[Mb-civic] Deranged, Disconnected, and Dangerous Part II

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12432.htm

Deranged, Disconnected, and Dangerous

by Paul Craig Roberts

03/21/06  -- -- On March 17 William Rivers Pitt wrote that Bush is
"deranged, disconnected, and dangerous." In his March 20 Cleveland
speech, Bush proved Pitt right.

Bush gave a delusional speech that shows he is detached from reality.
"We're going to help the Iraqis build a strong democracy that will be an
inspiration throughout the Middle East, a democracy that'll be a partner
in the global war against the terrorists."

Has no one told Bush that the Iraqis cannot even agree to form a
government?

The day before Bush's delusional Cleveland speech, Iyad Allawi, the former
prime minister of one of our make-believe Iraqi governments, said that in
Iraq the casualty rate from the sectarian strife is so high that "if this
is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

The day of Bush's delusional speech, Patrick Cockburn, present on the
scene in Irbil, Iraq, gave a much more truthful account of the situation.
Writing in CounterPunch, he reported: "Iraq is a country convulsed by
fear. It is at its worst in Baghdad. Sectarian killings are commonplace. .
. . The scale of the violence is such that most of it is unreported. . . .
Unseen by the outside world, silent populations are on the move,
frightened people fleeing neighborhoods where their community is in a
minority for safer districts. There is also a growing reliance on militias
because of fears that police patrols or checkpoints are in reality death
squads hunting for victims."

Not a word of this reality from our delusional president.

The fantasy Iraq that Bush painted was only his warm-up. He went on to
tell his Cleveland audience that American could not be safe unless Iraq
was a democracy. What a weak, pitiful, vulnerable place Bush's America
must be. Unless a small, devastated Middle Eastern country is a democracy,
America cannot be safe. Who in the Cleveland audience could possibly have
believed this utter nonsense.

Bush told his audience that "the security of our country is directly
linked to the liberty of the Iraqi people, and we will settle for nothing
less than victory." What victory is he talking about? Despite the huge
sums of dollars paid by the Bush regime to all the leaders of all the
factions, Iraq cannot form a government.

Without victory, Iraq will be "a safe haven for terrorists to plot new
attacks against our nation." Alas, there were no terrorists in Iraq until
Bush invaded the country and drew them in. The problem our troops face in
Iraq is not terrorists, but resistance fighters, "insurgents" in the Bush
regimes parlance. Democracies lack the dictatorial, extra-legal powers to
suppress terrorists. That is why Bush is destroying civil liberties in the
US. Under Saddam Hussein, there were no terrorists and no insurgents. Bush
is modeling his no habeas corpus, torture prone, all intrusive government
on Saddam Hussein.

The security of Americans has nothing whatsoever to do with Iraq. Iraq
cannot overthrow the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the separation
of powers, and American civil liberties. Iraq cannot illegally spy on
American citizens, declare them to be "suspects" and detain them forever
without warrant or charges. Iraq cannot put American critics of the Bush
regime on "no-fly" lists.

The real dangers to Americans reside in the neocon Bush administration.
This delusional warmonger administration believes it has the power and the
right to dictate to Muslim countries their political and social
institutions. This extraordinary arrogance and hubris breeds opposition
where there was none. The world is not going to obey Bush and a handful of
stupid neocons.

In his speech Bush told Cleveland that "the decision to remove Saddam
Hussein was a difficult decision." That is a lie. Bush's Treasury
Secretary, Paul O'Neill, and a number of others have reported that Bush
came into office intending to remove Hussein. The head of British
intelligence told the British Cabinet that Bush first decided to go to war
and then created the reasons to justify his aggression against Iraq.

"Before we acted," Bush told his audience, Hussein's "regime was defying
U.N. resolutions calling for it to disarm. It was violating cease-fire
agreements, was firing on American and British pilots which were enforcing
no-fly zones." Gentle reader, think what Bush is saying. As Iraq had no
weapons of mass destruction, a fact that Bush has acknowledged, how could
Iraq possibly have been violating U.N. resolutions calling on it to
disarm?

What cease-fire agreements are Bush talking about? It was US and UK planes
that continued to fly over Iraqi territory and bomb Iraqis.

Do you know what Bush means by no-fly zones? He means that US and UK 
jet
fighters could fly all over Iraq, but if Iraqi planes flew over Iraqi
territory, we would shoot them down.

Where did the US get the right to tell countries that they dare not try to
control their own air space?

Americans need to understand that terrorists are responding to America's
behavior, or misbehavior. The only successful way to stop terrorism is to
alter our behavior. America is not God. It has no right, and it certainly
lacks the power, to impose its will on the world.

The Bush regime cannot lead the world to democracy by tearing democracy
down at home. Not since Abraham Lincoln have American civil liberties been
so threatened as by the Bush regime. America even has an Attorney General,
a Vice President, and a Secretary of Defense who believe in torture. How
do they differ from officials in the Third Reich or Stalin's KGB? Anyone
who believes in torture is not an American. That person is outside our
tradition. Yet, it is people who believe in torture who occupy our highest
offices.

When we get the mote out of our own eye, then we can instruct the Middle
East. Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is Chairman of the Institute for
Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is
a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing
editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S.
Treasury.

***


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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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