*AMERICA HAS FALLEN TO A JACOBIN COUP*



By Paul Craig Roberts

09/16/05 "ICH" -- -- The most important casualties of September 11 are
respect for truth and American liberty. Propaganda has replaced
deliberation based on objective assessment of fact. The resurrection of
the Star Chamber has made moot the legal protections of liberty.

The US invasion of Iraq was based on the deliberate suppression of
fact. The invasion was not the result of mistaken intelligence. It was
based on deliberately concocted "intelligence" designed to deceive the
US Congress, the American public, and the United Nations.

In an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC News, General Colin Powell,
who was Secretary of State at the time of the invasion, expressed
dismay that he was the one who took the false information to the UN and
presented it to the world. The weapons of mass destruction speech, he
said, is a "blot" on his record. The full extent of the deception was
made clear by the leaked top secret "Downing Street Memos."

Two and one-half years after the March 2003 invasion, the US Congress
and the American people still do not know the reason Iraq was invaded.
The US is bogged down in an expensive and deadly combat, and no one
outside the small circle of neoconservatives who orchestrated the war
knows the reason why. Many guesses are rendered - oil, removal of
Israel's enemy - but the Bush administration has never disclosed
its real agenda, which it cloaked with the WMD deception.

This itself is powerful indication that American democracy is dead.
With the exception of rightwing talk radio, everyone in America now
knows that the invasion of Iraq was based on false information. Yet, 40
percent of the public and both political parties in Congress still
support the ongoing war.

The CIA has issued a report that the war is working only for Osama bin
Laden. The unprovoked American aggression against Iraq, the horrors
perpetrated against Muslims in Abu Ghraib prison, and the slaughter and
mistreatment of Iraqi noncombatants, have radicalized the Muslim world
and elevated bin Laden from a fringe figure to a leader opposed to
American hegemony in the Middle East. The chaos created in Iraq by the
US military has provided al Qaeda with superb training grounds for
insurgency and terrorism. Despite overwhelming evidence that the "war
on terror" is in fact a war for terror, Republicans still cheer when
Bush says we have to "fight them over there" so they don't come "over
here."

If fact played any role in the decision to continue with this war, the
US would not be spending hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars to
provide recruits and training for al Qaeda, to radicalize Muslims, and
to destroy trust in the United States both abroad and among its own
citizens.

American casualties (dead and wounded) of this gratuitous war are now
approximately 20,000. In July, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the war
might continue for 12 years. US casualties from such protracted combat
would eat away US troop strength. Considering the well-publicized
recruitment problems, America would require a draft or foreign
mercenaries in order to continue a ground war. Like the over-extended
Roman Empire, the US would have to deplete its remaining wealth to pay
mercenaries.

Dead and wounded Americans are too high a price to pay for a war based
on deception. This alone is reason to end the war, if necessary by
impeaching Bush and Cheney and arresting the neoconservatives for
treason. Naked aggression is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard,
and neoconservatives have brought this shame to America.

There is an even greater cost of the war - the legal system that
protects liberty, a human achievement for which countless numbers of
people gave their lives over the centuries. The Bush administration
used September 11 to whip up fear and hysteria and to employ these
weapons against American liberty. The Orwellian-named Patriot Act has
destroyed habeas corpus. The executive branch has gained the
unaccountable power to detain American citizens on mere suspicion or
accusation, without evidence, and to hold Americans indefinitely
without a trial.

Foolishly, many Americans believe this power can only be used against
terrorists. Americans don't realize that the government can declare
anyone to be a terrorist suspect. As no evidence is required, it is
entirely up to the government to decide who is a terrorist. Thus, the
power is unaccountable. Unaccountable power is the source of tyranny.

The English-speaking world has not seen such power since the 16th and
17th centuries when the Court of Star Chamber became a political weapon
used against the king's opponents and to circumvent Parliament. The
Star Chamber dispensed with juries, permitted hearsay evidence, and
became so reviled that "Star Chamber" became a byword for injustice.
The Long Parliament abolished the Star Chamber in 1641. In obedience to
the Bush regime, the US Congress resurrected it with the Patriot Act.
Can anything be more Orwellian than identifying patriotism with the
abolition of habeas corpus?

Historians are quick to note that the Star Chamber was mild compared to
Gitmo, to the US practice of sending detainees abroad to be tortured,
and to the justice (sic) regime being run by Attorney General "Torture"
Gonzales and his predecessor, "Draped Justice" Ashcroft, who went so
far as to say that opposition to the Patriot Act was itself the mark of
a terrorist.

The time-honored attorney-client privilege is another casualty of the
"war on terror." Taking their cue from the restrictions placed on
lawyers representing Stalin's victims in the 1930s show trials,
Justice (sic) Department officials seek to limit attorneys representing
terrorist suspects to procedural niceties. Lynn Stewart, attorney for
Omar Abdel Rahman, was handed a letter by a Justice (sic) Department
prosecutor instructing her how to represent her client. When she did
what every good lawyer would do and represented her client
aggressively, she was arrested, indicted and convicted.

Many conservative lawyers have turned a blind eye, because Stewart is
regarded as a leftwing lawyer whom they dislike. Only a few civil
libertarians, such as Harvey Silverglate, have pointed out that
prosecutors cannot create felonies by writing letters to attorneys.
Stewart was convicted for violating a prosecutor's letter
(technically, a Special Administrative Measure). This should make it
obvious even to the blind that American democracy has lost all control
over law.

Federal officials have sensed the sea change in American law: arbitrary
actions and assertions by federal officials are taking the place of
statutory legislation. We saw an example recently when the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that news media covering
the New Orleans hurricane story were prohibited from taking pictures of
the bodies of inhabitants drowned when the levees failed.
---> http://talkleft.com/deadgirl.jpg

Nowhere is FEMA given authority to override the First Amendment. Yet,
FEMA officials saw no reason not to issue its decree. Rome had one caesar.
America has them throughout the executive branch.

We see the same exercise of arbitrary authority in break-ins by police
into New Orleans homes in order to confiscate legally owned firearms.
No authority exists for these violations of the Second Amendment. No
authority exists for the forceful removal of residents from non-damaged
homes. Tyrannical precedents are being established by these fantastic
abuses of government authority.

In the US today nothing stands in the way of the arbitrary exercise of
power by government. Federal courts have acquiesced in unconstitutional
detention policies. There is no opposition party, and there is no
media, merely huge conglomerates or collections of federal broadcasting
licenses, the owners of which are afraid to displease the government.

The collapse of the institutions that confine government to law and
bind it with the Constitution was sudden. The president previous to
Bush was impeached by the House for lying about a sexual affair. If we
go back to the 1970s, President Richard Nixon had the decency to resign
when it came to light that he had lied about when he first learned of a
minor burglary. Bush's failures are far more serious and numerous;
yet, Bush has escaped accountability.

Polls show that a majority of Americans have lost confidence in the
Iraq war and believe Bush did a poor job responding to flooded New
Orleans. Many Americans hope that these two massive failures have put
Bush back into the box of responsible behavior from which September 11
allowed him to escape. However, there is no indication that the Bush
administration sees any constraints placed on its behavior by these
failures.

The identical cronyism and corrupt government contract practices, by
which taxpayers' money is used to reward political contributors, so
evident in Iraq, is now evident in New Orleans.

Despite having been fought to a stalemate by a few thousand insurgents
in Iraq, the Bush administration continues to issue thunderous threats
to Syria and Iran.

To press its fabricated case against Iran's alleged weapons of mass
destruction program, the Bush administration is showing every foreign
diplomat it can corral an hour-long slide show titled, "A History of
Concealment and Deception." Wary foreigners are reminded of the
presentations about Iraq's WMD and wonder who is guilty of deception,
Iran or the Bush administration.

Now that the war in Iraq has established that US ground forces cannot
easily prevail against insurgency, the Bush administration is bringing
new military threats to the fore. The neocon orchestrated "Doctrine for
Joint Nuclear Operations" abandons the established doctrine that
nuclear weapons are last-resort options. The Bush administration is so
enamored of coercion that it is birthing the doctrine of preemptive
nuclear attack. US war doctrine is being altered to eliminate the need
for a large invasion force and to use "preventive nuclear strikes" in
its place.

Is this the face that the American people want to present to the world?
It is hard to imagine a greater risk to America than to put the entire
world on notice that every country risks being nuked based on mere
suspicion. By making nuclear war permissible, the Bush administration
is crossing the line that divides civilized people from barbarians. The
United States is starting to acquire the image of Nazi Germany.
Knowledgeable people should have no trouble drawing up their own list
of elements common to both the Bush and Hitler regimes: the use of
extraordinary lies to justify military aggression; reliance on coercion
and threats in place of diplomacy; total belief in the virtue and
righteousness of one's cause; the equating of factual objections or
"reality-based" analysis to treason; the redirection of patriotism from
country to leader; the belief that defeat resides in debate and a
weakening of will; refuge in delusion and denial when promised results
don't materialize.

As Professor Claes Ryn made clear in his book, America the Virtuous,
the neoconservatives are neo-Jacobins. There is nothing conservative
about them. They are committed to the use of coercion to impose their
agenda. Their attitude is merciless toward anyone in their way, whether
fellow citizen or foreigner. "You are with us or against us." For those
on the receiving end, the Nazi and Jacobin mentalities come to the same
thing.

The Bush administration has abandoned American principles. It is a
Jacobin regime. Woe to its citizens and the rest of the world.

Dr. Roberts <paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com> is John M. Olin Fellow at the
Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent
Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal,
former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant
secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of
Good Intentions.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10303.htm



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