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by Chris Floyd The Moscow Times Entered into the database on Friday, February 17th, 2006 @ 16:14:54 MST |
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The kindling has been piled high, stuffed with tinder and doused with
gasoline. The match has been lit. All it will take is the slightest flick of
the wrist to set off the conflagration. We are now living in the interval, the
few heartbeats left before the great flame ignites. The heap of kindling has been a long time building, but in recent weeks, the
work has intensified to a fever pitch. With relentless urgency, the American
people are being habituated to the prospect of several interrelated upheavals
-- new war, new terror attacks -- and the predetermined result of these events:
the final, open establishment of presidential tyranny, a militarized "commander
state" where executive power is beyond the law, and endless war endlessly
prolongs the "emergency measures" of the authoritarian regime. Making a virtue of necessity, the Bush administration has used the
exposure of its illegal wiretap scheme to ratchet up the level of terrorist
scaremongering, accelerate its drive toward a military attack on Iran and publicly
proclaim its long-held covert doctrine of executive dictatorship. Of
course, "commander rule" is already the de facto state of the union,
as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made clear to the Senate last week, when
he refused to deny the notion that the president can contravene any law he chooses
under his authority as commander-in-chief. And we have often detailed here the
tyrannical powers that President George W. Bush has already bestowed upon himself
without objection from the U.S. political establishment, including the power
to jail anyone without charges, hold them indefinitely and have them tortured
-- or simply murder them in an "extrajudicial killing." The scope
of Bush's claimed powers -- arbitrary sway over the life and liberty of every
person on earth -- far surpasses that of the most megalomaniacal Roman emperor
or totalitarian dictator. But a militarist state must have war: to justify its draconian rule
(and those $550 billion "defense" budgets), to find new fields for
dominion and swag, and to seal with blood its illegitimate compact with the
people, seeking to make them complicit in its crimes, which are committed in
their name, for their "security." Fortunately for the militarists,
Bush has promised war in abundance. Just this month, the Pentagon released
its new strategy, heralding the newly dubbed "Long War" against terrorism,
where U.S. forces will be deployed, openly and covertly, "in dozens of
countries simultaneously" for decades to come. The plan is designed to
"ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global
security" -- except, of course, for the dictatorial foreign power emanating
from the Potomac. This is the constitution of the new commander state: the eternal "emergency,"
fomenting endless bloodshed, strife, atrocity -- and reprisals, the terrorist
blowback that is the essential lubricant for the war machine. And a new terror
strike on the "homeland" is inevitable. The ground for this attack
has been carefully prepared -- whether wittingly or unwittingly is irrelevant
now. For whatever the Bush faction's intentions, their actual policies have
demonstrably and indisputably stoked the fires of Islamic extremism to new heights
of virulence. Meanwhile, their manifest incompetence and callous disregard for
the well-being of ordinary Americans -- vividly displayed in the deadly bungling
of the Katrina disaster and its corruption-riddled aftermath -- have left American
soil virtually undefended against any genuinely serious terrorist attack, i.e.
one not carried out by half-wits telegraphing their punches over tapped phones. For years, a vast infrastructure of authoritarian rule has been constructed
behind the facade of ordinary political life -- such as the series of "special
authorities" signed by Bush and Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld giving
the military absolute power over the nation "in the event of a declared
or perceived emergency," The Washington Post reports. This dovetails with
such open measures as the Patriot Act and the creation of Northcom, the first
military command aimed at the "homeland," which last fall conducted
the massive "Granite Shadow" exercise, practicing "domestic military
operations" with "unique rules of engagement regarding the use of
lethal force," the Post reports. This infrastructure is part of the context, the granite shadow looming behind
many recent events, such as last month's $385 million open-ended contract awarded
to Halliburton to build large-scale "detention and deportation" centers
around the country, as Reuters reports. It looms behind the "excitement"
expressed by weapons-makers over Bush's plans to build new atomic bombs on a
production-line basis, the Oakland Tribune reports, including "low yield"
nukes for use in attacks on non-nuclear nations. It looms over Rumsfeld's frenzied
push to build a new arsenal of "first-strike" intercontinental and
space-based weapons to attack enemies -- or perceived enemies -- with "no
warning," as the Pentagon declared this month, UPI reports. You can even
see it in the Air Force's decision last week to allow top brass to press their
politicized pseudo-Christianity on young cadets without restraint, as Reuters
reports -- more of the sinister melding of militarism and religious extremism
that characterizes the Bushist philosophy. And of course, the granite shadow overhangs the entire campaign to foment war
fever against Iran, a grim replay of the "Attack Iraq" propaganda,
complete with exaggerated threats, manipulated intelligence supplied by dubious
exiles, lies about "pursuing diplomacy" while finalizing battle plans,
as The Sunday Telegraph reports -- and a complete disregard of the murderous
quagmire that will ensue, including the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons
worldwide as countries scramble to protect themselves from the "first-strike"
triggermen of the Bush faction. More war, more terror, more authoritarian rule: The fire next time
is almost here. Annotations A
'long war' designed to perpetuate itself Ability
to Wage 'Long War' Is Key To Pentagon Plan Granite
Shadow: Commandos in the Streets? Oil
and Water: Life in the Bush Imperium The Politics
of Fear Can You
Say Permanent Bases? Homeland
Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps Lab officials
excited by new H-bomb project The Armageddon Plan Military
Role in Space Set to Expand Polls: Anti-Iran Propaganda
Working Terror
Threat: The Great Deception Rumsfeld's
First Strike Vsion The Destruction
of the Constitution US
prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites Air
Force Eases Rules on Religion Air
Force sets revised rules for prayers by its chaplains Masters of Deception Abu Ghraib:
School for terrorists America's
Long War Quick
Rise for Purveyors of Propaganda in Iraq Katrina
Report Spreads Blame Audits
Show Millions in Katrina Aid Wasted Storm
Warning: Levee Lies and the War on Reality Intelligence,
Policy,and the War in Iraq Nuclear
Iran Is Not a Threat The
First Front in the War on Iran? Annexing
Khuzhestan: Battle Plans for Iran Abu Ghraib General
Lambastes Bush Administration Seabees
Buzz in to Build Bases Chris Floyd is an American journalist. He writes the weekly
Global Eye political column for The Moscow Times and St. Petersburg Times. He
is the author of the book, Empire Burlesque: The Secret History of the Bush
Regime. Visit his website http://www.chris-floyd.com |
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