Zeitgeist
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Zeitgeist: Addendum - Part Two - Page 7
This is the seventh page of part two in my series of articles on Zeitgeist: Addendum. Please refer to the introduction if you were lead to this page.
Taken cumulatively, the integration of the world as a whole, particularly in terms of economic globalization and the mythic qualities of "free market" capitalism, represents a veritable "empire" in its own
right...Few have been able to escape the "structural adjustments" and "conditionalities" of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or the arbitrations of the World Trade Organization, those international financial institutions that, however inadequate, still determine what economic globalization
means...
Such is the power of globalization that within our lifetime we are likely to see the integration, even if unevenly, of all national economies in the world into a single global, free market system.
--Jim Garrison
President, State of the World Forum
The first mention of this quote I can find is in Perkins' book.
(More to come on this later, hopefully. Research still in progress)
The world is being taken over by a handful of business powers, who dominate the natural resources we need to live, while controlling the money we need to obtain these resources. The end result will be world monopoly, based not human life, but financial and corporate power.
This has been going on really since the mid-to-late 1800s with companies like Standard Oil, AT&T, DuPont, various railroad corporations, Procter & Gamble, the list goes on and on.
And, as the inequality grows, naturally more and more people are becoming desperate. So the establishment was forced to come up with a new way to deal with anyone who challenges the system. So they gave birth to the terrorist. The term terrorist is an empty distinction, designed for any person or group who chooses to challenge the establishment.
There are over 100 definitions for the word terrorist. In a US Army field manual I read, terrorism was, "The threat of violence or the use of violence to obtain a political or religious goal." I can't recall which field manual it was, so I can't source it, but you can take that definition how you want. I think it's a bit broad, so my personal definition of terrorism is, "The threat of violence or the use of violence to obtain a political or religious goal against non-military targets." Let's be realistic, if you attack a military target, it's an act of war, but if you attack innocent people that's an entirely different scenario. Of course, that definition is loaded too, especially for the US Military and its history.
This isn't to be confused with the fictional Al Qaeda, which was actually the name of a computer database for the US supported Mujahideen in the 1980s .
There's an actual interview with Osama bin Laden where he explains where the name originates from:
The name "al Qaeda" was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our Mujahideen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al Qaeda [meaning "the base" in English]. And the name stayed[69].
The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified
entity...The country behind this propaganda is the US.
- Pierre-Henry Bunel, former French military intelligence
Interestingly the film says it was "Robin Cook, Former British Foreign Secretary", but the transcript on zeitgeistmovie.com (as of Aug/01/2009) says it was "Pierre-Henry Bunel, former French military intelligence." So which is it?
All over the Internet the quote is attributed to both people. The claim above that "Al Qaeda" was a computer database originates from a 2005 article by Robin Cook in which he states: "Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."[70] But this simply isn't true, Al Qaeda means "base", but the word for database is "Qaeda Bayanat." Saying there's a connection between these is really no different than claiming "Army Base" and "Army Database" are the same[71]. Despite this, there's no original source to say Robert Cook ever said the above quote. The furthest back original source that can be cited is a Pakistani "news agency" (it's a Wordpress blog) and the post no longer exists. When it did exist, however, it was dated as being in 2008, but Robin Cook died in 2005[77][72]. Even so, if he did say it, Robin Cook had a reason to make America and England to look bad, he was publicly fired by Tony Blair[78].
But, what about Pierre-Henry Bunel? Originally he was the French Military Chief of NATO, but was kicked out when he was caught giving NATO military secrets and plans to Jovan Milanovic a Serbian agent in Belgium[73]. He went to prison in 2001, but was released in early 2002[74]. After his release he participated in a 9/11 conspiracy book Le Pentagate by Thierry Meyssan, an author of several other 9/11 conspiracy books[75]. Bunel also has written translations for books by David Ray Griffin, a big name in the 9/11 conspiracy arena[76].
Facing public embarrassment, both of these men had reason to lie, but there's no proof that either stated the quote.
In 2007, the department of defense received 161.8 billion dollars for the so called "global war on terrorism." According to the National Counter Terrorism Center, in 2004 roughly 2,000 people were killed internationally due to supposed terrorist acts. Of that number, 70 were American. Using this number as a general average, which is extremely generous, it is interesting to note that twice as many people die from peanut allergies a year, than from terrorist acts. Concurrently, the leading cause of death in America is coronary heart disease, killing roughly 450,000 each year. And, in 2007, the government's allocation of funds for research on this issue was about 3 billion dollars.
On the one hand the film talks about how money doesn't really exist, but on the other puts value and power behind it, something it claims simply doesn't exist. While the film is more or less correct about the money received, it doesn't state the far more important total cost. For comparison, Vietnam cost about $686 billion and World War II cost about $4 trillion. The Iraq war alone is believed to top out at about $694 billion by the end of 2009[79], combined with the War on Terror (which is hard to measure due to the terrible organization of congressional funding) the total is about $865 billion to date[80].
According to the National Counter Terrorism Center 7,531 people were killed internationally due to terrorist attacks[81]. The database does not provide the nationality of those killed. After a bit of research I found a total of 9 Americans in 2004 that died in terrorist attacks (though, it could be more). I didn't count US Military in Iraq because, while done by terrorists, it seems more like an act of war than an attack directly on civilians[82][83]. The article cited by the movie says there were about 1,800 deaths from "significant" terrorist attacks, which is not explained, what makes one "significant"?[84]
I'm also not sure what makes them "supposed" terrorist attacks to Peter Joseph. I guess this comes from the conspiracy theorist view point that "only our conspiratorial enemies can do wrong, and any other wrong is a result of them."
About 100 people die every year from peanut allergies[85], so even if 70 Americans died in 2004 and that's the average, that isn't "twice" the amount.
While nearly correct, the number of people that die every year of coronary heart disease in the United States is about 459,000[86]. I couldn't find a source for how much the US spends on health care each year, but assuming $3 billion is correct, is this really surprising? America has the most privatized health care system in the world, where 50 million people go without health insurance at all. Is it no surprise they don't give a shit about coronary heart disease? Even so, we can't predict with any decency where the next terrorist attack could happen, what it will be, or how many people will be killed, but if you're obese and/or smoke, over 40, you're extremely likely to die from heart disease or another heart related illness.
This means that the US government in 2007 spent 54 times the amount for preventing terrorism than it spent for preventing a disease which kills 6,600 times more people annually than terrorism does.
You can't prevent people from eating themselves into the grave, even with a trillion dollars.