Stop Us Before We Kill Again!

[CrisisPapers]

| Bernard Weiner |

The essence of Bush & Co. strategy, from January 2001 to today, can be boiled down to this: we'll continue doing whatever we want to do until someone stops us.

So, if you're wondering whether the U.S. will back off from attacking Iran, or whether corporations will no longer be given the ability to dictate Administration environmental policy, or whether domestic spying on U.S. citizens will cease, or whether Scalia might recuse himself on cases he's already pre-judged - if you still harbor any or all of those illusions, forget about it.

Even as the Bush Administration slides lower and lower in the polls, the same dare issues from their lips: stop us if you can, losers!

You see, from Day One, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney had a strategy and a theory of governance. It goes something like this: we need only one vote more than the other guys - on the Supreme Court, in the Senate, in the popular vote totals in key states. Once we get our victory by whatever means necessary, we are then the legitimate rulers. We can claim that the people have spoken, we have a "mandate" for action and can do whatever we want. If you don't like it, try again at the next election - and see where that gets you, suckers, since our side counts the votes!

THE POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES

The Bushistas look around and, though not happy with how their policies have fallen out of favor, they can be somewhat sanguine. After all, their fundamentalist base of about 33% is still hanging in there with them. The mainstream media - most newspapers, Fox News, radio talk-shows, cable pundits - are still more or less in their pockets. The faction-ridden Democrats remain in the minority, marginalized in Congress and far away from the levers of power. The votes are still tabulated by a few Republican companies, many from e-voting machines that are easily manipulatable by company technicians, even from remote distances. Another major news event - war, a huge natural disaster, a major terrorist attack - can re-focus the headlines away from Bush & Co.'s current and ever-growing scandals.

On the other hand, a determined prosecutor Fitzgerald is still out there, deeply knowledgeable about what really went down in the manipulation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. The military establishment is rebelling against Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld war policies, openly in the case of those generals who resigned to speak their minds, and covertly in the case of those actively serving who are leaking their opposition to Jack Murtha, Sy Hersh and others. More and more conservative and moderate Republicans are backing away from too-close association with BushCheney, and there have been a number of embarrassing defeats for the Administration in Congress. Revelations of one Bush & Co. scandal after another keep coming (Katrina, Abramoff, domestic spying, WMD lies, torture, Plamegate, Unitary Executive dictatorship, and on and on).

Given all that - and one suspects that is just the tip of the criminality iceberg - one would expect that Bush and Cheney would be approaching the impeachment dock shortly. But while a majority of the public is willing to consider or support bringing Bush and Cheney into accountability for their lies and corruption and incompetency, the weak-kneed politicians simply refuse to even consider a censure resolution, let alone to pass one authorizing impeachment hearings. In short, the Democrats have chosen not to put up a real fight for either the future well-being of the Constitution or their own political survival.

And so, with no effective opposition in their way, Bush & Co. simply keep moving forward. Next stop: Iran.

THIS IS NOT JUST SABER-RATTLING

Though there is some speculation that all this talk about Bush attacking Iran is so much saber-rattling to get the Iranians to back away from pursuing their nuclear ambitions, I don't buy it.

Bush & Co. want this war for a variety of reasons: to further their deeply-held goal (and Bush's sense of "legacy") of altering the geopolitical makeup of the greater Middle East; to control the vast oil reserves in the region; to provide yet another demonstration model to Muslim rulers in the area not to mess with U.S. desires and demands; and, of course, to wrap Bush in the warrior flag yet again as a way of deflecting attention away from his domestic and foreign scandals by counting on the public's fascination with footage of laser-guided "precision" bombs striking the "enemy."

("Precision" is in quotation marks because by now we know to anticipate thousands of dead and wounded civilians when the missiles and bombs go slightly off-target. And, let us not forget, we haven't even brought up the subject of the radiation effects that might ensue if, as is being planned, Bush uses "tactical" atomic bombs, the so-called mini-nuke "bunker busters," to get at Iran's deep-underground labs. If such WMD are employed by the U.S., hundreds of thousands could be killed or badly damaged by radiation, and the area contaminated into the far future.)

The propaganda barrage being laid down by Administration spokesmen these days is so utterly identical to the fog of lies that preceded the attack on Iraq that it seems all Rumsfeld has to do is simply re-use the original Pentagon press releases and change the last letter of the target country, "n" instead of "q." We even get ye olde "mushroom cloud" image hauled out again, supposedly warning us about Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons; this time, that mushroom cloud could well be one effected by the U.S. bombers and missiles.

Even the fantastical expectations are as out of whack as what we were told would happen in Iraq. There, we were promised endlessly, the American forces, in a "cakewalk," would be greeted as "liberators," with kisses and flowers. In Iran, we're told, the same will occur, and the oppressed Iranians, chafing at the harsh rule of the fundamentalist mullahs running the country, will rise up and topple the Iranian government. Seymour Hersh writes: "One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that 'a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.' He added: 'I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, 'What are they smoking?'")

NUCLEAR BUNKER-BUSTERS?

These predictions of a popular uprising against their Iranian rulers, which arise out of neo-con ignorance and desire, simply ignore the realities on the ground. Imagine, for example, how U.S. citizens would feel - even those opposed to the Bush Administration - if a bullying foreign power bombed the hell out of our country's scientific and industrial laboratories, killing a lot of our citizens in the process, and badly hampering our economic progress for decades to come. If the attack included nuclear bombs, multiply those angry reactions (and the resulting radiation deaths) by a thousand per cent. How would the citizens react? Of course: the American people would unite behind their leaders, beloved or despised, in resisting the attackers. Much the same reactions should be anticipated from Iran's citizens.

In Iran's case, given that it's the major Muslim military and political power in the region, that resistance might well lead to retaliation where it hurts. Israel, America's one surefire ally in the region, probably would be attacked, thus widening the already red-hot conflict; U.S. warships in the area would be targeted by Iranian missiles; oil sales to the West would be greatly reduced or cut off entirely, and perhaps other oil fields in the region might be bombed; the Straits of Hormuz, which control entry into the Persian Gulf, might be blocked to sea traffic; Iranian assault troops might enter Iraq to support the insurgency, which would have redoubled its attacks on U.S. forces; Iran-sponsored terrorists would hit American targets both in the region and perhaps even inside the United States. Plus, the Law of Unintended Consequences would lead to even more ruinous events not even contemplated here as other nations become involved.

Surely, Iran knows how much the U.S. military is stressed these days in Iraq and Afghanistan, how thin the troop strength is around the globe, how so many U.S. troops are going AWOL or are not re-upping, how National Guard troops and commanders are reacting negatively to their overuse outside America's boundaries, how many in the Pentagon brass are opposed to Bush policy, etc. The aim of the Iranians, in this scenario, would be to get the U.S. bogged down in yet another land war in the region.

In short, it's not just the ineptly-managed quagmire in Iraq that is behind much of the opposition from high-ranking officers in America's military command. Clearly, they are speaking out now because of the prospect of another disaster about to unfold in Iran, which will get young American troops slaughtered and tied-down in yet another military adventure.

(Let us be clear. The military brass currently in revolt against Rumsfeld and his superiors - the unnamed Cheney and Bush - are not liberal activists energized by the issues of whether these wars are moral or legal or even well-advised; they are arguing, for the most part, on how best to properly manage such conflicts, how to more effectively conduct such imperial adventures while keeping their troops safe. But, whatever their motives, progressives should welcome any dissent that weakens the hold of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld triad on the levers of uncriticized power.)

WHY IRAN WANTS NUKES

Do I believe that Iran's rulers are nice, progressive guys who deserve our support? Of course not. Ahmadinejad mirrors Bush as a close-minded, backward-looking, religiously-influenced fundamentalist leader, and Iran's senior mullahs likewise. Do I believe Iran wants uranium-enrichment purely to build nuclear power plants? Of course not. They desire to be the big power in the neighborhood, plus they've seen how defenseless Iraq and Afghanistan were treated, and how this differs from how the U.S. behaves toward North Korea, Pakistan and India, all recent members of the nuclear-weapons club.

If for no reason other than their own protection against the two atomic powers in the region (the U.S. and Israel), the Iranian government's goal is to possess some nuclear-tipped missiles. Their atomic program is taking its first babysteps these days. America's own intelligence analysts believe it would take anywhere from five to ten years to get to the point of Iran having a nuclear arsenal. And, if both sides possess nuclear weapons, the world may return to the days of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, as a brake on rash action.

The Bush doctrine of "preventive" or "pre-emptive" war is to hit potential enemies before they can even get on the track of building up their weaponry. Hit 'em while they're weak and vulnerable, even if they have no plan of attacking anybody (such was the case with Iraq) - that's the operating principle. The Islamic states are weak and vulnerable right now; hit 'em. Iraq is weak and vulnerable; take it. Iran doesn't yet have a fully developed nuclear program; blast it.

THE APRIL 29TH ANTI-WAR TEST

Nobody is sure when the attack on Iran will come. Given the resistance inside the U.S. military to launching such an attack, the Bush propaganda machine may feel it needs a few more months to soften the public's attitude to the "inevitability" of the move on Iran. (And to obtain the international fig-leaf of a vaguely-worded U.N. Security Council authorization vote for war.) Or they could judge that the situation requires a "the-sooner-the-better" approach, before too much opposition develops in the American body politic and around the globe. Since this will not be a ground invasion, the air assault could happen at any moment. I'm guessing we have maybe a month in which to head this madness off at the pass.

Before the attack on Iraq, more than ten million people worldwide marched in opposition to that imminent invasion. At least at this point, three years later, there seems very little organized resistance to the impending war on Iran. Only now is the possibility of such a U.S. attack coming onto most folks' radar screens. The peace movement seems puny in its ability to organize masses of demonstrators these days, whereas the recent march of immigrants across the country brought out millions.

We'll have a better sense of the strength of the peace movement on April 29, when the big anti-war march (the war being opposed is the one in Iraq) will happen in New York City, this one organized by United for Peace & Justice. Will those in the anti-war movement see the larger picture and alter their approach and rhetoric and actions accordingly? We shall see.

-- BW

[Ian David]

1. This is the REAL thinking behind the Bush strategy...

Arianna Huffington: Apocalypse What?



Arianna Huffington Tue Mar 21, 8:03 PM ET

Did you catch Bush's evangelical-deer-caught-in-the-political-headlights moment Monday?


It came during the Q & A session following his speech on Iraq. The first question came from a woman who asked: "{Author Kevin Phillips} makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in
Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?"

The president was clearly taken aback. He reacted as if he'd just seen a burning bush -- or had just been asked a really hard math question.

First he hemmed. Then he hawed. Then he hemmed some more.

"Um... uh... I... The answer is, I haven't really thought of it that way," he finally spit out. "Here's how I think of it. The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow." He then abruptly Left Behind the question at hand and went off on a long, standard-issue answer about 9/11 and fighting terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

It was the least convincing performance since, well, since the why-I'm-optimistic-about-Iraq speech that preceded it.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060322/cm_huffpost/017664;_ylt=A86.I0YFkiFEGkYAaxL9wxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--




Also:



Bush, the Neocons and Evangelical Christian Fiction
America, "Left Behind"

By HUGH URBAN

"Is {Jesus} gonna kill a bunch of people here, like He is over there?"

"I'm afraid He is. If they're working for the Antichrist, they're in serious trouble."

-- Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Glorious Appearing: End of Days

I see things this way: The people who did this act on Americaare evil people
As a nation of good folk, we're going to hunt them downand we will bring them to justice.

-- George W. Bush, September 25, 2001

As a professor of comparative religion and cultural studies, I have long been fascinated by the strange intersections between religion, politics and popular culture. One of the most striking such intersections occurred to me this summer as I sat down to read the twelfth and last volume of the wildly popular Left Behind series by evangelical preacher Tim LaHaye and novelist Jerry Jenkins. For those who haven't yet had a chance to read any of LaHaye and Jenkin's series, the story is basically an evangelical interpretation of the Book of Revelation set in the context of contemporary global politics: the Rapture has taken place, the Antichrist has taken control of the U.N. and created a single global economy, while a small group of American-led believers battles the forces of evil in a showdown in Jerusalem.

At the same time that I was immersed in this entertaining mixture of Stephen King-esque thrills and fundamentalist rhetoric, I had also been reading much of the recent literature on the Neoconservative movement and its powerful role in the Bush administration. As Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke have persuasively argued in their recent study, America Alone, the election of George W. Bush and the confusion following 9/11 allowed a small but radical group of intellectuals to seize the reins of U.S. foreign policy. Led by figures like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the members of the Project for a New American Century, the Neocons have been able to put into effect a long-held plan for asserting a U.S. global hegemony, in large part by dominating the Middle East and its oil resources.

The two narratives that I was reading here -- the Neocon's aggressive foreign policy, centered around the Middle East, and the Christian evangelical story of the immanent return of Christ in the Holy Land-- struck me as weirdly similar and disturbingly parallel. The former openly advocates a "New American Century" and a "benevolent hegemony" of the globe by U.S. power, inaugurated by the invasion of Iraq, while the latter predicts a New Millennium of divine rule ushered in by apocalyptic war, first in Babylon and then in Jerusalem.

I was tempted to dismiss the similarity as an amusing but insignificant coincidence. Yet the more I began to examine the Neocon's strategies and the ties between George W. Bush and the Christian Right, the less this link seemed to be either coincidental or unimportant. I am not, of course, suggesting that there is some kind of conspiratorial plot at work between Neocon strategists and evangelical writers like LaHaye, or that the two are somehow working secretly together behind the scenes. Rather, I am suggesting that there is a subtle but powerful "fit," or what sociologist Max Weber calls an "elective affinity," between the two that has helped them to reinforce one another in very effective ways. The otherwise vacuous figure of George W. Bush represents a crucial link or structural pivot between these two powerful factions, helping to tie them together: Bush presents the Neocons' radical foreign policy in a guise that is acceptable to his large base of support in the Christian Right, even as he reassures his Christian base that their moral agendas (anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, faith-based initiatives, etc) will be given powerful political support. In Bush, America as the benevolent hegemon of the Neocons and the American-led "Tribulation Force" of LaHaye's wildly popular novels come together in a disturbing, yet surprisingly successful way.


More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/urban11182004.html

[appnzllr]

2. Oil Reserves

I had always assumed that Iran and Iraq had oil reserves, but then I heard sometime in the recent past that Iran doesn't have any oil reserves. Am I wrong?

[undergroundpanther]

3. I think Bush-co

WANT to destroy America.Specifically they want to destroy AMERICANS and Humans.
Why? Because they want a slave state they can CONTROL easier. States and corporations(little fiefdoms disguised under capitalist garb basically)have always wanted more CONTROL and POWER. These wealthy generations of thugs know Americans will do anything to feed their children .They know Poor and less privileged people can be counted on to fall before the specter of morality and shame. Because of that corundum philosophers everywhere cannot undo(self caused self VS determinism either way if framed right the powerful win). This slave state idea is why they want women to be barefoot and pregnant brood mares obeying their husbands again.Real feminists scare the frightened little boys in power like their mommas whom they never could dominate because they depend on them.So what better lie than to make women think they need a man to survive through?

Alot of men secretly get off on domination or ruling others whether they admit it or not (Just look at one girls gone wild commercial or porn site and realize mostly men consume this and it makes TRILLIONS as an industry. The demand for inequality is a market men invest heavily into ) It is true these"dick privilege" assumptions exist and they serve the powerful the most ,those who seek cheap labor benefit nicely from the "nuclear family" with that cultural belief of I made my own sucess ridden social structure. The whole "family" structure is designed and it has been DESIGNED early on in this country by the dept.of labor..to make slaves of us all,it began by separating us from our kin networks and controlling marriage with marriage licenses.(why should THE STATE issue a license for a intimate personal relationship?).
"Slavery was the legal fiction that a person was property. Corporations are the legal fiction that property is a person. And in order to be deemed sane under fascism, you must believe both fictions simultaneously." Why do women take the name of her husband? Could it be a remnant of when she was traded like property?

That desire of the state,corporations and ruling class to CONTROL people through family and beliefs of "making it, beliefs about Independence" bootstrap pulling romanticized bullshit moral pundits love to judge others usually poorer than themselves with) This is why Bush co hate feminists,abortion and gays.Bush co want a slave state.If women can just abort a child without notifying the "head of the house" the central scrutinizer,they will not be forced to take care of said child and hubby mini master won't be forced to work ,nor will they be socially shamed for not playing into the'family' trap.And regardless of the romantic notions people say about family motherhood and apple pie when inequality gets too strong home becomes where the hurt is.Kids get hurt and grow up and they can be MANIPULATED through their pasts.The Satanic Ritual Abuse Scare was a study in cultural manipulation.

Why are all the new prisons being built NOW? We all know right now Americans won't go there willingly they have to be coerced by debt(bankruptcy bill). With out of control medical costs(you have to get treatment for torturous illness in yourself( especially if you have to EARN the money) or your kids) and coerced by obligation(Hunny I will go to work camp(enlist) there's no jobs out there and we have to take care of our kids somehow).. When Americans have no way to drive(oil too expensive, No way to work(outsourcing immigrant labor etc.) And no way to keep a roof over their heads and homelessness is seen as the symbolic bogeyman of "failure" socially. When The work camps open it will be seen as "opportunity". Debt slavery works very well in india and other countries And Alot of Americans are not aware they are becoming and conditioned by consumerism which is for some like an addiction to become debt slaves.

How else will these rich decadent pigs ever get out of debt enough to other countries (before they call back their debt) to raise the capital enough build the weapons to rule the world?

"The Nazis, through clever exploitation of their victims' unconscious guilt after poking into the back corners of their minds, were often able to convert courageous resistance fighters into meek collaborators."

...The sudden outbreak of hidden moral flaws and guilt

(I am, a loser that can't take care of my family and pay the bills or I am a loser that can't handle kids)

can bring a manor woman to tears and complete breakdown. He regresses to the dependency and submissiveness of the baby.

And THAT is where Bush co WANTS for us to be,slaves.We can't be made to be slaves too quickly it has to be incremental,over years,it needs to be conditioned so slowly we are like frogs in hot water,lest too many of us see through it,and formulate effective resistance.Bush co has to hammer this shit through And he does it by utilizing cultural cognitive dissonance, One one hand he uses self righteous bullies in the media,self righteous churches,and other such play acting bullying verbally abusive moral pundits,While on the on the other hand the rest of TV shows wardrobe malfunctions in staged assaults on the super bowl and show girls gone wild commercials,and crime shows about rape and pedophilia ,obscene cartoons,violence sex galore in the name of freedom of speech.Internet porn.all the better to expose the hidden guilt in public or in private interrogation rooms later on..

The ultimate goal of these madmen is to kill off around 1/3 or more of humans on this planet preferably brown skinned ones and to rule the world as an almost feudalistic institutionalized globalism...Because we humans have bred ourselves beyond the carrying capacity of the planet we cannot survive in the woods for long all the deer and ducks and plants cannot reproduce fast enough in the wild to sustain us even factory farming falls short and poor people don't own the means of production anyway. WE have been encouraged to reproduce because of an OLD enconomy...(becausde the"family" was the best way to make control servants now there are too many "families" for the state to regulate and control,so something must be done..

The comfortable predatory parasites in the ruling classes know if they don't hurry up and do something better than wars about all the breeding plebeians they will lose their wealth and power and"legacies" forever when the masses get too educated and realize these 'great men' were not so great and certainly do not deserve the privileges they possess any more than they themselves do.When Equality is no longer the dreaded spook stealing the money of the middle class and upper middle class...These megalomaniacs raised in perfect power,wealth and privilege are who desperately are who need to believe they are in control immune to death,they will do ANYTHING to keep themselves on top where they can keep on playing god.And they are not moral people they are all sociopaths..Because...
"The denial of human freedom and equality lifts the authoritarian man beyond his mortal fellows. His temporary power and omnipotence give him the illusion of eternity. In his totalitarianism he denies death and ephemeral existence and borrows power from the future.(the thief of everyone else's tomorrows) He has to invent and formulate a final Truth and protective dogma to justify his battle against mortality and temporariness. From then on, the new fundamental certainty must be hammered into the minds of adepts and slaves."

"Empathy is antithetical to control, which is why control systems demand psychopathy as the standard mode of function."
Keep hierarchy and contractual obligation prostrate before caring, compassion, and a heart-felt responsibility for all life."

"It is not abject vice, it is vice crowned with splendor, that seduces men’s souls."

Upon entering the gates of Auschwitz I, the prisoners saw over the main entrance the words; "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work will make you free). These words were to promote the false hope that hard work by the prisoners would result in their freedom. Indeed the camp, and later the "Buna" of Auschwitz III, made extensive use of slave labor; however, death was the only real escape.

"Each generation begins anew with fresh, eager, trusting faces of babies, ready to love and create a new world. And each generation of parents tortures, abuses, neglects and dominates its children until they become emotionally crippled adults who repeat in nearly exact detail the social violence and domination that existed in previous decades."
-- Lloyd deMause in The Psychogenic Theory of History

[katinmn]

4. We can't blame low turnout on Apr 29 on peace activists/groups

Mr. Weiner wrote: "The peace movement seems puny in its ability to organize masses of demonstrators these days, whereas the recent march of immigrants across the country brought out millions."

I agree.

There are people who are willing to take a stand and others who aren't. No doubt the NY march will have many repeats and few new marchers. That says more about the apathy of Americans than it does about organizational ability. I doubt illegal immigrants have more expertise in communicating and better resources for mobilizing than our anti-war leaders.

Every anti-war group I know about has been protesting an attack on Iran for a couple months. It's at or near the top of nearly every peace organization's list:

http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
http://www.worldwidewamm.org/
http://www.worldcantwait.net/

Yes, it will be the same folks out protesting as always -- only now it will be No war on Iraq/No war on Iran. The same "left-wing extremists" who have been going out for three+ years. And many of those are the same ones who protested the Vietnam War.

When it comes to protesting, perhaps that is a job Americans would like left to others.