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Local News & Opinion
05.07 YouthWorks Campaign Needs Support for Summer Jobs Books, Art & Entertainment
04.30 A Litany of Horrors 04.17 Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" (Part II) Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Health & Environment
04.28 Green Scare State Terrorism 04.21 Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World 04.16 WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT Ref. : Single-Payer FAQ Ref. : Environmental Health News Ref. : Sundance Channel's THE GREEN Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it? Ref. : Global Warming Links Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links Media Watching
05.06 US Media Trivializes Campaign 2008 05.06 Death's Factotum: Michael Gordon and the Times Pour Pentagon Poison into Nation's Ear 05.05 TV News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits 05.05 Color-Coded: Jeremiah Wright and the Real Deal on Race 05.02 The Right's America-Hating Preacher 04.23 Pentagon Pundits 04.22 US News Media's Latest Disgrace 04.18 ABC's Debate Debacle 04.16 Reprising the Genocidal Fury of Thomas Friedman US Politics, Policy & Culture
05.09 The Democratic Presidential Race: A View from Pennsylvania 05.08 Serving the System: Corporate Control of U.S. Would Continue Under Obama 05.06 A Republican for Barack 05.05 Thinking About Voter Registrations 05.05 'Beware the Terrible Simplifiers' 05.01 U.S. Military Coordinated Day Of Prayer Events With Christian Right Group 04.30 John McCain Won’t Be Looking for the Union Label 04.30 Put Him Out With the Pastor! 04.25 Clinton Courted Racists in the Pennsylvania Primary 04.24 Groundbreaking Book Documents Widespread Election Fraud; Warns Elections Vulnerable to Theft 04.24 Triviamongering in the U.S. presidential race 04.24 Campaign 1988 Lives! 04.23 Hillary Clinton's Monstrous Threat 04.21 Brilliant Disguise: Bush Torture, Obama and The Boss 04.19 The Clintons, Triangulating with China 04.18 American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed 04.18 Are the Clintons Playing Joe McCarthy? 04.17 The Weather Underground 'Theme' US High Crimes & Incompetence
05.10 Lost E-Mails Obscure 'Plame-gate' 05.09 Fallujah Revisited: Bush, Petraeus Prepare 'Cleansing' of Sadr City 05.09 Shoot, Kill, Lie, Repeat: America's New Moral Universe 05.07 Willing Executioners: America's Bipartisan Atrocity Deepens in Somalia 05.05 The Terror Master: Bush Orders Covert 'Surge' Against Iran, with Dem Support 05.01 American and Israeli War Crimes: Same Atrocities, Different Responses 04.30 Halliburton Bribe Case Haunts Cheney 04.29 Getting Over Scalia 04.29 The Iraq War Morphs Into The Iranian War 04.28 The Torture Election 04.28 The Clock is Ticking for A US Attack on Iran 04.28 The Bush Team's Geneva Hypocrisy 04.25 New Terror War Atrocity: Beheading the Innocent for Bush in Somalia 04.23 Glorious Fruits of the War for Civilization 04.22 VA Tried to Conceal Extent of Attempted Veteran Suicides, Email Shows 04.21 What About the War, Benedict? 04.18 Updating Sami Al-Arian - His Ordeal Continues 04.16 Would Obama Hold Bush Accountable? Economics & Business
05.08 Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower 04.28 Thinking About Subtleties 04.23 The Oil Vice 04.22 The US Economy and the Costs of War 04.21 Thinking About Shakiness International
05.12 Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War on Iran 05.05 Sixty Years of Palestinian Displacement, Occupation and Suffering 05.02 Feeding Moloch: Last Barriers to War on Iran Come Down 05.01 The Iranian Chessboard 05.01 Blood Diamonds, Blood Oil and Blood Food 05.01 Denying Palestinians Free Movement in the West Bank 04.30 The Ignored Lessons on the Stupidity of War 04.24 Breaking the Silence - Israeli Soldiers Speak 04.23 What the Iraq War is about We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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WARNING:My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experienceBush has the Republican Party in such a mess that it cannot survive without another 9/11. Whether authentic or orchestrated, an attack will activate Bush’s new executive orders, which create a dictatorial police state in event of “national emergency.”
This is a wake-up call that we are about to experience another 9/11-WMD experience.The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally 70-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection. In the July 18 Los Angeles Times (“Bush the Albatross”), Ronald Brownstein reminds us that Bush’s behavior is disastrous for his political party. Unpopular presidents “have consistently undercut their party in the next election.” Brownstein reports that “88 percent of voters who disapproved of the retiring president’s job performance voted against his party’s nominee in past elections. . . . On average, 80 percent of voters who disapproved of a president’s performance have voted against his party’s candidates even in House races since 1986.” Brownstein notes that with Bush’s dismal approval rating, this implies a total wipeout of the Republicans in 2008. A number of pundits have concluded that the reason the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush’s follies is that they expect Bush’s unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory next year. There is a problem with this reasoning. It assumes that Cheney, Rove, and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts or are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his warmonger-police state fling. “After me, the deluge.” Isn’t it more likely that Cheney and Rove have in mind events that will, once again, rally the people behind President Bush and the Republican Party, that is fighting the “war on terror” that the Democrats “want to lose”? Such events could take a number of forms. As even diehard Republican Patrick J. Buchanan observed on July 17, with three US aircraft carrier battle groups in congested waters off Iran, another Tonkin Gulf incident could easily be engineered to set us at war with Iran. If Bush’s intentions were merely to bomb a nuclear reactor, he would not need three carrier strike forces. Lately, the administration has switched to blaming Iran for the war in Iraq. The US Senate has already lined up behind the latest lie with a 97-0 vote to condemn Iran. Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence. Many Americans dismiss suspicion of their government as treasonous, and most believe conspiracy to be impossible “because someone would talk.” There is no basis in any known fact for this opinion. According to polls, 36 percent of the American people disbelieve the 9/11 Commission Report. Despite this lack of confidence, and despite the numerous omissions and errors in the report, it has proven impossible to have an independent investigation of 9/11 or to examine the official explanation in public debate. Even experts and people with a lifetime of distinguished public service are dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” “kooks,” and “traitors” if they question the official explanation of 9/11. This despite the fact that war in the Middle East, a long-planned goal of Bush’s neoconservative administration, could not have been initiated without a “new Pearl Harbor.” That powerfully constructed steel buildings could suddenly turn to dust because they were struck by two flimsy aluminum airliners and experienced small fires on a few floors that burned for a short time appears unexceptionable to a majority of Americans. Moreover, people have talked. Hundreds of them. Firefighters, police, janitors, and others report hearing and experiencing a series of explosions in upper floors and massive explosions in the underground basements. This eyewitness testimony was kept under wraps for three or more years until the official explanation had taken root. The oral histories were finally forced loose by Freedom Of Information Act suits. The eyewitness reports of explosion after explosion had no effect. Larry Silverstein, who received billions of dollars in insurance payments for the destroyed buildings, talked. He said on public television that the order was given “to pull” building 7. His stunning admission had no effect. The Bush administration is preparing us for more terrorist attacks. The latest intelligence report says that Al Qaeda has regrouped, rebuilt, and has the ability to come after us again. "Al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," says the report. Security operatives, such as Michael Chertoff, and various instruments of administration propaganda have warned that we will be attacked before next year’s election. Chertoff is not a person who wants to be known as Chicken Little for telling us that the sky is falling. Bush has the Republican Party in such a mess that it cannot survive without another 9/11. Whether authentic or orchestrated, an attack will activate Bush’s new executive orders, which create a dictatorial police state in event of “national emergency.” [See here.] The UK government is hand-in-glove with the Bush administration and will provide cover or verification for whatever claim the Bush administration advances. So will the right-wing governments in Canada and Australia. That takes care of the English-speaking world from which contrary explanations might reach the American people. It is possible that Bush is now too weak, that suspicion is too great, and that there is too much internal resistance in the federal bureaucracy and military for any such scenario. If so, then my prediction prior to the invasion that the US invasion of Iraq will destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement will be proven true. The Democrats’ strategy of doing nothing except making sure Bush gets his way will produce the landslide that they expect. However, this assumes that Cheney, Rove, and their neoconservative allies have lost their cunning and their manipulative skills. It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous assumption for Democrats and the American people to make. Once the US experiences new attacks, Bush will be vindicated. His voice will be confident as he speaks to the nation: “My administration knew that there would be more attacks from these terrorists who hate us and our way of life and are determined to destroy every one of us. If only more of you had believed me and supported my war on terror these new attacks would not have happened. Our security efforts were impaired by the Democrats’ determined attempts to surrender to the terrorists by forcing our withdrawal from Iraq and by civil libertarian assaults on our necessary security measures. If only more Americans had trusted their government, this would not have happened.”And so on. Anyone should be able to write the script. Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and 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 author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholar journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
This commentary is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with the permission of the author. Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on July 20, 2007. |
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