Update: Carter, the Crisis of Democracy and the 'New Pearl Harbor'

In his 1997 book, Zbigniew Brzeziński, a key member of the Carter administration, described the need for "a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." That happened four years later.

This image captures a moment during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In the foreground, military personnel can be seen moving quickly around aircraft and naval equipment, highlighting the chaos and urgency of the situation.

I’m planning a new edition of Planet Waves FM for Monday evening that develops these issues, looks at the astrology of the LA wildfires, and much else. Check for an email announcing the program.

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Dear Friend and Reader:

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article. One question I’ve had over the years is, what does Trilateralism look like in the 21st century? Well, it looks like the 21st century!

Many people are aware of the Project for the New American Century, whose 1997 report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, was signed by 10 individuals who would become prominent members of George W. Bush’s cabinet, including and especially Dick Cheney, his vice president.

It contains this statement, which I have paraphrased in the past:

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Some catastrophic and catalyzing event. Does that remind you of anything?

The Pearl Harbor reference of course is to the allegedly surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941 by the Japanese on an American military base in Hawaii, which enabled Pres. Roosevelt to enter World War II in both the Pacific and in Europe. Until that time, the U.S. was supposed to have been neutral in World War II.

Was Pearl Harbor a surprise? Did Roosevelt know it was coming? Had the U.S. already cracked the Japanese code by then? Had Japan declared war against the U.S. on Dec. 6? These are questions that have answers.

Amazingly, the New American Century group — that is, the core of the forthcoming Bush administration — came right out and stated their planned strategy for a “catastrophic and catalyzing event.”

Ideally, the report argued, this “new Pearl Harbor” would happen early in the 21st century so that the United States could get busy and would have an excuse for a massive shift in its priorities to military spending — and once again attain world dominance — the “new American century.”

However, this idea appears to come from the mind of Trilateral Commission founder and geopolitical mastermind Zbigniew Brzeziński, discussed in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard. Brzeziński was the national security advisor to Pres. Carter who also orchestrated the creation of the commission for David Rockefeller a few years earlier. Carter, too, was a founding member, as was his vice president and all of his civilian military advisors. The Carter administration was the Trilateral Commission.

‘Too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad’

In my article Thursday, I quoted Brzeziński’s openly-stated discussion of internal challenges facing a United States plan for global domination, which is a central priority of the Trilateralists:

“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.”

However, I left out his even bolder statement from p. 211 that more directly implicates him in the “new Pearl Harbor” concept:

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”

Which happened on Sept. 11, 2001. Nobody can say these events are not planned; either that or you might surmise they visit a talented clairvoyant.

American soldiers overseeing training of their Afghan counterparts at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, March 22, 2016. Photo by Adam Ferguson / NYT

How do we know they’re talking about the same thing?

The connection is Afghanistan, a place few Americans (except for gem collectors) knew about or cared about in 2001, and which posed no military threat to the U.S.

Yet just one month after the 9/11 incident, the United States began an attack on Afghanistan that lasted 20 years: for practical purposes, a permanent occupation, twice as long as U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Technically, it was America’s longest war.

Tell me, what exactly was the connection between Osama bin Laden, al-Quaeda and Afghanistan, the alleged leader of the 9/11 operation? None of the 19 claimed hijackers were Afghani; they were all said to be Saudi and Emirati — that is, nationals of U.S. allies, not enemies. Isn’t that strange?

Equally strange: why was attacking Afghanistan the first and immediate response to 9/11? At the time, there was no discussion about this; people in the U.S. were so numb, the Bush administration could have done anything it wanted. (The Bush administration claimed there was a training camp in Afghanistan that was used as part of the 9/11 operation. But that would not have necessitated a 20 year assault on, and occupation of, the country. No excuse was too flimsy.)

Notably, Afghanistan went back into the opium poppy business after the Islamic government, the Taliban, was thrown out of power. When you hear “opium,” think “opioid crisis.”

Afghanistan Parts One and Two — Over 43 Years

Afghanistan had a backstory, under Carter: his national security advisor Brzezinski had initiated an Islamic insurgency there in July 1979, which lured the Soviet Union into a trap, something he bragged about in a 1998 interview.

Brzezinski said in that interview:

“That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”

Osama bin Laden, an American CIA asset, was involved in the Afghan Islamic insurgency as a leader of the militant group al-Qaeda. That is to say, bin Laden fought in the Soviet–Afghan War as part of the Afghan mujahideen. His enemy was the USSR, not the United States. And Brzeziński admits that this was all his idea; bin Laden was working for him.

Then conveniently, bin Laden was blamed for 9/11, though no context was given at the time for explaining who he really was — and few people know today.

So the Afghan operation really spans from 1979 through 2021 — 43 years. That is classic Trilateralism: take the long view, and the policy is sustained from administration through administration, whether Democratic or Republican. There are no friends or enemies, only assets and scapegoats — who in the case of bin Laden are the same thing.

The same was true of Saddam Hussein — but that’s another story. And there is much to tell about the Iranian revolution of 1979, the taking of the hostages, the eventual release of the hostages the day Reagan was inaugurated, and the Iran-Contra affair — all for another time.

With love,

Your faithful astrologer,