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What Do We Stand For?
Paul Craig Roberts
Lew
Rockwell.com
Friday, April 4, 2008
Americans traditionally thought of their country
as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world."
Today only the deluded think that. Polls show that the rest of
the world regards the United States and Israel as the two greatest
threats to peace.
This is not surprising. In the words of Arthur Silber: "The
Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans,
that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious
determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars
of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing
authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for."
Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question,
"Why do you support" these horrors?
(Article continues below)
His question goes to the heart of the matter. Do we Americans
have any honor, any humanity, any integrity, any awareness of
the crimes our government is committing in our name? Do we have
a moral conscience?
How can a moral conscience be reconciled with our continuing
to tolerate our government, which has invaded two countries on
the basis of lies and deception, destroyed their civilian infrastructures,
and murdered hundreds of thousands of men, women and children?
The killing and occupation continue even though we now know that
the invasions were based on lies and fabricated "evidence."
The entire world knows this. Yet, Americans continue to act as
if the gratuitous invasions, the gratuitous killing and the gratuitous
destruction are justified. There is no end of it in sight.
If Americans have any honor, how can they betray their Founding
Fathers, who gave them liberty, by tolerating a government that
claims immunity to law and the Constitution and is erecting a
police state in their midst?
Answers to these questions vary. Some reply that a fearful and
deceived American public seeks safety from terrorists in government
power.
Others answer that a majority of Americans finally understand
the evil that Bush has set loose and tried to stop him by voting
out the Republicans in November 2006 and putting the Democrats
in control of Congress – all to no effect – and are
now demoralized as neither party gives a hoot for public opinion
or has a moral conscience.
The people ask over and over, "What can we do?"
Very little when the institutions put in place to protect the
people from tyranny fail. In the United States, the institutions
have failed across the board.
The freedom and independence of the watchdog press was destroyed
by the media concentration that was permitted by the Clinton administration
and Congress. Americans who rely on traditional print and TV media
simply have no idea what is afoot.
Political competition failed when the opposition party became
a "me-too" party. The Democrats even confirmed as attorney
general Michael Mukasey, an authoritarian who refuses to condemn
torture and whose rulings as a federal judge undermined habeas
corpus. Such a person is now the highest law enforcement officer
in the United States.
The judicial system failed when federal judges ruled that "state
secrets" and "national security" are more important
than government accountability and the rule of law.
The separation of powers failed when Congress acquiesced to the
executive branch's claims of primary power and independence from
statutory law and the Constitution.
It failed again when the Democrats refused to impeach George
Bush and Dick Cheney, the two greatest criminals in American political
history.
Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never
recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established
by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting.
Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship
in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution
are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people
know.
Silber reminds us that America once had leaders, such as Speaker
of the House Thomas B. Reed and Sen. Robert M. LaFollette Sr.,
who valued the principles upon which America was based more than
they valued their political careers. Perhaps Ron Paul and Dennis
Kucinich are of this ilk, but America has fallen so low that people
who stand on principle today are marginalized. They cannot become
speaker of the House or a leader in the Senate.
Today, Congress is almost as superfluous as the Roman Senate
under the Caesars. On Feb. 13 the U.S. Senate barely passed a
bill banning torture, and the White House promptly announced that
President Bush would veto it. Torture is now the American way.
The U.S. Senate was only able to muster 51 votes against torture,
an indication that almost a majority of U.S. senators support
torture.
Bush says that his administration does not torture. So why veto
a bill prohibiting torture? Bush seems proud to present America
to the world as a torturer.
After years of lying to Americans and the rest of the world that
Guantanamo prison contained 774 of "the world's most dangerous
terrorists," the Bush regime is bringing six of its victims
to trial. The vast majority of the 774 detainees have been quietly
released. The U.S. government stole years of life from hundreds
of ordinary people who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time and were captured by warlords and sold to the
stupid Americans as "terrorists."
Needing terrorists to keep the farce going, the U.S. government
dropped leaflets in Afghanistan offering $25,000 a head for "terrorists."
Kidnappings ensued until the U.S. government had purchased enough
"terrorists" to validate the "terrorist threat."
The six that the United States are bringing to "trial"
include two child soldiers for the Taliban and a car pool driver
who allegedly drove Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban did not attack the United States. The child soldiers
were fighting in an Afghan civil war. The United States attacked
the Taliban. How does that make Taliban soldiers terrorists who
should be locked up and abused in Gitmo and brought before a kangaroo
military tribunal? If a terrorist hires a driver or a taxi, does
that make the driver a terrorist? What about the pilots of the
airliners who brought the alleged 9-11 terrorists to the United
States? Are they guilty, too?
The Gitmo trials are show trials. Their only purpose is to create
the precedent that the executive branch can ignore the U.S. court
system and try people in the same manner that innocent people
were tried in Stalinist Russia and Gestapo Germany. If the Bush
regime had any real evidence against the Gitmo detainees, it would
have no need for its kangaroo military tribunal.
If any more proof is needed that Bush has no case against any
of the Gitmo detainees, the following AP News report of Feb. 14,
2008, should suffice: "The Bush administration asked the
Supreme Court on Thursday to limit judges' authority to scrutinize
evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay."
The reason Bush doesn't want judges to see the evidence is that
there is no evidence except a few confessions obtained by torture.
In the American system of justice, confession obtained by torture
is self-incrimination and is impermissible evidence under the
U.S. Constitution.
Andy Worthington's book, "The Guantanamo Files," and
his online articles make it perfectly clear that the "dangerous
terrorists" claim of the Bush administration is just another
hoax perpetrated on the inattentive American public.
Recently, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity issued
a report that documents the fact that Bush administration officials
made 935 false statements about Iraq to the American people in
order to deceive them into going along with Bush's invasion. In
recent testimony before Congress, Bush's Secretary of State and
former National Security Advisor, Condi Rice was asked by Rep.
Robert Wexler, D-Fla., about the 56 false statements she made.
Rice replied: "I take my integrity very seriously, and I
did not at any time make a statement that I knew to be false."
Rice blamed "the intelligence assessments," which "were
wrong."
Another Rice lie, like those mushroom clouds that were going
to go up over American cities if we didn't invade Iraq. The weapon
inspectors told the Bush administration that there were no weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq, as Scott Ritter has reminded us over
and over. Every knowledgeable person in the country knew there
were no weapons. As the leaked Downing Street memo confirms, the
head of British intelligence told the British cabinet that the
Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq and was
making up the intelligence to justify the invasion.
But let's assume that Rice was fooled by faulty intelligence.
If she had any integrity she would have resigned. In the days
when American government officials had integrity, they would have
resigned in shame from such a disastrous war and terrible destruction
based on their mistake. But Rice, like all the Bush (and Clinton)
operatives, is too full of American self-righteousness and ambition
to have any remorse about her mistake.
Condi can still look herself in the mirror despite 1 million
Iraqis dying from her mistake and several million more being homeless
refugees, just as Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright,
can still look herself in the mirror despite sharing responsibility
for 500,000 dead Iraqi children.
There is no one in the Bush administration with enough integrity
to resign. It is a government devoid of truth, morality, decency
and honor. The Bush administration is a blight upon America and
upon the world.
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