There is No One Left to Stop Them
Paul Craig Roberts,Counterpunch, November 19, 2004

The United States is in dire straits. Its government is in the hands of people who connect to events neither rationally nor morally.


If President Bush's neoconservative administration were rational, the US would never have invaded Iraq. If Bush's government were moral, it would be ashamed of the carnage and horror it has unleashed in Iraq.

The Bush administration has no doubts. It knows that it is right and virtuous. Bush and the neocons dismiss factual criticisms as evidence that the critics are "against us."

People who know that they are right cannot avoid sinking deeper into mistakes. ... ...

Eight of ten US divisions are tied down in Iraq by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents. Polls reveal that most Iraqis regard Americans as invaders and occupiers, not as liberators. US prestige in the Muslim world has evaporated. The majority of Muslims, who were with us are now against us. Sooner or later, this change of mind will endanger our puppet regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

In a futile effort to assert hegemony in Iraq, the US has largely destroyed Fallujah, once a city of 300,000. Hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians have been killed by the indiscriminate use of high explosives.

To cover up the extensive civilian deaths, US authorities count all Iraqi dead as insurgents, delivering a high body count as claim of success for a bloody-minded operation. The human cost for American families is 51 dead and 425 wounded US troops--casualties on par with the worst days of the Vietnam war.

The film of a US Marine shooting a captured, wounded and unarmed Iraqi prisoner in the head at close range has been shown all over the world. Coming on top of proven acts of torture at US military prisons, this war crime has destroyed what remained of America's image and moral authority.

On November 17, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for investigation of American war crimes in Fallujah. This is a remarkable turn of events, showing how far US prestige, and the morale of our armed forces, have fallen.

However, for Bush administration partisans, war crimes are no longer something of which to be ashamed. ... ... and retired military guests have arrogantly defended the marine who murdered the wounded Iraqi prisoner.

... Right before our eyes, the CIA is being turned into a neoconservative propaganda organ as numerous senior officials resign and are replaced with yes-men.

With its current troop strength, the Bush administration cannot achieve the Middle East goals it shares with the Israeli government. Either the draft will have to be restored or mini-nukes developed and deployed. As insurgents do not mass in military formations, the mini-nukes would be used as a genocidal weapon to wipe out entire cities that show any resistance to neocon dictates.

Many Bush partisans send me e-mails fiercely advocating "virtuous violence." They do not flinch at the use of nuclear weapons against Muslims who refuse to do as we tell them. These partisans do not doubt for a second that Bush has the right to dictate to Muslims and everyone else (especially the French). Many also express their conviction that all of Bush's critics should be rounded up and sent to the Middle East in time for the first nuke.

These attitudes represent a sharp break from American values and foreign policy. The new conservatives have more in common with the Brownshirt movement that silenced German opposition to Hitler than with America's Founding Fathers.

Bush's reelection, if won fair and square, was won because 20 million Christian evangelicals voted against abortion and homosexuals. However, Bush's neoconservative masters will use his reelection as a mandate for further violence in the Middle East. They intend to set the US on a course of long and debilitating war.

There is no one left in the Bush administration, the CIA, or the military to stop them.


- posted by ARYABHATT @ 2:41 pm