- By Greg Szymanski
- 1-4-6
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- A former conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and
Reagan Cabinet member is again on the warpath against President Bush and
his gang of thugs, calling Bush's actions for spying on Americans treasonous
and one more reason for a 2006 impeachment of "Hitler in the Oval
Office."
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- A feisty Paul Craig Roberts, a former Asst. Sec. of the
Treasury during the Reagan years, is starting off the New Year with his
"pen blazing," comparing the Bush administration to the Nazi
regime while ending his latest column, called "A Criminal Administration,"
with the ominous possibility of another huge terrorist attack in 2006 orchestrated
by the neo-cons"
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- "September 11, 2001, played into neoconservative
hands exactly as the 1933 Reichstag fire played into Hitler's hands. Fear,
hysteria, and national emergency are proven tools of political power grabs.
Now that the federal courts are beginning to show some resistance to Bush's
claims of power, will another terrorist attack allow the Bush administration
to complete its coup?"
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- And those are mighty harsh words, seemingly coming from
the likes of a 1960's radical.
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- But what makes even more disturbing are the words are
coming from the voice of the heartland of America and from a man who, for
years, was considered a calming conservative voice, well-respected on Capital
Hill and in the right wing media.
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- So what has happened to America when influential conservatives
like Roberts are sounding the alarm and openly calling Bush Hitler? The
answer is fascism. And as he points out in his latest Bush critique,
all the signposts clearly show we are not far away from that gloomy prediction.
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- One clear sign, says Roberts, is Bush's reaction and
the media's complicity in the recent NSA spying story, where Bush exonerates
himself from any wrongdoing by branding the person who leaked the information
as "giving aid and comfort to the enemy,"
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- Adding that this was a similar tactic used by Hitler
in Nazi Germany, Roberts made these comparisons in his recent article:
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- "the Bush administration has defended its illegal
activity and set the Justice Department on the trail of the person or persons
who informed the New York Times of Bush's violation of law. Note the astounding
paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality
and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration's
illegal behavior.
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- "Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal
his illegal behavior! His propagandists, who masquerade as news organizations,
have taken up the line: To reveal wrong-doing by the Bush administration
is to give aid and comfort to the enemy.
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- "Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarten
picnic. The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have
revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality
and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the
final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics
Hitler's claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule
of law."
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- Besides Roberts' harsh words, what hurts even more than
Bush's flaunting of the law, is the mainstream media's willingness to give
the him a free ride, allowing obvious criminality to be swept under
the journalistic rug, covering the NSA spying story like a second-rate
dog and pony show.
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- Roberts then goes on to logically point out how Bush's
actions resemble Hitler since there was no real necessity for him to bypass
the established internal mechanisms for obtaining sensitive and secretive
national security warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA).
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- Under FISA and its secret FISA court, Bush already has
the power to spy on suspected terrorist suspects without doing it under
the table through the Pentagon or the NSA. The act also permits Bush and
his cronies to even spy first and obtain a warrant later if time is of
the essence.
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- So Roberts then asks the provocative question: Why would
Bush totally ignore the law and the FISA court?
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- "It is certainly not because the court in its three
decades of existence was uncooperative. According to attorney Martin Garbus
(New York Observer, 12-28-05), the secret court has issued more warrants
than all federal district judges combined, only once denying a warrant,"
said Roberts.
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- "Why, then, has the administration created another
scandal for itself on top of the WMD, torture, hurricane, and illegal detention
scandals?
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- He then goes on to further illustrate two possible reasons:
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- "One reason is that the Bush administration is being
used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement,
which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has
been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power.
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- "The other reason is that the Bush administration
could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying
for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark
about its activities."
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- "What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could
it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the U.S. government
in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election?"
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- In closing, Roberts draws some chilling analogies among
Nixon, Clinton and Bush, saying the former Presidents wrongdoings bringing
impeachment hearings, pale in comparison.
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- Asking why the federal courts and Congress haven't properly
addressed the Bush Administration crimes, he fears the system may already
have been so corrupted that democracy, freedom and the American system
of checks and balances are already a thing of the past.
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- "Why is the Justice Department investigating the
leak of Bush's illegal activity instead of the illegal activity committed
by Bush? Is the purpose to stonewall Congress' investigation of Bush's
illegal spying?" said Roberts. By announcing a Justice Department
investigation, the Bush administration positions itself to decline to respond
to Congress on the grounds that it would compromise its own investigation
into national security matters.
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- "What will the federal courts do? When Hitler challenged
the German judicial system, it collapsed and accepted that Hitler was the
law. Hitler's claims were based on nothing but his claims, just as the
claim for extra-legal power for Bush is based on nothing but memos written
by his political appointees.
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- "The Bush administration, backed by the neoconservative
Federalist Society, has brought the separation of powers, the foundation
of our political system, to crisis. The Federalist Society, an organization
of Republican lawyers, favors more "energy in the executive."
Distrustful of Congress and the American people, the Federalist Society
never fails to support rulings that concentrate power in the executive
branch of government. It is a paradox that conservative foundations and
individuals have poured money for 23 years into an organization that is
inimical to the separation of powers, the foundation of our constitutional
system."
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- For more informative arcticles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com.
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- Greg Szymanski
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