It isn't nice to block the doorway,

It isn't nice to go to jail,

There are nicer ways to do it,

But the nice ways always fail.

It isn't nice, it isn't nice,

You told us once, you told us twice,

But if that is Freedom's price,

We don't mind.

It isn't nice to carry banners

Or to sit in on the floor,

Or to shout our cry of Freedom

At the hotel and the store.

It isn't nice, it isn't nice,

You told us once, you told us twice,

But if that is Freedom's price,

We don't mind.

We have tried negotiations

And the three-man picket line,

Mr. Charlie didn't see us

And he might as well be blind.

Now our new ways aren't nice

When we deal with men of ice,

But if that is Freedom's price,

We don't mind.

How about those years of lynchings

And the shot in Evers' back?

Did you say it wasn't proper,

Did you stand out on the track?

You were quiet just like mice,

Now you say we aren't nice,

So if that is Freedom's price,

We don't mind.

It isn't nice to block the doorway,

It isn't nice to go to jail,

There are nicer ways to do it

But the nice ways always fail.

It isn't nice, it isn't nice,

Well thanks for your advice,

But if that is Freedom's price,

We don't mind, we don't mind! ___

> [With the collapse of the Soviet Union] NATO forfeited its raison d’etre, and the United States was deprived of any justification for its pursuit of world supremacy. The stick which the US had been wielding on the excuse of “protecting the free world” from the “threat” of the Soviet Union and communism, lost its authority, and the focal point that had supported the pyramid of the US-led alliance diminished considerably. The Iron Curtain was lifted, widely opening the sphere of influence under the former Soviet Union, a much coveted region. The United States, however, lacked a specific justification to fill the “power vacuum” until September 11, 2001.

> In order to reverse the world trend towards multipolarization and allay the spiraling anti-Americanism across the world, the United States needed an event by which it could mislead opinion at home and abroad as in the days of the Cold War and bring about a radical change in the world political sphere.

> The objective of the war [in Afghanistan] was not the capture of bin Laden or retaliation for terrorist attacks, but to exert a long-term influence on Afghanistan to secure a foothold in Central Asia, a region with abundant strategic resources: First, to secure a strategic foothold for containing Russia and China and encircling Iran; second, to secure military means for winning firm control over the two major oil regions in the world-the Caspian Sea area and the Middle East; and third, to secure a centre of operations and advanced base needed for expanding and prolonging the “war against terrorism.”

> The ulterior motives [of the Iraq war] were, first, to overthrow the Saddam regime, which had openly held up the anti-US banner in the Arab world for over ten years, thus realigning the political force in the Middle East in its favour, second, to win exclusive control over the strategic region with energy resources and the world oil market, and third, to create an environment favourable for Bush’s second term of office and the Republicans’ prolonged stay in power.

> Military blockades, a link in the whole chain of the “war against terrorism,” are effected through the Proliferation Security Initiative, which Bush proposed in Krakow, Poland, in late May 2003 and explained in detail at the G-8 summit held in Evian-les-Baines, France. It aims at enforcing economic blockades on the countries that possess, develop and export weapons of mass destruction and searches of their vessels at sea, and further building an international cooperation system for preemptive strike. The targets are Korea and Iran, two of the three countries Bush claimed to be constituting an “Axis of Evil.”

> The countries and regions where the flames of the “war against terrorism” are raging are, without exception, those that have oil resources or where oil pipelines pass through. The Afghan war was directly related to oil and its transport in the Caspian, the third-biggest oil region in the world. Samuel R. Berger, national security adviser to former President Bill Clinton, confessed that America’s vital interests in Central Asia, including Afghanistan, are to safely transport oil and natural gas at any cost.

> The existing pipelines in Central Asia, from which the United States imports oil, pass through Russia. So the United States had to find another transport channel for Caspian oil to avoid Russia’s monopoly of the pipelines. The southward channel passing through Iran was ideal, but America’s relations with the country were a stumbling block.

> Iraq has oil deposits of 112 billion barrels, the next-biggest oilfield after that of Saudi Arabia, and the cost of drilling one barrel was 50 cents before the war, the cheapest in the world. If the United States brought this oil country under its control, it would prove favourable for it to relieve its burden of oil imports, which was estimated to spiral 90 percent till 2020. Moreover, this would deal a telling blow to OPEC, restrict the influence of Russia and other oil suppliers, and seize the lifeline of the European economy.

> Entering 2002, the United States took the lead in inducing early membership for Romania and Bulgaria, countries that have ports on the Black Sea, of NATO, and intensified its military advance into Georgia and other Transcaucasian countries. These actions promoted a plan for laying an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Turkey, by-passing Russia.

> Availing themselves of the “war against terrorism,” the US military-industry complexes, which had been eclipsed after the Gulf War, bounced back. US munitions enterprises, including the four major corporations-Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW-are enjoying a wartime boom.

> After 9/11 the United States did its best to involve as many countries as possible in its own “war against terrorism.” [...] On September 18, 2001, Secretary of Commerce Don Evans warned that such sanctions as blocking access to the American market and reconsidering food assistance would be imposed against those countries that were unwilling to cooperate with the United States in the campaign. This led many countries to donate troops and help with logistics in the “war against terrorism,” and to allow US-led forces to pass over their territorial airspace or use bases in their territories during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or promise cooperation or express understanding-overt or covert cooperation with the United States.

> Bush divided the world into those on the US side and those on the “terrorist” side, through childish logic. Labelling the countries that pursue anti-US independence, that are not obedient to it and that are situated in regions of strategic importance as siding with the “enemy,” he resorted to unprecedented pressure and military blackmail. If the United States could find a “reasonable excuse,” it immediately and unhesitatingly committed military aggression.

> The Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Saddam Hussein government of Iraq became miserable victims of the “war against terrorism.” The next targets of the “war,” which is continuing in line with Bush’s “ripples” strategy, are the DPRK, Iran and Cuba. These countries, though small, stick to the principle of independence, and reject the American view on values. [...] The US attempt to crush the DPRK and realize domination over the whole Korean peninsula constitutes the core of its policy towards the DPRK and the key to its building of a foundation on which to achieve world hegemony.

> The Songun politics the DPRK now pursues acts as a deterrent to the “war against terrorism” and safeguards peace in Northeast Asia as well as on the Korean peninsula.

> To cope with a possible military strike by the United States, Cuba put all its people under arms and fortified the whole country. In December 2004, four million civilians joined the soldiers and reserve forces in the last stage of Bastion 2004, a military exercise aimed at perfecting the principles of “all-people war” against possible US aggression. Cuba’s firm anti-US stand and strong countermeasures will inevitably foil any US attempt to stifle it.

> If the United States continues the “war against terrorism” with the logic that any country that is not on its side is on the enemy’s side, it will inevitably meet self-destruction.

> Bush submitted the Nuclear Posture Review to Congress in January 2002. Outlining the orientation of the nuclear policy the United States should pursue in the forthcoming five to ten years in the report. Bush insisted on changing the strategy of nuclear deterrence. In the part not made public, the report pinpointed the DPRK, along with China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, as targets of nuclear attack, and further expanded the scope and methods of the use of nuclear weapons. [...] The document also advocated nuclear preemptive strike against nonnuclear states by defining five nonnuclear states as targets of nuclear attack.

> In the United States some advocate a theory of “cultural conflict,” which alleges that Islamic culture is fundamentally contradictory to Christian culture. Neocons view that 9/11 proved this conflict and the only way to eliminate it is to reform the entire Islamic world and lead it to Western-style democracy.

> Since 9/11 the United States has claimed that, as the “failed states,” serving as a source of or shelter for terrorism, pose a great threat to global security, the countries that sponsor international terrorism or allow the free activities of terrorists in their territories should also be viewed as “failed states.” Alleging that these countries are deprived of their raison d’etre, it insists that the international community, or some countries, or one country, has a right to take action with regard to such countries, and further to change their regimes to root out terrorism, which threatens the international community. The concept of “bankrupt states” (“rogue states” and “Axis of Evil” included) much touted by the Bush administration serves, in practice, US military intervention in other countries.

> The “war against terrorism” pursued by the Bush administration will eventually end in failure due to its unilateralism that infringes upon the sovereignty of nation-states, illogicality combined with a childish attempt at division of the international political forces, and anachronism.

Chiang Kai-shek, APACL and the Moonies

Domestically the China Lobby was an important precursor of the modern rollback Right, but far more important were the international linkages developed between the CIA and the first major contra army, the Nationalist Chinese.

After being routed from the Chinese mainland, Chiang Kai-shek and his troops (described by U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Stilwell as "a Gestapo") had established themselves on Taiwan by a massacre of perhaps 20,000 Taiwanese. From 1950 to 1970, Chiang and his Nationalist Chinese played major roles in the U.S.-directed covert warfare programs in East Asia. Wherever the CIA went, they were able to make use of the natural networks of Chinese businessmen all over the Pacific. According to Asia scholar Franz Schurmann, the Chinese supplied the CIA with saboteurs, commandos, agents, smugglers, spies, and “businessmen” to help out in the complex world of East Asian transactions.

Close cooperation between U.S. covert intelligence agencies and the Taiwanese government continued in this period. This included the establishment of the Political Warfare Cadres Academy, allegedly with the help of Ray Cline, who was Taiwan CIA Station Chief from 1958-62. This school provided warfare training to thousands of Third World military figures. Prominent graduates include El Salvador's Roberto d'Aubuisson, widely viewed as the mastermind of his country's death squads; Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, a Salvadoran military commander whose troops massacred an estimated one thousand civilians at Mozote in December 1981; Amilcar Santamaria, a rightist Honduran political figure; and numerous other intelligence officers in the armies of Latin American dictators.

Concurrently, the United States collaborated with Chiang Kai-shek and South Korean intelligence in founding the Asian People's Anti-Communist League (APACL) in 1954. Ex-Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe also helped set up APACL. This organization had the purpose of uniting conservatives from all over the Asian continent to battle communism. Possibly arranged through Taiwanese CIA station chief Ray Cline, U.S. funds seem to have helped start APACL. APACL also drew sustenance from the coffers of the Japanese Right. Ryoichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama were prominent members of the wartime fascist Tojo clique who had been convicted of war crimes. In a manner analogous to the rehabilitation of German Nazi war criminals to serve the interests of the West, these individuals were freed in 1948 and helped to bankroll APACL.

Intertwined with APACL was the Unification Church of right-wing Korean Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Moon received major financing from Sasakawa (who has called himself the world's wealthiest fascist) and Kodama. The Korean CIA (whose precursor may have been set up in part by General Singlaub, CIA deputy chief in South Korea in the 1950s), organized by South Korean dictator Park Chung Hee to support his 1961 military coup, adopted the Unification Church as its political arm. Park, as head of one of the world's chief rollback governments, was also a major actor in APACL. In both Korea and Japan, the Moonies and APACL were closely interrelated.

Two important rollback activities in Asia were the Nationalist Chinese attempt to overthrow the Chinese government and the multiple coups in Laos to prevent neutralist governments from gaining power. (See Chapter One.) These two related operations, spanning the 1950 to 1970 period, were the true moments of birth for Rollnet (Note: this is the author's term that refers to a "global rollback network" against communism); individuals joined in covert warfare in Asia then spread out as rollback operatives throughout the world.

Arms and Drugs in Burma

The Burma-based Nationalist Chinese operations directed against communist China in the 1950s were supplied by the CIA airline Civil Air Transport (CAT), with some pilots drawn from the ranks of ex-Nazis recruited by the United States. CAT was originally organized by Gen. Claire Chennault in consultation with Colonel Richard Stilwell, the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination chief for the Far East. Also used in these activities was the CIA-run Sea Supply Corporation, which brought arms to the Chinese contras. Sea Supply was run by Paul Helliwell who, as chief of the OSS mission in China during World War II, had used opium bricks to pay off local informants, initiating intelligence-related involvement with drug traffic. Continuing this tradition, Nationalist Chinese trafficked in Burmese opium, using CAT planes delivering arms to ship the opium out, to-ultimately reach the world market. These GIDO (guns in, drugs out) operations persisted in Laos and later in Vietnam and Central America.

During this period the China Lobby was taking out full-page ads asserting (without evidence) that communist China was behind the heroin trade. But the truth about the Burmese operation leaked, causing a scandal leading to Stilwell's dismissal and the cessation of direct CIA support for the Chinese contras. However, APACL, probably using the same CAT planes, took over the supply operation.

[...]

Besides Burma and Laos, a third Southeast Asian GIDO operation involved the pro-U.S. Montagnards in South Vietnam, whose loyalty was to some extent bought by Air America assistance in bringing the Montagnards' opium crop to the world market. Mafioso Santos Trafficante, fresh from his covert work against Cuba, was also a key organizer of this drug network. The multiple purposes of the drug smuggling were to gain the favor of opium growers, to generate funds for the secret operations themselves, and to gain personal profit. The networks created by GIDO operations formed the basis of Rollnet: U.S. military and intelligence personnel, contra armies, airlines, banks, arms, and drug dealers.

The drug trade run through Air America blossomed. As well as supplying the habits of the addicts that at one point comprised over 5 percent of the U.S. armed forces, heroin from the "Golden Triangle" came home to hook tens of thousands of U.S. citizens. Most of the drugs came through Florida via anti-Castro Cuban networks working with the Trafficante organization, with Trafficante himself visiting Southeast Asia to coordinate the setting up of regional heroin factories to supplement the Corsican networks that heretofore had provided the only source of street heroin.

With the fall of the Saigon regime in 1975, the covert assets that had been carefully nurtured over the years were removed for future use. Under the direction of Assistant Secretary of Defense Erich von Marbod and the CIA apparatus headed by Shackley, millions of dollars worth of arms and profits from the heroin trade were transferred out of Vietnam. Money was deposited in secret accounts around the world. Of special note was the use of the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia, which would provide a secret source of funding over the next few years for U.S. covert operations, including the destabilization of the Australian Labor Party and possibly the South Africa-backed Savimbi insurgency in Angola.

Nugan Hand's connection with the entire Rollnet web is underscored by the people intimately involved with its activities. Individuals associated with the bank included Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines, and Edwin Wilson, later convicted of selling arms to Libya. The president of the bank, which stole the savings of low-level military personnel, was retired Rear Adm. "Buddy" Yates, who had been the chief of staff for planning for U.S. forces in Asia and the Pacific. The head of the bank's Hawaiian operations was retired Gen. Edwin Black, who had been the commander of U.S. troops in Thailand as well as assistant army chief of staff in the Pacific. Former CIA Director William Colby served as a lawyer for Nugan Hand. The bank reportedly laundered money for Suharto of Indonesia, provided services for Marcos of the Philippines, and assisted the Shah in shifting money out of Iran.

Southeast Asia, then, was the cradle of the global rollback network. Close behind in importance was Latin America, in particular the operations involving Cuba.