Freedom and Democracy is Dying

by Dr. David Ray Griffin

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&am...

In The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 (2004), I summarized dozens of facts and reports that cast doubt on the official story about 9/11. Then in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2005a), I discussed the way these various facts and reports were treated by the 9/11 Commission, namely, by distorting or simply omitting them. I have also taken this big-picture approach, with its cumulative argument, in my previous essays and lectures on 9/11 (Griffin, 2005b and 2005d).[1] This approach, which shows every aspect of the official story to be problematic, provides the most effective challenge to the official story.

For more...

By Cindy Sheehan

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 26 September 2006

Our "compassionate conservative" misleader was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer and he had the following to say about the heartache and pain that he has caused the world since his illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq began.

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public: a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war - if not already a civil war. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see - you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is - my point is, there's a strong will for democracy.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

That is 125 commas.

With 2701 of our children killed and over 20,000 injured, I would have to type 182 lines filled with commas. Then if we take in to account the low figure of 100,000 innocent Iraqis killed, I would need pages of commas.

Martin Luther King Jr. said: "Nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." I believe that anyone who still supports George and his war of terror on the world has to be going out of his way to ignore the facts, or is profiting some way from this occupation: politically or financially.

I want George and the conscientiously stupid people who avoid evidence like the plague to know that my son was not a comma. Casey was not a cardboard figure, or the one dimensional figure of his widely printed boot camp picture when his cheeks were still chubby from good and plentiful food.

Casey was three dimensional and had hopes and dreams. He wanted to finish college and teach elementary school. He wanted to marry and have babies. I wanted him to marry and have babies. I wanted to hold his children and spoil them and love them like a grandmother should.

Casey loved his brother Andy and his sisters Carly and Janey. He loved our dogs Buster and Chewy and our cats Emily and Molly. Casey watched professional "wrestling" on TV and called it: "male soap operas." He collected toys, and we have many boxes of unopened action figures and other collectibles in a storage now.

Casey breathed air, drank water, ate food and everything else that all other human beings do. Above all, he loved God and wanted to serve God his entire life as a Permanent Deacon in the Catholic Church. He also bled and died like a human when he was shot in the back of the head.

Conservatively, the "commas" that the Bush Regime has killed by their lies would fill many pages, but in reality, the once-breathing human beings are filling thousands upon thousands of graves and lying under tons of rubble.

I am sorry that the leader of our once great nation is so callous toward the people whose lives he has destroyed. Whether one agrees with President Chavez of Venezuela or not, it is inherently evident in our country and the world that we should agree with him when he says democracy is not imposed by "bombs and Marines." Democracy rises from the people. Great Britain did not go to war with our forebears to impose democracy, but to stop it.

Killing innocent people, torturing, draining our treasury, stealing elections, spying on American citizens without due process, leaving the people of the Gulf States hanging on their roofs for their dear lives, etc., do not bestow democracy, and the people harmed should not be reduced to punctuation marks.

My son and the others will not go down in history as "commas" but as more victims of the war machine and I hope as the last victims of wars for profit. How can George keep a straight face when he talks about the enemy being willing to "kill innocent people?" When has BushCo every shied away from murdering innocents?

George Bush* will be an asterisk in history.

*Impeached, removed from office, imprisoned for crimes against humanity.

The sooner the better.

--------

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Austin Sheehan, who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is the author of Peace Mom: One Mom's Journey through Heartache to Activism.

By Robert Parry

September 23, 2006

Original Source: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/092306.html

The United States is following the lead of "dirty war" nations, such as Argentina and Chile, in enacting what amounts to an amnesty law protecting U.S. government operatives, apparently up to and including President George W. Bush, who have committed or are responsible for human rights crimes.

While the focus of the current congressional debate has been on Bush's demands to redefine torture and to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, the compromise legislation also would block prosecutions for violations already committed during the five-year-old "war on terror."

The compromise legislation bars criminal or civil legal action over past violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, according to press reports. Common Article 3 outlaws "violence to life and person," such as death and mutilation as well as cruel treatment and "outrages upon personal dignity."

The legislation now before Congress also would prohibit detainees from citing the Geneva Conventions as a legal basis for challenging their imprisonment or for seeking civil damages for their mistreatment. [Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2006]

Since U.S. courts generally limit plaintiff status to people who have suffered definable harm, these provisions amount to a broad amnesty law for Bush and other administration officials who have engaged in human rights violations since the 9/11 attacks.

Given the scope of Common Article 3, covering abuses ranging from personal humiliations to death, the legislation could prevent - or at least severely complicate - any legal accountability in U.S. courts for officials who have committed these offenses.

Though administration officials have said these provisions are meant to protect CIA and other government operatives in the field, the provisions also could shield senior officials up the line of command who granted the authority for acts of torture and other abuses.

These implicated officials could include Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and administration legal advisers who supplied rationales for the abuses, as well as officials who signed off on the human rights violations, such as military commanders and President Bush.

'Dirty War' Precedents

In effect, this legislation could be interpreted as a broad amnesty law, like those enacted by legislatures in Argentina and Chile to give cover to government officials who waged "dirty wars" against leftists and other political opponents in the 1970s.

Because of those amnesty laws, many perpetrators of torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial killings were spared punishment even after the grisly details of their crimes against humanity emerged from the secret records.

In some cases, the amnesty laws were later repealed or courts struck down some provisions. But the legal delays frustrated demands for justice from victims and often the aging perpetrators then cited infirmities to prevent ever being brought to trial.

For instance, Chile is still trying to untangle the amnesty protections that were used to shield dictator Augusto Pinochet from prosecution. Pinochet, who is now 90, has also employed the infirmity defense.

The legal delays have had political consequences, too, especially in the United States where complicit American officials escaped virtually all accountability, even to their reputations. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Bush Shields Dad on Chile Terrorism."]

Some countries, such as South Africa, have combined amnesty for human rights violators with requirements that the guilty cooperate with truth commissions. That way, at least the historical record can be assembled and the crimes of state can be exposed as lessons for future generations.

The emerging U.S. amnesty law would be unusual in that it wouldnít explicitly acknowledge that offenses had been committed, nor is the word "amnesty" used. Nor have there been public hearings in Congress to determine what the Bush administration might have done that requires amnesty.

Nevertheless, the legislation, which seems to be gaining bipartisan support, would create broad areas of legal protections for Bush and other human rights violators for past crimes. By also barring victims from seeking enforcement of the Geneva Conventions in U.S. courts, the bill would give the Bush administration wide latitude for future acts of abuse.

Yet, this troubling "amnesty" signpost - for an America rushing down a path marked by previous "dirty war" states - has been passed with barely a comment on its significance.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Those who would give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security.

Benjamin Franklin

Oh Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me!

Chief Yellow Lark

21 September, 2006

Countercurrents.org

Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.

Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.

The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.

It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.

The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."

Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.

I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."

That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.

But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?

He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?

This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.

This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'

The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.

And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?

And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.

And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.

I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.

Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's yesterday, or President Mullah's . Yes, it's good for that.

And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.

But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.

Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.

The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.

Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.

Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.

Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.

Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.

Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.

Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.

Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.

This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.

Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.

The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.

And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.

But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.

Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.

And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.

I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.

Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.

As Silvio Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?

What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.

We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.

Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.

And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.

And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.

And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.

And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.

And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.

Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.

But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.

And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.

But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.

And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.

And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.

Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.

So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.

With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.

We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.

And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.

You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.

May God bless us all. Good day to you.

By Eric Margolis

http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2006/09/afghanistan_...

Do not believe what OUR media and politicians are telling us about Afghanistan. Nearly all the information we get about the five-year old war in Afghanistan comes from US and NATO public relations officers or `embedded ’ journalists who merely parrot military handouts. Ask yourself, when did you last read a report from a journalist covering Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces?Now, the official rosy view is being flatly contradicted by impartial observers.

The respected European think-tank, Senlis Council, which focuses on Afghanistan, just reported the Taliban movement is `taking back Afghanistan’ and now controls that nation’s southern half.

This is an amazing departure from claims by the US and its NATO allies that they are steadily winning the war in Afghanistan. Or, more precisely, winning it again, since the Bush Administration claimed to have won total victory in Afghanistan in 2001. At the time, this column predicted that victory was an illusion and the war would resume in force in 4-5 years.

According to the Senlis Council, southern Afghanistan is suffering `a humanitarian crisis of starvation and poverty…caused by `US-British military policies.’

Deflating optimistic western reports, Senlis investigators found, `US policies in Afghanistan have re-created the safe haven for terrorism that the 2001 invasion aimed to destroy.’ This is a bombshell.

The US and NATO have been insisting any withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan - or from Iraq - will leave a void certain to be filled by extremists. These claims are nonsense, given that half of Afghanistan and a third of Iraq are already largely controlled by anti-western resistance forces.

Were it not for omnipotent US airpower, American and NATO forces would be quickly driven from Afghanistan and Iraq. If Afghan and Iraqi resistance forces ever manage to obtain effective man-portable anti-aircraft weapons, such as the US Stinger or Russian SA-18, the US-led occupation of those nations may become untenable. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980’s was doomed once mujahidin forces obtained American Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

Last week, Canadian and British commanders boasted they were about to annihilate Taliban forces `surrounded’ around Panjwai and Zahri. They crowed an `estimated 500 Taliban,’ had already been killed.

A storm of bombing and shelling did kill many Afghans, but most of the dead `suspected Taliban militants’ turned out, as usual, to be civilians. NATO failed to show bodies of dead enemy fighters to back up its absurd claims.

When NATO forces entered Panjwai after weeks of air strikes and shelling, the supposedly `surrounded’ Taliban had vanished. Embarrassed British and Canadian commanders admitted `we were surprised the enemy had fled.’ Surprised?

Doesn’t anyone remember the Vietnam War’s fruitless search and destroy missions and inflated body counts? Don’t NATO commanders know their every move is telegraphed in advance to Taliban forces? Don’t they see what’s going on now in Iraq?

Did Canadian officers making such fanciful claims really believe Taliban’s veteran guerillas would be stupid enough to sit still and be destroyed by US air power?

Now, Canadian-led NATO forces are crowing about having finally occupied Panjewi. `Taliban has fled!’ they proudly announced. Don’t they understand that guerilla forces don’t hang on to fixed positions? Occupying ground is meaningless in guerilla warfare.

Seemingly immune to history or common sense, Canada is sending a few hundred more troops and a handful of obsolete tanks to Afghanistan. Poland, which will send troops anywhere for the right price, is adding 1,000 more soldiers next year.

US, British and Canadian politicians say they are surprised by intensifying Taliban resistance. They have only their own ignorance to blame.

Attacking Pashtuns, renowned for xenophobia, warlike spirits, and love of independence is a fool’s mission. Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s ethnic majority. Taliban is an offshoot of the Pushtun people. Long-term national stability is impossible without their representation and cooperation.

What the west calls `Taliban’ is actually a growing coalition of veteran Taliban fighters led by Mullah Dadullah, other clans of Pashtun tribal warriors, and nationalist resistance forces led by Jalalladin Hakkani and former prime minister, Gulbadin Hekmatyar, whom the CIA has repeatedly tried to assassinate.

Many are former mujahidin once hailed `freedom fighters’ by the west, and branded `terrorists’ by the Soviets. They represent national resistance to foreign occupation. In fact, what the US and its NATO allies are doing in Afghanistan today uncannily mirrors the brutal Soviet occupation during the 1980’s.

The UN’s anti-narcotic agency reports Afghanistan now supplies 92% of the world’s heroin. Production has surged 40% last year alone. Who is responsible? The US and NATO. They now own narco-state Afghanistan.

Dominating the main oil export route from Central Asia was a primary objective of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Ironically, instead of an anticipated oil bonanza, the US now finds itself mired deep in the Afghan drug trade.

Washington and NATO can’t keep pretending this is someone else’s problem. Drug money fuels the Afghan economy and keeps local warlords loyal to the US-installed Kabul regime.

Afghanistan’s north has become a sphere of influence of Russia and its local allies, the Uzbek-Tajik Northern Alliance led by notorious war criminals and leaders of the old Afghan Communist Party.

The US and its allies are not going to win the Afghan war. They will be lucky the way things are going not to lose it in the same humiliating manner the Soviets did in 1989.

In recent week, near panicky calls by British PM Tony Blair for more NATO troops to be sent to Afghanistan show that western occupation forces are on the defensive, fighting to hold their bases, and facing the specter of eventual defeat. Just, in fact, like every other invader that has ever occupied Afghanistan.

A final point. US and NATO forces are not fighting `terrorists,’ as their governments claim. They are fighting the Afghan people. In the 1980’s, I saw mujahidin too poor to afford shoes strap 110lbs of mortar shells on their backs, and climb 6-8 hours over mountains through snow to bombard a Communist base, then trudge home. These are the people we are fighting. Anyone who knows Afghans know they will not be defeated, even if they must resist for an entire generation.

What we still don’t know about 9/11 could kill us. By “we” I mean the public that has been kept in the dark for five years by a president who may know the truth but has chosen to ignore it. Instead of grappling with the thorny origins of that disaster, George Bush willfully turned the nation’s attention and resources to a totally unrelated and disastrous imperial adventure in Iraq.

Click link for more: http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060910_robert_scheer_h...

By Robert Parry

Original Source: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/091806.html 

George W. Bush's Sept. 15 outburst - threatening to stop interrogating terror suspects if Congress doesn't let him revise the Geneva Conventions to permit coercive techniques - is part of a pattern of petulance that dates back to even before the 9/11 attacks but has resurfaced as Bush faces new challenges to his authority.

In summer 2001, less than six months into his presidency while confronting congressional obstacles to his domestic program, Bush told followers that he was ready to "go back to Crawford" if he didn't get his way on legislation.

That threat came after Sen. Jim Jeffords, a Vermont Republican, joined with the Democrats to give them narrow control of the Senate in mid-2001. Bush also was facing defeat on a patients' bill of rights.

In a meeting with congressional allies, "Bush appeared to draw a line in the sand when he indicated he always could return to Crawford, Texas, if the liberal health juggernaut grinds him down," wrote right-wing columnist Robert D. Novak. [Washington Post, July 5, 2001]

Besides the patients' bill of rights, Bush found himself battling congressional momentum in favor of new campaign-finance restrictions.

In the context of Bush fighting those two popular bills, Los Angeles Times political writer Ronald Brownstein also picked up word of Bush issuing a "back to Crawford" threat, this one recounted by a GOP lobbyist close to the administration.

Bush "continues to send a signal that, "I'm going to do what I want to do, and if nobody likes it, I'm going to go back to Crawford'," Brownstein wrote, quoting the lobbyist. [Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2001]

Back then, Republicans framed Bush's "back to Crawford" threats as a sign of his principled leadership as well as a new self-confidence in asserting his authority.

"Gone is the tentativeness of 20 months ago, of the lost man of the early Republican debates," wrote Ronald Reagan's speechwriter Peggy Noonan in an article for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. "In its place seems an even-keeled confidence, even a robust faith in his own perceptions and judgments." [WSJ, June 25, 2001]

However, Bush's critics saw something else: a troubling self-centeredness more benefiting an autocrat than a leader of a democratic Republic. To them, Bush was a callow, ill-prepared politician who seemed oblivious to the fact that he had risen to his exalted status because of family connections and tough political tactics, not through hard work and talent.

The critics noted that Bush's sense of entitlement sometimes would spill out in his humor, when he'd put down people in his presence or he'd joked about his preference for autocracy. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," he quipped on Dec. 18, 2000.

Though Bush never did quit his job, he did seek comfort back at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he retreated for a month-long vacation in August 2001.

The course of Bush's presidency changed dramatically on Sept. 11, 2001, however, when al-Qaeda terrorists attacked targets in New York and Washington. The 9/11 attacks gave Bush a new mantle as "war president" and he exploited that opening to assert "plenary" - or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief.

With Republicans reclaiming the Senate in 2002 - and the federal courts initially giving Bush wide latitude - Bush got pretty much whatever he wanted and his petulance was subsumed by his new presidential swagger.

Mystical Leader

Now, five years later, Bush's supporters see an almost mystical leader who exudes manly powers and possesses a farsighted vision for saving the world. In one of those paeans to Bush, conservative New York Times wrote on Sept. 14, 2006:

"A leader's first job is to project authority, and George Bush certainly does that. In a 90-minute interview with a few columnists in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Bush swallowed up the room, crouching forward to energetically make a point or spreading his arms wide to illustrate the scope of his ideas - always projecting confidence and intensity.

"He opened the session by declaring, "Let me just first tell you that I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions,' and he grew more self-assured from there. I interview politicians for a living, and every time I brush against Bush I'm reminded that this guy is different. There's none of that hunger for approval that is common in the breed. This is the most inner-directed man on the globe.

"The other striking feature of his conversation is that he possesses an unusual perception of time. Washington, and modern life in general, encourages people to think in the short term. But Bush, who stands aloof, thinks in long durations."

Brooks's example of Bush's visionary quality was the President's assertion that he had gotten into politics because of his "campaign against the instant gratifications of the 1960s counterculture," which somehow helped qualify him "to think about the war on terror as a generations-long struggle."

Brooks made no mention of Bush's own extensive dabbling in "instant gratifications" from his playboy life-style that included evading military service in Vietnam, heavy drinking (at least until his 40^th birthday), and illicit drug use (which he implicitly acknowledged during Campaign 2000).

Like other Bush enthusiasts, Brooks also failed to consider the dangers from an autocratic leader who is both "inner-directed" and possesses a messianic view of the world. "Inner-directed" could be defined as impervious to outside criticism, advice or even reality. Many of the history's most dangerous dictators also were "inner-directed."

But the only criticism of Bush that Brooks could muster was that Bush didn't act aggressively enough in implementing his visionary programs.

"The sad truth is, there has been a gap between Bush's visions and the means his administration has devoted to realize them. And when tactics do not adjust to fit the strategy, then the strategy gets diminished to fit the tactics," Brooks wrote. [NYT, Sept. 14, 2006]

But another way of looking at Bush's presidency is that he and his neoconservative advisers have operated in an ideological reality of their own making, that they have too little respect for the opinions of others, that they are hubristic and anti-democratic.

Return to Petulance

Now, with a slim majority of the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting Bush's claims of unlimited power and with several senior Republicans resisting Bush's demands that he be allowed to redefine the Geneva Conventions, Bush's petulance is returning.

At the Sept. 15 news conference, Bush suggested that senators - such as John Warner and John McCain - were endangering U.S. security by opposing his legislation to rewrite Geneva's Common Article III to allow harsh interrogation of detainees.

"We must also provide our military and intelligence professionals with the tools they need to protect our country from another attack," Bush said. "And the reason they need those tools is because the enemy wants to attack us again."

Bush did not spell out his desired interrogation techniques, since he insists that his administration does not condone torture. But the known practices include simulating drowning by "waterboarding," keeping prisoners naked in excessive heat and cold, sleep deprivation, and forcing them into painful "stress positions" for extended periods of time.

Bush's former Secretary of State Colin Powell joined in opposing Bush's legislation, warning that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." Powell, a retired general, also cautioned that allowing abusive interrogations of prisoners of war would open captured U.S. soldiers to similar abuse

Asked about Powell's comments on Sept. 15, the petulant Bush reappeared.

"If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic," Bush snapped. "I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."

Though the Washington press corps sat mute before Bush's assertions, there was cause to challenge Bush on his hypocrisy. The Bush administration is responsible for slaughtering thousands of women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq "to achieve an objective."

For instance, early in the Iraq War, Bush authorized the bombing of a residential Baghdad restaurant because of faulty intelligence that Saddam Hussein might be having dinner there. The attack killed 14 civilians, including seven children. One mother collapsed when her decapitated daughter was pulled from the rubble.

Hundreds of other civilian deaths were equally horrific. Saad Abbas, 34, was wounded in an American bombing raid, but his family sought to shield him from the greater horror. The bombing had killed his three daughters - Marwa, 11; Tabarek, 8; and Safia, 5 - who had been the center of his life.

"It wasn't just ordinary love," his wife said. "He was crazy about them. It wasn't like other fathers." [NYT, April 14, 2003]

The horror of the war was captured, too, in the fate of 12-year-old Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who lost his two arms when a U.S. missile struck his Baghdad home. Ali's father, his pregnant mother and his siblings were all killed. As he was evacuated to a Kuwaiti hospital, becoming a symbol of U.S. compassion for injured Iraqi civilians, Ali said he would rather die than live without his hands.

For its part, the Bush administration has refused to tally the Iraqi civilians killed in the war, a number now estimated in the tens of thousands.

New Threats

At the Sept. 15 news conference, Bush also threatened to stop all interrogation of terrorism suspects if his demands on the Geneva Conventions weren't met.

"We can debate this issue all we want, but the practical matter is, if our professionals don't have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to go forward," Bush said. "The bottom line is - and the American people have got to understand this - that this program won't go forward; if there is vague standards applied, like those in Common Article III from the Geneva Convention, it's just not going to go forward."

Common Article III doesn't prohibit interrogating prisoners, but it does bar coercive tactics to elicit information. POWs are required to supply only their name, rank and serial number or comparable information.

The United States played a prominent role in establishing these standards, along with other rules of war. In addition, the U.S. Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment and U.S. law prohibits torture and other degrading treatment of detainees, though Bush has stipulated that he does not feel legally bound by those constraints.

Bush has argued that the "war on terror" is a new kind of war, justifying these extraordinary tactics. But military historians say the conflict is actually similar to many irregular wars fought over the centuries, including the anti-colonial wars in the 1950s and 1960s and Latin American "dirty wars" against leftist "terrorists" in the 1970s and 1980s.

In those conflicts, too, government security forces resorted to extensive use of torture, "disappearances" and detentions without trial.

The "inner-directed" Bush now is charting a similar future for the United States - and getting increasingly petulant with those Americans who won't follow him.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'