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One War Criminal Down, A
Fistful to Go
By Paul Craig Roberts
05/11/07 "ICH"
-- -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or more
accurately, George W. Bush’s lap dog, has resigned to England’s
relief.
Boris Johnson at the Daily Telegraph wrote that “Blair cannot
escape the blame for a disaster in which at least 60,000 (and
possibly 10 times as many) Iraqis have died, and which is
causing 40,000 Iraqis to flee the country every month.”
The Daily Mail’s Piers Morgan wrote that Blair’s complicity in
the invasion of Iraq transformed England “into a more dangerous,
paranoid, despised and ridiculed country. Blair’s reign will be
remembered for one disaster of epic proportions, one appalling
legacy.”
Claire Short, a former Blair minister, said, “I think Tony’s
place in history is Iraq and the deceit and the desperate mess
and it’s sad. It’s going to be a very bad place in history.”
Many wonder why Blair destroyed his reputation and that of his
country, put himself at risk of being hauled before the
International Criminal Court, and squandered his time as prime
minister providing cover for George Bush’s war of aggression.
The answer must be money. We will see which US corporate boards
take Blair as a director and which groups pay him six-figure
honorariums for speeches.
Bush will have an even worse place in history. There is no
longer any doubt that Bush deceived Congress and the American
people. At great financial and human cost, Bush took America to
war and destroyed Iraq for a hidden agenda. After years of
swallowing Bush’s lies, the American people finally caught on.
Bush’s approval rating is at 28 percent, but the TV and print
media are still sycophantic.
Bush’s approval rating has collapsed despite a favorable press.
The people are no longer fooled, but Bush’s favorable press
intimidates the Democrats, who have failed to bring
accountability to the Bush Regime.
People damn Bill Clinton for many reasons. Perhaps his greatest
failure was in permitting the media concentration that destroyed
the independence of the “mainstream media.” The American media
is no longer in the hands of journalists. It is controlled by
advertising executives and corporate bosses who will never put
their empires at risk by offending government and advertisers.
They believe readers and viewers want to be entertained, not
challenged by truthful news.
Journalism schools now teach students how to spin the news away
from uncomfortable truths. Reporters and editorial writers are
being turned into shills for those in power.
Democracy is handicapped without the press. When news is spun,
falsely reported, and not reported, the people are deprived both
of information and of voice. The American people disapprove of
Bush, but the American corporate press supports him.
Because of Blair’s support for the European Union, Blair could
find himself hauled before the International Criminal Court. The
US government has been careful to keep itself outside
international law. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and a number of
others are regarded as outlaws, but there is no marshall with
the authority to arrest them and hold them accountable. Only
Congress can do that.
Leaving Bush in office is extremely dangerous. He has proven
himself to be a deceitful and hair-brained leader. Bush has one
and one-half years remaining in which to attack Iran, start a
nuclear war, stage a
9/11 type event and declare a national emergency.
It is extreme folly to keep fanatics in office who have no
respect for the US Constitution, civil liberties, and the
separation of powers. The Bush Regime values nothing but power.
Every day that Bush remains in office diminishes America and
erodes its founding principles.
Paul
Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was
Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial
page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
author or coauthor of eight books, including
The Supply-Side Revolution
(Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic
appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political
Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous
scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30
occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious
Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer
for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert
Mundell
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