A Look Back and Ahead In An Age of Neocon Rule - by Stephen Lendman
Borrowing the opening line from Dickens' Tale of Two Cities - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." He referred to the French Revolution promising "Liberte, egalite and fraternite" that began in 1789, inspired by ours from 1775 - 1783. It ended a 1000 years of monarchal rule in France benefitting those of privilege and established the nation as a republic the way ours did for us here a few years earlier.
That was the good news. The bad was the wrong people came to power. They were the Jacobins who at first were revolutionary moderates and patriots until they lost control to extremists like Maximilien Robespierre who ushered in a "reign of terror" (The Great Terror sounding a lot like today's "war on terror") characterized by brutal repression against perceived enemies from within the Revolution who didn't get a chance to prove they weren't. In the name of defending it, individual rights were denied and civil liberties suspended. Laws were passed that allowed charging those designated counter-revolutionaries or enemies of the state with undefined crimes against liberty.
It resulted in justice being meted out to thousands for what Orwell called "thoughtcrimes" or for their freely expressed opinions and actions judged hostile to the state under a system of near-vigilante justice by the Paris Revolutionary (kangaroo) Tribunal with no right of appeal. It led to the public spectacle of an inglorious trip to and quick ending from the death penalty method of choice of the times - the guillotine that was barbaric but quick, and a much easier, less painful way to die for its victims than the use of state-inflicted torture-murder in the commonly drawn out lethal injection process used in 37 of the 38 death penalty states and by the federal government making the condemned endure a slow agonizing death unable to cry out while they're being made to suffer during their last moments of life. Instances of this barbarity aren't exceptions. They're the rule, the exception being this time a report or two of what really happens slipped out and made news.
Fast forward to the past year and the previous five under George Bush and ask: sound familiar? French Revolutionary laws during the "reign of terror," like the Law of Suspects, were earlier versions of our Patriot I and II and Military Commission Acts today. The Revolutionary Tribunal, with no chance for justice or right of appeal, was no different than our military courts today, and too many civil ones, in which any US citizen may now be tried anywhere in the world, with no habeas right of appeal or hope for due process and from which those sent there won't fare any better than the French did, doomed to meet their unjust fate - even though much in these laws today is unconstitutional and one day will be reversed by a High Court upholding the law instead of the extremist rogue one now empowered that scorns it.
What May Lie Ahead As the New Year Approaches
At the end of the sixth horrific year under the reign of the Bush modern-day extremist Jacobin-neocons, we can now look ahead, but to what. We have an administration in charge for another two years one longtime analyst characterizes as "a bunch of crooks, incompetents and perverts" with the president's approval rating plunging as low as 28% in some independent polls and a growing number of people in the country demanding his impeachment and removal from office.
It's not likely from the new Democrat-led Congress arriving in January, as their DLC leadership took it off the table and so far only promises more of the same failed policy other than some minor tinkering around the edges to create an illusion of change no different than the deceptive kind of course correction proposed by the Baker "Gang of Ten" Iraq Study Group (ISG) that guarantees none at all. It doesn't leave members of the body politic with much hope for the new year that will likely just deliver more of the same rogue leadership and policy engendering growing public discontent and anger but not at a level so far to scare the those in power enough to want to address it.
The heart of the problem is the unpopular illegal war of aggression in Iraq, the cesspool of corruption and scorn for the law in Washington, and the assault on human rights and civil liberties in the country justified by the so-called "war on terror" now rebranded a "long war" against "Islamofascism" and "radicals and extremists" (who happen to be Muslims.) It's the same failed policy using the kind of deliberately provocative language intended to deceive the public to think a threat great enough exists to justify any state action in the name of national security including waging wars of aggression and all the horrors associated with them at home and abroad.
After the Baker "bob and weave,'' the now you see a change of course and now you don't, disingenuously suggesting a drawdown and exit strategy, the New York Times on December 16 reports "Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing American forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more."
The article goes on to say one option is to boost the force level by up to 50,000 even though any increase greater than 20 - 30,000 would be "prohibitive" - but it won't deter the Pentagon, on administration orders, from extending tours of duty even longer for forces now there and calling up thousands of reservists and greatly extended National Guard units to get into this quagmire even though it's recognized their presence will only make things worse as well as place an unfair burden on those called up, who've served before, and their families.
As of December 27, it's somewhat less clear what Iraq troop strength policy will emerge in January following comments by incoming Democrat chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, who just stated "I totally oppose this surging of additional American troops into Baghdad. It's contrary to the overwhelming body of informed opinion, both inside and outside the administration." Senator Biden will hold hearings on Iraq on January 9, and at that time things may heat up a bit at least in rhetoric if not in final policy.
Additional heat may be created in January after George Bush admitted for the first time on December 19 that the US isn't winning the war even though two weeks before the November mid-term elections he said emphatically "absolutely, we're winning in Iraq." He wouldn't acknowledge what most every honest observer knows including the Pentagon Joint Chiefs - that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lost. They can't be won and won't be. No military solution is possible now or any time ahead.
The president is living in a state of denial, obsessed with his messianic mission fed him by the vice-president and hardest of his hard line neocon allies, and it shows in the outlandish solutions he proposes to an insoluble problem - send in more troops (that will only make things worse) and increase the overall size of the military (that guarantees a permanent state of war).
It also clearly sounds a lot like the first official hint from the chief executive that a draft is needed and will come at some unspecified time ahead - likely following another "made in Washington" 9/11 calamity severe enough to get the public to go along with something now thought intolerable. The president's sentiment was echoed on December 21 by administration Veterans Affairs secretary Jim Nicholson who (incredibly) said that "society would benefit" if the US reinstated the military draft. He didn't say for whom. He did go further when asked in a press conference whether it should include women saying: "I think if we bring back the draft, there should be no loopholes for anybody who happens to be drafted." Maybe, to his thinking, it should include pregnant mothers as well and single ones with small children.
Such openness by the VA secretary apparently was too much, too soon, and too clear for the White House that quickly got the Department of Veterans Affairs to issue a separate follow-up statement from Nicholson saying: "Let me be clear, I strongly support the all-volunteer military and do not support returning to a draft." Let the reader choose which message to believe, but, with the nation in a permanent state of war, it looks like the trial balloon and hint of a draft now being floated is the opening round to instituting one at some designated time ahead. That likelihood looms even greater as the Selective Service System announced it's planning a comprehensive test of the military draft machinery, which it hasn't done since 1998 while, at the same time, saying the agency isn't gearing up for a draft. But what else would they say as they make plans to do this on orders from the administration.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
That Dear Sir, was the most comprehensive article that I have yet to read on the Bush administration, and the plight of our democracy. I agree with everything you said. I hope that the next year brings us closer to bringing back values that havn't been present in our country for many years. Thany you for a great article.
by
Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 575 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 11:28:00 AM
I'm very grateful for your comments. I just emailed Editor Rob Kall telling him this article was my venting to sum up all feelings I have about all other articles I wrote during the year. I'm glad you liked it.
by
Stephen Lendman (219 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 76 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 12:52:08 PM
I say this as a positive statement, not as a negative.
THAT WAS A GREAT ARTICLE.
But...
It goes off at a few points in some other directions and could probably be edited down a bit. It's not that ANYTHING you said wasn't worth saying, just that you can only say so much at once.
LIBRARIES will be filled to the brim with books on the evil and incompetence of the Bush Administration. Entire books can be written that won't even BEGIN to cover how much they have done to destroy our country and the world.
Nobody should even TRY to put it all into one article, no matter how noble a cause that might be.
Let's hope, some day, we can write about things getting BETTER for Planet Earth and her people.
CharlieL
Portland, OR
CLL2001@gmail.com
by
Charlie L (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 612 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 2:20:09 PM
Seems some of you obviously missed the memo after George was sworn in as President.The Constitution is null and void and it is the new Survival Game.Survival of the fittest. Old ,young and sick must go first.Money is the only measure of a man.See, you missed it too.!!!!
by
cluelessfl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 184 comments)
on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 3:27:40 PM
If I may quote Stephen :
"At the end of the sixth horrific year under the reign of the Bush modern-day extremist Jacobin-neocons, we can now look ahead, but to what. We have an administration in charge for another two years one longtime analyst characterizes as "a bunch of crooks, incompetents and perverts" with the president's approval rating plunging as low as 28% in some independent polls and a growing number of people in the country demanding his impeachment and removal from office.
It's not likely from the new Democrat-led Congress arriving in January, as their DLC leadership took it off the table and so far only promises more of the same failed policy other than some minor tinkering around the edges to create an illusion of change no different than the deceptive kind of course correction proposed by the Baker "Gang of Ten" Iraq Study Group (ISG) that guarantees none at all. It doesn't leave members of the body politic with much hope for the new year that will likely just deliver more of the same rogue leadership and policy engendering growing public discontent and anger but not at a level so far to scare the those in power enough to want to address it."
In my opinion the very worst thing about this last six year "reign of terror" is the abysmal lack of opposition to it from the so-called opposition party. While more and more citizens of these United States are increasingly outraged by the excesses of this heinous administration we still hear silences and platitudes from the "loyal opposition". It is this climate of appeasement that allows Bush to continue to destroy our democratic processes.
Whenever one cites the numerous examples of such complicities by the Democrats the DLC supporters rush to both ignore the list and to castigate the left for being "unrealistic" or too "demanding". It is the ignoring of the record by these conservative democrats, so-called centrists or democratic libertarians that should make everyone understand that they do not have our best interests at heart. They seek only to restore the power of the Party and not the legacy of our nation.
I wonder at the slate of candidates for the office of the President in '08 that the Dems will field. Hillary, despite her vast accumulation of wealth, some of it from her buddy Rupert Murdoch no doubt, is slipping in the polls. Obama, the primary reason for that slippage is, at the same time, a neophyte to national office and extremely eloquent. He is also, apparently, enmired in a budding scandal as well, over cronyism. Edwards is positioning himself rather well and actually pounding on the real issues. He I would consider voting for.
The real problem in this nation remains that far to many folks would never vote for a man named Barak Hussein Obama, and that is a national scandal. The lack of a party of national stature that is willing to defend our constitution is another scandal as well.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 7:25:25 AM
particularly for his attention to detail. I still would like to add something:
Hypocrisy had always been a part of the US religion. It was needed to connect the official Christian set of values with the rule of mighty dollar. By no means it was aa unique endeavor: this phenomena more or less exists in any human society and if you read the world literature you can find it in Germany or Britain, Japan or Thailand or etc. But in the US it developed in the most ugly form of all- it became a 'genetic part of the character'. Hypocrisy in fact stopped being a tool and became a natural part of life. It effectively replaced the real human qualities. I characterise that as a deliberate madness.
In most societies totally consumed by hypocrisy the only way to cure was a catastrophe. We here are heading for one ( the neocon parasites are the symptoms of that) unless we introduce a new wording into the pledge of allegiance:
' US is the same as any other country
The US people are no different from anyone else
God, please, do not bless the US, bless the Humanity'
Amen
by
Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 226 diaries, 3212 comments)
on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 8:29:56 AM
