Letters to the Editor
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Four facts left out of this article
1) We have an oilman as president
2) We have an oilman as vice president
3) Iraq floats on the second largest reserve of high grade crude in the world after Saudi Arabia
4) Saddam switched from dollars to euros as the accepted method of payment for Iraqi oil in 2000
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Oh, one more thing...
The day we attacked Iraq the people who own stocks or even the Corporations themselves were looking at Orwell's endless war - with endless replenishment of war toys, and endless research and development, and endless looting of the common wealth, and endless VERY profitable "waste" in the one place (D0D) that is infamous for sheer thievery since it opened for bidness!!!
Mission Accomplished . . .
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At least some of the war-mongers knew what would happen...
...it's what they wanted.
Global Terror War successes, Bush Administration style:
1) Assuring that George W. Bush would be taken seriously as chief executive- check
2) Putting political opposition on the defensive so that questions about the historical role of the Bush Dynasty in American politics are off the front burner- check
3) Enabling George W. Bush Jr. re-election- check
4) Reviving warfare state to revive the Military-Industrial Complex- check
5) Playing the opposition party for chumps- check
6) Concentrating political power in the hands of presidential autocracy- (conditional- presently unfinished)
7) Dismantling the Bill of Rights- (still on course, despite some temporary reverses)
8) Strengthening identification of patriotism with militarism- check
9) Psychological warfare on the American citizenry through use of double-bind mind games, cognitive dissonance, and duplicity coupled with appeals to both emotions of fear and conditioned loyalties to State authority- check
10) Use of war-torn foreign nation as testing ground for mass surveillance technologies such as facial recognition technology- check
11) Use of American military personnel in no-knock searches and raids- check
12) Exploitation of loyalties of American military personnel to participate/approve/order/cover up torture and war crimes- check
13) running up Federal debt as a fait accomplit, to the point where spending for budget priorities except for military and police is increasingly viewed as "unaffordable"- check
14) Dress rehearsals by military and police for forcible containment of massive societal disruptions due to decades of neglect of environmental priorities and decayed national infrastructure- check
I suppose I could go on.
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This didn't start with Bush
"The problem the administration faced, or rather didn't want to face, was that the calcified order that lay at the root of the problem was the very order that, for nearly six decades, had been shaped, shepherded and sustained by the United States."
Exactly.
Hell, no one wants to face this. Look at what Bush I did in iraq (bombing out infrastructure), and Clinton, (sanctions that lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths).
While at the same time the US. supported Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war.
Its truly mind-boggling. And yes, sad. When we took out Saddam, we just took out the middle-man.
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There is a metric for whether we are winning the war on terrorism
It is surveys of attitudes towards the US in the Muslim world. Because, as the Spanish discovered when fighting the ETA, while few people become terrorists, they are supported by a large community who shares the terrorists grievances.
Al Quaida is not a government. It has no ability to tax. Its resources come from donations and businesses. Any government currently hosting Al Quaida business or activities could do a lot to hurt Al Quaida's ability to operate.
Many in the Muslim community celebrate terrorist acts. While in any community there are always crackpots and those who believe conspiracy theories, the bulk of Muslims will not listen to radical Islam if they didn't see a body of evidence to support the idea that the US/West wants to get rid of Muslims. And Bush's 'war on terror' sounds an awful lot like a code for a war on Islam.
So, when Muslim attitudes towards the US improve, we are gaining ground in the war on terror. When they dive, we are losing.
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They've done it before
I'm currently reading, and highly recommend, "Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race" by Richard Rhodes. This is a history of the nuclear arms buildup following world war II, and more specifically, during the cold war.
Reading this book, you discover the same evil bastards responsible for the current regime's disastrous foreign policy used exactly the same arguments and techniques to construct the nuclear arms race in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. It's the same guys, and they're doing the same thing!
Proving once again that the lesson we learn from history is that we don't learn lessons from history.
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Let's face it: The neocons were NOT working for the national interests of the US
As part of the Israel Lobby, the neocons were clearly working for Israeli interests. Their 3-pronged scam (weapons of mass destruction, the link between Saddam and Al-qaeda and spreading democracy in the Middle East) was designed to sell the Iraq war to a super-patriotic and frightened American public by appealing to a combination of American fear of terrorism post 9/11 and American idealism.
"Maintaining US support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is essential as far as the Lobby is concerned, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.
Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical."
- John Mearsheimer (Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard), London Review of Books, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
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Bravo, cabdriver!!
You have stated the essentials of the Neocon attack on America in the most succinct form I have ever seen. You deserve 10 editorial stars! The pernicious subversion of our heritage of liberty under the rule of law has been accomplished under the cloak of patriotism through skillful propaganda, control of media, and skullduggery. A vigilant, skeptical, and enlightened people would never have fallen for their lies.
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So, can we get it back? How? And how long will it take?
Or is this grand American experiment done for?
It seems to me these last 6 years or so have pretty much ended any stature in the world the U.S. had.
It's mind-boggling.