Revolt in Paradise

The political reality is that almost every element of fascism is in place. The most recent characteristic to emerge is the corrupting of the electoral process casting further doubt on the legitimacy of our republic. The only fascist trait missing is full blown martial

law. We should be aware that all it would take is another terrorist attack and an Executive Order to complete the process. Shouldn’t these conditions and parallels to pre-war Germany be acknowledged? Can any one be certain it can’t happen here? (Les Jamieson, At the Crossroads: Facing the Reality of 9/11, http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=451)

The ongoing debate on the policies of the President Bush’s administration regarding its secret prisons for the detainees, the overriding and bypassing the provisions of the Geneva Convention, disregard for the letter of law regarding the eavesdropping of the American citizens here and abroad, among other similar issues, seems to be reaching its ultimate boiling point before the mid-term elections. And most interestingly, this is not the doing of the Democrats. A visible schism has risen to the surface among the Republicans themselves.

Jim Rutenberg and Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported in The New York Times, September 16, 2006, (Bush Says G.O.P Rebels are Putting Nation at Risk), “Leading the efforts against him (the president) in the Senate are three key Republicans on the Armed Services Committee with their own military credentials: the chairman and a former secretary of Navy, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia; Senator John McCain of Arizona, a prisoner of war in Vietnam; and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a military judge. And publicly taking their side is Mr. Bush’s former secretary of state, Colin Powell.” In the meanwhile, the Democrats are sitting cool letting the Republican stalwarts fight it out. According to Rutenberg and Stolberg again, “When conservative military men like John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham, and Colin Powell stand up to the president, it shows how wrong and isolated the White House is, said Senator Charles E, Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.” At the heart of this heated discussion is a bill (Military Commission Act of 2006) which was voted 15-9 by the Armed Services Committee to send it to the full senate.

Although the proposed bill gives the president unprecedented powers to deal with the detainees, he is still not content because it also imposes some restrictions on the White House proposals. Reacting to the purported revolt by the senators, President Bush seems to be steadfastly holding on to the White House proposals. He told a press conference (September 15), “Time is running out…Congress needs to act wisely and promptly. He went on to warn that their refusal to endorse White House proposals to redefine compliance with sections of the Geneva Convention prohibiting torture would weaken America in its ‘war on terror,” (Suzanne Goldenberg and Nick Watt, Bush digs in after terror law rebellion, Guardian Unlimited, September 16, 2006). Colin Powell had raised the ‘moral’ issue in his letter to Senator McCain to which President Bush responded impatiently, “It is unacceptable to think that any kind of comparison [exists] between the behavior of the United States of America and the Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve their objective.”

The Americans seem to be losing patience and faith with the president’s rhetoric and persistently creating a climate of fear. His popularity is low in spite of the emotional memorialization of the 9/11 tragedy on September 11, 2006. He is losing ground on his policy in Iraq and he is trying to offset Iraq with his ‘war on terror’ to gain support for the mid-term election. He is trying to exploit the war on terror by infusing fear in the minds of the people. When he proclaims “we are safer today,” he is taking credit for his policies against the terrorists. When he asserts “but we are not safe,” he is injecting fear in the hearts of the people. He is telling the people that a 9/11 can still occur. Of course, it can; there is no absolute certainty that it wont, even when he is turning the country into almost a ‘police state’.

In his war of words, he frequently forgets (conveniently!) what he had told the people earlier. For example, “Asked about a senate report concluding there was no working relationship between Saddam and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Mr. Bush said forcefully, ‘I never said there was an operational relationship.’ The questioner had included a reference to Mr. Bush’s August 21 news conference at which he had said, ‘Imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would – who had relations with Zarqawi,’ referring to Qaeda mastermind in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” (Rutenberg and Stolberg).

There had been no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda during Saddam’s regime, now it has become a hotbed of terrorism with al-Qaeda firmly rooted in there. Indeed, the administration’s war on terror has rendered the whole world less safer now than it was before the Iraq war. The terrorist attacks in London, Spain, Indonesia among others, happened after the Iraq war.

In view of the failure of the current policies, there seems to be an urgent need for change of regime in the U.S.