"You [President Paul von Hindenburg]
have just handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of the greatest
demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich
into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation..."
German General Erich
Ludendorff, 1933
"He that is the
author of a war (of aggression) lets loose the whole contagion of hell and
opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
Thomas Paine
"[I can't see] how you can be
president, at least from my perspective... without a relationship with the
Lord.
Believing in God gives you the
confidence to make those tough decisions."
George W. Bush (Washington Times, January
18, 2005)
The Neocon hierarchy
in Washington D.C. has been, for more than a decade now, the main proponent of
deliberate imperial and colonial wars of aggression by the heavily
armed United States. They persuaded an inexperienced George W. Bush, out of
sync with history, that he would be on a mission to save the world for
democracy if he became a colonialist and an imperialist. Belligerent Vice President Dick Cheney was
their point operating man within the administration. This oil-man, supported by
his pro-Israel Deputy Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, and a confrerie of other
Neocons, was convinced that by occupying military a foreign country, his
Republican government would not only please the Israeli government, large
Zionist campaign contributors and big defense contractors, but could also
guarantee cheap oil for decades to come, while opening the Iraq territory to
oil exploration by American companies.
They
were supported in this by neocon think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute, that provided
the blueprints for such imperial and colonial wars. —In the
Neocons' minds and in Cheney's mind, this was a win-win proposition, no matter
how many lives and disruption such a coldly calculated bloody aggression would
cause in the Middle East and around the world. —I think they are
misguided.
That is, in a
nutshell, how the Bush-Cheney administration stumbled upon a militarist,
imperialist and colonialist foreign policy in the Middle East.
Desperate and
already labeled the "worst American president ever", George W. Bush
chose to push aside the wise advice of the Baker-Hamilton Commission and
drank once more the Neocons' potion of a military 'surge' in Iraq. —After
the hanging-lynching of prisoner of war Saddam Hussein, an illegal act under
the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, Bush II fired the top generals who
opposed his "fuite en avant" strategy—General John Abizaid, the
top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and General George Casey, the chief
general in Iraq—and replaced them with Adm. William Fallon and Lt. Gen.
David Petraeus.
Last November, Gen.
John Abizaid rejected maverick senator John McCain’s and
pro-Israel senator Joe Lieberman's calls for increased U.S. troop levels in
Iraq. General Abizaid said that he had “met with every divisional
commander and had asked them if bringing in more American troops now [would] add considerably to our ability to
achieve success in Iraq and they all said ‘no.’” But Bush, as amateur
Commander-in-chief in Washington D.C., knows better than the generals in the
field and he 'decided' to side with apprentice generals John McCain and Joe
Lieberman. —Gen George Casey, as US ground commander in Iraq, had also
proposed that American troop levels - now 138,000 - could be reduced by 30,000, in order to give the Iraqis a
greater role to play in stabilizing their own country. But George W. Bush
thinks Iraq is 'his' country, (remember, he stole it at gun-point, didn't he!),
and he sacked General Casey.
This is eerily reminiscent of what Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) did in early 1938, around his fifth anniversary of
coming to power, when he replaced his top generals by more amenable ones.
Indeed, on January 25, 1938, Hitler sacked Field Marshal Werner v. Blomberg,
the Commander in Chief of the German Armed Forces, and, a few days later,
General Werner v. Fritsch, the Commander in Chief of the German Army. During
the risky and illegal march into the Rhineland a few years earlier, the top
German generals had repeatedly urged Hitler to withdraw his troops out of fear
this would plunge Germany into a new European war with catastrophic
consequences. —They were right; one hundred percent right. —I also think
general Abizaid and general Casey are right and amateur Bush II and opportunist
McCain are wrong, dead wrong.
Amazingly, it was then said about Hitler what is being
said today about Bush Jr., i.e. that
he" never trusted his generals, preferring to rely on his own
gut instincts while surrounding himself with weak-willed yes-men."
—Bush II is doing the same thing, surrounding himself with supporters
who agree with him about his policy of increasing the
numbers of troops in Iraq, even though such a reckless move is largely opposed
on Capitol Hill and among the American public at large. —It was
also then said
about Hitler that "any attempts to get him to
change his mind were a complete waste of time. The generals didn't realize they
were dealing with a man who never changed his mind once he made a firm decision
and would do anything to achieve a desired goal." — Sounds familiar!
If you think so, then brace yourself because the worst is still to come.
In an obvious attempt to salvage his accidental and
disastrous presidency, and save face during the next two years by avoiding a
military withdrawal from Iraq, a country he invaded illegally in 2003 and
subsequently completely destroyed, Bush Jr. is throwing the dice by increasing
American troops there, hoping to temporize until his successor can start with a
clean slate and clean up the mess left behind. The next American president and
the American people, not counting the thousands of Iraqi people set to die
under Bush's hand, will pay the price for this ineptitude.
It does not matter that under the terms of the United
States War Powers Act of 1973 [Section
4(a)(3)], President George W. Bush is formally required to obtain Congress's
authorization before "substantially [enlarging] United States Armed Forces equipped for
combat already located in a foreign nation," since Bush II has already indicated that he needs not
respect either international or domestic law. Of course, this is an impeachable
offense when a president does not respect the law. But will the new
Democratically controlled Congress find the fortitude to act? Not likely,
considering the establishment Democrats [http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh01052007.html] are pro-Israel Neocons who stand solidly behind Bush's imperial
wars.
To summarize, things could easily get messier in the
coming months and in the coming years because Bush's Neocon hierarchy also wants him to partition Iraq and
to attack Iran. This way, so the Neocons think, Israel could feel
safer and the U.S. could more easily control Iraqi oil when it is in regional
Kurdish and Shi'ite hands, and if Iran is distracted from the Iraqi front. And,
since Bush II thinks like the Neocons, he will do what Hitler did in 1939, he
will escalade the conflict and create a larger conflagration.
So far, the Neocons have got what they wanted from
George W. Bush, because the American president much prefers to listen to their
siren song of empire than to hear cool-headed advice that such a course of
policy leads to chaos and disaster. Bush II will follow his mentor, Dick Cheney, all the way down.—Even
though a large majority of the American people, seventy percent, are outraged by such callous
behavior and dissapproved of Bush's wars, and even though a similar majority of
Iraqis want Bush's troops to leave their country, and even though Congress may want to deny him funds for his pet wars, Bush II does not care because he
is answering to a higher call.
Rodrigue
Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also
visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's
Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
_______________________________________________
Posted,
January 15, 2007, at 5:30 am
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