Bush World - Too Many States

Choose from the following:

a. U.S. - imperial state

b. U.S. - terror state

c. U.S. - criminal state

d. U.S. - rogue state

e. U.S. - corporate state

f. U.S. - military state

g. U.S. - aggressor state

h. U.S. - torture state

i. U.S. - all of the above

Answer[s] found below. One other choice can be added - a state of disgrace. One choice not included - a model democratic state. One choice not needed is a state of confusion. The evidence is clear, overwhelming and conclusive. Explanation below with some brief background.

The history of U.S. governance has never been an

exemplary standard to emulate. Although our leaders

always claim it is, and all of us were taught it in

school, this nation has never been a model democracy

or champion of the rights of all people everywhere.

Even our venerated Founding Fathers, elevated to

near-sainthood by succeeding generations, were flawed

mortals. A few hundred years of slavery and the near

extermination of our native people ["merciless Indian

savages" they were called in our Declaration of

Independence] are just two stark examples that come to

mind. And incredible as it seems, this nation since

its birth has been at war with one or more adversaries

every year without exception up to the present day.

That’s in addition to all our other attempts to

destabilize or overthrow governments of other nations

for the "audacity" of their wanting to decide how to

govern in their own national interest rather than do

it in service to ours.

With so many instances of U.S. meddling and

unwarranted intrusion to choose from, it’s hard to

cite a single example. But a little known and now

forgotten event is especially important. As early as

1917, the U.S. and U.K. [then the powerful British

empire] were on record as wanting to destroy the newly

emerged Soviet state. In 1918 [3 months before the

end of WWI] the U.K., commanding a multi-nation force

including thousands of U.S. marines, invaded Russia

intervening in their civil war to fight against the

Bolsheviks, who, of course, won. The importance of

this act of aggression [unimagined at the time] and

the seminal effect it had on events that followed

changed history. We stayed embroiled until 1920,

caused great upheaval and added human suffering,

contributed to the rise of Stalin and Hitler, probably

helped cause WW11 and all the fallout thereafter, and

[aside from the Philippines] was the first

international intervention that would eventually

transform the U.S. from a regional to a world imperial

power displacing the British. Those "great

democrats," Lloyd George of Britain and Woodrow

Wilson, began it along with France, Canada, Japan and

over a dozen other nations. The even "greater" most

Machiavellian of modern statesmen, Winston Churchill

[the Minister of War and Air in the Lloyd George

government and 22 years before he became the British

Prime Minister] fully supported it. Both nations

feared the creation of a serious rival economic model

that might spread like a virus to other nations and

undertook a policy of "preventive war" to annihilate

it at its birth. They also later allied themselves

shamelessly with Mussolini, Hitler, Franco [during the

1930s before WW11] and all other fascist and tinhorn

tyrants after the war as long as they embraced the

capitalist economic model and dutifully genuflected to

U.S. authority.

An important footnote to the campaign against the new

communist/socialist state was the "great red scare"

and Palmer raids from 1918 - 1921. Initiated by A.

Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson’s Attorney General

[the John Ashcroft of his day] and his aide, J. Edgar

Hoover, the raids capitalized on a post-Soviet

revolution state-induced climate of fear and

repression against communists, socialists, anarchists,

radical unionists and even 5 time socialist

presidential candidate Eugene Debs who served time in

prison for opposing and speaking out against the U.S.

entry into WW1. Debs, in fact, ran his 1920 and last

presidential campaign while in prison and received 1

million votes losing to that "great American

president" Warren G. Harding. Harding wasn’t all bad - he released Debs on Christmas day, 1921, a sort of

backhanded Christmas present to a great man.

Through the years as the nation grew and matured,

things got worse. In wealth, influence and dominance

we peaked post-WW 11. With most of Europe and much of

Asia devastated by war, only the U.S., unscathed,

stood preeminent as the world’s only superpower,

militarily, politically and economically. Even though

the Soviets, once they acquired nuclear weapons, were

anointed as "the other superpower" and a dire threat

to the "free world" by our political establishment,

that country was in such ruin it didn’t begin to

return even to modest normality until about 1960. And

the truth was, especially post WW11, the Russians were

never coming and the "cold war" scare was that era’s

"war on terror." It was used as a convenient ruse to

scare the public to support the building of the

military-industrial complex Dwight Eisenhower warned

against - while he himself went along with it. The

U.S., in fact, had no threatening enemy [but the

Soviet Union did, and we were it], and was mostly free

to decide how the post-war world would be run with it

in charge and using the political and financial

institutions it helped create to carry out its

bidding. It built and maintained enough military

power to enforce its will against any potential

challenger including those nations’ leaders not

beholden to U. S. authority. The Soviet Union could

never match us, except for their nuclear weapons and

effective delivery systems that could be used against

us in retaliation had we launched a nuclear strike

against them first.

As disgraceful as our past record was, Bush-Cheney

took it to a new level of shame and outrage with the

onset of their extreme reactionary, statist and

sociopathic administration. Let’s be clear, the

current Bush-Cheney leadership in essence is a

continuation of and natural extension of all that

preceded it. It’s pursued much the same policies

seeking the same ends as its predecessors. What sets

this regime apart from all those it followed is its

brazen uncompromising methods, fanatical extremism,

bold rhetoric and almost pathological insistence on

secrecy. All other U.S. administrations at least paid

lip service [and most often adhered] to the

Constitution, the rule of law, international law, the

sacred Geneva Conventions we’re a signatory to,

multilateralism, international treaties and more. Not

the Bush administration. From its inception in

January, 2001, and especially after 9/11/01, the mask

came off and the true face of its intent and methods

were revealed - make or break the rules as it choses,

ignore long-standing international norms, pursue its

policies unilaterally and unchecked, let no other

nation interfere or stand in its way and back it all

up with a strong military ready and willing to act

against any outlier. Nobel laureate Harold Pinter

expressed it well several years ago when he said "U.S.

foreign policy can be defined as follows: kiss my

arse or I’ll kick your head in." And he said that

during the Clinton years.

The record of Bush-Cheney policies is unambiguous - a

permanent state of war against a so-called and

ill-defined "terrorism" threat [Dick Cheney’s "global

war on terrorism" for decades to come]; an unstated

class war at home against the poor and most

disadvantaged and a partly hidden one against most

middle income working people and families; the most

massive transfer of wealth in our history from lower

and middle income workers and families to the wealthy;

an undisguised extreme alliance between the federal

government and corporate America [the most extreme

hard-wiring of government to business interests in

U.S. history, especially in the energy and defense

sectors] - a literal takeover or buyout of government

by giant corporations for their own benefit; a

systematic assault against all social services

including an attempt to end those held most dear -

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; a continued

campaign to weaken the role and destroy the power of

organized labor; the remaking of the U.S. into a

garrison state; an attempt to go further and move the

nation closer to a full-blown police state - through

legislation like the U.S.A. Patriot Act and its newer

proposed version that would make it even more extreme

if enacted, stacking the federal judiciary including

the Supreme Court with the most extreme far right

ideologues, attempting to subvert the 1878 Posse

Comitatus Act that prohibits use of the U.S. military

for domestic law enforcement, and most insidiously the

use of Executive Orders under the radar to give the

Chief Executive near dictatorial power and a policy of

extreme secrecy along with it to keep the public

unaware of what’s happening. All that and a

weak-kneed opposition willing to support nearly all

Bush policies with only a hint of some opposition

recently.

Further, add to the above Bush-Cheney’s assault on the

environment; disregard for human and civil rights; the

desire to privatize everything including the most

essential elements of the commons like all health care

[including for seniors now on Medicare and public

health services]; Social Security; education [using

vouchers to destroy the public system], water, you

name it if it can yield a profit - maybe even the air

we breathe one day if they can meter it; the

corruption of the political/electoral process to a

level never before achieved - with corporate dollars

more than ever before able to buy the government they

choose and corporations able to control election

results through easily manipulated electronic voting

machines they produce, program and service [with no

verifiable paper trail as a validity check]; the

transformation of the U.S. into a pariah state reviled

and/or feared by the great majority around the world;

the creation of a modern-day Sparta writ large with

unchallengable military might and openly claiming the

exclusive right to use it as it chooses, including a

nuclear first strike, along with a formidable national

homeland security apparatus and intelligence network -

all of which combined poses the most dire threat to

world and national security and to democracy at home.

The Bush-Cheney administration has recklessly and

wantonly pursued policies to create and secure a

global U.S. empire to control and exploit with no

rivals the world’s resources, markets and cheap labor.

It has openly made its intentions clear through its

belligerence and diplomatic bullying at the U.N. and

in one-on-one dealings especially with developing

nations. At other times it’s acted more furtively to

get its way as it has and continues to do in its trade

negotiations. Under the guise of so-called "free

trade" the U.S. goal has been to gain every advantage

for U.S. transnational corporations while giving up

little in return. But beginning in Chiapas, Mexico on

New Year’s Day 1994 the Zapatista National Liberation

Army [EZLN] staged an armed rebellion against the

newly enacted NAFTA "free-trade" agreement. Then in

Seattle in 1999 they encountered a level of "people

resistance" at home they had never before experienced,

and after a temporary pause post-9/11, that resistance

continues unabated to the present.

At the November, 2005 34 nation summit of the

Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, as many as

100,000 Argentines protested the Bush visit to their

country in a mass expression of contempt and derision

against this president and U.S. neoliberal and

imperial policy while huge cowds greeted and cheered

their Bolivarian populist hero and champion,

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias who spoke out

in support of the people and railed against the

destructive policies of Bush-Cheney. At the end of

the summit, the U.S. proposal for a sweeping

hemispheric "free trade" zone failed after it met

stiff resistance and was rejected by 5 attending

nations including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.

The stage then was set for a lively WTO Doha

ministerial round ahead in Hong Kong in December for

which difficult pre-negotiations have already lowered

final agreement expectations. After the September,

2003 failed round in Cancun, Mexico, there’s no

guarantee about the outcome this time but a certain

guarantee of extreme U.S. pressure and intimidation to

force opposing nations to succumb to our will. Those

doing it guarantee great benefits for the

transnational giants and the elite in their countries

and more poverty and human misery for their own

people. And working people here at home are also

affected with the continued loss of higher paying

skilled manufacturing and other jobs exported to lower

wage countries.

Nothing characterizes the Bush-Cheney junta more than

its policy of military aggression post 9/11. In its

first 4 years it committed two acts of illegal

aggression against countries posing no military threat

[Afghanistan and Iraq], carried out a middle of the

night coup against a third country with a

democratically elected leader beloved by his people

[President Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti], and

attempted and nearly succeeded in carrying out one

other coup against another democratically elected

leader [President Hugo Chavez Frias in Venezuela].

They did this claiming these 4 nations posed a threat

to our national security or were unstable or failed

states and/or their leaders were corrupt, dictators or

demagogues and that we acted to "liberate" those

nations and bring "democracy" to the people in each

instance. All untrue and deliberate lies. More on

this below.

In 2001, his first year in office, Bush’s ratings were

sinking, and his inner circle was seeking a way to

revive them. 9/11 solved their dilemma transforming

overnight a mediocre president, put in office by 5

arrogant Supreme Court Justices who annulled the will

of the people, into a larger-than-life "leader" spoken

of in the same breath as Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR.

The republican spin machine along with their complicit

corporate media partners played no small role in this

near-miraculous reshaping. All significant policies

and events that followed were only possible because of

the effect of that fateful day, which has now been

investigated independently in great detail revealing a

sinister and disturbing story far different from the

official explanation and the so-called 9/11 Commission

investigation and report that suppressed the truth in

their shameless whitewash. Had we known early on

what’s now known, and had that information been

revealed to the public, Bush-Cheney probably would

have been impeached and removed from office. Instead,

until the Iraq war began turning sour and the stated

reasons for undertaking it were shown to be false,

George Bush was portrayed as worthy of Mt. Rushmore

status instead of ignominy or even criminal guilt.

We now know beyond any doubt, from thorough

investigation and documented evidence, that the U.S.

intelligence community knew as early as 1995 of

terrorist plans to strike the World Trade Center by an

air attack, but nothing was done to prepare for,

prevent it or inform the public. In fact, from 1995

to 9/11/01 efforts to counter such a terrorist attack

were deliberately curtailed and obstructed. It’s also

now known prior to 9/11 that hijacked civilian planes

would be used to attack key U.S. buildings like the

World Trade Center, Pentagon and/or others in New York

and/or Washington, and it was known these attacks

would occur on or around 9/11/01. Since that day, a

deliberate and systematic effort has been made at the

highest levels of government to suppress the evidence

to allow the Bush-Cheney administration to be able to

pursue its extremist policies without opposition and

with strong support from a public ignorant of the

truth.

To gain public support for a state of permanent war

abroad and oppressive assault on civil liberties at

home, Bush-Cheney used a proven effective golden rule

technique. They created a climate of fear in the

public mind to allow them license to do as they

pleased to appear to achieve promised homeland

security. [In fact, we’re now far less secure because

of their actions.] At key moments, they cited supposed

credible [but unsubstantiated and likely fabricated]

intelligence claiming an imminent potential terrorist

attack. They further heightened the level of fear

through clever color-coding, highlighted and repeated

round-the-clock by their complicit corporate media

partners, and then sought to allay it by clear and

forceful action including going to war, witch-hunt

mass roundups and illegal detentions with no allowed

contact with families or legal counsel, and

immigrants-of-color and fundamentalist Islam bashing

to create an illusory bogeyman - all done, they

claimed, to protect the public and national security.

All deliberate calculated lies.

Reichsmarschall Herman Goering, second in command to

Adolph Hitler, explained the technique well in a

private interview conducted at his Nuremburg trial

after WW11 [before he took his own life] by prison

psychologist U.S. Army Capt. Gustave Gilbert. When

asked how the Nazis ever convinced the German public

to go along with all they did, Goering candidly

explained that "common people don’t want war." But

it’s easy for leaders "to drag people along whether it

is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a

parliament, or a communist dictatorship.... All

you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,

and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and

for exposing the country to danger. It works the same

in every country." It worked well for Bush-Cheney, at

least for a while.

The U.S. record of illegal aggression against weaker

adversaries goes back to the beginning of the

republic. However, it can be argued that it became

standard practice post WW11 once the U.S. became the

preeminent world power. From Korea to Vietnam to

Granada to Panama to the Gulf War to

Yugoslavia/Serbia/Kosovo, the U.S. in each instance

committed an act of illegal aggression against other

nations posing no threat whatever to this country. In

each case we were lied to about the reasons for doing

it, and in each case the chief executive with no

congressional authority [as constitutionally required]

acted on his own. In each of the foregoing instances,

the president did pay lip service to and made a

pretense of adhering to the law and common

international norms. With the onset of the current

Bush-Cheney administration everything changed post

9/11. This administration on its own, with no

pretense and no regard for the law in any form or

concern about world opinion, committed acts of illegal

aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq that continue

under an equally illegal occupation of these countries

by the U.S. and forces from other countries the Bush

administration has enlisted as war crime allies. The

Bush-Cheney administration is guilty of the same crime

as high level Nazis, including Herman Goering, were

tried for and convicted of at the Nuremberg trials

after WW11. But victors aren’t indicted and brought

to trial, only losers. That’s victor’s justice, which

is no justice at all when the victor is the war

criminal.

U.S. and especially the Bush-Cheney administration’s

designs on Afghanistan and Iraq go back at least to

1992 and a Pentagon document written by Paul Wolfowitz

and the now-indicted Richard Cheney aide Lewis Libby.

Rejected at the time as off-the-wall and over-the-top,

the document was an outline of a plan for U.S. world

dominance with no allowed challenge from other

nations. In September 2000, the neo-conservative

think tank Project for a New American Century [PNAC -

established in 1997] revived the plan and put meat on

its bones in a document they called - Rebuilding

America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources

for a New Century. PNAC members included Richard

Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and many other high ranking

current Bush-Cheney administration officials. This

document was an imperial plan and for U.S. global

dominance to extend well into the future and to be

enforced with unchallengeable military power. The

PNAC plan was a blueprint for the current "war on

terror" and "preventive war" and was a 21st century

update of the Truman Doctrine, conceived by State

Department advisor and analyst George Kennan who was

the ideological godfather of "containment" and the

"cold war." Kennan’s plan became the first post WW11

formulated strategy for U.S. global military,

political and economic dominance.

In September, 2002 the Bush administration made its

intentions even clearer in its National Security

Strategy. This "imperial grand strategy" was nothing

less than a declaration of "preventive war" against

any nation or force this administration claimed to be

a threat to our national security or an unstable or

failed state [not defined] on its unsubstantiated

say-so only. And it got still worse two months later

when the Air Force Space Command issued their

Strategic Master Plan FY 04 and Beyond which outlined

their plan to "own outer space" as an exclusive

franchise and weaponize it with the most advanced and

destructive weapons and technology, including nuclear

ones and unmanned space vehicles to surveille the

entire planet.

Two other important U.S. planning documents are also

key to understanding current Bush-Cheney policy and

intent. One is the Department of Defense’s Joint

Vision 2020 issued in May 2000 that outlined a plan

for "full spectrum dominance" by any means including

war as a strategy for achieving total global military

and political control. The other is the Nuclear

Policy Review of December, 2001 that shows how we

might unilaterally decide to wage future war using

first strike nuclear weapons. Both of these plans and

the ones discussed above clearly show the great danger

we all are in should the Bush-Cheney administration

continue to act as they already have in Iraq and

Afghanistan without restraint and with no regard for

the potentially disastrous consequences.

Containing communism during the "cold war" became

today’s permanent "war on terror" and current doctrine

of "preventive war." Invading and controlling

Afghanistan and Iraq are two key parts of it and were

planned long before 9/11. They were part of an

overall "grand strategy" to control and/or contain all

Central Eurasia and its essential resources to include

all nations east of Poland to the Pacific, including

China and Russia, the Middle East and the Indian

subcontinent. Afghanistan was key to establishing an

opening to that vast area as well as being in a

strategic location for pipelines to transship Caspian

oil to the west. And, of course, the U.S. had long

coveted direct control of Iraq’s vast and largely

untapped oil reserves [second in amount only to Saudi

Arabia]. All this, with more to come, is a modern-day

version of the 19th century "Great Game", today

pitting the U.S. against Russia, China and even

possibly a united block of western European and/or

Asian nations. One can only tremble trying to imagine

how it all will play out.

It’s likely by all the current signals the U.S. is

next targeting Iran, Syria and possibly Lebanon to

solidify its iron grip on the Middle East, gain

control of Iran’s vast oil reserves and serve the

interests of the Ariel Sharon government in Israel by

removing a threat it sees to its security, especially

from Iran. And without a doubt, the U.S. is again

targeting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias and

the "viral threat" of his populist Bolivarian

government for elimination by any means [preferably by

elections they can manipulate] including

assassination. But with 2 out-of-control tigers

already by the tail, it seems hard to imagine

Bush-Cheney would want to risk tangling with 3 or 4

more. They already know they’ve created in Iraq

possibly the greatest blunder and disaster in U.S.

history and that the battle for control of that

country can’t be won. They also know as renown Middle

East journalist Robert Fisk has said that "they must

leave [Iraq], they will leave, and they can’t leave."

But in spite of this hopeless quagmire, they don’t

seem ready to let it or any other formidable obstacle

stand in their way [or maybe they’re just afflicted

with tunnel vision], so it’s quite possible and maybe

likely they’ll add new battlefronts in the new year.

Should they do it, the consequences would be enormous,

far-reaching, incalculable and even devastating.

In its ruthless policies at home and abroad, the

Bush-Cheney junta is a rogue, criminal, terror state

unlike any other that’s ever preceded it - likely the

most unrestrained and dangerous ever. It’s

overwhelming power, with weapons and technology of

almost unimaginable destructive capability, and an

out-of control and reckless intent to use them with

impunity against any stated adversary is a classic

definition of criminal terror and a rogue state. The

U.S. doesn’t just wage war. It does so without

restraint using every weapon in its arsenal thought

necessary to achieve its objective, including nuclear,

illegal chemical and possibly biological agents [in

the 1950s and later, the U.S. tested the effects of

toxic biological agents through aerosolization and

dispersal on our own unwitting population in selected

U.S. cities including New York and San Francisco].

Through the years post WW1, the 1925 Geneva Protocol

and various succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions

specifically outlawed the use of chemical and

biological agents in any form for any reason in war.

Although no Geneva Convention or other treaty

specifically bans the use of radioactive uranium

weapons including so-called depleted uranium [DU],

these weapons are, in fact, illegal de facto and de

jure if only judged by the standard of the Hague

Convention of 1907 which prohibits use of any "poison

or poisoned weapons." DU weapons in all their forms

and uses are radioactive and chemically toxic, and

thus clearly fit the definition of poisonous weapons

banned under the Hague Convention. Any use of them

for any purpose is a war crime.

The U.S. military under Bush-Cheney in Afghanistan and

Iraq has and continues to use these outlawed chemical

and radioactive DU weapons in clear violation of

international law this country is a signatory to. The

U.S. uses various toxic substances and agents that

fall into these two categories, the two most prominent

being DU used in projectiles fired from aircraft and

tanks and napalm-like white phosphorous bombs and

shells, known as Willy Pete, that burn flesh to the

bone and an updated version of napalm called Mark 77

firebombs which do about the same thing to flesh.

Used against civilians, these weapons are illegal

under the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional

Weapons, and as U.S. forces use them, they really are

weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military admits

to using them - in their words "very sparingly."

That’s a deliberate lie based on clear documentary

evidence from Fallujah alone that these weapons are

used freely and indiscriminately against civilian and

military targets and that use of these and all other

of the most dangerous and destructive weapons are

authorized by officials at the highest level of the

Bush-Cheney administration.

In the Iraq border town of Al-Qaim as part of

operation "steel curtain" and in nearby Husaybah in

western Iraq, U.S. forces have attacked civilians as

part of a broader effort against the Iraqi

"resistance" using these and other illegal and

questionable weapons like chemical gases, cluster

bombs and a terror weapon called "flashettes" which

explode and shoot out 1000s of nails in all directions

with deadly results. White phosphorous shells and DU

weapons are also being used in an operation based on

the "Fallujah model" to destroy these cities and the

people in them. Along with these terror weapons, all

water and electricity in these towns were cut off,

homes, schools and mosques destroyed or severely

damaged, hospitals entered violently and the patients

in them terrorized and/or taken prisoner and doctors

targeted as they might treat the wounded thought to be

part of the "resistance." Overall, just as in

Fallujah one year ago, in Tal Afar in September this

year and elsewhere, a scorched earth policy is being

employed to terrorize and destroy everyone and

everything in the targeted areas. This seems to be

the central depraved U.S. strategy to "win hearts and

minds" and bring "democracy, humanitarian intervention

and liberation U.S. style" to the Iraqi people. I

doubt Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine would approve.

The latter’s historic quote - "These are the times

that try men’s souls" - is most apt in Iraq today and

sadly here at home as well. And I wonder how Martin

Luther King, if he were alive today, would update what

he said in 1967 [one year before he was murdered] when

he called this country "the greatest purveyor of

violence in the world."

All the weapons discussed above as well as the more

conventional ones are deadly and destructive and

especially so when used against weak or defenseless

adversaries and innocent civilians who just happen to

be in the area attacked. However, DU weapons are

especially dangerous and lethal. They’re the likely

main cause of "Gulf war syndrome" causing chronic

muscle and joint pain, fatigue, memory loss, birth

deformities and a significant increase in cancer among

those exposed - both Iraqis and U.S. Gulf war

veterans. As many as 200,000 U.S. soldiers complained

of these symptoms and problems following the 1991 war.

No one knows how many Iraqis were and are affected,

but clearly this illegal weapon along with about 12

years of brutal economic sanctions caused the death of

over 1 million Iraqi civilians, at least half of them

children, as well as an incalculable number of cancers

and other serious and fatal illnesses that add to the

death toll each day under an illegal occupation - in

sum, a massive war crime of clear and deliberate

genocide. The effects of DU exposure are already

showing up in our military from the current Iraq war

and probably from Afghanistan as well. With much

longer deployment now in those countries than in the

1991 Gulf war, it’s likely hundreds of thousands more

of our military will be affected by a new "Iraq and

Afghanistan war syndrome." And vast areas of Iraq

especially are so contaminated with lethal radiation

and other toxins in soil, water and air [that’s easily

ingested into the lungs] they should be judged

uninhabitable for many thousands of years.

In its campaign against Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.

military, despite repeated denials, systematically

violated the rules and established codes of warfare

[as established at the Geneva and Hague Conventions

going back to the 1850s] including using banned

weapons, mistreatment of prisoners and denying proper

care for the sick and wounded. It also invented the

category of "illegal combatant" that has no legal

basis whatever. In addition, it’s done little to avoid

civilian casualties and at times deliberately and

willfully attacked civilian targets as part of an

overall assault against a neighborhood, town or city.

While always claiming to be targeting only "terrorist

insurgents," al-Queda elements or foreign fighters,

nearly always those most affected were innocent

civilians including women and children.

No target symbolized these brutal attacks more than

Fallujah, a city of about 350,000 and site of repeated

resistance against the illegal occupiers. After the

killing of 4 American private military contractors

[aka "paramilitary hired guns" with license to kill

with impunity] in March, 2004, the U.S. military began

a campaign of retribution against the city that

culminated in November with a full force assault

killing a large but unknown number of mostly civilians

and injuring a great many more, causing vast

destruction, and forcing half the population out of

the city and into temporary camps under harsh

conditions. The city was largely destroyed using

"scorched earth" tactics in the manner described by a

special forces colonel in Vietnam when he stated

regarding the city of Ben Tre that "we had to destroy

the town in order to save it." Iraqis thought

otherwise and haven’t forgotten the atrocities

committed against them in Fallujah, a war crime by any

standard of international law.

Since the March, 2003 illegal assault and invasion,

war crimes have been widespread, systematic and

sanctioned by those at the highest level in the

Bush-Cheney administration. Probably no crimes

resonate more than the systemic and officially

approved use of torture. Since the first photographs

and reports surfaced of U.S. personnel torturing

prisoner/detainees held at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,

it became apparent from eyewitness accounts and

detainees later released that often brutal physical as

well as cruel, inhumane, and degrading psychological

torture has been systematically used as standard

practice. Further evidence was obtained from leaked

International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC]

reports, inquiries by Physicians for Human Rights and

some reports by investigative journalists. At this

time, it’s clear that torture is widely used at least

at most U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and

Guantanamo as well as being "subcontracted out" to

other willing terror state partner countries like

Syria, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere in a practice known

as "extraordinary rendition." In addition, secret CIA

run prisons have been revealed in Romania, Poland and

other unnamed countries where torture is used. Using

torture routinely as a way to break down resistance

and obtain intelligence not only doesn’t work, as is

widely known, it’s a practice of extreme depravity for

those nations using it, especially those claiming to

be "democracies."

Because of all the practices discussed above, the U.S.

under Bush-Cheney is the world champion rogue,

criminal, terror state. Thanks to them and their

high-level officials and policies, the U.S. is feared

and overwhelmingly reviled as a pariah nearly

everywhere abroad and heading there at home. The term

"ugly American" when first coined referred to the

misbehavior of American tourists when traveling

abroad. Today the term might be used to apply

specifically to George Bush, who can’t escape mass

protests against him whenever he travels abroad and at

times at home, far greater and more frequent than any

previous U.S. president would ever experience even

occasionally. Through its reckless, outrageous and

criminal practices, this administration squandered the

overwhelming [but unjustified] world sympathy it had

after 9/11 when Bush’s approval rating jumped from 51%

on Sept. 10 to 86% 5 days later as polled by the

Gallup organization. Today his approval rating at

home is below 40% and dropping - surprising since his

"base" is about 40%. As judged by world public

opinion, Bush’s world is unmasked and clearly

understood by the world’s majority. It’s one based on

brazen unrestrained imperial world domination and

rule; aiding the rich; depriving, demonizing and

oppressing the poor and disadvantaged, especially

people of color and immigrants from developing

countries; ignoring the rule of law and international

norms and backing it all up with overwhelming military

power used willfully, brutally and recklessly around

the world to achieve its ends. There’s no sign of a

change in this policy. There’s every sign it will get

worse. But the Bush administration may have an

achilles heel that could prove its undoing. It’s

afflicted with the sometimes fatal disease of hubris

and is blinded by the notion that its way is not the

right way. It’s wrong, dead wrong, and hopefully its

miscalculation will be our salvation.

Overwhelming public disapproval alone may prove their

undoing. But if there’s to be any true justice, Bush

and Cheney should be impeached and made to answer for

their crimes against the American people and against

all those people abroad affected by their

administration’s illegal aggression. Bush-Cheney and

all officials at all levels in their administration

connected to their criminal acts should be indicted

and tried in federal courts, convicted of the most

egregious possible crime of deliberately and willfully

lying to take the nation to war and given the harshest

penalty for their crime without the possibility of

parole or pardon. They should also be taken to the

International Criminal Court [ICC] at the Hague [even

though the U.S. refused to ratify the Rome Statute it

signed but 100 other nations did] which was

established in 2002 to try individuals for war crimes,

crimes against humanity and genocide. Bush, Cheney and

those administration officials complicit with them are

guilty of all three crimes. They should all be held

and brought to trial at the ICC, convicted and again

sentenced with no leniency to the harshest possible

penalty. Might this happen? Probably not. Could it?

Absolutely, if mass public opinion demands nothing

less.

Short of achieving real justice, thoughtful, caring

people everywhere should wonder when this appalling

criminality and reckless endangerment will end, where

it will lead us and what will be its consequences. We

must ask, can we even survive unless and until a way

is found to stop this out-of-control force that may

consume us. We better hope so and soon. At this time

the U.S. Senate just passed the Graham amendment to

the Defense Authorization Act revoking the right of

habeas corpus for Guantanamo prisoner/detainees,

reversing an earlier Supreme Court decision [Rasul vs.

Bush] This sacred firewall protection right is based

on the enshrined 800 year old principles of the Magna

Carta and our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Should the Graham amendment as it now stands become

law, this will be a reckless first step that puts the

president above the law. It could then lead to habeas

and due process denial for us all. That’s called a

police state where the people have no recourse through

the courts to protect against government abuse. We

should all be very worried. We should also be fed up

and willing to act in our own defense. We can’t afford

to lose hope and should take heart and be driven by

the words of famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou

Hamer when she said over 40 years ago she was "sick

and tired of being sick and tired" - a call to action.

And we should be inspired by the wonderful aphorism

of equally famed Italian political theorist and

revolutionary Antonio Gramsci who spoke of the

"pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the

will."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be contacted

at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.