ex-CIA man says world war IV has started

But World War IV may not be as painless, according to James Woolsey, CIA director from 1993 to 1995 and who will head a post war Iraq "ministry of information".

Woolsey writes in the Grauniad today that World War III was the cold war, and we won that. Funny that, we thought the Sovietski and its satellites collapsed by themselves, from inside.

He says that World War IV will be fought to extend democracy to those parts of the Arab and Islamic world that threaten our liberal civilisation.

Mr Woolsey helpfully points out that the USA helped to win the First World War when it joined arms in 1917 - three years after the war had claimed the lives of millions of young men on the killing fields of Europe.

It prevailed in the Second World War, along with Britain.

The USA won the Third World War. Now it's busy waging the Fourth World War, which may take years, he says.

He reckons 200 million Muslims live in peace in the Indian democracy, "except for in one state". Maybe he should have a read of Arundhati Roy's piece, here.

"Even the Taiwanese" have figured out how to run a democracy, Woolsey says. Although he doesn't address the problem of the "Confucian Chinese" of mainland China, a country with over one billion people and armed to the teeth with the USA's own technology.

Or perhaps that's World War V...

L'INQS
The Grauniad
Project for the New American Century
Rebuilding America's Defenses (PDF) Page 31 Increase presence in South East Asia
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal