THE GREATEST STRATEGIC DISASTER IN US HISTORY

[Guest guest]

The Greatest Strategic

Disaster In US History

By Paul Craig Roberts

Creators Syndicate

10-3-5

 

Capitol Hill Blue, the Washington, D.C., publication that cultivates

relationships with White House staffers, reports one White House aide

saying, " It's like working in an insane asylum. People walk around

like they're in a trance. We're the dance band on the Titanic,

playing out our last songs to people who know the ship is sinking and

none of us are going to make it. "

 

" If POTUS is on the road, you can breathe a little easier, " says an

aide. Otherwise, it is one temper tantrum after another from Bush,

whose " cakewalk war " has turned into interminable conflict, whose

idiocy in diverting funding for New Orleans' levees to war in Iraq

was disastrous for the famous city, and whose Social Security

privatization has been rejected by the electorate.

 

Even rah-rah Republican Newt Gingrich says the White House is

surrounded by failure.

 

No member of the White House staff wants to deliver news to Bush,

because the news is bad. Bush demands sycophancy and equates bad news

with disagreement and disloyalty.

 

Little wonder that Condi Rice was dispatched to Princeton last week

to inform the university that democracy comes out of the barrel of a

gun. U.S. military force, said the secretary of state with a straight

face, is required to force democracy down the throats of the Muslims

in order to save future American generations from " insecurity and

fear. "

 

Condi obviously doesn't want Bush to put her in the " against us "

camp. She told Princeton that she agreed with Bush " that the root

cause of Sept. 11 was the violent expression of a global extremist

ideology, an ideology rooted in the oppression and despair of the

modern Middle East. "

 

Every American should be scared to death that a secretary of state

can make such an ignorant and propagandistic statement.

 

Many Middle Eastern countries are ruled by puppets on the American

payroll. Even the Saudis are under American protection. If there is

oppression in the Middle East, it is because U.S. puppets and

protectorates are doing what the U.S. government wants, not what the

people they rule want.

 

The Middle East is in despair because almost a century after the

First World War freed Arabs from Turkish occupation, they still

cannot get free of U.S. and British occupation. The reasons Osama bin

Laden has a cause among Muslims are (1) U.S. military bases in the

Middle East and (2) Israeli practices such as stealing the West Bank

and herding Palestinians into ghettos.

 

What kind of fool believes that the way to bring democracy to a

country is to invade, destroy cities and infrastructure, and kill and

maim tens of thousands of civilians, while creating every possible

animosity by aligning with some members of the society against the

others?

 

Condi Rice's speech at Princeton has branded her the greatest fool

ever to be appointed secretary of state. The same day that she

declared, Mao-like, that democracy comes out of the barrel of a gun,

Lt. Gen. William Odom, director of the National Security Agency

during President Reagan's second term, a scholar with a distinguished

career in military intelligence, declared Bush's invasion of Iraq to

be the " greatest strategic disaster in United States history. "

 

No one can impugn Gen. Odom's patriotism. When I wrote on April 1,

2003, that " the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a strategic blunder, " the

hate mail poured in from bloody-minded Bush supporters, who assured

me that the war would be over in one week. Only a liberal pinko Bush-

hating commie could fail to see that the war was won, they jeered.

 

Two and one-half years later with rising casualties and instability,

no one can dispute Gen. Odom. As all news reports make clear, there

is no trained Iraqi army. Consequently, says the U.S. commander in

Iraq, the hopes that some U.S. troops could be withdrawn next spring

is forlorn.

 

The Democratic Party is no help. Its warmongers are pushing

legislation to increase the available U.S. troops by 80,000 in order

that the U.S. can keep the war going in Iraq.

 

Many of these troops, too, will perish in the interminable conflict.

 

Meanwhile the U.S., which cannot occupy Baghdad or control the road

to the airport, is making more threats against Syria. The Bush

administration is blaming Syria and Iran for its failure in

Iraq. " Our patience is running out, " declared U.S. ambassador to Iraq

Zalmay Khalilzad.

 

The Israelis have told their U.S. puppet that if the U.S. doesn't use

force to destroy Iran's nuclear energy programs, then Israel will

undertake to bomb Iran. This despite the announcement by the director

of the International Atomic Energy Agency that two years of

unfettered access to Iran's nuclear programs has failed to turn up

any sign of a weapons program.

 

When will Americans notice that the threats flow from the U.S. to the

Middle East? No Middle Eastern government has made any threat against

the U.S. or initiated any hostile action. In contrast, the U.S. has

invaded two Middle Eastern countries and is threatening to attack two

more.

 

Terrorism is not an activity of Muslim states. Osama bin Laden is a

Saudi who dares not return to his homeland.

 

Most Muslim states are too impotent to stamp out independent

terrorists and too fearful that terrorist networks will be organized

against them. Ignorant U.S. officials equate weakness with intention

and demonize Middle Eastern governments, including our own puppets

and protectorates, as " state sponsors of terrorism. " Isn't it ironic?

The U.S. damns vulnerable Middle Eastern rulers for not stamping out

terrorism when all the troops and violence the U.S. can muster cannot

stamp out terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The implication of a recent CIA report is that the U.S. itself is a

state sponsor of terrorism. According to the CIA, the U.S. invasion

of Iraq has created a terrorist training ground for al-Qaeda where no

previous terrorists existed. The U.S. is creating more terrorists in

Iraq than the rest of the Middle East together. Why is President Bush

spending $300 billion running a terrorist training ground in Iraq?

 

Why does Condi Rice think that democracy would wipe away the hatreds

that the U.S. and Israel have created in the Middle East? How does

she know that Middle Eastern democracy would not uphold terrorism

against Israel and the U.S.? In the U.S., democracy is upholding an

illegal war based on deceit. In Israel, democracy is upholding crimes

against the Palestinians. Does Condi Rice really believe that

democracy, a mere political form, ensures that people and their

governments never behave wrongly, immorally, or violently?

 

If America is going to preach democracy, shouldn't it lead by

example? According to all the polls, the vast majority of Americans

do not agree with Bush and Rice that democracy comes out of the

barrel of an American gun. They do not support Bush's goal of using

American blood and treasure to force democracy on the Middle East or

anywhere else. The majority of Americans want the war over and the

troops home. Why do Bush and Condi Rice oppose the will of the

majority? Why don't these two who preach democracy practice it?

 

The Bush administration is the administration of deceit and

hypocrisy. It is the antithesis of democracy. All democracy rests on

persuasion, which implies disagreement. Yet Bush and Condi regard

dissent as disloyalty. They glorify coercion.

 

They believe in their will alone. Where have we seen that before?