http://counterpunch.org/roberts08112005.html
August 11, 2005
Why is Cheney Lobbying for a Boost in China's Nuclear Capability?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in
the Reagan administration
What I have noticed about conservatives and Republicans is that they
are no longer conservative and Republican.
They believe in the efficacy of force.
If we are losing in Iraq, it is because we are not using enough force.
All we have to do to win in Iraq, they maintain, is to nuke the towel
heads.
In case you have forgotten, Rich Lowry, editor of National Review,
suggested that the US nuke Mecca in retaliation for a terrorist
attack.
Conservative Ann Coulter was more mild, no doubt due to her feminine
nature.
Her solution to Islam was to "invade their countries, kill their
leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Determined to win, conservatives and Republicans are willing to nuke
Iraq.
Precisely what they would be winning, they cannot identify.
But they believe that with sufficient force, America can teach those
on the receiving end a lesson and make them do what the Bush
administration wants.
That is the extent of the brainpower that conservatives and
Republicans bring to war and diplomacy.
Conservatives and Republicans used to be people who thought it was
America's business to avoid wars and to govern well at home.
It was Democrats who involved us in wars--World War I, World War II,
Korea, and Vietnam all started under Democratic presidents.
Governing well at home meant being suspicious of government power, not
giving government cart blanc with Orwellian legislation called "the
Patriot Act."
I can remember when conservatives and Republicans would have gone
berserk if Democrats had identified patriotism with the police state
legislation called "the Patriot Act."
You can't learn a word of this from rightwing talk radio or Fox
"News."
According to these war-mongering propagandists, Democrats (read Jane
Fonda and John Kerry) are squishy pacifists who want the commies to
take over the world.
Democrats always run away once a shot is fired, say the rightwing
crazies, and believe terrorists are people who had a bad childhood.
As a result of the influence of Israel's neoconservative supporters
and evangelicals expecting The Rapture, conservatives and Republicans
are focused on the Middle East.
They are apoplectic over Iran's nuclear power program.
If Iran has a nuclear power program, Iran might be able to produce a
nuclear weapon in ten years.
Vice President Cheney has ordered a plan for the US to use tactical
nuclear weapons to take out Iran's capability should an excuse arise.
That would be the third Islamic country the US would have attacked in
as many years.
All hell would break loose.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
announced that the Commission will approve Westinghouse's sale of two
nuclear reactors to China.
Conservatives and Republicans think this is a good idea.
Vice President Cheney has lobbied in behalf of the sale.
It is good for private business.
It means $2.4 billion in revenues for Westinghouse Electric Company.
Iran will never again be a world power, even if it has a few nukes.
Persia was a power in ancient times, not today.
If we don't bother Iran, Iran won't bother us.
China is a different matter.
China already is a world power.
China holds enough US government debt to have the dollar and US
interest rates in its hand.
Last month in an official briefing a top Chinese general, Zhu Chenghu,
said that if the US messes around with China or tries to interfere
with China's reunification with Taiwan, China will nuke the US:
"If the Americans are determined to interfere, then we will be
determined to respond. We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the
destruction of all the cities east of Xian. Of course, the Americans
will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by
the Chinese."
VP Cheney and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission want to make sure
China has what it takes to do the job.
The moronic Bush administration is all concerned about "weapons of
mass destruction" where they aren't, not where they are.
Why in the world is the Bush administration using up the US military
and its weapons systems in Iraq, a country that was no threat
whatsoever to the US, while aiding and abetting China's rapidly
growing economic and military power?
Having asked this question, I will receive 1,000 emails from Bush
worshippers who will indignantly inquire why I am demonizing China.
I am not demonizing China.
I am simply asking a question about the intelligence of the Bush
administration.
Bush's supporters, of course, are busy at work demonizing landlocked
Middle Eastern states that have nothing but fanatical insurgents to
ward off US military attacks on their homelands.
The conservative movement has disappeared.
The Republican Party has disappeared.
The two have morphed into a brownshirt movement that worships coercion
and a strutting little marionette who believes he can threaten peoples
into submission.
Why does Cheney want to sell nuclear reactors to China, but order the
US Strategic Command to prepare to nuke Iran's nuclear power
capability, a capability that would allow Iran to sell more oil to an
energy-starved world?
What's going on here?
___________________________________________________________
You sure you're feelin' safer with the Bush criminals you voted for,
folks?
Harry
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