"Justice is as strictly due between neighbor nations
as between neighbor citizens. A highwayman is as much
a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single;
and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great
gang."

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
[Iran will react to a bombing attack by the
Bush-Cheney administration] “by intensifying the
conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their
neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be
stuck in a regional war for twenty years.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national-security adviser
to President Jimmy Carter
"Israel made a large contribution to the decision to
embark on this war. I know that on the eve of the war,
[Ariel] Sharon said, in a closed conversation with
senators, that if they could succeed in getting rid of
Saddam Hussein, it would solve Israel's security
problems."

Robert (Bob) Novak, veteran American reporter
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to
acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is
largely about oil."

Alan Greenspan, former Fed Chairman 1987-2006
"There are people in Washington … who never intend to
withdraw military forces from Iraq and they’re looking
for ten, 20, 50 years into the future … the reason
that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent
military base in the Gulf region, and I have never
heard any of our leaders say that they would commit
themselves to the Iraqi people that ten years from now
there will be no military bases of the United States
in Iraq."

Jimmy Carter, former American President (February 3,
2006)
***
How do you get out of a hole?
First of all, you stop digging. — This is the simple
lesson that the Bush-Cheney White House has so much
trouble understanding. For Bush and his neocon crowd,
they are [militarily occupying Iraq and they intend to
remain
->http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2154354,00.html]
there, no matter what. It doesn't matter that this
immoral and illegal occupation has caused the death of
more than one million Iraqis and killed more than 3000
American soldiers. And now, they want to escalate the
Iraq war into [a wider Middle East conflict involving
Iran,
->http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh]
thus making sure the United States will be involved
militarily in that region of the globe for the next
twenty years.
In 2002, immoral neocon officials in the [Defense
Department considered Iraq to be a "low-hanging
fruit",
->http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18069.htm]
ripe for picking for its huge oil reserves,
for [the opportunity to displace French and Chinese oil
companies, for increasing Israel's security,
->http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-03-17-oppose_x.htm]
for moving American military bases
from Saudi Arabia to Iraq and for pleasing politically
the end-times religious right in the U.S.— thus killing
five birds with one stone. According to former CIA
Director George Tenet—and this has been confirmed by
former Secretary Paul O'Neill and many other
insiders— the very idea of taking control militarily of
Iraq was improvised and was unjustified because "There
was never a serious debate that I know of within the
administration about the [imminence of the Iraqi
threat."
->http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_go_ot/tenet_slam_dunk]
Nevertheless, [the
Bush-Cheney-Libby-Wolfowitz-Feith-Perle team, and
their allies at the American Enterprise Institute
->http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1431] and at
the [neocon Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs (JINSA),
->http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1508] thought
it was a win-win situation. They had decided they
wanted a war under the clouds of 9/11, and
nothing—truth, morality, reason or facts—could deter
them from it. They were ready to lie a thousand times
to achieve their goal. And they got it. But now the
apprentice sorcerers do not know how to stop the
infernal machine of destruction they have set in
motion. They only know how to push forward and make a
larger mess of it.
That type of improvisation and political wickedness is
all too well confirmed by newly released transcripts
of talks George W. Bush had with then-Spanish Prime
minister Jose Maria Aznar, in February 22, 2003, a few
weeks before the onset of the March 20, 2003 Iraq war.
In these transcripts, it is shown that Bush had a
criminal intent to launch a war of aggression against
Iraq, no matter what, and that he turned down every
Iraqi offer that would have avoided a murderous war
that has killed more than one million people so far.
This includes Saddam Hussein's offer to go into exile,
and for Iraq to hold free and
internationally-supervised elections as well as
allowing armed foreign troops to conduct unfettered
inspections for weapons of mass destruction. — But the
Bush-Cheney regime of Neocons wanted war, and nothing
could stop them. They wanted, above all, to put their
hands on Iraq's oil wealth. This is a prime example of
[historical grand theft, political wickedness and moral
bankruptcy.
->http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/10/war-criminal.html]
Thus, this war has nothing to do with [the morality of
the "Just War" theory.
->http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_3_63/ai_101261140]
In fact, it violates all the canons of a just and
unavoidable war.
Confronted with the [abysmal cowardliness, moral
corruption and incompetence
->http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II28Ak03.html]
of the Bush-Cheney administration, Americans, on the
whole, are more intelligent and more moral than their
current leaders, and a large majority of them (63%)
think it's time for the United States to [stop
occupying illegally the country of Iraq
->http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/16372]
and to stop murdering its citizens. Moreover, a good
majority of them (54%) reject the blanket [Bush-Cheney
policy of aggression abroad,
->http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/16656]
under the pretext of "preventive war".
Similarly, the U.S. Congress, the only government
branch empowered by the U.S. Constitution to declare
war, is officially on record as being against
maintaining American troops in Iraq. First, the House
of Representatives, on July 12, passed a bill,
by a vote of 223 to 201, to withdraw American combat
troops from Iraq by next April 1st. Second, in a [July
18 vote, a majority of U.S. Senators
->http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/18/AR2007071800482_pf.html]
voted 52 to 47 to bring home most American combat
troupes from Iraq by May 1, 2008. —So, both the
American people and the American Congress want this
war to end, and soon.
But the truth is that Bush II does not give a hoot
about American democratic opinion,
as he openly demonstrated recently. And, he does not
much care for the U.S. Congress
either, or the courts for that matter. In fact, Bush
has a deeply ingrained tendency to disregard the
truth, the law and the U.S. Constitution.
In Iraq, the Bush-Cheney regime is still building
"enduring" military bases
in order [to occupy Iraq militarily for decades to
come.
->http://www.agenceglobal.com/article.asp?id=1279] They
even talk openly about the half-century [American
military presence in South Korea,
->http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/53469/] as if this
were a useful analogy.
At the end of the day, as Bush has said: "I do not
need to explain". As the British magazine The
Economist has warned, the world should beware of a
President "who has little left to lose,"
the more so if he has hardly any moral principle and
is indifferent to the opinions of the majority of
Americans.
It is doubtful that a George W. Bush in denial and his
[delusional neocon advisors for permanent war will ever
listen to reason and morality.
->http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush]
To the contrary, the lame-duck president is still
firing anybody who does not agree with him, while
listening to chief Neocon Dick Cheney. The American
people see that, and that is why nearly half of them
want President George W. Bush to face impeachment,
while about 54 percent of American adults now want [the
US House of Representatives to begin impeachment
proceedings ->http://www.Democrats.com/node/13510]
against Vice President Dick Cheney, because he is seen
as the chief spreader of lies to launch the illegal
Iraq War. As of now, there are twenty-one Congressmen
who support the articles of impeachment against [Vice
President Dick Cheney contained in bill H Res 333
->http://www.Democrats.com/node/13585] — If and when
American troops leave Iraq, there will be fewer deaths
because [there will be fewer killers, both official
soldiers and mercenaries.
->http://www.Democrats.com/node/14450]
The latest victim of Bush's pigheaded approach to
foreign policy is [General Peter Pace as chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
->http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2095.shtml]
Having started [a war of aggression on his own, against
the advice
->http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2042072.ece]
of most thinking people within the military,
political, legal and intelligence communities, and
having placed himself squarely against international
law, [George W. Bush is reduced to shifting the blame
for his failures
->http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0414-04.htm] to
others. Bush is afraid of having honest people around
him, especially a man of the caliber of General Pace,
who is a moral man. General Pace, in the spirit of the
Nuremberg Charter, has publicly said, “It is the
absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to
disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral”
(Feb. 17, 2006). And since General Pace thinks [it is
immoral to be the first to use nuclear weapons,
->http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/06/le.00.html]
one wonders if Bush has fired General Pace because he
intends to use nuclear weapons in the coming months.
The U.S. Congress should wake up before it is too
late. When armaments are in the hands of immoral
people, the danger is high that [a nuclear war
->http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=audioVideo&itemID=33] could be launched.
Indeed, people in power who have no morality and no
judgment can be expected to do anything, including
killing millions of people, to save face.
In the book ['The New American
Empire', ->http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0741418878/qid=1120655398/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8470027-8697752]
I asked this fundamental question: Why is the
Bush-Cheney administration so bent on using lies and
distortions in order to justify a war whose end result
would be predictably to eliminate from power the Iraqi
Sunnis in favor of Shi'ites allied with Shi'ite Iran,
thus automatically making Iran the dominant power in
that unstable region? One has to remember that Sunnis
make up 85 percent of all Muslims around the world and
are dominant in the Arab world. — Now that they have
realized their error in creating a Shia-dominated
Iraq, the Neocons behind the Bush-Cheney team want
them to up the ante and to attack Iran,
thus turning the Middle East into an even larger
murder scene than it is now.
The American people have never received an answer to
that simple question. That is why [they are so
dissatisfied
->http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2090.shtml]
with George W. Bush, but also with the Republicans and
the pro-war neocon Democrats in Congress. This
indicates that there is a huge void of leadership in
the United States today. On this score, the most moral
Democratic 2008 candidate for president is, by far,
former senator Mike Gravel
from Alaska. The very fact that the mainstream media
boycott him should be a good indication that this man
stands on the side of the people.
According to polls,
Americans are very dissatisfied with both major
political parties because of their inability or their
unwillingness to reflect the wishes of the people and
to stop the immoral and illegal occupation of Iraq. In
fact, more than two-thirds of Americans believe their
country is on the wrong track, but nothing is being
done about it. In fact, average Americans are losing
hope that they will ever be heard by the Washington
D.C. political nomenklatura that runs the government
while paying scant attention to the people.
_______________________________________
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached
at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit [his blog site
->www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog].
Author's Website:
Check Dr. Tremblay's coming book ["The Code for Global
Ethics" ->http://www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/]