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Bush's 'Freedom and Democracy'
- Just A Cover to Spread Torture

Comment by Larry Ross, February 25, 2005

The policies of the Bush Administration, including the illegal war on Iraq, the massive bombing to destroy cities such as Fallujah, the torturing, shaming, raping and killing of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and other prisons, the CIA shipping of 'suspects' overseas to be tortured to extract information, (see War Crimes) all seem designed to expand the Islamic opposition to US aggression. According to expert testimony to the US Senate, Bush’s policies don’t reduce ‘terrorism’, they increase it. For example, Iraq did not have terrorist or al-Qaeda problem before the war. Now Iraq is a terrorist training ground and the number of terrorist incidents has doubled since 2003.

The barbarous US actions, sold to the public as a necessary part of its ''war on terror' are designed to do the opposite'. Bush’s actions are designed to expand opposition to American aggression. Bush then labels this planned result as evidence of "increasing terrorism". He then increases US aggression which he justifies as a necessity in the "War On Terror". In order to expand the war further he accuses Iran and Syria of helping the ‘terrorists’, which he has generated by his own actions. The purpose is not to spread 'freedom and democracy' but to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which he can then use to justify evermore aggression, or "perpetual war".

The evidence suggests that Bush has launched a new 'Holy Crusade' against Islam. The bigger the wars he unleashes, the more he can control the US population with new draconian 'patriot' laws. He is very skillful and his propaganda is obviously designed by masters in the art. Like Tony Blair, he can seem to be very sincere, while implementing very deceitful policies. Bush, Blair and Howard are able to fool enough people, enough of the time, to continue their expanding perpetual war.

There is a significant number of people who know very well what the game is. But they collaborate with the main actors - repeating the lies and even helping implement criminal and dangerous policies. They are politicians, media, military/industrial complex people, fundamentalists eager for Armageddon, Zionists and Christian Zionists, civilian militarists, etc.. They all believe they can gain by supporting the Iraq war and any other wars Bush creates. There is also the true Bush believers. They are like cultists, who simply believe anything Bush says and will do whatever he tells them to do. Then there is a great mass of apathetic people who can’t be bothered. Also, there are many people who don't like Bush and suspect him and his motives. But they are just too busy with their own interests and business to become involved. Those opposed are not united, don’t care enough, are afraid, or are not sufficiently motivated to take any action, or support those who do.

Some think that opposition to Bushism will grow as the wars worsen and more Americans are killed and wounded. The opposite has proved true. People have got used to the war and opposition has dwindled as the war escalates. Protest makes no discernible difference to the Bush Administration.

Also, the Neo-cons, Pentagonists, psychological warfare experts, and covert action operators are a very intelligent, highly paid, dedicated and skilled group, commanding unlimited state sources. They would have extra motivation because they are involved in helping make possible a series of wars and war crimes. If they are successful, they will never stand trial for their crimes and they can make their own truths. Against this formidable juggernaut, the forces of peace and reality are pitifully small, disorganised, unpaid and often poorly informed.

As US casualties increase, with a corresponding increase in US attacks, the dangers to the world from a wider war will also increase. More incidents and reactions from the attacked countries is likely.

There could be explosive events like the 9/11 attack that outrage Americans, regardless of the provocations. Bush and his Neo-cons could twist such events to further their plan, just as the 9/11attack was twisted to initiate new illegal wars like the Iraq war.

If the situation looks very black and dangerous, an arranged incident may be used to persuade Americans to back a more violent war "against terrorism". Eventually, as the US over reaches its war making resources, it will probably justify, with popular support or frightened acquiescence, using its huge nuclear arsenal to avoid defeat. Any number of unknown events and retaliations could then occur, which spiral out of control to massive destruction. With a mad arrogance, the Neo-con administration is gambling with the fate of the earth.

Is it too late to take constructive action?

The US and 8 other nuclear weapon states with their arsenals of nuclear overkill, have converted our world into a Nazi death camp. Everyone has become a prisoner. While most of us are unaware, we have all become like concentration camp inmates waiting helplessly to be murdered in a vast nuclear crematorium. There is no escape for anyone, anywhere in the world. Thanks to Bush, his Neo-cons, and their quest for global empire.

But like some of the Nazi victims who persevered and lived, I believe that although it is late, it is never too late to take intelligent, concerted action for human and world survival.

Also read "War Crimes" Congress dozes while detainees are sent to other countries to be tortured
by Nat Hentoff, February 22, 2005

Larry Ross

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Targeting Congress on Torture

by Nat Hentoff, January 7, 2005

Will he be held accountable for torture before he leaves the Oval Office? photo: whitehouse.gov

Why is a nation consumed with moral values so blind to state-sanctioned immorality? "Moral Values Apply to Torture Too," Marie Cocco, Newsday, December 16, 2004

The drumbeat to focus responsibility for the torture and other vicious abuses of noncitizen prisoners in American custody has begun. But it has not yet stirred Congress. Not only is the Republican leadership silent, but where is the outrage from the minority leaders—Harry Reid in the Senate and Nancy Pelosi in the House?

As reported by Frank Davies in the December 27 Miami Herald, retired rear admiral Don Guter, former navy judge advocate general, says it plain: "That branch [Congress] has really abdicated its responsibility to set rules and oversee what's happening [to the detainees], and we are paying a price for it."

George W. Bush heralds the democratic values we are exporting to the world, but says nothing about the torture reports, even when eight retired generals and admirals wrote to him directly on September 7 to speak the truth regarding his ultimate responsibility for what is done in the name of the United States.

Their letter, released by Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), states emphatically:

"Given the range of individuals and locations involved in these reports [of torture and other crimes], it is simply no longer possible to view these allegations as a few instances of an isolated problem"—as in George W. Bush's laying the guilt on a few "bad apples."

At Human Rights First's press conference on September 8, retired rear admiral John D. Hutson, now president and dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, said of the superficial and truncated congressional investigation of Abu Ghraib to date: "[They] have failed to address senior military and civilian command responsibility [and] culpability . . .

"If we are to get to the truth of what happened—and to make sure this treatment is never repeated—we need a comprehensive investigation commissioned and conducted by those whose actions are not an issue." (Emphasis added.)

Members of the executive branch—very much including Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general designate Alberto Gonzales (who advised evasion of the Geneva Conventions)—should have no veto power over any aspect of this independent investigation, although they must appear as witnesses and maybe later as putative defendants in our courts.

It is Congress who has to appoint the commission because Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution states: "Congress shall have power to declare war . . . and make rules concerning captures on land and water."

The investigation also has to include the administration's legal teams that gave cover to Ashcroft and Bush, and to Rumsfeld and his closest colleagues in the Defense Department who passed the authorization for extreme interrogations down the chain of command.

Changes were made to soften those torture policies by the Office of Legal Counsel on December 30, but responsibility remains on those who formulated the previous authorizations of torture that shamed us around the world.

In a brilliantly indignant commentary on the editorial page of the December 30 New York Times—which should be read by every member of Congress—Andrew Rosenthal, in "Legal Breach: The Government's Attorneys and Abu Ghraib," writes:

"Once charged with giving unvarnished advice about whether political policies remained within the law, the Bush administration's legal counsels have been turned into the sort of cynical corporate lawyers who figure out how to make something illegal seem kosher—or at least how to minimize the danger of being held to account . . .

"When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the initial list of interrogation methods for Guantánamo Bay in late 2002—methods that clearly violated the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture statute—there were no protests from the legal counsels for the secretary of defense, the attorney general, the president, the Central Intelligence Agency or any of the civilian secretaries of the armed services."

Rosenthal continues: "That's not surprising, because some of those very officials were instrumental in devising the Strange-lovian logic that lay behind Mr. Rumsfeld's order. Their legal briefs dutifully argued that the president could suspend the Geneva Conventions when he chose, that he could even sanction torture, and that torture could be redefined so narrowly that it could seem legal."

And Colin Powell should testify because he warned about the consequences of this contempt for international law and for our own statutes, in a January 2002 letter to Alberto Gonzales, counsel to the president:

"[Bypassing the Geneva Conventions will] undermine the protections of the law of war for our [own] troops, both in this specific conflict and in general . . . [and] may provoke individual foreign prosecutors to investigate and prosecute our officials and troops. . . . It will make us more vulnerable to domestic and international legal challenge." Not surprisingly, Powell is no longer in the Bush cabinet.

War crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, and other U.S. officials have been filed in the Karlsruhe court in Germany. But if we are to have credibility in the world—and at home—as a nation of law, the evidence of our crimes must be presented and tested in this country through a wholly independent commission authorized by Congress. Call or e-mail or write your "alleged" representatives in Washington!