated regions, rapid

population growth presses on a fragile environment in ways
that threaten longer-term food production: through
cultivation of marginal lands, overgrazing,
desertification, deforestation, and soil erosion, with
consequent destruction of land and pollution of water,
rapid siltation of reservoirs, and impairment of inland and
coastal fisheries.

Minerals and Fuel

8. Rapid population growth is not in itself a major

factor in pressure on depletable resources (fossil fuels
and other minerals), since demand for them depends more on
levels of industrial output than on numbers of people. On
the other hand, the world is increasingly dependent on
mineral supplies from developing countries, and if rapid
population frustrates their prospects for economic
development and social progress, the resulting instability
may undermine the conditions for expanded output and
sustained flows of such resources.

9. There will be serious problems for some of the

poorest LDCs with rapid population growth. They will
increasingly find it difficult to pay for needed raw
materials and energy. Fertilizer, vital for their own
agricultural production, will be difficult to obtain for
the next few years. Imports for fuel and other materials
will cause grave problems which could impinge on the U.S.,
both through the need to supply greater financial support
and in LDC efforts to obtain better terms of trade through
higher prices for exports.
In the future, it
will be necessary
to unite the
current
SPACECOM
vision for control
of space to the
institutional
Ends and Means of Space Control
As with defense spending more broadly, the state of U.S. “space forces” – the
systems required to ensure continued access and eventual control of space – has
deteriorated over the past decade, and few
new initiatives or programs are on the
immediate horizon. The U.S. approach to
space has been one of dilatory drift. As
Gen. Richard Myers, commander-in-chief of
SPACECOM, put it, “Our Cold War-era
capabilities have atrophied,” even though
those capabilities are still important today.
And while Space Command has a clear
vision of what must be done in space, it
speaks equally clearly about “the question of
resources.” As the command succinctly
notes its long-range plan: “When we match
the reality of space dependence against
resource trends, we find a problem.”