From
Iraq To Burma: Hypocrisy
Rules The West
By Paul Craig Roberts
01 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Shame
has vanished from Western "civilization." Hypocrisy has taken
its place.
On September 28, British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown could be heard on National Public Radio
decrying the use of violence against democratic protesters by the government
in Burma. Brown declared the British people's revulsion over the violence
inflicted by the Burmese government on its people. But Brown said nothing
about the violence the British government was inflicting on Iraqis and
Afghans.
George W. Bush also struck
the blameless pose when he declared: "The world is watching the
people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom, and the
American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals."
Bush and Brown do not have
the same sympathy for the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither Bush
nor Brown stand in solidarity with those who are demanding their freedom
from foreign occupation by American and British troops. Indeed, Bush
and Brown, as commanders in chief, are on a killing spree that makes
the government in Burma look extremely restrained by comparison.
Why were British soldiers
sent to kill Iraqis and Afghans? September 11 had nothing whatsoever
to do with the UK. No doubt but that the corrupt Tony Blair was paid
off to drag the British people into Bush's Middle East war for American/Israeli
hegemony, but Brown has done nothing to terminate Bush's use of the
British military as mercenaries.
The NPR announcers also supported
the Burmese people, but they, too, show little disturbance over Bush's
five-year old wars that we now know were based entirely on lies. Al
Qaeda is not the Taliban, and Iraq had no WMD. Neither country was a
threat to the US. Now that we know this, why does the media still give
Bush and Brown a free pass to use violence against Iraqis and Afghans?
To cut to the chase, what
is the difference between Bush and Brown on one hand and the murderous
Burmese government on the other? Bush and Brown are actually worse.
They pretend to be democrats concerned with what people actually want.
The Burmese government doesn't pretend to be anything but a military
dictatorship. Moreover, the Burmese government is clean by comparison
as it hasn't committed acts of naked aggression--war crimes under the
Nuremberg standard--by invading other countries and attempting to occupy
them.
Despite all the killing Bush
has accomplished, he thirsts for yet more blood. Iran is in his and
Israel's sights. All indications are that Bush is going to attack Iran.
Propaganda, demonizations, and crass lies are pouring out of the Bush
regime and its media and academic propagandists such as Columbia University
president Lee Bollinger. Both parties in Congress have lined up behind
the coming attack on Iran. The despicable senator Joe Lieberman even
snuck language into a bill to give Bush the go ahead.
Who is going to stop Bush
from a third war crime? Not his vice president, Not his national security
adviser, not his secretary of defense. Not his secretary of state. Not
Congress. Not the US military. Not the corporate fat cats. Not the Israel
Lobby. Not the bought and paid for "allies." Not the anti-war
movement. Not the American people. Certainly not the media.
Americans are content with
whatever crimes their government commits as long as the justification
is Americans' safety.
Americans' willingness to
murder others out of fear for their own safety is a result of September
11. The antiwar movement is impotent, because it has accepted the government's
9/11 story. To oppose a war when you accept the government's reason
for the war is an indefensible position.
The Bush regime knows that
if people will believe its 9/11 story, they will believe anything. Propaganda
silences facts, and Americans fall for one set of falsehoods after another.
The alleged 9/11 hijackers all came from countries allied with the US,
principally Saudi Arabia, but Americans believe the government's lies
that Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria are responsible. Americans have
been convinced that without "regime change" in these countries,
the American superpower will remain helpless in face of stateless Muslims
armed with box cutters.
Americans have been brainwashed
to believe that Muslims hate us for our "freedom and democracy,"
whereas in fact the problem is the US government's immoral foreign policy
and interference in the internal affairs of Muslim countries. Bush's
message to the Middle East is clear: Be a puppet state or be destroyed.
In the meantime, to prevent
democracy and civil liberties from getting in the way of making Americans
safe, Bush has set aside habeas corpus, due process, right to legal
representation, privacy, and the separation of powers mandated by the
US Constitution. Otherwise, Bush says, we will lose the "war on
terror."
Bush says he has made Americans
safe by ridding them of these constitutional impediments to their safety.
And once American bombs fall on Iran and Syria, those countries will
be free and democratic, too, like Iraq and Afghanistan.
In leading Americans to this
conclusion, Bush has sunk the United States to a new low in human intelligence
and morality.
Paul Craig Roberts
was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and
Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny
of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: [email protected]
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