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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><img width=223 height=33
id="_x0000_i1025" src="cid:image001.gif@01C75D81.1F02A5A0" alt=rense.com
naturalsizeflag=3 align=bottom><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=7
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:36.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Americans
Have<br>
Lost Their Country</span></font></b><font size=4><span style='font-size:13.5pt'><br>
By Paul Craig Roberts<br>
3-1-7</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>The Bush-Cheney regime is <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s first neoconservative regime.
In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the
separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and
countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and
forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>, and perhaps <st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region>
and Hezbollah in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>
as well.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US
Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a
vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues principally Vice President
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz,
Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow,
and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have
controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the
Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall
Street Journal editorial page and by "scholars" in assorted think
tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>The entirety of their success in miring the <st1:country-region
w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> in what could become permanent
conflict in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> is based on the
power of propaganda and the big lie.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>Initially, the 9/11 attack was blamed on Osama bin
Laden, but after an American puppet was installed in Afghanistan, the blame
for 9/11 was shifted to Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who was said to have weapons
of mass destruction that would be used against America. The regime sent
Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the lie to the UN that the
Bush-Cheney regime had conclusive proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.</span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>Having conned the UN, Congress, and the American
people, the regime invaded <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
under totally false pretenses and with totally false expectations. The
regime's occupation of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
has failed in a military sense, but the neoconservatives are turning their
failure into a strategic advantage. At the beginning of this year President
Bush began blaming <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>
for <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>'s embarrassing
defeat by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>Bush accuses <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> of arming the Iraqi
insurgents, a charge that experts regard as improbable. The Iraqi insurgents
are Sunni. They inflict casualties on our troops, but spend most of their
energy killing Iraqi Shi'ites, who are closely allied with <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>, which
is Shi'ite. Bush's accusation requires us to believe that <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> is
arming the enemies of its allies.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>On the basis of this absurd accusation a pure
invention Bush has ordered a heavy concentration of aircraft carrier attack
forces off <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>'s coast,
and he has moved US attack planes to Turkish bases and other <st1:country-region
w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> bases in countries contingent to <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>. In
testimony before Congress on February 1 of this year, former National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said that he expected the regime to
orchestrate a "head-on conflict with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> and with much of the world
of Islam at large." He said a plausible scenario was "a terrorist
act blamed on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>,
culminating in a 'defensive' <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>
military action against <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>."
He said that the neoconservative propaganda machine was already articulating
a "mythical historical narrative" for widening their war against
Islam.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>Why is the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> spending one trillion dollars
on wars, the reasons for which are patently false? What is going on?</span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>There are several parts to the answer. Like their
forebears among the Jacobins of the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks of the
communist revolution, and the National Socialists of Hitler's revolution,
neoconservatives believe that they have a monopoly on virtue and the right to
impose hegemony on the rest of the world. Neoconservative conquests began in
the Middle East because oil and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>,
with which neocons are closely allied, are both in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place>. The American oil giant, UNOCAL, had plans for an oil and
gas pipeline through <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
but the Taliban were not sufficiently cooperative. The <st1:country-region
w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> invasion of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> was used to install
Hamid Karzai, who had been on UNOCAL's payroll, as puppet prime minister. US
neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad, who also had been on UNOCAL's payroll, was
installed as US ambassador to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>Two years later Khalilzad was appointed <st1:country-region
w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> ambassador to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. American oil companies have
been given control over the exploitation of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s oil resources.</span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>The Israeli relationship is perhaps even more
important. In 1996 Richard Perle and the usual collection of neocons proposed
that all of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>'s
enemies in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> be overthrown.
"<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
enemies" consist of the Muslim countries not in the hands of US puppets
or allies. For decades <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
has been stealing <st1:City w:st="on">Palestine</st1:City> from the
Palestinians such that today there is not enough of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:City> left to comprise an independent
country. The US and Israeli governments blame <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>, and <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region> for aiding and abetting Palestinian
resistance to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>'s
theft of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:City>.</span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>The Bush-Cheney regime came to power with the plans
drawn to attack the remaining independent countries in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place> and with neoconservatives in office to implement the plans.
However, an excuse was required. Neoconservatives had called for "a new <st1:place
w:st="on">Pearl Harbor</st1:place>," and 9/11 provided the propaganda
event needed in order to stampede the public and Congress into war.
Neoconservative Philip Zelikow was put in charge of the 9/11 Commission
Report to make certain no uncomfortable facts emerged.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>The neoconservatives have had enormous help from the
corporate media, from Christian evangelicals, particularly from the
"Rapture Evangelicals," from flag-waving superpatriots, and from
the military- industrial complex whose profits have prospered. But the fact
remains that the dozen men named in the second paragraph above were able to
overthrow the US Constitution and launch military aggression under the guise
of a preventive/preemptive "war against terrorism."</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>When the American people caught on that the
"war on terror" was a cloak for wars of aggression, they put Democrats
in control of Congress in order to apply a brake to the regime's
warmongering. However, the Democrats have proven to be impotent to stop the
neoconservative drive to wider war and, perhaps, world conflagration. We are
witnessing the triumph of a dozen evil men over American democracy and a free
press.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>March 1, 2007</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:13.5pt'>Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
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