http://counterpunch.org/roberts03012007.html

 The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
 Americans Have Lost Their Country
 By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

 The Bush-Cheney regime is America'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
America'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, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.

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.

The entirety of their success in miring the United States in what
could
become permanent conflict in the Middle East is based on the power of
propaganda and the big lie.

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.

Having conned the UN, Congress, and the American people, the regime
invaded Iraq under totally false pretenses and with totally false
expectations. The regime's occupation of Iraq 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 Iran for America's embarrassing defeat by a few thousand
lightly
armed insurgents in Iraq.

Bush accuses Iran 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 Iran, which is Shi'ite. Bush's
accusation requires us to believe that Iran is arming the enemies of
its
allies.

On the basis of this absurd accusation--a pure invention--Bush has
ordered a heavy concentration of aircraft carrier attack forces off
Iran's coast, and he has moved US attack planes to Turkish bases and
other US bases in countries contingent to Iran.

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 Iran and with much of the world
of
Islam at large." He said a plausible scenario was "a terrorist act
blamed on Iran, culminating in a 'defensive' US military action
against
Iran." He said that the neoconservative propaganda machine was
already
articulating a "mythical historical narrative" for widening their war
against Islam.

Why is the US spending one trillion dollars on wars, the reasons for
which are patently false. What is going on?

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 Israel, with which
neocons are closely allied, are both in the MIddle East.

The American oil giant, UNOCAL, had plans for an oil and gas pipeline
through Afghanistan, but the Taliban were not sufficiently
cooperative.
The US invasion of Afghanistan 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 Afghanistan.

Two years later Khalilzad was appointed US ambassador to Iraq.
American
oil companies have been given control over the exploitation of Iraq's
oil resources.

The Israeli relationship is perhaps even more important. In 1996
Richard
Perle and the usual collection of neocons proposed that all of
Israel's
enemies in the Middle East be overthrown. "Israel's enemies" consist
of
the Muslim countries not in the hands of US puppets or allies. For
decades Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians such
that today there is not enough of Palestine left to comprise an
independent country. The US and Israeli governments blame Iran, Iraq,
and Syria for aiding and abetting Palestinian resistance to Israel's
theft of Palestine.

The Bush-Cheney regime came to power with the plans drawn to attack
the
remaining independent countries in the Middle East and with
neoconservatives in office to implement the plans. However, an excuse
was required. Neoconservatives had called for "a new Pearl Harbor,"
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.

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."

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.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal
editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

--

 http://911research.wtc7.net
 http://stj911.org
 http://www.911truth.org

 Here's what happens to steel framed buildings exposed
to raging infernos for hours on end.

 http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr69c.html

 On 9-11-01, WTC7, a 47 story steel framed building, which
had only small, random fires, dropped in perfect symmetry
at near free fall speed as in a perfectly executed controlled
demolition.

 http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/videos.html

  "They are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And
 there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to
 take... men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons
 who are capable of any atrocity... they respect no laws of
 warfare or morality."
 -bu$h describing his own illegal invasion of Iraq.
  http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm