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Bush's Worst Appointment
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of them all. Now he's poised to seize his place in history. Will
he be the sleaziest Interior Secretary in history, sleazier than
Watt, fouler than Fall?
More on the great Israel Lobby debate! Norman Finkelstein blazes
a new path, asks "Are the Neo-Cons really committed Zionists?" "Bliss was it
in that dawn" Not in Michigan! Raymond Garcia describes
Dem governor's appalling plan to scapegoat youth and teachers. Plus the full print version of Virginia
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The neoconservative Bush regime has
adroitly used 9/11 to create fear of terrorism among Americans
that blinds Americans to the Bush regime's assault on our constitutional
system. Americans have meekly acquiesced to the Bush regime's
brutal assaults on civil liberties, human rights, the separation
of powers, and statutory law, because Americans have been brainwashed
to believe that the "war on terror" takes precedence
and cannot be waged under the rules established by the Founding
Fathers.
By elevating its "war
on terror" above the US Constitution, the neoconservative
Bush regime has made itself a far greater threat to Americans
than are foreign terrorists. Two constitutional scholars, Timothy
Lynch and Gene Healy, document the Bush regime's forceful assault
on the US Constitution in "Power
Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush"
released May 3 by the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
Lynch and Healy show that Bush
has failed in his most important responsibility "to preserve,
protect and defend" the Constitution and, thus, is in violation
of his sworn oath of office. The two scholars document the Bush
regime's "ceaseless push for power, unchecked by either
the Courts or Congress" on issues ranging from war powers,
habeas corpus, and federalism to free speech and unwarranted
surveillance. Bush's assault on the Constitution "should
disturb people from across the political spectrum."
Alas, it doesn't. Many Americans
believe that Bush's dictatorial powers will only be applied to
terrorists. This belief is extremely foolish, because it means
that "the liberty of every American rests on nothing more
than the grace of the White House."
It has become commonplace to
hear Americans dismiss the Bush regime's illegal and unconstitutional
exercise of power on the grounds that only those implicated in
terrorism have anything to fear. These Americans need to ask
themselves why, if only evil doers have anything to fear from
government, the Founding Fathers bothered to write the Constitution?
If we can trust the government
the way Americans seem prepared to trust the Bush regime, we
don't need the Constitution. Indeed, why is a president inaugurated
with his oath to defend the Constitution if we don't need the
Constitution to protect us from our government? If we can trust
government, why go to all the trouble to have elections? Why
not just get a dictator or a king or contract with a company
to provide government?
The question presents itself:
Are Americans guilty of treason when they turn their backs on
the Constitution? Treason is betrayal of country. And what defines
country? In the United States the Constitution defines country.
The Bush regime's assault on the Constitution is an assault on
America.
Moreover, it is a far more
dangerous and deadly assault than a terrorist assault on buildings.
Ask yourself, gentle reader,
what are we without the Constitution? Without the Constitution,
how do we differ from the hapless subjects sent to Soviet and
Nazi death camps? The Constitution protects our rights, and without
our rights we are nothing.
It has been widely reported,
apparently without causing Americans any unease, that the Bush
regime has awarded Halliburton $385 million to build concentration
camps in the United States. Who are to be the inmates? Certainly
not terrorists. The Bush regime has proven inept at catching
terrorists, and those few who are captured are kept offshore
out of the reach of the courts where they can be tortured and
abused. The camps are certainly not for illegal aliens who both
political parties want to give amnesty and citizenship.
Concentration camps epitomize
the horrors and inhumanity of the Stalin and Nazi era. Why is
the Bush regime building concentration camps in America?
The Bush regime's war on terror
is the equivalent to the Nazi regime's Reichstag fire. It serves
to blind people to the real assault.
According to Bush, America
is under terrorist attack because "they hate our freedoms."
But, as Lynch and Healy show, it is the Bush regime that is attacking
our freedoms, removing their institutional protections, and making
our liberties subject to the grace of the executive.
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.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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