The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men- Americans Have Lost Their Country

[Jcrowley]

The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men

Americans Have Lost Their Country

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The Bush-Cheney regime is America's first neoconservative regime. In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America's moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.

This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues--principally Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by "scholars" in assorted think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.

The entirety of their success in miring the United States in what could become permanent conflict in the Middle East is based on the power of propaganda and the big lie.

Initially, the 9/11 attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden, but after an American puppet was installed in Afghanistan, the blame for 9/11 was shifted to Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who was said to have weapons of mass destruction that would be used against America. The regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the lie to the UN that the Bush-Cheney regime had conclusive proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03012007.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. I disagree w "The entirety of their success...is based on the power of propaganda and

the big lie."

That's part of it--but not in that the "big lie" convinced anyone--it didn't; rather, the "big lie" was used as a plausible narrative by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--basically run by 5 rightwing billionaire CEOs--for illegitimate power gained through two stolen elections. That's the other part of it. Stolen elections. Most people know the story of 2000. But what they may not know is that Bush/Cheney's "reelection" was also phony, manufactured by rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--a fascist coup engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress-Tom Delay and Bob Ney, with the complicity of Sen. Christopher Dodd--fast-tracked across the country with $3.9 billion in boondoggle funds, and assisted by the Democratic Party's mind-boggling silence at Bushites "counting" all our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy. And they are...

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; until recently, they were run by two brothers, Bob and Tod Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, using programming code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it.

If you are going to conduct an unjust, heinous war in a democratic country, you have to fix the elections. That's what they did.

56% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq, from way back at the beginning (Feb. '03). These fascists didn't care. They had Diebold/ES&S. 63% of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances." (May '04.) They didn't care. They proceeded in the confidence that Diebold/ES&S would keep them in power. And they still have that fraud capability.

In 2006, the American people had to outvote the machines, just to get a half-decent Congress, but Congress is still not very representative of the American people, 74% of whom now oppose the Iraq War. This is why. These criminal corporations are putting a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists.

Thus, war criminals and traitors continue to impose their outrageously fascist policy on the U.S. of A.--torturing and killing around the world, throwing US soldiers into Iraq like "cannon fodder," grossly neglecting the needs of the American people, destroying our government and stealing us blind.

We did not consent to this in 2000. We did not consent to it in 2004. And we did what we could about it in 2006.

I very much object to this superficial analysis, claiming that the "big lie" is responsible for NeoCon power. SEVENTY-FOUR PERCENT of the American people oppose the Iraq War, and the White House is oblivious to that clear expression of the will of the people. EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT of the American people oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war (poll posted here at DU last summer). How do you explain these numbers, if "big lie" propaganda is the chief problem? The propaganda has convinced NO ONE--and in fact has inspired vast opposition. The problem is in the VOTE COUNTING, first and foremost. The corporate propaganda machine is a secondary problem, that would be solved quickly if we still had transparent vote counting.