A successful war in Iraq... will be good for the [US] economy. (Larry Lindsey, former economic adviser to Bush).

It is easy. All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. (Hermann Goering, Hitler's deputy and head of Germany's armed forces in WWII)

The events of September 11, 2001... opened vast, new opportunities. (The National Security Strategy of the United States, September 17 2002, p 28)

The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments. (Henry Clay, speech in the US Senate, March 1834)

Two non-accountable, para-governmental Washington 'think tanks', the Project for the New American Century and the Council on Foreign Relations are amongst the non-elected pressure groups which set current US expansionism in the context of a long history of harmful US 'interventions' in other countries. This site has a particularly well-documented exposition of aggression against Iraq and the Iraqis by those seeking to destroy lives and land in their greed for profit from oil.

For example the massacre of 'prisoners of war' in Afghanistan in 2001 as recorded in a 50-minute documentary, 'Afghan Massacre Convoy of Death', by Scottish journalist Jamie Doran and Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi. In the UK Operation Rockingham appears to have deliberately skewed 'evidence' of Iraq's 'threat' in the months leading to the invasion – and been listened to by Blair. This excellent article, originally published in "Vorwarts" in Germany is one of the best short summaries of what the US administration is doing – and why, and what the implications are for democracy.

A particularly timely and exhaustively-documented and sourced rehearsal of the hypocrisy and lies which drive current US foreign policy is John Pilger's latest book, 'The New Rulers of the World'. Pilger explains cogently, for instance, how sanctions against the civilians of Iraq since 1991 that are inspired, supported and executed by the US have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

Planned US aggression now includes, it has been suggested, a secret US agency (the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, (P2OG), or 'Gray Fox') to provoke existing organizations into acts of terrorism against the US in order to fabricate further spurious excuses for changing the regimes and way of life for any non-white country which the US disapproves of.

In particular, and particularly ominously, a report from PNAC co-authored by prominent members of the unelected Bush administration explains unambiguously why and how the United States intends to 'dominate the world order', by force if necessary using the fiction of a 'war on terrorism' and/or repeated lying about 'weapons of mass destruction' in target countries. This is a useful, shorter summary, explaining clearly the determination of the current US administration to exert decisive influence at all costs the world over. PNAC Revealed is a site which does just that and a profiles the protagonists and their policies, with some useful quotes and lots of illuminating sources elsewhere on the web and in the media.

Michel Chossudovsky's book 'War and Globalisation The truth behind September 11' suggests convincingly that the US actively promotes certain Islamic fundamentalist movements (and indeed actively – if covertly – funds them) because they (can be induced to) provide the instability and deflection from the broader anti-globalisation movements worldwide which might more effectively threaten the US militarist/corporate agendas. There is growing evidence that this extends to indirect but demonstrable United States complicity in the events of September 11 2001: co-operation between the Pentagon, FBI and ISI, the intelligence service of US ally, Pakistan, was close. It is likely that the US knew about and approved of the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban (this is a matter of public record). It is also likely that when a senior Pakistani official, Mahmoud Ahmad wired $100,000 to alleged September 11 lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta, the US acquiesced, thus effectively playing a perhaps decisive part in the attack on its own territory and loss of life of more than 3,000 of its own citizens. This, however, is merely consistent with the Bush family's links to 'terrorism' in the form of well-documented business deals between the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, with which Bush is closely involved, and Osama bin Laden's interests in Saudi Arabia. The WhatReallyHappened site has further background on and specific interpretation of possible involvement of the present US administration in the attacks on US civilians on September 11 2001. Here is a comprehensive – and staggering – catalog of the wider damage Bush has done: a good set of sources.

A number of analyses published this summer make plainer than ever many aspects of the 'agenda' of the unaccountable fascist ideologs currently driving American domestic and foreign policy. Notable among them is from Steven E. Miller on Common Dreams, which identifies three planks to the unprecedented attack:

1. a fundamental stripping down of the role of government to make way for even greater corporate profit and to squash any constitutional opposition and/or move towards greater democracy through organized resistance – particularly from the Labor Movement
2. a shift in emphasis from taxation of capital to taxation on consumption, further impoverishing the working class and better ensuring corporate profit; and supporting aims 1 and 3
3. a move to elevate role of the American corporate-state machine to act os bully-arbiter in world affairs in the interests of ensuring maximum access to markets and profit-opportunities. A world running more than ever on fear and oppression (of whole continents and peoples). Increased military spending and the fiction of a 'terrorist threat'

'Terrorism' is known as 'liberation' when practiced by the US. When 'hostages' (such as the many being held illegally in Guantanamo Bay) are taken by the US, they are 'prisoners of war'. Similarly, US 'weapons of mass destruction' are known as 'defense forces' when used by the US or its allies to kill civilians of countries which do not follow US directions. Such double standards are the real reason for the aggression against Iraq, as exposed by the present government itself in terms of "maintain[ing] American military preeminence to secure American geopolitical leadership" etc. Read this PNAC paper and be scared! A Counterpunch article exposes in parallel the misdeeds of Karl Rove, Bush's dirty tricks manager. The Global Policy Forum does a good job of monitoring, interpreting and critiquing US the priorities, hypocrisy, damage and distortions of United States foreign policy. As has been reported recently, the US is apparently planning to turn Guantanamo Bay into a Death Camp where those captured can be 'tried' and executed without access to recognized legal rights.

Why not to act this way is well set out both by the Dallas Peace Center and the former war veterans site, Voices in the Wilderness. The Crimes of War Project also explains why the US/UK attack on Iraq was itself a war crime before the attempted annexation even began. Paul Wolfowitz, a member of the Bush cabinet, has now publicly admitted that a key motive for the deaths of thousands was so that US companies could have access to Iraq's oil – as now has been semi-secretly achieved through an executive order, signed on May 28, effectively subverting even the extremely questionable 'Development Fund for Iraq'.

The Global Policy Forum has an excellent in depth analysis of the legal issues of the US/UK attack on and occupation of Iraq; the Center for Economic and Social Rights – in addition to an emergency relief campaign for Iraq – has a superb paper on the implications for and cost to (international) law of what the US administration has done in this unprecedented invasion. The Center for Economic & Social Rights, an excellent source of news and encouragement in the face of US aggression and destruction, has Arundhati Roy's May 13 Riverside Church (NY) speech – another superb and inspiring, closely-reasoned survey of the dangers and horrors of the way the US now conducts itself; why; and where its militarism seems likely to try and bully the rest of the world into going if not resisted at every corner. Roy ends with ways to begin this battle, particularly in terms of bringing corporations to their knees.