How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Welfare State (2 page)
Read How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Welfare State Online
Authors: Paul Craig Roberts
While Left and Right Fight, Power Wins
What is the Government’s Agenda?
A New Beginning without Washington’s Sanctimonious Mask
Washington Is Driving the World to the Final War
Has Washington’s Arrogance Undone Its Empire?
Putin Dresses Down the Gang of 8
Role Reversal: How the US Became the USSR
The Two Faux Democracies Threaten Life on Earth
Bradley Manning Verdict Convicts Washington
Washington’s Drive for Hegemony is a Drive to War
Humanity Is Drowning in Washington’s Criminality
Syria: Another Western War Crime in the Making
Will Obama Doom Himself as a War Criminal?
Will Congress Now Save Obama’s Face by Selling Out Democracy? / 393
September 4, 2013
How to Stop Obama’s Military Aggression Against Syria
Too Many Years of Lies: From Mossadeq to 9/11
Putin Steps into World Leadership Role
What Happens If the Shutdown Causes the Treasury to Run Out of Money
What Is the Real Agenda of the American Police State?
The Kennedy Assassination (November 22, 1963) 50 Years Later
Washington Drives the World Toward War
Washington Has Discredited America
Dedicated to: Bradley Manning, Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, William Binney, and all others
who stand for truth, justice, mercy
INTRODUCTION
The demonization of the Soviet Union in the post-World War II era was the basis for America’s reputation as the defender of freedom and democracy. Some historians and commentators deny that the United States deserved its reputation. They point to America’s destruction of native inhabitants, to the theft of Spanish territories in Texas and what became the Southwest of the United States, to the internment of Japanese- American citizens during World War II, to the apartheid existence of black Americans who participated very little in freedom and democracy for most of American history, and to Washington’s refusal to tolerate the rise of reformist governments in Central America.
Whether or not America ever deserved its reputation, during the last few years of the 20th century under the Bill Clinton regime and during the 21st century neoconservative regimes of George W. Bush and Barak Obama, Washington threw away America’s reputation in order to better pursue its agenda of hegemony over the world.
The Soviet Union had constrained and limited American power. The collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed American hubris and arrogance. Having declared itself to be the “world’s only superpower,” Washington began reorganizing the world in its own interest, which Washington disguised as “bringing freedom and democracy to the world.”
The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon provided the “new Pearl Harbor” that the neoconservatives had written was necessary in order to launch their wars of conquest. The history of the 21st century has been the consequence of 9/11.
The government’s account of 9/11 has been effectively challenged by 2,000 high-rise architects and structural engineers, by physicists and chemists, by firefighters and first responders, by pilots, and by numerous former government officials. No aware and informed person believes that the US national security state and the intelligent services of Washington’s NATO allies and Israel’s Mossad were outsmarted by a handful of Arabs operating independently of any government and intelligence service.
Washington’s argument has been that terrorists must be killed “over there” before they come “over here” and attack America again. This argument has never made any sense, because Washington acknowledges that terrorists are stateless. According to Washington, almost all of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabians. Yet, Washington attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington arranged the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya despite the absence of any relationship to 9/11. Almost every day Washington murders with drones people in Pakistan and Yemen, countries with which America is not at war. Washington has sent Kenyan troops to fight Islamists in Somalia, and has sent French and Nigerian troops to Mali to fight the Washington- armed Islamists who drifted there after helping to overthrow Gaddafi.
Mao said power comes out of the barrel of a gun. Washington says freedom and democracy come out of bombings. Mao is reviled, but Washington is praised or praises itself.
The second part of Washington’s argument is that in order to be safe, Americans must give up the civil liberties granted to them by the US Constitution. In order to be safe, Americans must consent to citizens being thrown into prison indefinitely without any evidence presented to a court and without any executive branch accountability to due process.
Americans must also consent to their government’s murder of citizens without due process of law. Mere suspicion or unproven accusation by some unaccountable executive branch official is enough to snuff out the life and liberty of American citizens and to confiscate all of their property and assets.
To be safe, Americans must also consent to being spied on—every email, every Internet site visited, every telephone call, every letter written, every credit card used and purchase made, as William Binney and Edward Snowden have proven. On September 28, 2013,
The New York Times
reported that the NSA is even mapping the social connections of US citizens. Washington’s argument is that unless Americans accept the most complete police state in human history, they are not safe.
Consequently, today no American is safe from his own government. In public discourse in the United States facts are no longer permitted. Propaganda reigns. Washington, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, ruled that Saddam Hussein in Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” and that his possession of such weapons justified Washington’s invasion of Iraq.
When chemical weapons were used in Syria, Washington instantly blamed the Assad government and attempted to organize support for intervening against the secular Syrian government in behalf of the Islamists. Washington claimed to have conclusive evidence but refused to share it. The ploy did not work. The world saw through it. The Russian government challenged it.
The British Parliament, long an American puppet, voted against Obama’s war against Syria, declaring that Great Britain would not serve as cover for another American war crime. All of NATO except the French “socialist” president abandoned Obama’s war scheme, as did the American people and the US Congress. Putin, the President of Russia, stated publicly that US Secretary of State John Kerry “is lying and knows that he is lying. It is sad.”
At this time of writing, the world seems to be coming to the conclusion that the US is not what it pretends to be. Instead, America is a malevolent force that brings the threat of a Third World War to humanity.
Russia, the voice for peace, has tied down the US government in a UN resolution that ratifies Syria’s agreement to turn over all chemical weapons for destruction and that prevents the use of force against Syria. The criminal Obama regime fought this peace initiative with all its power and with all its purchased governments;
yet Russia prevailed
.
The columns in this collection from August 2008 through December 2013 document America’s descent into a Stasi Police State domestically and into a warfare state whose aim is world domination. The individual incidents and travesties presented in this collection are most likely forgotten, assuming Americans ever knew of them. When massed together they document the descent of the US into the lawlessness of tyranny. There is some repetition. I was faced with the decision to eliminate the repetition so that the individual selections would read more like chapters in a book or to leave the repetition so that the individual selections could stand independently of the book as a whole. I decided to retain the individual selections largely as written as that presents the reader both with a book and with a collection of essays.
As I write the President of Brazil, an enormous and rich country, has denounced Washington before the United Nations for “violations of international law.” The presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela are bringing a lawsuit against the US for “human rights violations.” Russia distrusts every word said by Washington, and China regards Washington as a crazed entity.
Only a few of the bought-and-paid-for British and European politicians stand by Washington. But can the governments of NATO members, who are subject to the International Criminal Court, afford to take the risk of being in the dock for their complicity in Washington’s war crimes? These foolish politicians allied with Washington need to wake up.
Washington does not represent the American people. Washington represents about six powerful private interest groups. Washington cannot even govern America, must less the world. As I write, the US government has been shut down, because the two corrupt political parties cannot agree who pays in order to close an annual budget deficit that requires the Federal Reserve to create new money with which to purchase $1,000 billion bonds per annum.
The Republicans want the poor to pay. The Democrats partly agree, but want to issue more debt with which to pay. America’s power resides in being the world reserve currency, but America is printing dollars at a rate that vastly exceeds the demand for new dollars. As neither party is willing to terminate America’s multi-trillion dollar wars, it is only a matter of time before flight from the US dollar begins. With this flight comes the end of American power. The end of American power is a prerequisite for world peace.
AMERICAN INSOUCIANCE
August 7, 2008
Now that military officers selected by the Bush Pentagon have reached a split verdict convicting Salim Hamdan, a one-time driver for Osama bin Laden, of supporting terrorism, but innocent of terrorist conspiracy, do you feel safe?
Or are we superpower Americans still at risk until we capture bin Laden’s dentist, barber, and the person who installed the carpet in his living room?
The Bush Regime with its comic huffings and puffings is unaware that it has made itself the laughing stock of the world, a comedy version of the Third Reich.
Hamdan was not defended by the slick lawyers that got O.J. Simpson off, and he most certainly did not have a jury of his peers. Hamdan was defended by a Pentagon appointed US Navy officer, and his jurors were all Pentagon appointed US military officers with an eye on their careers. Even in this Kangaroo Court, Hamdan was cleared of the main charge.
The US Navy officer who was Hamdan’s appointed attorney is certainly no terrorist sympathizer. Yet even this United States officer said that the rules Bush designed for the military tribunals were designed to achieve convictions. He also said that the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military US court. He said that the interrogations of Hamdan, which comprised the basis of the Bush Regime’s case, were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.