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

[Chas. 'Mark' Bee]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
To: <Peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com>
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 8:17 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Where we are now, another view


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

  I would say "excellent article", but as these are my own thoughts exactly, I'm a little biased.  ;)

  It seems to help me dodge the fair use freepers as I post this stuff around the newsgroups if there's a URL, BTW.  In 
this case, Google apparently can't find this yet..?  -cmb


>
> 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 â?" 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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