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The
Neoconservative Threat to American Freedom
By Paul Craig Roberts
06/11/07 "ICH
" -- - The Bush/Cheney White House, which told
the American people in 2003 that the Iraqi invasion would be a
three to six week affair, now tells us that the US occupation is
permanent. Forever.
Attentive Americans of which, alas, there are so few, had
already concluded that the occupation was permanent. Permanence
is the obvious message from the massive and fortified US embassy
under construction in Iraq and from the large permanent military
bases that the Bush regime is building in Iraq.
Bush regime propagandists have created a false analogy with “the
Korean model” in their effort to sell the permanent occupation
of Iraq as necessary for Iraq’s security. More than one half
century after the close of the Korean war, US troops continue to
be based in Korea, as they are in Germany more than six decades
after the end of World War II.
The rationale for the US troops in S. Korea is to remind N.
Korea that an attack on S. Korea is an attack on the US itself.
The rationale for US troops in Germany disappeared when Reagan
and Gorbachev brought the cold war to an end.
There is, of course, no similarity between Iraq and Korea. There
was no insurgency in Korea and no attacks on US troops based in
S. Korea once the fighting stopped. The presence of US troops in
S. Korea has produced many protest demonstrations by South
Koreans, but the US troops in S. Korea have had no exposure to
combat since the war ended in 1953.
In contrast, the insurgency in Iraq continues to rage and could
expand dramatically if Shi’ites were to join the Sunnis in
attacks on US forces. Most American military leaders no longer
believe the insurgency can be defeated. Permanent occupation
means permanent insurgency. Indeed, an attempt at permanent
occupation could possibly unify the Arabs in a joint effort to
expel the Americans.
The absurd analogy with Korea is so far-fetched that it raises
the question whether the Bush/Cheney regime has entered a new,
higher level of delusion. Bush cannot keep troops in Iraq
permanently unless he intends to remain permanently in the White
House. Even some Republicans in Congress are talking about
beginning withdrawals of US troops in September. Republicans
believe that if withdrawals do not begin, their party will be
wiped out in the 2008 election.
The wild card is the neoconservatives and their long-standing
alliance with Israeli Zionists. The neoconservatives still have
a death grip on the discredited Bush regime. Jim Lobe (http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/)
describes the extensive international organization that the
neoconservatives have put into place for the purpose of
orchestrating an attack on Iran.
A sane reader might wonder why neoconservatives would want to
expand a conflict in which the US has failed. Surely, even
delusional “cakewalk” neoconservatives must realize that
attacking Iran would greatly increase the threat to US troops in
Iraq and perhaps bring missile attacks on oil facilities and US
bases throughout the Middle East. An attack on Iran would
further radicalize Muslims and further undermine US puppets in
the Middle East. It could bring war to the entire region.
The point is that the neoconservatives do realize this. Their
defeat in Iraq and Israel’s defeat in Lebanon has taught the
neoconservatives that the US cannot prevail in the Middle East
by conventional military means. As I have previously explained,
the neoconservatives’ plan is to escape the failure of their
Iraq plan by orchestrating a war with Iran in which the US can
prevail only by using nuclear weapons. As previously reported,
the neoconservatives believe that the use of nuclear weapons
against Iran will convince Muslims that they must accept US
hegemony.
The neoconservatives have put the elements of their plan in
place. They have powerful naval forces on station off Iran’s
coast. They have convinced President Bush that only by attacking
Iran can he prevail in Iraq.
The neoconservatives have rewritten US war doctrine to permit
preemptive US nuclear attack on non-nuclear countries (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8263).
They have demonized Iran as the greatest threat since Hitler.
Neoconservatives have invented “Islamofascism,” something that
exists only in the neoconservative propaganda used to instill in
Americans hatred of Muslims. The neoconservatives have
dehumanized Muslims as monsters who must be destroyed at all
costs. Recent statements by neoconservative leaders such as
Norman Podhoretz read like the ravings of ignorant lunatics.
Podhoretz has written Muslims out of the human race. He demands
that their culture be deracinated.
Neoconservatives, convinced that a nuclear attack will bring
Muslims to heel, are ignoring the likely blowback and unintended
consequences of an attack on Iran, just as they ignored the
likely consequences of their attack on Iraq. If the
neoconservatives are mistaken in their assumption that nuclear
weapons will cause Muslims to submit to the US, the consequences
will be unmanageable.
The neoconservative Bush regime has got away with more than I
thought possible, perhaps because most of Congress and the
American public cannot imagine the degree of insanity that lies
behind the Bush administration. Most Americans who have turned
against the regime think that the administration is incompetent,
that it jumped to wrong conclusions about Iraq, and that it
mismanaged the war and will not admit its mistakes. As every
reason Bush gave for the war has proven to be false, people see
no point in continuing the struggle.
If Americans understood the enormity of the deception behind the
invasion of Iraq (and Afghanistan) and the pending attack on
Iran, Bush and Cheney would be impeached and turned over to the
War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, and AIPAC would be forced to
register as a foreign agent.
Just as Goebbels said, some lies are too big to be disbelieved.
It is this disbelief that is so dangerous. The inability of
Americans to see through the Big Lie to the secret agenda allows
the neoconservatives to escape accountability and to continue
with their plot.
The neoconservatives also believe that nuclear attack on Iran
will isolate America in the world and, thereby, give the
government control over the American people. The denunciations
that will be hurled at Americans from every quarter will force
the country to wrap itself in the flag and to treat domestic
critics as foreign enemies. Not only free speech but also truth
itself will disappear along with every civil liberty.
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
co-author 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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