Endgame for the Constitution

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Tue, 2 May 2006 20:49:10 -0700 (PDT)

<Endgame for the Constitution <+> Bush's Hand: Desperately

trying to Provoke a Civil War >

 

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05022006.html

The Omnipotent (But Far From Omniscient) Executive

 

 

Endgame for the Constitution

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

05/02/06

 

-- The Bush administration has done more damage

to Americans and more harm to America's reputation

than any other administration in history.

 

Yet, a majority of Republicans still support Bush.

This tells much about blind party loyalty.

 

By encouraging the move offshore of American jobs and manufacturing,

Bush has run up tremendous trade deficits that have undermined

the world's confidence in the dollar as the reserve currency.

Recently, both Chinese and Russian government officials warned

of the dollar's shaky status. The fall in confidence in the dollar

is evidenced by the sharp run-up in the price of gold.

 

In January 2001 the price of gold

was about $240 per ounce.

Today the price is $660 per ounce.

 

The price of gasoline has risen from around

$1.30 per gallon to over $3.00 per gallon.

Obviously, Bush's war in the Middle East did not ensure the oil supply.

 

On Bush's watch, three million US manufacturing jobs have disappeared.

Tens of thousands of highly qualified US engineers

have lost their employment. US job growth has fallen 6 to 7 million jobs

behind population growth. Recent college graduates

are employed as waitresses and bartenders.

 

Illegal immigration has continued to explode. While Bush spends

$1 trillion and many lives trying to control borders in the MIddle East,

America's borders remain undefended and over run. Bush advocates

amnesty for the illegals who have invaded America

while Bush invades distant countries.

 

On false pretenses Bush invaded Iraq, a country that comprised

no threat to America. American high explosives have devastated Iraq

and its infrastructure and killed at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians,

people who Bush claims to be bringing freedom and democracy.

 

All stability has disappeared from Iraq. Iraqis now live in fear

of one another as well as fear of American troops.

On April 28 Iraqi vice president Adil Abdul-Mahdi said that 100,000

Iraqi families have been uprooted by the sectarian violence

unleashed by Bush's overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

 

Not content with the uncontrollable mayhem he has brought to Iraq,

Bush hopes to expand the catastrophe by attacking Iran.

The US Secretary of State, sounding like the warmonger she is, says the

US may ignore the United Nations and attack Iran on its own initiative.

This would be the second time

that the Bush administration initiated wars of aggression-

-war crimes under the Nuremburg standard established by the US.

 

Bush claims that he is higher authority than both US law and

international law.

In the past, US presidents vetoed laws with which they disagreed.

Bush signs the laws and ignores them.

 

Bush has declared himself to be the sole judge of the limits of his

powers-

-a claim that violates Bush's oath of office to uphold the US

Constitution.

 

Bush has set aside the Bill of Rights by detaining people indefinitely

without charges, by kidnapping and torturing people, and by spying

on Americans without warrants. These are actions that are illegal

under law as well as unconstitutional. All of these violations of law

and the Constitution are serious impeachable offenses.

 

Yet. Congress is supine as the Bush regime exercises dictatorial powers.

The exercise of these dictatorial powers by the executive

is a far greater danger to American liberty than are Muslim terrorists.

 

Bush's apologists claim that only terrorists have anything to fear.

However, unaccountable executive power is inconsistent with free

societies.

America is no exception. Unless Bush is impeached and turned over

to the war crimes court in the Hague, Americans will never reclaim

their liberties from an executive branch that has established itself

as the sole judge of the limits of its powers.

 

As Jacob Hornberger, president of the Future of Freedom Foundation

wrote last month, " we now live in a nation in which the president has

the omnipotent power to ignore all constitutional restraints on his

power. "

Bruce Fein, a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration

said that Bush " is moving us toward an unlimited executive power. "

 

The Bush regime's practice of excessive secrecy and denial of information

to Congress allows the regime to avoid judicial review of its power

claims.

Bush ignores Congress and evades the courts.

 

When President Richard Nixon made excessive claims for presidential

powers, principled Republicans revolted and helped to bring down Nixon.

 

Today's Republicans are loyal only to power. They have no principles.

 

By supporting Bush, Republicans are bringing down America.

 

=====================================

 

 

 

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12923.htm

 

 

Bush's hand in the Terror War

 

Seen through a Syrian lens,

" Unknown Americans' are provoking civil war " Robert Fisk, UK Indep.

 

" The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony

of innocence is drowned. " William Butler Yeats; " The Second Coming "

 

By Mike Whitney

 

05/02/06 " ICH' --

-- Robert Fisk has pulled the shroud off Bush's Iraq policy

and exposed the rotting corpse below.

In his latest article " Seen through a Syrian Lens "

(UK Independent 4-29-06) Fisk fingers the US as the driving force

behind the present " alleged " sectarian violence in Iraq.

 

He's produced information from a trusted " security source "

that America is

" Desperately trying to provoke a Civil War around Baghdad

in order to reduce its own military casualties " .

 

It is a charge we've heard before but never quite as persuasively

as from a veteran journalist who his relied on for " getting it right " .

" I swear to you that we have very good information, " Fisk recounts,

" One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans

as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time

learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him:

 

'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone

and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them.

He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal.

So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal.

Then his car blew up. "

 

Americans are sending unsuspecting Iraqis in vehicles to crowded areas,

detonating the explosives, and then pinning it on Zarqawi

or some other racist invention.

 

Can we believe Fisk?

 

As incredible as it seems, Fisk assures us

that he's heard the same story many times from different sources.

Again:

" There was another man, trained by the Americans for the police.

He too was given a mobile and told to drive to an area

where there was a crowd - maybe a protest

- and to call them and tell them what was happening.

Again, his new mobile was not working.

So he went to a landline phone and called the Americans and told them:

'Here I am, in the place you sent me

and I can tell you what's happening here.'

And at that moment there was a big explosion in his car. "

 

There's been a great deal of speculation on whether the US

is directly involved in the massive terror campaign

that is sweeping through the Sunni heartland.

 

Max Fuller has made a valuable contribution to the topic in his article

" Crying Wolf: Media disinformation and Deaths squads in Occupied Iraq " .

 

Fuller has documented CIA involvement in training Iraqi death squads

operating in the Interior ministry. So far, there have been at least

3 separate incidents where occupation forces

have been either caught or connected to bombings in Iraq.

 

The most famous of these was an incident in Basra

-- where 2 British paramilitaries were caught

-- disguised as Arabs with a truck-full of explosives in their vehicle.

Panicky British forces destroyed the Basra jail to release the 2

captured SAS soldiers apparently afraid that their cover would be blown

and Blair would be implicated in attacks on civilians.

 

The bombing of the Golden-domed mosque has also produced

a number of suspicious leads which point to US involvement.

The AFP reported that the bombing " was the work of specialists "

and the " placing of explosives must have taken at least 12 hours " .

 

The report continues:

" Construction Minister Jassem Mohammed Jaafar said,

" Holes were dug into the mausoleum's four main pillars

and packed with explosives. Then charges were connected together

and linked to another charge placed just under the dome. The wires

were then linked to a detonator which was triggered at a distance. "

 

Clearly the bombing was not carried out by rogue elements

in the disparate Iraqi resistance but highly trained saboteurs

executing a precision demolition to incite sectarian violence.

The blast bears all the hallmarks of an Intelligence agency operation.

 

Eyewitness accounts verify that American troops and Iraqi National Guard

were active in the area throughout the night and that their cars

could be heard running " the whole night until next morning " .

People living around the mosque were told

" to stay in your shop and don't leave the area " . At 6:30 AM

the American troops left, just 10 minutes before the bombs went off.

 

So far, there's been no independent investigation of the bombing

even though the media has used the incident

as proof of the growing sectarian divide.

But, perhaps, there is no divide.

Perhaps, as Fisk implies Bush is conducting a massive " dirty war "

similar to earlier operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

After all, that's where Negroponte, Cheney and Rumsfeld

" cut their teeth " in the intricacies of clandestine warfare;

learning the ropes of destabilizing regimes through the

" application of extreme violence. "

 

The implications of Fisk's article are shocking. The war on terror

is the rickety scaffolding upon which the entire Bush presidency rests;

there are no other accomplishments or programs.

If the present allegations are true, then Bush and his cadres

can be placed in the same category as Bin Laden and al Zarqawi;

although those " alleged " villains could be just scratchy shreds

of celluloid produced in the Pentagon basement.

 

There is no civil war in Iraq;

-- it's all been fabricated to split the country apart.

The violence we see is emanating in waves from its ultimate point of

origin… 1600 Pennsylvania Ave; the epicenter of global terrorism.

Fisk's article just punctuates that point.