A Collapsing Presidency

"Created on the principle that "you are with us or against us," Bush’s administration is all of one mind. They are all neocons. There are no real conservatives or traditional Republicans in the Bush administration."

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that President Bush’s support among the American people has fallen to 33%. Even more devastatingly, the survey finds that people’s most frequently used one-word description of President Bush is "incompetent."

The chief chaplain for the New York City Corrections Department told a Tucson audience that "the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House." Two years ago when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was suppressing demonstrations at the Republican National Convention, the chief chaplain would have been fired for his remarks, but not today.

Abroad among peoples who formerly looked to America for leadership, American atrocities in Iraq have created sympathy and support for the Iraqi resistance.

When the Bush administration gets in trouble, it turns to war, which has worked for it in the past. Thus, this past week there was live coverage of "Operation Swarmer," which occupied a solid day on CNN and Fox "News." The venerable Washington Monthly reports that the hyped "assault on Samarra" was nothing but a Potemkin operation – a set propaganda piece to demonstrate US military prowess and the battle-ready "new Iraqi army," only there were no insurgents in Samarra to battle. The much-hyped "Operation Swarmer" was a photo op for TV cameras as troops fired into empty desert.

One can imagine the thoughts in Bush’s mind: "Thank goodness I didn’t capture bin Laden. Maybe he will strike again and bail me out."

What is going to rescue Bush? Not the Republican Party. A few Republican congressmen, such as Walter Jones, are trying to get a debate going, but Republicans believe that they are stuck to the fate of their man. There is no one within the administration to turn Bush toward diplomacy and away from coercion.

Created on the principle that "you are with us or against us," Bush’s administration is all of one mind. They are all neocons. There are no real conservatives or traditional Republicans in the Bush administration. This is the first administration in my lifetime in which there is no debate. The absence of debate means there is no check on reckless and ill-advised policies and corrupt schemes.

Neocons don’t believe in debate. They specialize in slandering critics and stamping out debate. Dissent is not possible within the Bush administration, because dissent is equated with treason and anti-Americanism. "You are with us or against us." Increasingly, Republicans demonize their critics as "abettors of terrorism." The Republicans’ intolerance for debate makes many Americans uneasy about the real purpose of the $385 million detention camp that Halliburton is building in the US for the Bush administration.

Neocons don’t believe in diplomacy. They believe in coercion. Neocons denigrate diplomacy as the epitome of weakness. Neocons slap down diplomacy before it can rise. The Iranians offered talks, and neocon National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley immediately slapped down the offer as "simply a device by the Iranians to try to divert pressure that they are feeling." The Bush neocons are bent on war with Iran. They don’t want any talks. In their books, neocons have demonized Muslims in the same way that the Nazis demonized Jews. Demonization makes talks impossible.

On March 17, William Rivers Pitt declared Bush to be "deranged, disconnected, and dangerous." But what else to expect from a neocon administration that declares that it creates its own reality and mocks its critics for being "reality-based." Neocons insanely believe that American power can be used to recreate the world in America’s image. Neocons are dangerous because they really believe that the US can invade the Middle East, deracinate Islam, and install puppet governments.

These disconnected neocons are not shaken by facts or by results. Their evil eye falls on US field commanders and CIA analysts who declare that the US military is creating insurgents faster than it can kill them.

Creating your own reality means that when you cannot put down a resistance based in 5 million Iraqi Sunnis, you attack 70 million Iranians, who are allied with 15 million Iraqi Shia, Hizbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine.

The Bush administration is sending every signal that it is determined to go to war with Iran. Will the rest of the world block the American aggression, or will the rest of the world decide that it is in the world’s best interest for the hubris-driven hegemon to exhaust itself in conflict in the Middle East?

A thank you to readers: I appreciate the support demonstrated by your anger at the neocon web site, Frontpage, for slandering me. But to put a different light on the matter, let me ask you, what would you think of me if I were praised by Frontpage? Isn’t it preferable to be denounced by the neocon brownshirts? What better secures my reputation?

Neocons are incapable of debate, because they don’t believe in it. Neocons rely on disinformation and deceit to impose their agenda.

Neocons do not believe in the US Constitution, civil liberties, the separation of powers, or the Geneva Conventions. According to published reports, President Bush described the Constitution as "a scrap of paper." Bush’s attorney general, vice president, and secretary of defense have openly defended the Bush administration’s practice of torture, violations of habeas corpus, and illegal spying. These high officials, in violation of their oath of office, have openly declared that Bush, as commander-in-chief, is above the law.

What American ever expected to see the safeguards against tyranny put in place by the Founding Fathers removed in the name of providing security against terrorists by a president who purports to believe in original intent?

Neocons are Jacobins. They are a foreign import and do not share our American values. Neocons are a grave danger to the United States and to the world. Neocons have led America into two gratuitous on-going wars that cannot be won, and they are determined to lead us into more wars. It is our duty to defend our country and to oppose these evil people.

Dr. Roberts [ paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com ] is Chairman of 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.

Paul Craig Roberts
03/20/06 "Lew Rockell"

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

Strikingly Similar

Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha?

Last November, U.S. Marines killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes. Was it self-defense, an accident or cold-blooded revenge? A Time exclusive

The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other.

The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like "T.J., you were a great friend. I'm going to miss seeing you around" on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.
But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began.

In January, after Time presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis' accounts of the Marines' actions, the U.S. opened its own investigation, interviewing 28 people, including the Marines, the families of the victims and local doctors. According to military officials, the inquiry acknowledged that, contrary to the military's initial report, the 15 civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the insurgents. The military announced last week that the matter has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (ncis), which will conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether the troops broke the laws of war by deliberately targeting civilians. Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, told Time the involvement of the ncis does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who "placed noncombatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to de

Because the incident is officially under investigation, members of the Marine unit that was in Haditha on Nov. 19 are not allowed to speak with reporters. But the military's own reconstruction of events and the accounts of town residents interviewed by Time?including six whose family members were killed that day?paint a picture of a devastatingly violent response by a group of U.S. troops who had lost one of their own to a deadly insurgent attack and believed they were under fire. Time obtained a videotape that purports to show the aftermath of the Marines' assault and provides graphic documentation of its human toll. What happened in Haditha is a reminder of the horrors faced by civilians caught in the middle of war?and what war can do to the people who fight it.

Here's what all participants agree on: at around 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 19, a U.S. humvee was struck by a powerful improvised explosive device (ied) attached to a large propane canister, triggered by remote control. The bomb killed Terrazas, who was driving, and injured two other Marines. For U.S. troops, Haditha, set among date-palm groves along the Euphrates River, was inhospitable territory; every day the Marines found scores of bombs buried in the dirt roads near their base. Eman Waleed, 9, lived in a house 150 yards from the site of the blast, which was strong enough to shatter all the windows in her home. "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she recalls two months later. "Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Koran and prays that the family will be spared any harm." Eman says the rest of the family?her mother, grandfather, grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two uncles?gathered in the living room. According to military officials fami

"First, they went into my father's room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims, "and we heard shots." According to Eman, the Marines then entered the living room. "I couldn't see their faces very well?only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny." She claims the troops started firing toward the corner of the room where she and her younger brother Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults shielded the children from the bullets but died in the process. Eman says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul Rahman was shot near his shoulder. "We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much.

Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting 'Why did you do this to our family?' And one Iraqi soldier tells me, 'We didn't do it. The Americans did.'" Time was unable to speak with the only other survivor of the raid, Eman's younger brother, who relatives say is traumatized by the experience. U.S. military officials familiar with the investigation say that after entering the house, the Marines walked into a corridor with closed doors on either side. They thought they heard the clack-clack sound of an AK-47 being racked and readied for fire. (Eman and relatives who were not in the house insist that no guns were there.) Believing they were about to be ambushed, the Marines broke down the two doors simultaneously and fired their weapons. The officials say the military has confirmed that seven people were killed inside the house--including two women and a child. The Marines also reported seeing a man and a woman run out of the house; they gave chase and shot

According to military officials, the Marines say they then started taking fire from the direction of a second house, prompting them to break down the door of that house and throw in a grenade, blowing up a propane tank in the kitchen. The Marines then began firing, killing eight residents?including the owner, his wife, the owner's sister, a 2-year-old son and three young daughters.

The Marines raided a third house, which belongs to a man named Ahmed Ayed. One of Ahmed's five sons, Yousif, who lived in a house next door, told Time that after hearing a prolonged burst of gunfire from his father's house, he rushed over. Iraqi soldiers keeping watch in the garden prevented him from going in. "They told me, 'There's nothing you can do. Don't come closer, or the Americans will kill you too.' The Americans didn't let anybody into the house until 6:30 the next morning." Ayed says that by then the bodies were gone; all the dead had been zipped into U.S. body bags and taken by Marines to a local hospital morgue. "But we could tell from the blood tracks across the floor what happened," Ayed claims. "The Americans gathered my four brothers and took them inside my father's bedroom, to a closet. They killed them inside the closet."

The military has a different account of what transpired. According to officials familiar with the investigation, the Marines broke into the third house and found a group of 10 to 15 women and children. The troops say they left one Marine to guard that house and pushed on to the house next door, where they found four men, one of whom was wielding an AK-47. A second seemed to be reaching into a wardrobe for another weapon, the officials say.

The Marines shot both men dead; the military's initial report does not specify how the other two men died. The Marines deny that any of the men were killed in the closet, which they say is too small to fit one adult male, much less four. According to the military officials, the series of raids took five hours and left at least 23 people dead. In all, two AK-47s were discovered. The military has classified the 15 victims in the first two houses as noncombatants. It considers the four men killed in the fourth house, as well as four youths killed by the Marines near the site of the roadside bombing, as enemy fighters. The question facing naval detectives is whether the Marines' killing of 15 noncombatants was an act of legitimate self-defense or negligent homicide. Military sources say that if the ncis finds evidence of wrongdoing, U.S. commanders in Iraq will decide whether to pursue legal action against the Marines.

The available evidence does not provide conclusive proof that the Marines deliberately killed innocents in Haditha. But the accounts of human-rights groups that investigated the incident and survivors and local officials who spoke to Time do raise questions about whether the extent of force used by the Marines was justified?and whether the Marines were initially candid about what took place. Dr. Wahid, director of the local hospital in Haditha, who asked that his family name be withheld because, he says, he fears reprisals by U.S. troops, says the Marines brought 24 bodies to his hospital around midnight on Nov. 19. Wahid says the Marines claimed the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb. "But it was obvious to us that there were no organs slashed by shrapnel," Wahid says. "The bullet wounds were very apparent. Most of the victims were shot in the chest and the head--from close range."

A day after the incident, a Haditha journalism student videotaped the scene at the local morgue and at the homes where the killings had occurred. The video was obtained by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, which cooperates with the internationally respected Human Rights Watch, and has been shared with Time. The tape makes for grisly viewing. It shows that many of the victims, especially the women and children, were still in their nightclothes when they died. The scenes from inside the houses show that the walls and ceilings are pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes as well as the telltale spray of blood. But the video does not reveal the presence of any bullet holes on the outside of the houses, which may cast doubt on the Marines' contention that after the ied exploded, the Marines and the insurgents engaged in a fierce gunfight.

There are also questions about why the military took so long to investigate the details of the Haditha incident. Soon after the killings, the mayor of Haditha, Emad Jawad Hamza, led an angry delegation of elders up to the Marine camp beside a dam on the Euphrates River. Hamza says, "The captain admitted that his men had made a mistake. He said that his men thought there were terrorists near the houses, and he didn't give any other reason."

But the military stood by its initial contention?that the Iraqis had been killed by an insurgent bomb?until January when Time gave a copy of the video and witnesses' testimony to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing the evidence, Johnson passed it on to the military command, suggesting that the events of Haditha be given "a full and formal investigation." In February an infantry colonel went to Haditha for a weeklong probe in which he interviewed Marines, survivors and doctors at the morgue, according to military officials close to the investigation. The probe concluded that the civilians were in fact killed by Marines and not by an insurgent's bomb and that no insurgents appeared to be in the first two houses raided by the Marines. The probe found, however, that the deaths were the result of "collateral damage" rather than malicious intent by the Marines, investigators say.

The U.S. has paid relatives of the victims $2,500 for each of the 15 dead civilians, plus smaller payments for the injured. But nothing can bring back all that was taken from 9-year-old Eman Waleed on that fateful day last November. She still does not comprehend how, when her father went in to pray with the Koran for the family's safety, his prayers were not answered, as they had been so many times in the past. "He always prayed before, and the Americans left us alone," she says. Leaving, she grabs a handful of candy. "It's for my little brother," she says. "I have to take care of my brother. Nobody else is left."

--With reporting by Aparisim Ghosh/Baghdad
Posted Sunday, Mar. 19, 2006
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1174649-1,00.html

Did US Soldiers Execute Iraqi Family? Including Children?

According to a report in Reuters, Eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed in a U.S. raid on Wednesday, police and witnesses said.

A senior Iraqi police officer reported that autopsies on the bodies, which included five children, showed each had been shot in the head. Community leaders have expressed outrage at the killings and have demanded an explanation from the U.S. military.

The U.S. military said in a statement its troops had attacked a house in Ishaqi early on Wednesday to capture a "foreign fighter facilitator for the al Qaeda in Iraq network".

"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," spokesman Major Tim Keefe said. "Coalition Forces returned fire utilising both air and ground assets.

"There was one enemy killed. Two women and one child were also killed in the firefight. The building ... (was) destroyed."

Major Ali Ahmed of the Ishaqi police said U.S. forces had landed on the roof of the house in the early hours and shot the 11 occupants, including the five children, reports Information Clearing House News.

by Jim Brogan
Mar 19, 2006
http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21210993.shtml