[Peace-discuss] So This is Why....

[Morton K. Brussel]

Comment from another (former?) right winger concerning Bush and the  
populace.  Seeing the light. Ineptitude there is aplenty from the  
Bush cabal, but the driving force for imperialism is not a question  
of stupidity. --mkb

Begin forwarded message:
>
> Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush
>
> By Paul Craig Roberts
>
>       ---------------
> Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the
> Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was
> Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial
> page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
> coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be
> reached at: paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com
>      ---------------
>
> 01/29/06 "ICH" -- -- Two recent polls, a Los Angeles
> Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News
> poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with
> impeachable offenses. Half of the US population is
> incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding
> information.
>
> Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves
> as a disinformation agency for the Bush
> administration. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio
> are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting
> the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the
> media is affected to some degree.
>
> Despite the media's failure, about half the population
> has managed to discern that the US invasion of Iraq
> has not made them safer and that the Bush
> administration's assault on civil liberties is not a
> necessary component of the war on terror. The problem,
> thus, lies with the absence of due diligence on the
> part of the other half of the population.
>
> Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four
> percent of the respondents have concerns about losing
> civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures
> put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53
> percent approve of spying without obtaining court
> warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."
>
> Why does any American think that spying without a
> warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of
> terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign
> Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is
> disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a
> secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on
> Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a
> president from spying for partisan political reasons.
> The law permits the president to spy first (for 72
> hours) and then come to the court for permission. As
> the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is
> no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism
> than spying with a warrant.
>
> Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has
> played along with the Bush administration and
> formulated the question as a trade-off between civil
> liberties and protection from terrorists. This
> formulation is false and nonsensical. Why does the
> media enable the Bush administration to escape
> accountability for illegal behavior by putting false
> and misleading choices before the people?
>
> The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally striking
> anomalies. Only 43 percent said they approved of
> Bush's performance as president. But a majority
> believe Bush's policies have made the US more secure.
>
> It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans
> are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim
> countries and constantly threatening two more with
> military attack. The invasions and threats have caused
> a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US.
> Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of
> Muslims had a favorable opinion of America. Now only
> about 5 percent do.
>
> A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East
> experts have told the American public that the three
> year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to
> train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many
> times its former size. Moreover, the US military has
> concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in having its
> members elected to the new Iraqi government.
>
> We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in
> Pakistan. In the recent Egyptian elections, the
> radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being suppressed
> by the Egyptian government, won a large number of
> seats. In Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward
> al Qaeda control about half of the government. In
> Iraq, Bush's invasion has replaced secular Sunnis with
> Islamist Shia allied with Iran.
>
> And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian
> election, we see the total failure of Bush's Middle
> Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in displacing
> secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and
> replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the
> mind that this disastrous result makes Americans feel
> safer!
>
> What does it say for democracy that half of the
> American population is unable to draw a rational
> conclusion from unambiguous facts?
>
> Americans share this disability with the Bush
> administration.
>
> According to news reports, the Bush administration is
> stunned by the election victory of the radical
> Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed
> Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush
> administration astonished?
>
> The Bush administration is astonished because it
> stupidly believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims
> should be grateful that the US has interfered in their
> internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies and
> puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to
> achieve, instead, purposes of the US government.
>
> Americans need desperately to understand that 95
> percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were
> created in the past three years by Bush's invasion of
> Iraq.
>
> Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush
> attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will
> explode, and American civil liberties will disappear
> into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United
> States.
>
> The total lack of rationality and competence in the
> White House and the inability of half of the US
> population to acquire and understand information are
> far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.
>
> America has become a rogue nation, flying blind,
> guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible
> catastrophe awaits.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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