Elites Rebel Against U.S. Utopian 'Poison'

A Fascinating Paradox

'Divorce Could Become Unstoppable'

'A Great Deal of Unease'

From Volume 2, Issue Number 22 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published June 3, 2003

Elites Rebel Against U.S. Utopian 'Poison'

The Hitlerian-fascist character of the Dick Cheney/Donald Rumsfeld-centered mob now running Washington policy, has engendered an unprecedented crisis within two of the leading oligarchical policy institutions of the trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific elites, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group.

In mid-April, the Trilaterals held their annual plenary gathering in Seoul, South Korea. According to a senior, three-decades-long member of the European branch of the Commission, the tenor of the meeting was dominated by the European representatives' surprise at finding their Asian counterparts sharing their "unease" and "nervousness" about present American policies.

The annual Bilderberg meeting was held in Versailles, near Paris, on May 15-18. Bilderberg participants are traditionally bound to secrecy, but on May 21, London Financial Times Associate Editor Martin Wolf broke the rules, in what was obviously an attempt to warn the informed British and international public, how deep the crisis provoked by the Washington "utopians" has become. American participants included utopians Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Policy Board member Richard "Prince of Darkness" Perle, and Undersecretary of State John Bolton, as well as former U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.

Also attending was the United Kingdom's imperialist media magnate Lord Conrad Black, aka Lord Black of Crossharbour, who gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a British Lord. An avid believer in American imperialism, backed up by the British, Black is a leading "piggy-bank" for the Washington utopians.

A Fascinating Paradox

The indications of intra-Bilderberg/Trilateral tensions have a most paradoxical strategic and political character. These two institutions have been—for 30 years in the case of the Trilaterals, 50 for the Bilderbergers—at the center of policy planning for some of the most nefarious policies of the post-World War II era.

The Commission was launched in 1973 by banker David Rockefeller (also a Bilderberger), with help from Kissinger, Jimmy Carter-era National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Harvard University's Samuel "Clash of Civilizations" Huntington. Huntington's 1975 "Crisis of Democracy" report, which called for post-democratic, fascistoid forms of rule for economic depression-afflicted industrial countries, was emblematic of its orientation. The Bilderberg Group was founded in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a former card-carrying member of the Nazi SS, who was later to launch, together with British Royal Consort Prince Philip, the genocidal World Wildlife Fund.

So, the fact that these institutions are being rent asunder, is no cause for tears. However, the reality is more complicated, and it is here that the world enters some perilous terrain. Over the years, both the Trilateral and Bilderberg groups have come to embody a certain continuity, and predictability, in trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific policies. Also, more reasonable individuals and factions have increasingly participated in these groups' events. An expression of this, is that EIR reporters have encountered Bilderberg and Trilateral insiders eager to open up a dialogue with LaRouche representatives, as they have seen the global situation enter an ever-more critical phase.

By and large, the consensus worldview of members of the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Group can be characterized as "liberal imperialist." The outlook is Malthusian, with a primary intent to preserve the power and interest of financial and banking interests, over traditional industrial interests, and with a bent for manipulative means of social engineering, to control societies. Such figures tend to eschew crude deployment of military force, and tend to avoid what they see as unnecessary conflicts that can lower the threshold for global conflagration. They look with abhorrence at the radical "Hobbesian" worldview that is now hegemonic in Washington, as codified in the Bush Administration's new National Security Doctrine authorizing preemptive military strikes, including preemptive nuclear actions.

'Divorce Could Become Unstoppable'

Martin Wolf's May 21 Financial Times article is in line with this. It was headlined, "A Partnership Heading for a Destructive Separation." He began: "I went to the meeting convinced that divorce between the U.S. and Europe had become possible. I left thinking that it could easily become unstoppable."

Wolf cited Rogue Nation, by former Reagan Administration official Clyde Prestowitz, in which the author charges that "the imperial project of the so-called neo-conservatives is not conservatism at all, but radicalism, egotism, and adventurism articulated in the stirring rhetoric of patriotism." Wolf affirmed, "We must recognize the tension within the Administration between nationalists and neo-conservatives.... Nationalists focus only on direct threats, principally state sponsorship of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Neo-conservatives desire to embed liberal democracy.... The new U.S. doctrines are, from the general European point of view, poison.... A transatlantic alliance cannot be sustained if the U.S. remains dedicated to its current doctrines, except as a state of dependency on one side and mastery on the other."

In the May 22 Asia Times, Pepe Escobar echoed Wolf's assessment: "According to a banking source in the City of London ... American and European Bilderbergers have not exactly managed to control their split, over the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hardline policy against the Palestinians.... Europe's elite were opposed to an American invasion of Iraq.... Rumsfeld himself had promised them it wouldn't happen. Last week, everybody struck back at Rumsfeld, asking about the infamous 'weapons of mass destruction.' Most of Europe's elite do not believe American promises that Iraq's oil will 'benefit the Iraqi people.'... Europe's elite ... are suspicious that the U.S. does not need or even want a stable, legitimate central government in Iraq."

'A Great Deal of Unease'

On May 26, a European Trilateral figure gave a report to EIR on the gathering in Seoul. He stressed that "the current American security strategy, of preemptive military action, is causing a great deal of unease among Asian policymakers. The Asian view we heard, was similar to the view we see in continental Europe, and the degree of similarity was an interesting surprise for us.... While a Euro-Asian partnership, to gang up on the U.S., is not in the cards, the fact is, the Europeans and Asians are definitely uneasy with the way international relations are being managed out of Washington."

A key concern is, "Who's next after Iraq, given the 'Axis of Evil' policy of the Bush Administration?" Naturally, the crisis around North Korea is uppermost in the minds of host country South Korea, Japan, and others.

The South Korean government is "playing a difficult game," he said. President Roh has to deal with "growing anti-Americanism at home," and with managing ties to the United States. South Korea is against a "preemptive military" approach to Pyongyang, knowing the South would suffer massively in a new war. The bottom line is that the Roh government remains steadfast in its commitment to pursue the Sunshine Policy of the Kim Dae-jung government.

With Japan, the matter is more complicated. On the one side, "the Japanese are nervous about the general approach of U.S. strategy, and the doctrine of preemptive strike.... On the other side, the Japanese are themselves defining a 'Red Line' that the North Koreans are not allowed to cross. One of the messages from our Japanese colleagues, was that ... if North Korea goes 'full nuclear,' Japan won't stay on the sidelines. You hear more and more talk about 'finding a way to defend ourselves,' and at a certain point, 'Basta! Enough is enough!'... This implies an option of preemption, and you even hear indirect suggestions that Japan could 'go nuclear.' "

The reading on China that the Trilateral figure acquired in Seoul, is that the Chinese are involved in a "fascinating" balancing maneuver, between their dislike of American strategic policies, and the priority of maintaining good economic relations with the United States. All indications are that the Chinese are "putting pressure on North Korea." Another factor is the SARS epidemic, which may be producing more caution in Chinese diplomatic-political activity internationally.

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