Communist rebels in the Philippines are said to be plotting against the life of President George W. Bush, scheduled for a state visit on Oct. 18. Taiwan is warning of a Chinese attack as PLA military preparations intensify. The Chinese military is also building up along the North Korean and Indian frontiers. To the south, Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz is accusing the United States of being the "king of terrorists." Further south, Men of "Middle East appearance" recently breached Australian security, making off with computer data from the country's intelligence agencies. If this were not enough, Islamist spies infiltrated a U.S. military base where terrorist prisoners are kept. The White House is being accused of blowing a CIA officer's cover. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, America's best friend in Europe, is beleaguered within his own Party with polls showing a majority prefer his resignation. Egypt's alliance with the United States is an illusion, according to an article in October's Atlantic Monthly. Iran's supreme leader is publicly threatening Israel with missile attack. Iranian immigrants have been caught with cameras lurking near a Plymouth, Mass. Nuclear power plant. And there is more.
The undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, recently told Congress "Syria permitted volunteers to pass into Iraq to attack and kill our service members during the war, and is still doing so." President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, after criticizing the U.S. effort in Iraq during a speech at the United Nations, stopped off to embrace communist dictator Fidel Castro on his way home. The emerging Marxist dictator in Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) is slowly squeezing his opposition out of existence while pro-Castro Ecuador has joined Venezuela to support the communist insurgency in neighboring Colombia. The Colombian government is alleging that Venezuelan air units have been used in support of rebel military operations. Colombian military authorities believe that communist rebels are operating from sanctuaries inside Venezuela and Ecuador. Meanwhile, in Bolivia another pro-Castro regime might easily emerge.
This is a sampling of one-month's news. To grasp the big picture from so many small snapshots is not always easy. Many pundits today are single-issue or single-focus thinkers. Their minds do not stray to the broader significance of so many small, seemingly unrelated stories. We are treated to isolated "sound bites" during regular newscasts. We hear an item mentioned, in brief, then the subject changes to something unrelated. There are few attempts by today's news media to connect one item to another to form a complete picture of what is happening. What we get is a sort of disintegrated, convoluted mishmash from news reports. Public understanding, and the understanding of specialists, is hobbled by this approach to information. Events are not discreet, hermetically sealed items. They are connected to other events.
Whether we recognize it or not, there is a pattern in today's news - a pattern of connections - indicating sympathies and enmities, plots and maneuvers. Seeing this pattern is not terribly difficult. It is only a matter of accessing the larger context. It is a matter of making connections. One is reminded of an old song, titled "Dem Dry Bones." It begins with a stanza that says, "Ezekiel connected dem dry bones." It continues thus:
Your toe bone connected to your foot bone,
Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone,
Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone, etc.
The melody is repetitive, and many readers may know it from childhood. The idea is a holistic one; namely, that everything in the body is connected. The same can be said of things in the outside world. The realization that renders the outside world comprehensible is a realization of relationship and connectivity. Only in their relations do we see the true character of people and objects. The bare facts, presented without a view to larger relations, are neutered nothings. They do not remain in the mind for long because, as presented, they are devoid of deeper significance. If presented as part of a greater thing, directly connected to the vital interests of the average person, these facts would not only be memorable, they would present a timely warning about an emerging hostile combination. If we were going to propose a song modeled on "Dem Dry Bones," we might call it "Dem Dry Facts." Instead of referring to the Ezekiel "connecting dem dry bones" our new song might refer to Jeremiah "connecting dem dry facts."
Osama's folks connected to Saddam's folks,
Saddam's folks connected to Chavez's folks,
Chavez's folks connected to Castro's folks,
Now hear whose enemy they are.
Dem facts, dem facts, dem dry facts,
Dem facts, dem facts, dem dry facts...
The connections are not innocent. There is another common thread. All these folks hate America. The overall picture is one of growing anti-Americanism on every side. It is no accident that British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under assault. He is the one world leader who rushed to be at our president's side immediately after we were attacked on 9/11. As events have since shown, this was more than a symbolic gesture. The propaganda against America did not appear out of nowhere, and neither did the campaign to punish Blair. It existed during the Cold War in an identical form, with literally the same themes as we hear today. Nor is it a spontaneous expression of sentiment. It is an outgrowth of organized politics, international strategy and old grievances.
One might say there are new grievances, especially emerging from the Islamic world. But it is very old stuff, drawn from the hard and crusty left. Today there is an Islamist twist to old themes. The ideas of Indonesia's vice president, Hamzah Haz (who recently denounced America as the "king of terror"), are not only in agreement with Islamist/terrorist themes, but with communist themes as well. We should not be surprised, therefore, that the Manila Times is reporting a plot by the communist New People's Army to kill President Bush. The target of Muslim terror is also the target of communist terror. The connections are visible in the relationships between Cuba and Venezuela, Venezeula and Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda and Iran, Iran and North Korea, North Korea and Syria, etc. The circle of rogue states is an iron chain linked by common sources of supply, common hatred for America, domestic dictatorship, the crushing of human rights, violence and subversive schemes.
We hear the drumbeat of anti-American propaganda day by day. It is a steady thumping that grows louder and louder. We are told that President Bush lied to the American people. We are told that Tony Blair is in trouble with the British public. It is given out that the strike against Saddam was a greedy oil-grab. It was imperialism. It was naked American aggression. Look ma, no weapons of mass destruction.
But there was and is an emerging threat to U.S. national security. It is an economic threat, a terror threat, and it hopes to bring about - after a period of turmoil and loss for the United States - an effective military threat. South America is gradually falling to communism. America's economy and its scientific establishment have been penetrated at many levels by Chinese intelligence. While America's financial institutions are desperately attempting to avoid a debacle, they are compromised by connections to Chinese communist front companies.
The FBI has identified 3,000 Chinese front companies in the United States used to shield Chinese espionage and subversion. The Bush administration is slow to act because American business has become entangled with China at the basic level of trade. Tens of thousands of Chinese agents are operating inside the United States. The FBI assistant director for counterintelligence has described the China penetration threat as "a most grave and present danger." He added that "left unchecked, such a situation could greatly undermine U.S. national security and U.S. military and economic advantage."
This is the big thing that connects all "dem dry facts." It is a game. The name of the game is "undermining America," and a vast network of countries is involved. The process is one of isolating the United States, of dividing America from its traditional allies, of taking over countries in the Western Hemisphere and turning them into bases for terror and future military operations.
After President Vladimir Putin met with President Bush, and we saw the two leaders together, an intelligent friend from Europe called me. As a businesswoman she has long been a student of body language. In watching the two presidents together, she couldn't help noting Putin's body language. It was the language of a person in a dominant position.
The danger to America is growing.
