Bush Outfoxed By Bin Laden
by
Paul Craig Roberts
by Paul Craig Roberts
President
Bush’s invasion has turned Iraq into a recruiting and training ground
for anti-US terrorists, according to CIA director Porter Goss in
testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on
February 16. Goss’ report was supported by Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby,
director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Jacoby told the committee
that "our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment."
The Iraq insurgency, Jacoby reported, has grown "in size and
complexity over the past year" with daily attacks increasing
240%.
The
situation, in other words, is out of control. 150,000 American troops
are tied down by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents. The recent
Iraq election was won by Shi’ites allied with Iran. US casualties
continue to mount, and our troops can seldom tell friend from foe.
Why
isn’t Bush looking for a way out of the greatest strategic blunder
in American history? Why, instead, is Bush and his government doing
all they can to spread the conflict into Syria and Iran?
The
neoconservatives’ goal is the same as Osama bin Laden’s to spread
instability in the Middle East. The neocons seek to foment instability
in order to justify more US invasions in an insane quest to remake
the Middle East in the American image. Bin Laden seeks instability
in order to topple the secular rulers and recreate Islamic rule.
Bin Laden does not want US troops out. He wants to suck America
in deeper in order to create revolutionary insurgency throughout
the Middle East.
The
Bush administration is moronic enough to oblige bin Laden. In a
recent 24-hour period the Bush administration made the following
mistakes:
The
Bush administration blamed Syria for the recent assassination of
a former Lebanese prime minister, recalled the US ambassador to
Syria, and demanded that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
In public statements, administration officials have accused Iran
of being close to producing nuclear weapons despite all evidence
to the contrary. VP Cheney suggested that Israel bomb Iran’s nuclear
installations, and President Bush said Israel had the right to preemptive
attack and that the US would support Israel.
There
is no evidence that Syria is responsible for the assassination.
The International Atomic Energy Agency conducts regular inspections
of Iran’s nuclear facilities and reports that there are no weapons
violations. France, Germany and Russia have reached the same conclusion.
Yet, once again the US misrepresents the facts in order to deceive
the American people and create a climate for expanding Bush’s war
in the Middle East.
Despite
the disaster they have caused, neoconservatives still hold the reins
of power in the Bush administration. They have made their agenda
clear: war throughout the Middle East. Their orchestrated invasion
of Iraq was merely a stepping-stone to their wider aim. The neocons
seize every opportunity to use provocative accusations, bellicose
threats, and propaganda to stir up ever more American enemies in
the Middle East. Their goal is to provoke a "Pearl Harbor,"
as Christopher Manion terms it, that can be used to bring back the
military draft.
This
policy plays directly into bin Laden’s hands. Osama has succeeded
in tricking America into spending $300 billion in an unsuccessful
act of revenge that has ruined America’s reputation while recruiting
tens of thousands of recruits for bin Laden.
The
neoconservatives are the greatest threat America has ever faced,
and they control the Office of the President, the Office of the
Vice President, the Department of State, the Department of Defense,
and the police state apparatus known as "Homeland Security."
The
neocons have enormous propaganda resources: the entirely of rightwing
talk radio, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal,
Fox "News," National Review, the Washington
Times, and numerous daily newspapers.
Neocons
have succeeded in intimidating the TV networks, National Public
Radio and CNN. The neocons cannot fully control the news, but they
abuse the offices of trust that they occupy in order to spin the
news to their purposes.
Any
day now the neocons may orchestrate a scenario that will suck the
US into a wider war that America has no possibility of winning.
If the American people had the slightest sense of their danger,
they would demand immediate US withdrawal from Iraq and accountability
for the liars who orchestrated the ill-fated US invasion.
February
21, 2005
Dr.
Roberts [send him mail]
is
John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research
Fellow at the Independent Institute.
He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal,
former contributing editor for National Review, and a former
assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of
The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Copyright
© 2005 Creators Syndicate
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