[Peace-discuss] Where we are now, another view

[C. G. Estabrook]

	November 19, 2004
	There Is No One Left to Stop Them
	by Paul Craig Roberts

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 U.S.
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. The Bush administration led the U.S. into a war on the basis of
claims that are now known to be untrue. Yet, President Bush and Vice
President Cheney consistently refuse to admit that any mistake has been
made. The chances are high, therefore, that the second Bush administration
will be more disastrous than the first.

The first Bush administration has cost America 10,000 casualties (dead and
wounded). Eight of 10 U.S. 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. U.S. 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 U.S. 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, U.S. 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 320 wounded U.S. troops – casualties on par with the worst days
of the Vietnam War.

The film of a U.S. 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 U.S. military prisons, this war
crime has destroyed what remained of America's image and moral authority.

On Nov. 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 U.S. 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. Reflecting the neoconservative mindset
that America's monopoly on virtue justifies any and all U.S. actions, Fox
"News" talking heads and their Republican Party and retired military
guests have arrogantly defended the Marine who murdered the wounded Iraqi
prisoner.

Iraqi insurgents are condemned for deaths they inflict on civilians. But
when American troops fire indiscriminately upon civilians and U.S. missile
and bombing attacks kill Iraqis in their homes, the deaths are dismissed
as "collateral damage." This double standard is a further indication that
Americans have come to the belief that U.S. ends justify any means.

A number of former top U.S. military leaders and heads of the CIA and
National Security Agency have condemned Bush's invasion of Iraq as a
"strategic blunder." These are people who gave their lives to the service
of our country and can in no way be said to be "against us."

However, the Bush administration and its apologists regard critics as
enemies. To accept criticism means to be held accountable, something the
Bush administration is determined to avoid. Condoleezza Rice, who failed
as National Security Adviser to prevent the Pentagon from using fabricated
information to start a Middle East war, is being elevated to secretary of
state in Bush's second term.

Indeed, the entire panoply of neoconservatives, who intentionally
fabricated the "intelligence" used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
are being rewarded by promotion to higher offices. Stephen Hadley is
moving up to National Security Adviser. Hadley is the person who advocates
"usable" mini-nukes for the U.S. conquest of the Middle East.

John Bolton is to be Deputy Secretary of State. Bolton is the person who
wants the U.S. to invade Iran. The few officials who are not warmongers,
such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage, are leaving the Bush administration. 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 U.S. 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.

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