The Rise of The Radical Neo-Conservative Movement in The USA

In recent decades, a malignant strain of extreme Conservative political ideology has returned to the American political scene. This political movement is reminiscent of the radical far right political environment which existed in Europe in the 1930s; and in the U.S. in the 1950s; when fear, suspicion, and repression of Communism and non-conformity reached its post World War II zenith. In that time, right wing extremist groups held the nation in their grip. The excesses they perpetrated included; McCarthyism; Communist witch hunts; blacklisting of artists in the motion picture industry; hate crimes against blacks and homosexuals; religious bigotry; the crimes of white supremacy groups, such as the Ku-Klux-Klan, and the Aryan Nations; the official suppression of civil and human rights, particularly in the so-called Bible Belt states; and the risk of world nuclear annihilation; pursued by such extreme Conservative groups as the John Birch Society, which advocated Nuclear Preventive War with the Soviet Union.

“I’ve said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most Un-American thing in America.”
President Harry S. Truman, 1960

Post WWII Interventionist-Conservatism, coupled with fear of “Godless Communism”, resulted in the Cold War struggle with the Eastern European Warsaw Pact; dominated by the Internationalist-Conservative Bolshevik Soviet Union. This led inevitably to many dangerous American interventions and armed conflicts in third world countries, including; the Korean war; the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; the subsequent Cuban Nuclear Missile Crisis; and the unjustified intervention in the Civil War between North and South Vietnam; a third world country which had never threatened the U.S. in any way. The Vietnam War had begun in the 1950s, with heavy U.S. support of the collapsing Colonial empire of the French in Southeast Asia. The intervention by the ill-advised Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations; then spiraled out of control, during the Johnson and Nixon period.

The Interventionist Nationalist-Conservative blunder of the Vietnam War; and the Racist-Conservative abuses of minorities eventually resulted in a broad based nationwide anti-war and civil rights backlash against most of the traditional-conservative institutions of American society. This political revolution caused a major fracture in the political unity of the American people; and social upheavals bordering on anarchy. This inevitably resulted in reactionary Counter-reformations by what became known as the “New Right” “The Conservative Revolution” and “Movement Conservatives.”

A half century later, the nation is again in the grip of a hard right wing political movement, and involved in an unjust war on a third world country. This Essay is all about why, in less than a century, we find ourselves watching a repeat performance of a national catastrophe; which Americans of all moderate and reasonable political persuasions, from moderate liberal-Democrats to moderate traditional-conservative Republicans, swore would never be allowed to happen again.

The Illegitimate Presidency

By 2001, the Republican Party, which had controlled the White House for twenty of the last thirty-two years, regained power, as self proclaimed Compassionate-Conservative, George W. Bush, was selected to be the President of the United States of America by the Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court; even though there was evidence that there had been extensive voter fraud in the State of Florida. Florida votes were not permitted to be recounted, and it was proven that up to one million African-Americans had been disenfranchised The Democratic Party candidate had also won the national popular vote.

Mr. Bush’s lack of compassion had been widely publicized, when as a Governor, he had cruelly ridiculed a female death row inmate, that had petitioned for clemency. His Presidency was considered illegitimate by a majority of American voters, and his first months in office were lackluster.

“So speak, and do so, as those who will be judged by the law of Liberty;
For judgment is without mercy; to the one who has shown no mercy.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
Jesus Christ, The King James Bible, Epistle of James, 2:12-13

During the Presidential campaign, Bush had frequently attacked the Clinton administration for their involvement in foreign military entanglements for humanitarian reasons; such as the intervention in Bosnia. Bush claimed that as a conservative he would keep the U.S. out of such foreign misadventures, claiming;

“We will not be the world’s 911”

It is ironic that a 911 event would prove that he was not a traditional - conservative either.

His claim to the voters, that he was a Compassionate-Conservative was just the first example of his pathological tendency to use Orwellian scale falsehoods.

In the five years since he has held the Presidency, Mr. Bush has gradually revealed himself to be a mean personality, devoid of humor, humility, or humanity. All of his appearances are orchestrated to such an extent that they appear to be recordings. When he does give speeches, as he did at the UN, in the State of the Union messages, and in defense of his policies, he always assumes an aggressive, haranguing, and patronizing tone, not seen in a world leader since the 1930s. White House aides have finally begun to describe what life is like in Emperor Bush’s White House.

What has emerged are off the record remarks which describe a martinet President living in a Bunker mentality. People close to the regime have called him the most isolated President in modern history; at least since the late period Nixon regime. Bush is reported to have a “defensive edge”, and a “Don’t Tread on Me” prickliness, that causes Aides to avoid any bad news or even news that is not rosy. This is a White House without genuine humor. Bush’s perverted idea of humor is to take advantage of anyone working for him with vicious personal jokes made at their expense. He likes to give subordinates unflattering nicknames. For example his political consigliere Karl Rove is called “Turdblossom.”

Loyalty is described as always agreeing with the boss, even when he is disastrously wrong. Bush has little or no patience for detailed or complex reasoning, preferring to get only conclusions and recommendations, as long as they don’t depart from the Bush-Cheney party line.

Exploiting the most Devastating Terrorist Attack in U.S. History

Just eight months after being sworn in, the new President was thrust into a period of historical turmoil, for which his lack of professional qualifications, intellectual capacity, and moral integrity, ill prepared him to lead the nation.

(In November 1999, Candidate Bush could not even name the leaders of Pakistan or India)

On September 11, 2001, the grim preachers of a new strain of Radical Conservatism, were given the greatest of all gifts they could wish for. A group of primarily, Saudi Arabian assassins; members of the Al Qaeda Islamic Jihadist movement, attacked the United States, by suicide crashes of passenger airliners into the Pentagon, and the New York World Trade Center Buildings. None of the assassins were Iraqis.

These Radical-Conservative Muslim religious fanatics killed themselves and around 3,000 innocent people, in the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.

In Gerald Posner's Essay "Secrets of the Kingdom" he reveals that Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah, while undergoing interrogation, was deceived into revealing that the Al Qaeda cell that had conducted the 9/11 attack, was connected with several Saudi Princes, including Saudi Arabian Prince (Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz) the nephew of King Fahd; and the Chief of the Pakistani Air Force. Posner goes on to document the many connections of the Saudi government with terrorist activity, including against the U.S. In the U.S. many Muslim community centers and half of the Mosques and Islamic schools were built with Saudi funds. King Fahd’s web site shows sixteen Islamic and cultural centers the Saudis have underwritten from California to New York. A 2000 survey of 1,200 U.S. Mosques, undertaken by four Muslim groups, found that 70% of their Imams were favorably inclined toward “Fundamentalist” teachings, and nearly a quarter followed the strict “Wahhabism” sect. Posner wrote:

“Four months before 9/11, the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) web site had justified ‘martyrdom operations,’ including crashing a plane ‘on a crucial enemy target.’”

Posner thoroughly documents the web of connections between the Arch-Conservative Republicans and the Saudi Kingdom which permitted; surely with Bush’s approval, many members of the Bin Laden family and other high-ranking Saudi officials to leave the U.S. days after the 9/11 attacks, most without even being interviewed by the FBI.

The Bush regime went on to exploit the terrible 9/11 tragedy for the benefit of the American radical right wing Conservative movement, of which he was a loyal member.

Playing cynical politics with this horrendous tragedy, the president’s political consiglieri, Karl Rove said:

“Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks, and prepared for war.”

Within hours of the attack, Senator Barbara Boxer, one of the most Liberal Senators in the Congress, had actually said:

“We are resolved to hold those who planned these attacks and who harbor these people absolutely 100 percent accountable. They must pay because this is the test of a civilized nation...We will not back down. I stand proudly with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and with our President. We will be resolved to do everything - and do it well and do it right - to bring justice…”

The not so reverend Jerry Falwell could not miss the opportunity to point the finger of blame at his favorite scapegoats:

“God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve… I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and gays and lesbians who are trying to make an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their faces and say; you helped this happen.”

This put Falwell in the same camp with another self proclaimed Holy Man:

“It is punishment from God.”
Osama bin Laden

The September 11 attack, like that of the Reichstag building in 1933, provided a golden opportunity to implement many revolutionary domestic and foreign policy measures, long advocated by the hard right wing zealots of this re-energized Radical Nationalist-Conservative movement, later widely identified as “Neo-Conservatism.”

An Earlier Terrorist Attack

On February 28, 1933, a fire gutted the German Parliament building called the Reichstag. A youthful Dutch citizen, named Marinus Van der Lubbe, was found on the premises and charged with participating in a broad Communist Terrorist conspiracy. Van der Lubbe claimed he alone was responsible for the fire, which was lit as a protest to Nazi violence against labor unions. There were also reports that some of Rohm’s Brownshirts assisted him in setting the fires. The Nazi Party used the attack as an excuse to destroy the Communist, and all other opposition parties.

The conservative elements in the Police, the Military, the Christian Churches, the Industry leaders, the bankers, etc. then accommodated and allied themselves with the Nazis. Watching the fire, Goering commented:

“This is the beginning of the Communist revolution! We must not wait a minute. We will show no mercy. Every Communist official must be shot, where he is found. Every Communist deputy must this very day be strung up!”
Herman Goering

The day after the fire, Hitler issued a decree, which he persuaded President Hindenburg to sign. The decree was titled “A Decree for the Protection of the People and the State” and was described “as a defensive measure against communist acts of violence.” It began by suspending the guarantees of individual Liberty under the Weimar Constitution:

“Thus, restrictions on personal Liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the Press; on the rights of assembly and association; violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications; warrants for house searches; orders for confiscation as well as restrictions on property, are permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”

The decree suspended all of the Basic Rights of the Constitution; permitted the authorities to arrest anyone they suspected of being “terrorists” and deny them their Constitutional rights. Article 2 authorized the Reich Government if necessary to take over full powers in any federal state. Article 5 increased the penalty for the crimes of high treason, poisoning, arson, and sabotage to one of death, and instituted the death penalty, or hard labor for life, in the case of conspiracy to assassinate members of the Government, or grave breaches of the peace.

The Nazi propaganda machine then sowed fear and chaos in the German people, producing the most hair raising accounts of Communist terrorists, preparing for insurrection and a “Blood Bath.” Hitler barnstormed the country declaring his determination to stamp out Marxism and the Liberal and Socialist Parties of the left, without mercy.

Charged with implementing the new Extra-Constitutional measures, Goering notified the people on March 3, 1933, that “Justice” was no longer needed:

“Fellow Germans, my measures will not be crippled by any judicial thinking. My measures will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. Here I don’t have to worry about Justice, my mission is only to destroy and exterminate, nothing more.”
Reichsfuhrer Herman Goering

Many thousands of innocent German dissidents and political opponents of the Nazis, were imprisoned without trials, denied counsel, interrogated, tortured, and killed.

Following the 9/11 attack, like minded extreme Neo-Conservative ideologues such as Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, now serving in high positions in the Bush Administration, and their allies in Congress; took advantage of the fear and hysteria of the American public. Within months they initiated a series of sub-rosa war plans and domestic police state measures, to fight a new endless war, to stamp out a new generic enemy, they also called “Terrorism.”

No Accountability for the 9/11 Negligence

In 2004, Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council Counterterrorism Czar, with 20 years of experience fighting terrorism, who had served inside the White house for Bush’s father and Pres. Clinton, published his Essay, “Against All Enemies” This Essay, provides a detailed account of the events leading up to 9/11, documents the shocking incompetence and criminal negligence of President Bush, and his National Security Team, that had ignored the many warnings provided to them in the nine months preceding 9/11, specifically that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda Jihadists (Holy Warriors) were determined to conduct devastating attacks inside the U.S., using airplanes!

No known action was taken until after the attack had taken place!

In February 2004, the Family Steering Committee of the families of the 9/11 victims prepared a list of questions for the 911 Commission to ask President Bush when he met with the Commission. Here are a few of the 23 questions:

“The Family Steering Committee believes that president Bush should provide sworn public testimony to the full ten-member panel of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Question # 9. Beginning with the transition period between the Clinton administration and your own, and ending on 9/11/01, specifically what information (either verbal or written) about terrorists, possible attacks and targets, did you receive from any source?

Question #10. Specifically, what did you learn from the August 6, 2001, PDB about the terrorist threat that was facing our nation? Did you request any follow-up action to take place? Did you request any further report be developed and/or prepared?

Question # 11. As Commander-In-Chief, from May 1, 2001, did you receive any information from any intelligence agency official or agent that UBL was planning to attack this nation on its own soil using airplanes as weapons, targeting New York City landmarks during the week of September 11, 2001 or on the actual day of September 11, 2001?

Question # 12. What defensive measures did you take in response to pre-9/11 warnings from eleven nations about a terrorist attack, many of which cited an Attack in the Continental United States? Did you prepare any directives in response to these actions? If so, with what results?

Question #19. Who approved the flight of the bin Laden family out of the United States when all commercial flights were grounded, when there was time for only minimal questioning by the FBI, and especially, when two of those same individuals had links to WAMY, a charity suspected of funding terrorism? Why were bin Laden family members granted that special privilege not available to American families whose loved ones were killed on 9/11?

Question # 22. Do you continue to maintain that Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda? What proof do you have of any connection between al Qaeda and the Hussein regime?

Question # 23. Which individuals, governments, agencies, institutions or groups may have benefited from the attacks of 9/11? Please state specifically how you think they have benefited?”

The nature of the questions reflects the survivor’s belief that Bush had been given adequate warning by the Intelligence agencies; but had been grossly negligent in performing the primary task of the Chief Executive, which is to direct that timely defensive action be taken to protect the American people from such a devastating attack. The President did not provide sworn testimony in public, or in private, and did not testify to the entire Commission.”

To this day Mr. Bush denies any knowledge or negligence, no one in any government agency has been fired, and Bush has never answered the families of the 9/11 victims.

AWOL----Three Strikes and Your Out---of Your Depth

(a.) The record shows that when Mr. Bush was a junior officer, assigned to the Texas Air National Guard, he missed many mandatory training sessions, and a directed military flight physical. In the U.S. military this is known as being Absent Without Leave. (AWOL)and is a Court-Martial offense.

(b.) Whenever a President leaves Washington, DC, he travels with the world’s best communications system at his disposal. Because he is the only one that can order a Nuclear Strike, the President is never out of touch with his National Security Council support staff or other emergency and police agencies. He receives regular intelligence briefings, and members of his staff and Cabinet frequently meet with him on urgent matters of state. This has been true, at least since the WWII period.

In the August 2001 time frame, President Bush took a month long vacation at his Dude ranch in Crawford, Texas. Prior to and during his vacation, the 9/11 Commission Report shows, that he was kept informed with Intelligence reports about specific terrorist threats to the safety and security of the nation. For some reason, he took no effective action to counter the terrorist threat posed by the Al Qaeda Islamic Jihadists, who struck the U.S. on September 11, 2001.The Captain of the ship of state was again AWOL. (this time Absent Without Leadership).

(c.) In the August 2005 time frame, President Bush took another long vacation at his Dude ranch in Crawford, Texas. By Sunday August 28 the National Weather service predicted that “catastrophic” damage to the city of New Orleans was certain. Mass evacuation of the city began at 10AM that morning. The threat of the hurricane was obvious to the entire nation, but on that day, President Bush is reported to have traveled to the West coast to attend Republican fund raisers. His exact activities were not released, but he could not have been involved in overseeing the Federal Government’s response to the hurricane disaster.

During this extended vacation he was undoubtedly kept informed of the progress of Hurricane Katrina, by CNN, if by no other source. When the Hurricane hit the Gulf Coast near New Orleans, it caused flooding of biblical proportions. Sadly, without timely action or leadership from the top, the preparations and performance of the U.S. Government with its massive resources, including its Homeland Security Department, Department of Defense, and its Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), failed the people of the U.S. Gulf Coast. Conditions in the City of New Orleans were allowed to deteriorate into chaos and suffering on a scale equal to an attack by an army of terrorists. This was the biggest emergency management failure in U.S. history. The death toll has been estimated at over 1,000 souls.

Instead of rushing back to Washington the day before the hurricane hit, President Bush continued to involve himself in vacation and fund raising activities, finally curtailing his vacation by only two days, when it was apparent that he was facing nationwide criticism for failing to take timely action to lead the U.S. government response. The AWOL President proved once again that he was out of his depth.

Failing the Test:

“If we can’t respond faster than this, to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?”
Former Conservative Revolution Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich

Buffeted by the quagmire of his elective Iraq War, astronomical increases in gas prices, and the fury at his failure to lead, in yet another Gulf War; called Hurricane Katrina, President Bush’s approval rating faced a trifecta Perfect Storm of his own making.

Katrina Failures Similar to Those on 9/11:

On September 12, 2005 the former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Gov. Thomas Kean, was reported to have said:

“The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse… Those are system-wide failures that can be fixed and should have been fixed right away.”

Despite Bush's pledge that he would not “forget the lessons of 9/11,” Kean and former co-chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, cited parallels between Katrina and 9/11, such as emergency communications problems and a failure to target resources at communities facing the greatest risk. In its final Report on the state of Homeland Security, the 9/11 Commission blistered the Bush record passing out a Report Card with 5-Fs, 12-Ds, 9-Cs, and only 1-A minus. As the anniversary of 9/11 approached, Kean warned that changes in leadership need to be made.

The Threat of a Flu Pandemic

The gravest threat facing the U.S. is not from terrorists or from the Axis of Evil, it is from an animal Flu bug designated H5N1. This avian flu; like a similar virus, which caused a Pandemic in 1918; has crossed the barrier from chickens to humans. Ordinary vaccines are useless against it and it is devastatingly lethal, killing nearly half the people known to have contracted it.

This disease has been called the single greatest risk to the world today!

According to the World Health Organization, a Pandemic occurs when; a.) a new form of virus emerges, or when an older form re-emerges; b.) when it spreads to Humans; c.) and when it spreads easily between Humans.

With the Avian Flu, the first two conditions have occurred.

The so-called Spanish Flu epidemic from 1918-1919, had a global death toll of at least 50 million, and there were 500,000 deaths in the U.S. from the illness.

In a worst-case scenario extrapolating from the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, H5N1 could kill 150 million people or about 2.5% of the world’s population. Though deadly, for some reason H5N1 does not easily infect or spread between people. However, as it circulates, the virus has more opportunity to evolve, increasing the risk that it will mutate or mix with human strains and turn rapidly transmissible, causing another Pandemic. This virus has been migrating with waterfowl and has carried the virus from East Asia through Central Asia and Russia, Turkey; and reached Southeastern Europe in the summer of 2005. So far there have been millions of animal deaths, but only 138 cases of bird to human infections with 68 fatalities. If the virus jumps to a human-to-human strain, it will threaten the entire world in a matter of weeks, due to the mobility of air travel, and the patterns of wild birds.

The danger to the U.S. is real. The world Health Organization’s plan to combat the avian flu has been to urge nations to stock up on two anti-viral drugs; Tamiflu and Relenza; which are known to reduce the severity and length of the disease. A stockpile of 60 million doses are needed for the U.S. most vulnerable people, but the country only has 2.3 million doses on hand. (mostly earmarked for the Military and Emergency workers) France, with a population of 60 million reported that it had 13 million doses on hand. The Bush regime, pre-occupied with saving the world for Democracy, has known of this threat for several years and has failed to stockpile sufficient anti-virus drugs for the American people.

The too-little, too-late Bush regime and NFC Congress has a $7 Billion Preparedness Plan, but it is heavily weighted toward developing a vaccine, with only $250 Million earmarked for practical Public Health measures; such as identifying and controlling outbreaks in other countries, to prevent them from quickly spreading all over the world.

“It’s a depressing situation. We are way, way behind.”
Jeffrey Levi, Flu Expert, on government preparations for a bird flu epidemic.

Bush is not up for re-election, but the American people should by now, have learned, that the safety and welfare of the American People, is not a priority of this Imperial President and his Neo-Conservative Republican Party.

The Perpetual Global (World) War on Terror (GWOT)

“We call it the Global War on Terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic! We declared war on a tactic. Can you imagine FDR saying, we were attacked at Pearl Harbor yesterday. I’m declaring war on Kamikazes? You don’t understand the problem if you don’t understand who you’re fighting.”
General Anthony Zinni, USMC Ret. At the LBJ Library, April 6, 2005

After 9/11, the Bush regime eventually acted, by declaring a world war “The Global War on Terror.” The Global War on Terror fit the pattern of a long list of previous Conservative, generic, indefinable and never ending wars, such as:

“The War on Crime;” “The War on Drugs;” and “The War on Illegal Immigrants;” which were, however, primarily domestic. This new war, like The Cold War, was to be another Perpetual World War; universally applicable to U.S. citizens and foreigners alike.

As of December 2005, the World War on Terror has lasted longer than WWI, and at 51 months, or 4+ years; eight months longer than WWII!

The war was used as justification for implementing a continuing series of unconstitutional measures at home, and illegal actions abroad; beginning with the Orwellian named Patriot Act, which was the first of many measures that trashed the U.S. Constitution; the Bill of Rights; and the Liberties, Civil Rights, and Human Rights of the American people; for the false promise of greater security. Americans were soon to learn that the “War on Terror” was actually a “War on Liberty” the perpetual enemy of all tyrants.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Benjamin Franklin, 1755

Most Americans and sympathetic world public opinion initially supported the Bush War on Terrorism; believing that it meant a program of mutual support, involving the entire world’s police, intelligence, counter-terrorism, diplomatic, and security forces. Terrorism grows from the germs of injustice and desperation, which are exploited by fanatics; who then use violence against innocent civilians, to instill fear and gain publicity for their cause. It is an unacceptable, criminal, immoral, and ultimately self-defeating political strategy to redress grievances.

“At a juncture in history, when the United States needed a president to intelligently and forcefully lead a real international campaign against terrorism and its causes, Bush decided instead to unilaterally declare war on a totalitarian state that never represented a terrorist threat; to claim exemption from international law regarding the treatment of prisoners… Instead of using America's moral authority to lead a great global cause, Bush squandered it.”
Carl Bernstein, USA Today

Experience has repeatedly shown that terrorism can only be defeated by worldwide cooperation, effective security measures, just international foreign and economic policies, and a willingness to listen to grievances, to negotiate, and finally to persuade by genuine public diplomacy, and by reason. Examples include Algeria, Ireland, and Bosnia, which are relatively quiet today, after decades of violent terrorism.

General Richard Myers, USAF, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club, in 2005, that he had;

“…objected to the use of the term War on Terrorism, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution.”

Myers said the threat instead should be defined as “Violent Extremism” and that the solution is more diplomatic, more economic, more political; than it is military.

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, 1967

Bush and his armchair Chickenhawk warriors were not interested in such soft feminine solutions. While most of them never served in the Armed Forces, they all had sharpened their claws in the bureaucratic battles of the Pentagon. They preferred to call themselves the “Vulcans” in honor of the Roman God of fire, the weapons forge, and metalwork; seeking to convey a sense of power, toughness, violence, and brutality.

Regardless of their disapproval of our foreign policies, most foreigners, and their governments, supported the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan; which had continued to harbor Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda Islamic Jihadists; after the attack. They accepted the new Global War on Terror; without realizing that it was to become an aggressive Doctrine of the unilateral use of American military power anywhere in the world.

“Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
Jesus Christ, King James Bible, Matthew 26: 52

The United States, with the support of the United Kingdom and the Afghan Northern Alliance; invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, as the first retaliation in the new War on Terror. During this time of mass paranoia and hysteria, the U.S. Congress, including the Democrats, went along with virtually everything the President demanded; and since the Global War on Terror was to be a never ending war, with no definition or limits, the Republicans claimed the Congress had permanently surrendered their War Powers to a wartime Commander-in-Chief, for the duration of a new endless war, that could, of course, never achieve final victory.

The Never-Ending War:

“In my sense we will be in a Global War on Terrorism for our lifetime.”
General T. Michael Moseley, USAF Chief of Staff, at American Enterprise Institute, October 2005

This was not the first time that the Congress had surrendered its Constitutional War Powers to a President, but it had become the norm for Nationalist-Conservative Presidents to deliberately lie to Congress and the people; and if that failed, to ignore the Congress, and initiate wars without specific approval, consultation, or agreement of the Congress. Lyndon Johnson lied about the Tonkin Gulf attack to obtain a Congressional resolution, which led to the disastrous enlargement of the Vietnam War. Reagan did it in the Iran-Contra scandal, and Bush senior did it to justify the invasion of Panama. This usurpation of Congressional War powers by our Chief Executives has revealed a serious flaw in our Democracy.

“The President is to be the Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and Admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British King extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies,--all of which, by the Constitution, would appertain to the legislature.”
Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Papers

Failure to Find and Destroy the Real Enemy

In the midst of the War against the Al Qaeda and their Taliban supporters in Afghanistan, Bush prematurely diverted critical elements of U.S. Forces away from Afghanistan, and sent them to join in the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush had made a strategic blunder whose importance can not be overemphasized.

For example, at Tora-Bora, he failed to capture or destroy a large concentration of the upper and mid-level leadership of the Al Qaeda Islamic Jihadists; and may have lost the opportunity to capture Osama Bin Laden himself; thereby destroying the leader and symbol of this worldwide terrorism network.

“The Bush Administration has squandered the opportunity to eliminate Al Qaeda.… A new Al Qaeda has emerged and is growing stronger, in part because of our own actions and inactions. It is in many ways a tougher opponent than the original threat we faced before September 11th, and we are not doing what is necessary to make America safe from that threat.”
Richard A. Clarke, "Against All Enemies"

The clumsy and ineffective policies of the Bush war strategy have elevated Osama bin Laden into a modern day “Saladin”. Throughout the Muslim world he is a type of invincible Muslim Hero, and a mythical symbol of resistance for the entire Arab Muslim people. The name Osama has become the most popular name for newborns in the Muslim world.

As of December 2005, Osama bin Laden was still at large; and a phantom plaguing the Bush

Coalition of the Naive.

Message for President Bush:

“To win the war against Islamic Extremism…you have to address core issues. The military is not the ultimate answer. You can kill people but you are not going to achieve anything.”
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Newsweek

There have been more Terrorist attacks in the years following the 911 attack, than in any previous period; as Iraq has become the predicted recruiting center for the Islamic Jihad. In July 2005, the U.S. National Terrorism Prevention Center admitted that, instead of approximately 600 Terrorist attacks in 2004, there had actually been 3,184 attacks and 28,000 victims of such attacks. By the end of 2005 there had been 3,991 attacks. It is clear that these increasing attacks are caused by the presence of U.S. troops in countries where the native population does not want their presence.

Knowing the Enemy:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles”
Sun Tzu, Chinese Military Strategist, 2500 years ago

The Bush regime periodically announces that they have captured or killed the #2 man in Al Qaeda. This may not be an exaggeration, as there is a continuing line of recruits ready and willing to step up and join the ranks of the many-faced Jihadi resistance. The Bush regime either chooses to ignore the reason for the Jihad, or continues to misunderstand the nature of the enemy, and the motives of its followers. Either way, U.S. ground troops are being asked to use 19^th century methods against so-called “insurgents,” while their opponents are exploiting the latest Hi-Tech methods.

There are now over 4,000 Islamic Jihadist Web sites operating a decentralized system of Cyber-Terrorism Command, Communications, and Control (C3), that did not exist prior to the invasion of Iraq.

American Intelligence and Iraqi police agencies are incapable of coping with this overwhelming network without a headquarters to bomb, and due to the lack of language specialists on the U.S. side.

“Why Are Our Young People Fighting, Dying, and Killing In Iraq?”

On August 20, 2005, with this simple question, Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier (Casey) killed in Iraq, touched the American people’s souls, and re-invigorated a nationwide peace movement that had been bludgeoned into silence for over two years. By August 2005, the American people disapproved of Bush’s handling of the War by over 50%. As dissatisfaction with the administration's Iraq policy mounted, President Bush's approval ratings plummeted to just 35 percent -- four points lower than President Nixon's approval ratings during the height of the Watergate scandal in the summer of 1973. According to Gallup

“Americans have become negative about the war in Iraq more quickly than they did for the Vietnam War.” The most recent quarterly data found ;

“50% say it was a mistake to send troops… In the comparable quarter for the Vietnam War, Gallup found 41% saying the conflict was a mistake.”

Cindy Sheehan had been camping out in a makeshift site on the side of the road leading to the 1600 acre Bush Dude Ranch, since August 5th. While the troops fight and died in the Iraq quagmire, their Commander-In-Chief was taking yet another lengthy vacation from his less than strenuous schedule; and Cindy and a battalion of supporters from all over the U.S., and as far away as England and Australia, were determined to insure that the war would never be far from his mind, and America’s conscience.

“We have this lying bastard, George Bush, taking a five week vacation in time of war. You know what? I’m never going to get to enjoy another vacation, because of him.”
Cindy Sheehan

On the way to what had been dubbed “Camp Casey,” a very long line of roadside Crosses, Stars of David, and Muslim grave markers, with the names of over 1800 American men and women killed in the desert deathtrap of Iraq, provided mute testimony to any passerby, that the price for Mr. Bush’s phony war was very high.

“I follow the path assigned to me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker,”
Adolf Hitler

Bush claims they died for a “noble cause,” but he cowered in his ranch, afraid to meet with Cindy Sheehan, and explain his policy, or what the real cause was, while his Republican noise machine attempted to discredit this brave mother.

What Noble Cause Did Casey Sheehan Die For?

In 1998, Neo-conservative propagandist Robert Kagan enunciated what would become a foundational belief of Bush regime policy. He asserted that:

“…a successful intervention in Iraq would revolutionize the strategic situation in the Middle East, in ways both tangible and intangible, and all to the benefit of American interests.”

In 2005, over two years after Baghdad fell, and the American occupation of Iraq began, Kagan's prediction appears to have been fulfilled, if you substitute the name Iranian for American! The chief beneficiary of the occupation and the chaos it produced has not been the Bush administration, but Iran; the most populous and powerful member of the so-called Axis of Evil, and the chief American competitor for dominance in the oil-rich region.

In late August 2005, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad insisted there would be no compromise on the principle that Iraqis can each have an equal role in the building of their country's future without regard to their ethnic or religious background or gender. Later Khalilzad personally lobbied for Iraqi delegates to enshrine Islamic law as the sole source of law for the country. Kurdish and Sunni delegates complained that Khalilzad pushed them to accept a working draft of the constitution that,

“…stipulates that no law can contradict Islamic principles, which they said would subject Iraqis to extreme interpretations of Islamic law.”

Additionally, the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Hayat reports that the new constitution would likely establish a;

"Higher Council" to "review new legislation to ensure it does not contravene the essential verities of the Islamic religion"; one commentator called it "at least a half step towards the creation of an Iranian-style system of clerical rule."

Already, a picture of the "New Iraq" is seen in Basra, Najaf and other Shiite towns, where "the Shiite religious parties negotiating the constitution in Baghdad already have enforced an unofficial form of Islamic rule under which alcohol is banned and all women are required to cover their heads."

One secular Kurdish politician said: "We understand the Americans have sided with the Shiites. It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state. I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

By September 2005, the Iraqis had completed their Constitution and had it approved in a Referendum by the Iraqi people. Bush had been touting how the Iraq war was the spark that would result in a wave of American Democracy, with all that implies, such as Human, and Civil rights, including religious and women’s rights. However, the new Constitution contains the following theocratic provision:

“Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation. No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.”

The Iraqi Constitution was supported by Iran-backed Shiites and the Bush Administration, but opposed by most of Iraq’s Sunni leaders, that had a progressive tradition in women’s rights and moderation in religious matters.

“Fortunately, after years of effort and expectations in Iraq, an Islamic state has come to power and the constitution has been established on the basis of Islamic precepts. We must congratulate the Iraqi people and authorities for this victory.”
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful ultra-conservative Guardian Council

In typical storm-trooper fashion, one of the local Bush hill bullies, in his zeal to punish the protestors, ran his pickup truck over the line of crosses of the soldiers killed in Iraq. He was dirt dumb enough, not to anticipate that the crosses were inserted in the ground on metal spikes. The crosses had been prepared by the Veterans for Peace (VFP), a group of veterans of all ranks and all Wars since WWII. The VFP has been quietly displaying these silent reminders in several sites around the country, to pay homage to the troops killed in the War on Terror, and to campaign for peace in the Middle East. They had already experienced similar incidents of vandalism. The unpatriotic lout’s rear tires went flat and he was caught by the police with remnants of crosses still lodged under his truck!

However, it had become clear to Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the civilized world, that the appeals of millions of people have had no effect on the arrogant and stubborn Mr. Bush.

“Martyrs--To die for an idea: it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true. Searching history, I find no such case. All the great martyrs of the Essays died for sheer nonsense—often for trivial matters of doctrine.”
Henry Louis Mencken, “Prejudices”

The National Guard and Reserves account for 40% of the 170,000 U.S. troops on duty in Iraq. In late August 2005, speaking to the Idaho National Guard, Bush continued to reveal little by little, what his ultimate objective is:

“An immediate withdrawal of our troops in Iraq or the broader Middle East… would only embolden the terrorists.”
President G.W. Bush

The Bush Objective Admitted: U.S. Domination of the Broader Middle East….and Central Asia!!

A high percentage of Americans do not agree with his Objective:

“I don’t think we should be over there anymore. They just keep on killing us; they obviously don’t want the help.”
Helene Moreira, wife of Staff Sgt. Moreira, whose husband was deploying to Iraq again!

Bush Says More Sacrifice Needed:

“Sacrifice is essential to winning war, and this will require more sacrifice, more time, and more resolve. Against such an enemy there is only one effective response; we will never back down, never give in, and never accept anything less than complete victory.”
President George W. Bush, 10-25-05

Perversion of Christian Moral Values

“Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power, never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far. We've watched these thugs parade themselves before the whole world as if they are courageous advocates for Christian moral values... and for the spread of Democracy”
Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother, 8/29/05

Uncle Sam Wants --- Your Kids Too!

Like Mrs. Sheehan, American families with high school age students are largely unaware of the peril that faces their sons and daughters from the so-called Volunteer Army Recruiters. When the Congress passed the Bush No Child Left Behind Act, they meant it literally. A section in the act requires Public Schools that receive federal funds, to turn over private student information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and other information to military recruiters, so that they can contact them at their homes.

In October, 2005, Veterans and Family Groups wrote to Donald Rumsfeld to register a complaint about yet another intrusion into the privacy of potential recruits. The Pentagon has developed the Joint Advertising and Marketing Studies(JAMS) computer Database which gathers private information on 30 million young Americans from age 16 to 25, to provide to recruiters.

Military Service and Breeding of Warriors are Fascist Ideals:

“For a man, military service is the most profound and valuable form of participation in the State—for the woman it is Motherhood.”
Gregor Strasser, One of the Founders of the Nazi Party, Leipzig, 1933

The infiltration of things military into the nation’s high schools and commercial databases to help feed the Militarist-Conservative war machine is not just a violation of the Privacy rights of the students, and their families; it is another example of the growing militarization of our nation.

The Disinformation Campaign-Premeditated Aggression:

“He wanted to go to Iraq in the worst possible way—and so he did!!
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Party Leader, December 7, 2005

Almost immediately after the September 2001 attacks, the Bush regime had begun to build a case for War on Iraq, a defeated third world Middle East nation, which was no threat to the U.S. or its allies, including Israel. The primary conspirators for this criminal act were the so-called Vulcans; Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Libby, Hadley, Feith, Dobriansky, and other members of what has been identified as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG)

On September 12, 2001, the top terrorism expert at the White House, Richard Clarke, sat down with the president and a few colleagues in the Situation Room. He describes this scene in his Essay, as follows;

“‘Look,’ [the President] told us, ‘I know you have a lot to do and all…but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way.’”
“I was once again taken back, incredulous, and it showed,” Clarke wrote. “But, Mr. President, al Qaeda did this.’
‘I know, I know, but…see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred.’
‘Absolutely, we will look…again.’ I was trying to be more respectful, more responsive. ‘But, you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq. Iran plays a little, as does Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, Yemen.’
‘Look into Iraq, Saddam,&’ the President said testily and left us.”

No link was found, yet according to another author, Bob Woodward, in his Essay “Plan of Attack”, we learned that military planning for an Iraq invasion actually began in November 2001. Woodward states that two months after 9/11, the President took Rumsfeld aside and asked,

“What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.”
President G.W. Bush

In his Essay, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, claimed that going after Saddam Hussein and Iraq was an idée fixe, raised at a meeting just 10 days after the first inauguration! (January 2001)

Some Nationalist-Conservative Pro-Israel opportunists like Richard Perle, (known in the Pentagon as the Prince of Darkness) in a misguided effort to help Israel; allied themselves with the historical ideological enemies of the Jewish people; the bigoted Anti-Semitic Nationalist-Conservatives in the Republican Party.

“…the Jews are an irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards.”
Richard Nixon, White House Tapes, 1972

In a conversation, with former Texas Gov. John B. Connolly, Nixon is heard saying of Jews;

“They're untrustworthy…Look at the Justice Department. It's full of Jews.”
Richard Nixon, White House Tapes, 1972

They apparently had not forgiven Iraq for bombarding Israel with Scud missiles during the First Gulf War. Perle and former Bush speech writer David Frum, spelled out the Neo-Conservative Agenda in their Essay; “The End of Evil, What’s Next in the War on Terror”

In 1996, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith of the Neo-Conservative think tank called the “Project For a New American Century”(PNAC), worked with the right wing Likud party’s Israeli Presidential candidate Benjamin Netanyahu. A report issued by them was reportedly titled;

“A Clean Break—Blueprint for a Mini-Cold War in the Middle East”

The report claimed to provide an entirely new intellectual foundation that would restore strategic initiative and provide the Israeli nation, the “ROOM” (think Lebensraum settlements), to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism.

In 2002, Richard Perle signed a PNAC letter to President Bush, arguing deeper U.S. commitment to Israel, and opposition to the Palestinians;

“No one should doubt that the U.S. and Israel share a common enemy. We are both targets of what you called the ‘Axis of Evil’…As a liberal democracy under repeated attack by murderers who target civilians, Israel now needs and deserves steadfast support…”
PNAC ltr. To President G.W. Bush, dated April 3, 2002
Signed by; R. Perle, J. Woolsey, G. Schmitt, William Kristol, D. Kagan

The question was, which nation and whose ideology were these Super-Patriots serving?

“It is likely that chemical weapons, biological weapons in the possession of the Iraqis derived during the Cold War from the Soviet Union, are now being disseminated to terrorists.”
Richard Perle, PBS interview, July, 2002

The American people were continuously sold a series of fantastic and deadly “Big Lies”; that Iraq had huge secret caches of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), was “operationally connected” with the Al Qaeda Terrorists that had committed the attacks on September 11, 2001, and could launch an attack on the U.S. with Weapons of Mass Destruction loaded on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, in “45 minutes.”

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
Jesus Christ, The King James Bible, John, 8:44

The Bush government had already decided to attack and occupy Iraq, for numerous unjustifiable reasons. One was to placate some Bush family friends; the brutal Saud feudal absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia; which had long despised Saddam Hussein’s Secular Socialist Ba’ath Party. But there were other, more ideological objectives.

“There were so many warning signs that the Nazis were expansionist, racist, and Fascist that foreigners could have been stupefied by their frequency. It seemed against all reason that any national leader or party would be so open about planned belligerency…this should have alarmed the European powers and their empires, as well as the United States, drugged by the morphia of Republicanism and infected by Nazi propaganda”
“Hitler Warned Us,” John Laffin

We now know with certainty that the Bush regime had cynically decided early in his first administration, that U.S. Forces permanently based in Iraq, would guarantee American dominance over the oil rich greater Middle East, and the untapped oil and gas reserves of the Central Asia/Caspian Sea region. The invasion and occupation of Iraq would satisfy numerous Nationalist-Conservative imperatives, including;

(a.) the establishment of Permanent Bases in an area where they could directly threaten and attack, Iran, Syria, and any other potential enemies of the U.S. and Israel in the greater Middle East, and Central Asian region
(b.) to establish hegemony over the greatest supply of oil and gas reserves in the world, to be remonetized in dollars (not Euros), thereby literally controlling the economic survival of many industrial nations
(c.) the removal of previous U.S. ally, Saddam Hussein and his regime, one of Israel’s most implacable foes
(d.) the removal of U.S. Forces from Saudi Arabia, a highly volatile issue with the radical Wahhabi sect religious majority, which threatens the stability and control of the Feudal Saud Dynasty
(e.) to cater to the fanatical Christian-Nationalist Fundamentalist Crusaders, who support Israel, in order to see it destroyed at the end times
(f.) to solidify the Radical Militarist-Conservative right wing War Hawks base of support for the 2004 Presidential election.
(g.) and finally, as Retribution for an alleged Iraqi Intelligence plot to kill his father, former President G.H.W. Bush.*

*In 1993, the Kuwaitis still smarting from the invasion of their country by Iraq, had leaked a story to an Arab-Language newspaper in London, that they had foiled a plot to kill former President G.H.W. Bush, with a car bomb, while he was visiting Kuwait. Two of the suspects, undoubtedly tortured, claimed that Iraqi intelligence agents had recruited them, but these were the same Kuwaiti Intelligence agents that had used the Kuwait Ambassador’s daughter to claim that she saw the Iraqis who had invaded Kuwait in 1990, throwing newborns out of their incubators, a claim later found to be false. It was get even time.

The Militarist-Conservative Warlords of the Bush regime were aided in this campaign, which involved the manipulation and distortion of intelligence and collusion in the deceit, by sycophant leaders of Britain and Italy, Tony Lapdog Blair, and Mussolini wannabe, Silvio “Benito” Berlusconi. Italy had once again begun a flirtation with Fascism, when it elected Berlusconi and his Vice-President (former Fascist Party leader) Fini, and the Forza Italia- Nuovo Destra (New Right) political party to power; and allowed the Granddaughter of Benito Mussolini to run for office on a modern version of the Fascist Party ticket.

The extent to which Berlusconi’s government may have compromised itself to curry favor with Bush regime began to emerge in November 2005. As the Plamegate affair heated up in Washington; questions finally began to be asked about the source of the now discredited report that Hussein was attempting to buy significant quantities of Uranium from Niger. President Bush included the allegation about Iraq seeking the Uranium in his January 2003 State of the Union address, accusing Iraq of pursuing banned weapons of mass destruction programs.

The phony story about the alleged Iraqi efforts to obtain Uranium first appeared in a magazine publication owned by Berlusconi himself. This smells like a bungled attempt at planting a story that might later be given credibility by repeated reports by the international press. It is a widely known fact that SISMI, the Italian Military Intelligence Agency became involved in peddling the story in late 2001, just at the right time to help the Bush regime’s justification for invading Iraq. The story about the phony documents, which contained the forged approval signature of a Niger official; who was not even in the government; was lost in the massive positive coverage of the war by U.S. news outlets.

Then on November 4, 2005, several news agencies reported the following;

Newsday reported that La Repubblica, in an original series of articles a week prior, had alleged that Italian intelligence had been involved with forging the documents, and named Rocco Martino, a part-time Italian spook, as the originator of the documents. The newspaper reported that;

ldquo;Martino had produced the forgeries from letterhead and stamps he purloined from Niger's embassy in Rome in 2000.”

According to La Repubblica, SISMI's earliest attempts to disseminate the false documents occurred in late 2001, when the forgeries were personally corroborated by Gen. Nicolo Pollari; Italy's chief of Military Intelligence; who sent them to the CIA station chief in Rome after the Sept. 11 attacks. SISMI purported the truth of documents it knew to be false, prompting the CIA to dispatch former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002 on a fact-finding mission; that came up empty.

Having failed to convince the CIA, the report said, Pollari took the phony intelligence straight to the Bush administration warlords, arranging a Washington briefing with Stephen Hadley, then deputy national security adviser. Hadley has confirmed that the meeting had occurred; but denied getting fake documents from Pollari on Hussein's alleged uranium purchase. Hadley said he consulted with staff members to "refresh my memory” before reaching this conclusion.

Former and current US intelligence officials have said that after the 9/11 attacks, Italian intelligence did send reports to the U.S. that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger that could be used for nuclear weapons. SISMI also confirmed that it had sent information about Iraq's attempts to buy Niger's uranium as early as the 1990's "but it never said the information was credible.”

In a day of extraordinary developments, the Times reported that Gen. Pollari admitted to a closed-door meeting of a key Italian parliamentary committee on Secret Services; that:

“Rocco Martino was a former intelligence agency informer who had been kicked out of the agency. …but he may have been working for the French.”

The French government which had strenuously opposed the ensuing war with Iraq, called Pollari’s claims outrageous lies!

Meanwhile in England, by November 2005, British members of Parliament were organizing a campaign to impeach Tony Blair. The MPs believe they have enough support to force a highly damaging Commons investigation into the Prime Minister's pre-war conduct. The impeachment process effectively stalled last year when just 23 MPs signed a Commons motion. But the scale of the government's defeat on anti-terror legislation, where 49 Labour MPs rebelled, has galvanized the momentum for proceedings to be invoked. Organizers were expecting 200 cross-party signatures, including those of former government ministers, to force the Commons to set up a Privy Council investigation in 2006, which will examine in detail the case for impeachment against Blair.

In an unusual show of courage, a leading British Army officer announced that Prime Minister Tony Blair should be impeached for his role in the war in Iraq. General Sir Michael Rose, a former UN commander in Bosnia, was quoted by the “Mail” a right-of-centre British paper, saying:

“I think the politicians should be held to account … my view is that Blair should be impeached. ‘That would prevent the politicians treating quite so carelessly the subject of taking a country into war.’”

Universal Fascism on the March Again

The rejuvenation of Right Wing Neo-Fascist political parties in Europe; is not confined to Italy. Extremist parties such as the “Flemish Bloc” in Belgium and the “National Front” in France; have been gaining at the polls, primarily as a result of Anti-Muslim backlash. The leader of the French National Front, Anti-immigrant Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked France, when he finished second to President Jacques Chirac, in the first round of the 2002 Presidential elections. In November 2005, riots broke out all over France over the deaths of two Arab-French youths attempting to escape French police. The right wing National Front will undoubtedly benefit from these violent episodes.

Even historically tolerant nations such as the Netherlands, have been affected by these far-right Anti-Immigrant parties, that are fanning the religious prejudices and fears of the European people, over their growing Muslim populations, which have been estimated at 23 million or about 5% of the total population.

In Germany’s national elections, in September 2005, Conservative Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union Party scored 35.2% of the vote against Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats, vote of 34.3%. Since Schroeder had joined with Russia and France in opposing the U.S. led Iraq War, it was the unspoken election issue. Merkel had reached out to the Bush regime during the election; but Schroeder’s policies have kept Germany from suffering any terrorist attacks like those in Spain and England

The election primarily reflected differences on economics; but the question of the War in Iraq and Muslim immigrants, particularly from Turkey, was an ever present issue. Merkel, 51, head of the Conservative Christian Democrats, needed support from a majority of lawmakers in Germany's 614-seat lower house to succeed outgoing Schroeder; but without a clear victory, Merkel was forced to join with Schroeder to form a new government, in which she will serve as the new Premier. Merkel's Christian Democrats and their right wing Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, were forced to ally with the Social Democrats. Merkel, a former East German physicist, thus became Germany's first female chancellor on November 22, 2005, Similar weak coalitions had occurred in the 1930s in Germany, and led to the disaster of the Nazi era.

Countries like Germany and Austria have a persistent reputation for passive Anti-Semitism; with occasional overt Neo-Nazi resurgence, and periodic acts of racial violence. In the U.S., the violent Neo-Nazi movement is never very far below the surface. In November 2005; the Ku-Klux-Klan held a rally in Austin, Texas on the eve of a statewide vote on a Republican initiative to amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages. The bill, which for the first time in Texas history, enshrined discrimination in its Constitution; passed by a wide margin!

In Bakersfield, California, two white, blue eyed, and very blond 13 year old sisters; Lamb and Lynx Gaede, have been cutting records as the music duo, “Prussian Blue” in a genre dubbed “Defensive Racist Pop”

Here are a few typical lyrics from one of their first recordings, which urge white people not to mix with other races;

Title: Aryan Man Awake
How much more will you take,
Turn that fear to hate,
Aryan Man Awake

White supremacists hoped the attention they have been getting would help the duo crossover to young mainstream audiences. The girls have sold several thousand copies of their first album, “Fragments of the Future” and a second album was due out in a few months.

Even the new Pope, Benedict XVI, has given support to the racist and religious bigots, urging Europeans to refuse entry of moderate and tolerant Turkey into the European Union, because it is a “Muslim” country.

The Panzer-Pope

“By the end of 1933, other youth organizations had been banned or merged into the Hitler youth. The only exception to this were Catholic Groups that had some protection under the Concordat, agreed to between the Nazis and the Vatican.”
Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann, “Inside Hitler’s Germany”

(The new Pope’s spokesperson had claimed that the Pope had been forced to join the Hitler Youth, but that is highly questionable)

While men, women and children are dying every day in the Iraq disaster, caused by his Compassionate-Conservative ally; the former Nazi Hitler Youth member known as the Panzerkardinal, before he was selected to the Papacy, busied himself with issuing dire warnings ex-cathedra about The DaVinci Code, and the latest moral threat to the world, the new Harry Potter book!

The Priest Pedophilia Scandal

According to a study sponsored by the bishops and conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, more than 5,000 priests in the U.S. alone; abused more than 11,000 minors in a 55-year period. This is proof of a fundamental defect in the Priesthood system. The bishops have instituted an elaborate prevention and reporting program in every parish and an annual national audit of bishops' compliance, but that fails to address the root cause of the malady: psychologically damaged and sexually repressed celibate priests.

The abuse scandal has cost the church more than $1 billion in settlements so far, including victims compensation, care and counseling for victims and priests, and prevention programs.

On October 12, 2005, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, headed by Cardinal Mahoney, published summaries of its confidential files on 126 clergymen accused of Pedophilia (sexually abusing children), chronicling its failure for decades to act on complaints from parents, notify police or warn parishioners in the nation's largest Roman Catholic diocese.

More than560 child abuse lawsuits have been filed, which could cost the archdiocese more than $500 million, according to lawyers on both sides.

Three dioceses facing claims - Portland, Ore., Tucson and Spokane, Wash. have filed for bankruptcy, and the Archdiocese of Boston shuttered dozens of parishes. In California, which changed its law in 2003 to allow more than 800 accusers to file suit, hundreds of negotiations are stalled in a battle between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and insurance companies over liability for claims.

In Ireland, a bastion of Catholicism; an investigation of similar criminal abuse was conducted by a retired Irish Supreme Court Judge. The investigation results announced in October 2005, found that the Catholic Church in Ireland had covered up extensive Child Abuse and Pedophilia.

Over 100 allegations of Pedophilia were reported, but no names were released. The cover-up continues as John Kelly of the Survivors of Child Abuse stated; “No Ones Named—No Ones Shamed”

The Church refuses to confront the fundamental problem, which many Psychiatrists attribute to the unnatural sexually repressed lives which Priests and Nuns are forced to endure, to serve God and the Church. It is not an accident that such repression appears to have also been a major psychological defect of the leaders of the highly conservative Nazi political regime.

The New Inquisition

In September 2005, led by the new reactionary Pope, and in reaction to the recent sex abuse scandals; the very conservative Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has embarked on a new Inquisition; this time against homosexuals. A vast investigation to identify Priests with homosexual tendencies; has been ordered. In the first step, every faculty member and student at 220 U.S. seminaries must answer and sign lengthy questionnaires.

Gay Purge

In November 2005, a Vatican document was leaked to the press; that excludes from the priesthood most gay men, with few exceptions; banning in strong and specific language candidates;

“…who are actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or who support the so-called ‘gay culture.’”

A Time magazine essay called what the Arch-Conservative Pope has done is to conflate a sin with an identity. He has created a class of humans who, regardless of what they do, are too psychologically, and therefore morally disordered, to become Priests. The message of Jesus was always to ignore the stereotype, the label, the identity—in order to observe the soul beneath. The new reactionary Pope has turned that teaching on its head, its not what they do that he is concerned with. It’s who they are!

This policy could have just as easily been written by the bigots in the Christian-Nationalist movement.

The policy has divided Catholics, especially in the United States; igniting a contentious debate over whether this is an appropriate response to the recent sex scandals which involved child molestation, not homosexuality.

The church scandal involves the sexual perversion of pedophilia; but the church investigation guidelines say nothing about pedophilia--sex with children; which is the problem at the heart of the scandal. The Pedophilia problem which caused the scandal in the Catholic Church in not confined to the U.S.; it is a worldwide problem.

Meanwhile the new Pope continued to hammer away at less compelling moral issues, arguing against the new Abortion Pill (RU-486) Abortion up to the end of the third month of pregnancy was legalized in predominantly Catholic Italy in 1978, after a long battle between the Vatican and secular forces. Recently, the abortion pill became available in parts of Italy on an experimental basis.

The Italian Bishops' Conference has mounted a renewed fight against abortion and the RU-486 pill is turning abortion into a campaign issue for the first time since Italians upheld the law in a 1981 referendum; sponsored by the church in a bid to overturn it.

The very status quo Conservative Catholic Church hierarchy has a 1600 year history of cooperating with Conservative, Authoritative, and Totalitarian regimes, led by Emperors, Kings, Royalists, Fascists, Generalissimos, and dictatorial tyrants all over the World. The church has always considered survival of their hierarchy more important than the survival of their followers.

Fascism and Christianity:

“Fascism is based upon the principles of Christianity, and it has come to an understanding with the Church of Rome…”
Sir Charles Petrie, Irish Baronet; Editor of English Review, the major Journal of High Toryism in Britain; Catholic; Monarchist, and great admirer of Mussolini.

It is a sad fact that the Institutional Catholic Church and the Catholic Centre Party in Germany; cooperated with the Nazis at a most critical point, when they might have been stopped in the Reichstag:

“In 1933, the Catholic Centre Party supported the “Enabling Law of 1933” which was a sweeping measure to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag; forming the Constitutional basis of Nazi rule.”
Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann, “Inside Hitler’s Germany”

This is not an attack on the entire Catholic Church. As a Roman Catholic I respect the great moral and civilizing influence the Church has had on Western civilization. But it is a fact that in Central and South America; and in the pre-war and war years in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Austria, and Spain; the Catholic Church Hierarchy, in recent centuries has come down on the side of the oppressors.  This is the same Church that gave the world; St. Francis, Pope John XXIII, Mother Teresa, the brave Arch-Bishop Romero who was assassinated at the altar of his church, and the Priests and Nuns who gave their lives in Central America in an attempt to help the poor.

It must also be remembered, that many Americans supported the Nazis and other Fascists in the 30s because they were Pro-business, anti-communist, and for 'law and order'.

No Strategic Delivery Capability = No Threat!!

The truth about Iraq was, what the cynical British and Italian government leaders knew, and what any 2^nd Lt. with six months military experience knew;

Iraq was no more of a threat to the U.S. than any other Islamic country in the Middle East, and less dangerous because it had no strategic delivery capability (long range missiles, aircraft, submarines, etc.) for any form of WMD; had not been involved in the attacks of September 11^th; and with its cold war vintage Russian military hardware, was virtually prostrate before the military might of the world’s only Superpower.

There are credible estimates that upwards of two million Iraqis have perished as a result of American meddling in Iraqi affairs since 1980. 1.5 million (mostly children) died due to U.S. sponsored UN sanctions; and over 170,000 have died in the current war and occupation. Since the first Gulf War; the U.S. and its allies, had for over a decade, exercised total air superiority, and unrestricted air and space reconnaissance over Iraq. Nothing moved in Iraq that was not observed by the massive U.S. Intelligence surveillance apparatus, spread throughout the world and in outer space.

We Armed and Trained the Al Qaeda

What actually happened was that, in the 1980s, in reaction to the USSR invasion of Afghanistan, the Reagan regime with the help of the Saudi government, provided Billions in military aid, funneled through Pakistani Intelligence, to a force of Muslim Mujahideen Freedom Fighters.

These fierce Afghan tribesmen, and several thousand Arab insurgents, then fought the Soviet Union to a standstill in Afghanistan; using guerrilla warfare. For example with the help of American built Stinger missiles, they downed 270 Soviet aircraft. The Mujahideen demonstrated to the Muslim world that it was possible for a determined guerrilla force, to defeat a 20^th Century equipped military force. A large portion of these experienced warriors, later betrayed by their American and Saudi supporters, morphed into a fanatical religious, international Muslim irregular force, called the Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda’s publicly stated goals are; to wage a defensive Islamic Jihad to remove U.S. forces from the Middle East, and to eliminate the corrupt U.S. client state governments in the Arab world; particularly the Saud Dynasty. Following the historical role of Saladin, they plan to unite the entire Arab world into a Pan-Arab Islamic Caliphate, following the radical extremist Saudi Arabian Muslim strain of Hyper-Conservative (chop off heads) Sunni Islam, called Wahhabism.

Fanatical certainly, but very powerful medicine, in a region that had experienced a millennia of western aggression and invasion, from the Crusades of the 11^th to the 18^th century; to the Colonization of Arab lands by European powers in the 18^th and 19^th Century; to the exploitation of oil resources by American and British companies in the 20th and now in the 21st Century.

The Ugly American Crusader

The illiterate Mr. Bush has described the Iraq War as an American “Crusade”. He may have missed that lecture in college due to heavy partying, the night before.

Deus Le Volt (God Wills It)

This was the Motto and Battle Cry of the First Crusade or Holy War, announced on November 27, 1095, by Pope Urban II at Clermont, France. According to historians, the Crusades officially began on that date, and ended on June 13, 1798, when Napoleon sailed into the Grand Harbor of Malta, on his way to conquer Egypt.

The Christian Holy Wars:

“Let Western Christendom march to the rescue of the East, Each member of the expedition was to wear the sign of the Cross, as a symbol of his dedication; a cross of red material should be sown on to the shoulder of his surcoat.
Anyone that took the Cross should vow to go to Jerusalem. If he turned back too soon or failed to set out, he would suffer excommunication. (Urban passed a general decree giving remission from temporal penalties for the sins of all that took part with pious intentions in the Holy War).”
Pope Urban II, “The First Crusade” by Steven Runciman

The Holy City sacked by Holy Warriors:

In “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes”, Amin Maalouf writes: “The venerable qadi Abu Sa ad al-Harawi…burst with a loud cry into the diwan of the Caliph al-Mustazhir Billah, (Baghdad)….and said, How dare you slumber in the shade of complacent safety, leading lives as frivolous as garden flowers….Never have the Muslims been so humiliated,…never have their lands been so savagely devastated. All of the people traveling with him had fled from towns sacked by the invaders; among them were some of the survivors of Jerusalem. He had brought them along so that they could relate, in their own words, the tragedy they had suffered just one month earlier”

The Franj (Crusaders) had taken the Holy city on Friday, the twenty-second day of the month of Sha ban, in the year of the Hegira 492, or 15 July 1099, after a forty day siege, The exiles still trembled when they spoke of the fall of the city; they stared into space as though they could still see the fair-haired and heavily armoured warriors spilling through the streets, swords in hand, slaughtering men, women, and children , plundering houses, sacking mosques.

Two days later, when the killing stopped, not a single Muslim was left alive within the city walls. Some had taken advantage of the chaos to slip away, escaping through gates battered down by the attackers. Thousands of others lay in pools of blood on the doorsteps of their homes or alongside the mosques.

Among them were many Imams, ‘ulama’, and Sufi ascetics who had forsaken their countries of origin for a life of pious retreat in these Holy places. The last survivors were forced to perform the worst tasks; to heave the bodies of their own relatives, to dump them in vacant , unmarked lots, and then to set them alight, before being themselves massacred or sold into slavery.

The fate of the Jews of Jerusalem was no less atrocious. During the first hours of battle, some participated in the defense of their quarter, situated on the northern edge of the city. But when that part of the city walls overhanging their homes collapsed and the blond knights began to pour through the streets, the Jews panicked. Re-enacting an immemorial rite, the entire community gathered in the synagogue to pray. The Franj barricaded all the exits and stacked all the bundles of wood they could find in a ring around the building. The Temple was then put to the torch. Those who managed to escape were massacred in the neighboring alleyways. The rest were burned alive.

The story of the sack of Jerusalem and many other Middle Eastern cities by the Christian Crusaders; has been confirmed by on the scene Christian writers, as well as Muslims. Priestly eyewitness Raymond of Giles wrote:

“Numbers of the Saracens were beheaded … others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers… others were tortured for several days and then burned in flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses…”

Another contemporary Christian observer, Albertus Aquens wrote:

“…women were stabbed to death, suckling babies were snatched by the leg from their mother’s breasts and flung over the walls, or had their necks broken by being dashed against posts, and 70,000 Muslims remaining in the city were slaughtered. The surviving Jews were herded into a synagogue and burned alive.”
The Age Of Faith by Will Durant, Chap. XXIII

The Massacre of Jerusalem:

“The Crusaders maddened… rushed through the streets and into the houses and mosques killing all that they met, men, women, and children alike. All that afternoon and all through the night the massacre continued. The massacre at Jerusalem profoundly impressed the world. No one can say how many victims it involved; but it emptied Jerusalem of its Moslem and Jewish inhabitants. Many even of the Christians were horrified by what had been done; and amongst the Moslems, who had been ready hitherto to accept the Franks as another factor in the tangled politics of the time, there was henceforward a clear determination that the Franks must be driven out. It was this bloodthirsty proof of Christian fanaticism that recreated the fanaticism of Islam.”
“The First Crusade,” by Steve Runciman

The sack of Jerusalem was the starting point of a millennium of hostility between Islam and the West. It would take nearly a century before the Arab East would mobilize against the invaders, before the call to Jihad issued by the qadi’s first solemn act of resistance. Under the leadership of future Muslim patriots, the Western invaders were eventually driven out of all of the Arab lands. On October 2, 1187 the Muslim leader Saladin entered Jerusalem in a way that greatly contrasted with the so-called Christian troops of the First Crusade.

“Where the Franks 88 years before had waded through the blood of their victims, not a building was looted, not a person injured. Saladin then agreed to liberate several thousand unconditionally… Syrian Christians were allowed to retain their churches and stay in Jerusalem, and Saladin encouraged the Jews to return.”
“The Cross and the Crescent,” by Malcolm Billings

Not only were the western invaders uprooted, after nearly two centuries of western colonization; but the Arabs had so completely gained the upper hand, that before long, under the banner of the Ottoman Turks, they would seek to conquer Europe itself. In 1453, they took the Capitol of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople, renamed it Istanbul, and by 1529, their cavalry was encamped at the walls of Vienna.

In the Muslim world, the people feel they are still under attack from the West, and there is a sense of persecution which feeds dangerous obsessions. In 1981, the Turk, Mehmet Ali Agca, tried to kill the Pope. He expressed his reasoning, in a letter found in his possessions, as follows:

“I have decided to kill John Paul II, Supreme Commander of the Crusades.”
Mehmet Ali Agca

There can be no doubt that the enmity between the West and the Muslim Arab world dates from the Crusades, deeply felt as an act of rape. By using the term “Crusade”, to describe his war with Iraq, Mr. Bush, revealed his pitiful ignorance of world history, and sent an unmistakable signal to the entire Muslim world.

After many decades of political, military, and economic subjugation, and humiliation, by Great Britain and the USA; the prolonged occupation of Palestinian homelands by the U.S. armed Israelis, with the connivance and tacit approval of the U.S.; large U.S. military presence in many Arabian Gulf states, and in the Arabian Sea; and despotic rule by their own corrupt rulers, the common people of the Muslim world turned in despair, to radical resistance leaders, using the only weapons at their disposal; resistance, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism.

A defensive Islamic Jihad, or Holy War, against the USA, the big Satan, has found widespread support among all classes of Muslim people.

The common people had simply had enough of despotic rulers, foreigners benefiting from the exploitation of their natural resources, and in particular, foreign Military domination and occupation of bases in their countries. They also demanded a change in U.S. foreign policy, which had always favored Israel over the Arab world.

“At the epicenter of all Middle Eastern political troubles is the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
General Anthony Zinni, USMC Ret., at the LBJ Library, April, 6, 2005

Bush claimed that the U.S. was hated for its Liberty and Democracy, but the truth was, that the U.S. Government had earned their hatred, by cynical and exploitive foreign policies, practiced over a period of 50 years. These policies had resulted in periodic coups by CIA sponsored henchmen, like Saddam Hussein, and the Shah of Iran; impoverishment of the Arab peoples; the deaths of millions of their brethren under brutal rulers; and periodic Preventive War attacks against Arab countries by Israel.

Empire Strikes Back—The New World Order Domination Plan

The Bush Administrations principal Ante-bellum war objective was to acquire permanent enduring bases in Iraq, to enable total military and economic domination of the entire greater Middle East, and Central Asia and its oil and gas reserves.

“We have power, and power is its own excuse!”
“It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis, 1935

The ideological advocates of this illegal and aggressive foreign policy included; Vice-President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and his Deputy Paul Wolfowitz; Scooter Libby; Jeb Bush, Richard Perle; Condaleeza Rice, and others. These so-called Neo-Conservatives, or Neocons, had openly proclaimed their intentions in a Mein Kampf type publication, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” issued in September 2000, by their Project for a New American Century (PNAC) organization. This document has been accurately defined as an Imperial Master Plan for economic and military domination of the entire world by the U.S. Government. These are a few pertinent passages from the Master Plan:

“The United States is the world’s only Superpower, combining Preeminent Military Power, Global Technological Leadership, and the world’s largest economy.
America’s Grand Strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.
This requires a Global Preeminent Military capability both today and in the future.
The United States must discourage advanced Industrial Nations from challenging our Leadership or even aspiring to a larger Regional or Global role.”
Project for a New American Century (PNAC), Rebuilding America’s Defenses, September 2000

The PNAC Imperial Master Plan is Un-American and Un-Christian:

“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it.”

“The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts, through passion, what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.”
President George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

The Un-American goals of the PNAC had been unsuccessfully peddled for a decade, by so-called Neo-Con ideologues, including; Richard Perle, and William Kristol, son of the former liberal titan Irving Kristol; who was later called the Godfather of Neo-Conservatism, when he abandoned the ideology of Liberal-Democracy. This time the Neo-Con pseudo-philosophers found eager supporters in the belligerent Militarist-Conservative War Party of the Bush Jr. regime.

“At no time in his rise to power did Hitler and his senior colleagues of the Nazi party make any secret of their opinions, attitudes and ambitions. They gave free rein to their racism, imperialism, and despotism and the sheer hatred they felt for their perceived enemies at home and abroad.”
“Hitler Warned Us,” John Laffin

Although written in less violent prose, their thinly disguised Nationalist-Conservative Domination doctrine was entirely similar to that of the first Fascist era in 1930s Italy and Germany.

“Like women who would rather yield to a strong man than dominate a weak one, so the masses love a Dominator better than a supplicant and feel inwardly more satisfied by a Doctrine which tolerates no other beside itself than by granting Liberal Freedom.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf