Is Bush Delusional?

[Winstonm]

In an April 10, 2006, interview by Wolf Blitzer of Seymour Hersh, investigative reporter who first brought to light the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, Hersh talks about his "New Yorker" magazine article in which he states that President Bush is actively preparing a pre-emptive strike against Iran - and the White House refused to remove limited nuclear action from the list of possible actions.

 

When asked if he believed the President was planning a pre-emptive strike against Iran, this is how he answered:

HERSH: The word I hear is "messianic." He thinks, as I wrote, that he's the only one now who will have the courage to do it. He's politically free. I don't think he's overwhelmingly concerned about the '06 elections, congressional elections. I think he really thinks he has a chance, and this is going to be his mission.

 

This exchange is chilling:

HERSH: What you just read says this. If you're giving the White House a series of options, and the option is to get rid of an underground facility -- the facility I'm talking about is Natanz, 75 feet under hard rock -- if you want to tell the White House one sure way of getting it in a range of options is nuclear, what happened in this case is they gave that option, the JCS, the Joint Chiefs [of Staff].

 

And then, of course, nobody in their right mind would want to use a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, because it would be, my God, totally chaotic. When the JCS, the Joint Chiefs, and the planners wanted to walk back that option, what happened is about three or four weeks ago, the White House, people in the White House, in the Oval Office, the vice president's office, said, no, let's keep it in the plan.

 

The entire CNN interview can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/10/her...cess/index.html

 

This is a terrifying visage to me, of a President with a Messianic vision of self-righteousness who thinks only he can save the world from terror with a White House staff that refuses to eliminate tacticle nuclear weapon strikes as part of that vision.

 

Who are these guys?

[pbleighton]

As low as my opinion of Bush is, I don't think he will use nukes.

 

I think it's anyone's guess whether he will use conventional weapons, or simply allow Iran to possess the technology to develop nuclear weapons, of which the U.S. has over 10,000.

 

Peter

[mike777]

Europe has abdicated, let Iran go nuclear, let Egypt, Saudi follow......so what if we lose a few cities to a few nukes? We have 10,000.

 

The important thing is that they like us and we stop doing evil bad things that makes them hate us.

[keylime]

Not delusional....determined.

 

There is a change in the air with regards to Islamofascism. More and more I am reading accounts of people starting to come to grips with this.

 

For the record, "lan astaslem".

[Winstonm]

Not delusional....determined.

 

Determined to do what.....start WWIII?

[Al_U_Card]

How terribly sad and incredibly ignorant. If we look at the last few messiahs to pass through, what has been their legacy? Do we never learn anything from our blood-sodden history? We must truly exist in hell for this to be our lot. An eternity of confusion, malfeasance and suffering.

[hrothgar]

Not delusional....determined.

 

There is a change in the air with regards to Islamofascism. More and more I am reading accounts of people starting to come to grips with this.

 

For the record, "lan astaslem".

In my mind, the issue is not whether people need to come to grips with religious fundamentalists, but what the right response is.

 

Let me be perfectly clear. I consider religious fundamentalism an extremely significant threat to contemporary Western democracy. Where I expect that Wayne and I differ is that I consider him every bit as delusional and almost as dangerous as the mullahs that incense him so... Take a good look at some of the source material that Dwanye has been recommending to us. The fundamentalist's christians preaching about the end times are the mirror image of Ahmadinejad talking about the return of the 12th Imam.

 

Where people differ is the right way to deal with all these various idiots.

 

Personally, I think that the best thing to do is to is to put our faith into the decadence of Western materialism. All these different whackjobs thrive on persecution and attention. Deprive them of this, and the rot of secular humanism will take hold much faster.

 

Internationally, this means that you don't go off and bomb Iran because this is the one thing gaurunteed to unify the Iranian people arround their leadership. Domestically, this means that you don't deploy black helicopters to scoop the true believers into UN administered re-education camps. Internet porn and videos games will do the job much more quickly.

[mikeh]

Islamofascism.

 

What a nice word: some spin merchant was having a good day when he or she came up with that neat little capsule-word that sounds like it means something to which we should be opposed: it makes us feel good about hating others: after all, they are 'islamofascists'.

 

As Hrothgar has observed, in somewhat different words, the western world has its own islamofascists, except that they are christian fundamentalists... and woe betide the spin merchant who would dare call them 'christofascists': doesn't have that nice, safe sound to western ears, does it?

 

I am sure that there have been (or certainly should be) many doctoral theses on WHY someone succumbs to the mental virus that is fundamentalism: and I strongly suspect that the reasons are the same no matter what the religion. Something to do with being afraid of thinking for oneself: the comfort of 'knowing' that one is right.. that one's belief renders one 'special' in terms of the universe.

 

I find it all so sad. The truth, to the extent that we have so far been able to determine it through rational investigation, is awe-inspiring and beautiful. It seems fair to assume that the awe and sense of beauty will get stronger as we learn ever-more. Perhaps we, as creatures who evolved in to survive in this world, and this universe, will never be sufficiently intelligent to understand the universe, but is that an excuse to retreat into 'revealed truths'... and to surrender that part of us that gives rise to the best in humanity: the ability to THINK?

 

Unfortunately, so many Americans (more than any other western counttry) prefer to believe than to think, and Bush seems to be of that ilk: thought liberates. belief tyrannizes. And the White House is full of believers, not thinkers.

[pclayton]

So a CNN reporter (like theyre unbiased) was interviewing another 'investigative reporter'? Even Hersh's comments are couched; "...I hear..." is hearsay.

 

Just as we are addicted to internet porn and video games, the allure of a scandal is just as enticing.

 

Nothing to get your panties in a knot over.....

[Winstonm]

So a CNN reporter (like theyre unbiased) was interviewing another 'investigative reporter'? Even Hersh's comments are couched; "...I hear..." is hearsay.

 

Just as we are addicted to internet porn and video games, the allure of a scandal is just as enticing.

 

Nothing to get your panties in a knot over.....

So I guess these kinds of things are irrelevant also?

 

From Reuters, 29 Sept 2006:

House passes warrantless domestic spying measure

Backers contend the legislation would bolster congressional oversight and better protect civil liberties. Critics charge it would expand presidential powers and further threaten the rights of law-abiding Americans.

 

"Hidden in the fine print are provisions which grant the administration authority to maintain permanent records on innocent U.S. citizens, granting the administration new authority to demand personal records without court review, and terminating any and all legal challenges to unlawful wiretapping," said Rep. John Conyers, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee"

 

And this from The Washington Post:

Many U.S. legal rights absent in detainee bill

Rules are far different than in American criminal justice system

 

By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities.

 

Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate yesterday and the House on Wednesday, are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions.

 

This is a direct assault on habeus corpus and the protection of the 4th amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. I thought we fought a cold war against the old Soviet Union over things like locking up "enemies of the state" indefinately without legal recourse?

 

 

Since 11 September 2001, there has been an unparalleled usurption of power by the executive branch that continues to argue for more - and under the pretext of safeguarding all of us from terrorists, congress keeps granting it.

 

The real terror threat is domestic tyranny.

[Gerben42]

House passes warrantless domestic spying measure

 

Many U.S. legal rights absent in detainee bill

Rules are far different than in American criminal justice system

 

What worries me more than the consequences of the bill is that it was allowed to pass. Why didn't anyone stop this?

[Al_U_Card]

Doesn't anyone remember the term...."communist sympathizer"? In Macarthyesque style, most are now afraid to resist the current movement for fear of being labelled "terrorist sympathizer". They are all hoping that the next election will rid them of the problem........how sad.

[hrothgar]

House passes warrantless domestic spying measure

 

Many U.S. legal rights absent in detainee bill

Rules are far different than in American criminal justice system

 

What worries me more than the consequences of the bill is that it was allowed to pass. Why didn't anyone stop this?

Sadly, most of the Democratic leadership is afraid to take a principled position. A small number of leading democrats have given some very good speaches opposing the bill. Hillary Clinton gave a very power speach on this subject, as did Russ Feingold and a few others. However, the rank and file of the congressional Democrats ceeded responsibility and left the opposition in the hands of McCain, Grahem, and the like. (Don't get me wrong. I'm very thankful for McCains opposition, however, the Democrats also needed to be taking a leadership role here).

 

Many of the Democratic leaders privately state that they are waiting for the Supreme court to strike down these new laws. Personally, I expect more from my representatives and would like them to take a principled stand.

[Winstonm]

I am not so fearful of terrotists as I am American neo-fascism. I have been accused of improperly applying the word fascism, and I may have done so.

 

Here are definitions I read which may or may not be right, as the source is the internet:

 

1. Economic fascism is based in a merger of big business and big government. Sometimes, a formal corporatism emerges; other times, the private sector (monopolies and oligopolies) simply pass over into the public sector (as in the US), capturing the state and using it to wage that most profitable of activities: war

 

From "Harper's":

 

Among the Times' other interesting findings:

 

More than half of all employees at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) are outside contractors, and the former head of the NCC, John Brennan, is now the CEO of Analysis Corp, which supplies contract analysts to the center. The use of contractors is especially heavy at the CIA. Abraxas Corp, a firm conveniently located near the agency in McLean, Virginia, and home to many former CIA veterans, creates false identities for an elite group of overseas case officers.

Contractors have at times outnumbered CIA employees at key stations like Baghdad and Islamabad. In Baghdad, contractors aren't simply performing bureaucratic functions; they recruit informants, manage relationships with the military, and “handle agents in support of frontline combat units.”

Senior U.S. intelligence officials told the Times that agencies have become so dependent on contractors that they could no longer function without them. “If you took away the contractor support, they'd have to put yellow tape around the building and close it down,” a former CIA official told the newspaper

 

 

2. Political fascism normally includes, as it did for Italy and Germany, a retreat from already-existing democratic practices – an erosion of democracy. The political class begins to express a disdain for human rights and international treaties. Power is increasingly centered on the executive branch, and elections become less transparent, even fraudulent. Civil liberties are restricted, and constitutions are ground under the hobnailed boot.

 

Disdain for human rights and international treaties - The government has maintained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that, based on its reading of the laws of war, anyone it labels an unlawful enemy combatant can be held indefinitely at military or CIA prisons. But Congress has not yet expressed its view on who is an unlawful combatant, and the Supreme Court has not ruled directly on the matter. Wahington Post

 

Power is increasingly centered on the executive branch - President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night. Washington Post

 

elections become less transparent, even fraudulent. - In the December 12 ruling by the US Supreme Court handing the election to George Bush, the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. Vincent Bugliosi, The Nation

 

Civil liberties are restricted, and constitutions are ground under the hobnailed boot. - The legislation broadens the definition of enemy combatants beyond the traditional definition used in wartime, to include noncitizens living legally in this country as well as those in foreign countries, and also anyone determined to be an enemy combatant under criteria defined by the president or secretary of defense. New York Times

 

Donald Rufsfield can now define me as an enemy combatant - that is truly frightening.

 

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Franklin D. Roosevelt

"We know that if one man's rights are denied, the rights

of all are endangered." Robert Kennedy

 

"We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace." George W. Bush

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace. " George W. Bush

 

"There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact." Donald Rumsfeld

 

 

"With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got. " George W. Bush

 

"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny."

 

~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[mike777]

"I am not so fearful of terrotists as I am American neo-fascism..."

 

It sounds like you want to fight American neo-fascism more than you want to fight terrorists? Or do you simply not want to fight them at all? Or do you believe that it is mostly the USA at fault and we need to change and if so how?

 

As for the majority of Democrats as near as I can figure most of them want the Supreme Court to fight. I am not sure what or whom they want them to fight but they sure do not seem to be for anything?

 

As least the Republicans want to spend money like a drunken sailor :rolleyes: by throwing money at education, health care and pork projects.

[Winstonm]

It sounds like you want to fight American neo-fascism more than you want to fight terrorists?

 

I believe American neo-fascism the greater long-term threat.

 

Or do you simply not want to fight them at all?

 

I do not want to fight them but I support punishing the perpetrators for their actions. To use their implied threat for pre-emptive wars of imperialism is not acceptable.

 

Or do you believe that it is mostly the USA at fault and we need to change and if so how?

 

The blame can be equally shared between the U.S.A. and extreme fundamentalists.

A reasonable place to start would be to help establish a homeland for the Palestinians; second would be a withdrawl from Iraq; third, every once and a while tell Israel they are wrong - like invading a neighboring country because a couple of soldiers were kidnapped. Perhaps we should treat Israel as The Merchant of Venice, tell them they can have their pound of flesh if they can do so without shedding a drop of blood.

[mike777]

If you think American neo-fascism is the greater threat and the USA is equally to blame then what Bush is doing or talking about must really seem crazy or scary. :)

[Winstonm]

If you think American neo-fascism is the greater threat and the USA is equally to blame then what Bush is doing or talking about must really seem crazy or scary. :)

Along with Congress.

 

Here's hoping the Supreme Court will offer a checkmate to these bad moves.

[hrothgar]

It sounds like you want to fight American neo-fascism more than you want to fight terrorists? Or do you simply not want to fight them at all? Or do you believe that it is mostly the USA at fault and we need to change and if so how?

I'm much more worried about political developments here in the US than I am about terrorism.

 

Simply put, the terrorists aren't that dangerous. Yes, they have successfully destroyed a pair of skyscrapers. Yes, they are able to bomb the occasional airplane/train/bus. Someday, they might even set off a small nuke and massacres hundreds of thousands of innocent people. All of this is terrible, terrible stuff. I have nothing but sympathy for the victims of 9/11, the British bus bombs, the Madrid train bombing, on and on and on. However, none of these incidents represents any significant threat to continued existence of the United States.

 

This is not to say that the US is not threatened. I believe that the Bush Administration is sacrificing the finest traditions of the US on an altar of political expediency.

 

1. Our government has tortured and killed innocent civilians. Furthermore, we are in the process of passing legislation to institutionalize torture.

 

2. We have abandoned Habeas Corpus

 

3. We deliberately launched major military actions against a regime that posed little or no threat to the United States. We killed tens of thousands of people because we felt like it. We destablized the region to such an extent that the average death toll in Iraq is now higher than it was during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Let that sink in... Saddam reigned during the Iran/Iraq war. He launched genocidal attacks against ethnic minorities in his own country. We've made things significantly worse.

 

I don't recognize this country any more.

 

Whats the old saying... We've met the enemy and he is us?

[luke warm]

The important thing is that they like us and we stop doing evil bad things that makes them hate us.

i agree... what exactly is it that we do that they want us to stop doing? i know we're the great satan and evil to the core, but i don't quite remember why that's true

 

I do not want to fight them but I support punishing the perpetrators for their actions.

how, exactly? thru the un?

[mikeh]

The important thing is that they like us and we stop doing evil bad things that makes them hate us.

i agree... what exactly is it that we do that they want us to stop doing? i know we're the great satan and evil to the core, but i don't quite remember why that's true

 

The fact that you can post this in all sincerity is indicative of the problem.

 

Nothing the US does justifies terrorism, but much of what the US does explains terrorism. And the scariest thing, to a foreigner, about America is that it appears that the majority of Americans really have no idea what the fuss is about. Why, for example, Tony Blair, in his farewell political speech recognized that a majority of westerners view Bush as a greater threat to world peace than they do bin Laden. Why some Americans claim to be Canadian when travelling overseas.

 

Israel is one factor. The kneejerk protection and support given to the Israeli State is a key irritant: the US seems to behave as if it is faced with a choice: help Israel or help the Palestinians. What many would prefer would be for the US to help both.

 

Use half the money used for military assistance to Israel over the past 30 years (or more) to promote economic and political integrity for Palestinians and maybe the refugee communities would not be a prime source of recruits for Islamic fundamentalist terror groups.

 

But Israel is merely an obvious, and perennial, example.

 

Stop invading other countries, stop promoting coups d'etat in other countries, stop proclaiming moral superiority while acting in a morally reprehensible fashion, and so on. Stop funding and supplying unsavoury individuals and groups as surrogates on the discredited notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (Saddam Hussein and the Taliban being merely the two most obvious examples of the flaws in this approach)

 

Would that fix the problem? No, not entirely. As the wealthiest country in the owrld and the most powerful military nation, the US will attract resentment and even hatred from others, but there was a time when, despite claims to be both of these things, the US was looked to by oppressed peoples as a beacon of hope. Woodrow Wilson was imperfect, but his attitude and, by association, the attitude of the US in 1919 was idealistic not merely in words but, to some degree, in actions as well. Of course, the results were not always perhaps what he intended, but his heart was in the right place. Compare Bush to Wilson, and you have to shudder.

 

No rational person really thinks the US is the great satan, but many rational people do think that the US is, unfortunately, seeing the consequences of its own actions.

 

The saddest development is that the terrorists are winning. They have generated unprecedented change in the US society. A country that, for all of its faults, remained, bye and large, a free and open democracy, has surrendered its fundamental values out of fear... fear of terrorism. Now the President has the power to secretly wiretap, arrest, torture and imprison, without any access to the courts, anyone he doesn't like. He has only to define his victims appropriately and the Congress has told the courts to back off. Of course, he would never dream of doing that to a careful, conservative mainstream American citizen, so such a person lacks any concerns that the President has been given too much power. But repressive governments rarely directly take on the bulk of the population: they marginalize sectors of the population and the comfortably numb great majority lose both their empathy for the victims of executive repression and their moral outrage. Look at how racial profiling is now not merely tolerated but actively encouraged by many white commentators. Look at how domestic survelliance is now viewed by many.

 

I have a number of American friends: and, as individuals, I truly respect them, and there are facets of American society that are outstanding examples to the world. Every country has had and has problems and the US, in many ways, dealt with its problems with great courage. But that seems to be, temporarily I hope, a thing of the past.

[hrothgar]

i agree... what exactly is it that we do that they want us to stop doing? i know we're the great satan and evil to the core, but i don't quite remember why that's true

Who is "they"

 

Its not like this is a war between a pair of monolithic entities. There's enormous diversity of opinion on both sides of the fence. Its not like you and I agree on much. It would be a mistake to believe that there is any more uniformity within the Islamic world.

 

If you restrict yourself to looking at Osama- bin Laden, most of his rhetoric originally focused on the US troop presence in Saudi Arabia as well as political/financial support for the Saudi monarchy. Cast your net a bit wider, the major grievances tend to be the following

 

1. There is a widespread perception that the US has abandoned its traditional role as a neutral intermediary in the Arab Israeli conflict and taken an aggressively pro-Israeli position. Political and financial support for Israeli settlements and military support for the Israeli army are major sources of friction. Those cluster bombs that the Israeli's were dropping on Lebanon were made here in the good old USA. The jet fuel that powers the Israeli fighters was expedited by the US at the start for the conflict. Those settlements that the Israelis continually expand in the occupied territories are funded by US tax papers. The security fence that Israel is using to chop Arab territory into a series of Bantustans has the tacit, if not active support of the White House and the American congress.

 

2. For many years, the US provided major military support for the Shah of Iran. The US and the British engineered the miltary coup that removed Mossadegh from power back in 1953. We continued to prop up the Shah until he was finally overthrown back in late 1978/early 1979. After the Shah fled Iran, he spent quite some time in the US in exile while undergoing treatment for cancer.

 

3. There is a fairly widespread belief that the US is fairly cynically manipulating Muslim for its own ends. We built up the mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets then abandoned the country to collapse into a hell-hole as soon as the Ruskies withdrew. In a similar vein, we were the ones who gave Saddam all those weapons of mass destruction that he used to gas the Kurds and the Shia. Later on, Saddam turned into public enemy number 1. Back during the first Gulf War, we encouraged the Shia and the Kurds to rise up against Saddam, however, we allowed him to redeploy the Revolutionary Guard and his attack helicopters to crush the resistance. When we finally did over thrown Saddam, the only thing that we actually bothered to secure was Oil Ministry and the oil wells. I'm not claiming that our only reason for overthrowing Saddam's regime was to seize the Iraqi oil wealth, but we sure as hell gave that appearance.

 

In short we have a really shitty track record in that whole part of the world.

[luke warm]

mike, let's assume you're right... let's assume the u.s. does as you suggest... is this what they want? would we then be viewed as good and worthy of life?

 

there are some who think that the terrorists want nothing less than a complete conversion to their way of thinking... do you believe that's the case? if it is, does that mean it doesn't really matter what we do?

 

i don't buy your premise that much of what we do "explains" terrorism... if the u.s. used *all* of its foreign aid money to aid israel, or the sudan, or even canada, who's business is it but the american taxpayer? that's the problem, others thinking they can by terror bend the u.s. to their will... there's a difference between what should be done and what is done, but that difference in and of itself is not an explanation for violence

 

you admit that the things you want us to stop doing, which presumably the terrorists also want us to stop doing (since you listed them as 'explanations' of terrorism) wouldn't really fix the problem... as long as people hate, these things will continue to happen... and many different people hate many other people...

 

i personally think we are hated because we are free... i think they do not like the thought of a free u.s. .... and fwiw, america still has well over a million migrants per year coming to this country... so a whole lot of somebodys still view this as a safe haven

 

having said all of that, i would like to go on record as being against the recent laws passed, and those being contemplated, concerning terrorism... i happen to agree with you that the terrorists win when we give away our liberties in the name of security... franklin (i think) said “anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security”... the end does not justify the means

[Al_U_Card]

Taxation without representation......the Bill of Rights.......the Constitution......Life, liberty and the pursuit of......(Osama Bin Laden?) All things that have been worth fighting for and dying for in the history of the US.

 

Even criminals have their rights read to them before arrest. Seems like the people of the US are getting screwed (having their rights and freedoms removed) without a say in the matter and they are being intimidated and coerced into acquiessence.

 

"The times they sure are a-changin", and not for the better....

[hrothgar]

i personally think we are hated because we are free... i think they do not like the thought of a free u.s.

The Swiss are free...

The Swedes are free...

Singapore is free...

Finland is free...

Hell, even the Danes are free...

 

I don't see many massive protests directed against these countries... Oh wait. There were some. There were massive protests against Denmark when some rightwing Danish newspapers decided that it would be a good idea to kick the hornet's nest.

 

This issue is not defined by "freedom" or "democracy", Bush's propaganda to the contrary. [statistically speaking, I know that some folks out there are stupid enough to buy this horseshit, however, I'm still shocked every time I meet one]

 

We're hated for two reasons

 

1. The US is on top of the world so we're a natural target

2. For better or worse, the US decided that it wanted to be a "player" in the Middle East.