On "American Interests" in Iraq: Who's Interests?

"The most unprofitable of all commerce is that connected with foreign dominion. To a few individuals it may be beneficial, merely because it is commerce; but to the nation
it is a loss. The expense of maintaining dominion more than absorbs the profit of any trade." Thomas Paine, “The Rights of Man,” in Selected Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. R.E. Roberts (New York: Everybody’s Vacation Publishing Company,
1945), p. 328.

Bush Seeks Retroactive Laws To Protect Himself From War Crimes Prosecution

By Paul Craig Roberts

When I was a kid John Wayne war movies gave us the message that America was the good guy, the white hat that fought the villain. Alas, today the US and its last remaining non-coerced ally, Israel, are almost universally regarded as the bad guys over whom John Wayne would triumph. Today the US and Israel are seen throughout the world as war criminal states.

On August 23 the BBC reported that Amnesty International has brought war crimes charges against Israel for deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure as an "integral part" of Israel’s strategy in its recent invasion of Lebanon.

Israel claims that its aggression was "self-defense" to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Yet, Israel bombed residential communities all over Lebanon, even Christian communities in the north in which no Hezbollah could possibly have been present.

United Nations spokesman Jean Fabre reported that Israel’s attack on civilian infrastructure annihilated Lebanon’s development: "Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month."

Israel maintains that this massive destruction was unintended "collateral damage."

President Bush maintains that Israel has "a right to protect itself" by destroying Lebanon.

Bush blocked the attempt to stop Israel’s aggression and is, thereby, equally responsible for the war crimes. Indeed, a number of reports claim that Bush instigated the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

Bush has other war crime problems. Benjamin Ferenccz, a chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg, recently said that President Bush should be tried as a war criminal side by side with Saddam Hussein for starting aggressive wars, Hussein for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Under the Nuremberg standard, Bush is definitely a war criminal. The US Supreme Court also exposed Bush to war crime charges under both the US War Crimes Act of 1996 and the Geneva Conventions when the Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld against the Bush administration’s military tribunals and inhumane treatment of detainees.

President Bush and his Attorney General agree that under existing laws and treaties Bush is a war criminal together with many members of his government. To make his war crimes legal after the fact, Bush has instructed the Justice (sic) Department to draft changes to the War Crimes Act and to US treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

One of Bush’s changes would deny protection of the Geneva Conventions to anyone in any American court.

Bush’s other change would protect from prosecution any US government official or military personnel guilty of violating Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Article 3 prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." As civil libertarian Nat Hentoff observes, this change would also undo Senator John McCain’s amendment against torture.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice says that Bush’s changes "immunize past crimes."

Under the US Constitution and US legal tradition, retroactive law is impermissible. What do Americans think of their President’s attempts to immunize himself, his government, CIA operatives, military personnel and civilian contractors from war crimes?

Apparently, the self-righteous morally superior American "Christian" public could care less. The Republican controlled House and Senate, which long ago traded integrity for power, are working to pass Bush’s changes prior to the mid-term elections in the event the Republicans fail to steal three elections in a row and Democrats win control of the House or Senate.

Meanwhile, the illegal war in Iraq, based entirely on Bush administration lies, grinds on, murdering and maiming ever more people. According to the latest administration estimate, the pointless killing will go on for another 10-15 years.

Trouble is, there are no US troops to carry on the war. The lack of cannon fodder forces the Bush administration to resort to ever more desperate measures. The latest is the involuntary recall of thousands of Marines from the inactive reserves to active duty. Many attentive people regard this desperate measure as a sign that the military draft will be reinstated.

According to President Bush, the US will lose the "war on terror" unless the US succeeds in defeating "the Iraqi terrorists" by establishing "democracy in Iraq." Of course, insurgents resisting occupation are not terrorists, and there were no insurgents or terrorists in Iraq until Bush invaded.

Bush’s unjustified invasion of Iraq and his support for Israeli aggression have done more to create terrorism in the Muslim world than Osama bin Laden could hope for. The longer Bush occupies Iraq and the more he tries to extend US/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, the more terrorism the world will suffer.

Bush and the neocon ideology that holds him captive are the greatest 21st century threats to peace and stability. The neoconized Bush regime invented the war on terror, lost it, and now is bringing terror home to the American people.

August 29, 2006

Dr. Roberts is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

A Democratic Dictatorship by Jacob G. Hornberger

Amidst all the discussion and debate about whether President Bush has violated the law by ordering the National Security Agency (NSA) to record telephone conversations, we must not overlook an important fact: the United States is now traveling in uncharted waters, ones in which the ruler of the nation is exercising omnipotent power over the American people. A more appropriate word would be one that offends some Americans when it is applied to their system of government: dictatorship. But as uncomfortable as that term might make Americans, the fact is that ever since 9/11 Americans have been living under dictatorial rule.

What is a dictator? A dictator is a ruler whose powers are omnipotent, that is, unconstrained by external or superior law. A dictator has the power to take whatever actions he wants without concerning himself about whether they are legal. Anything the dictator does is legal because he is the law.

It wasn’t always that way in the United States. When the Constitution was enacted, its goal was not only to call the federal government into existence but also to ensure that it would not be headed by a dictator. To accomplish that, the Framers inserted language expressly limiting the president to a few well-defined powers. If a power wasn’t enumerated, the president could not legally exercise it. The Constitution was the higher law that governed the actions of all federal officials.

What if the president intentionally violated those restrictions? The Constitution provided two remedies. First, the judicial branch could declare the president’s acts to be in violation of the Constitution and order him to comply with its judgment. As the Supreme Court held in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison, the judicial branch’s determination of constitutionality trumped the president’s opinion of constitutionality.

Second, the Constitution gave the legislative branch of government – the Congress – the power to impeach the president and remove him from office.

What many Americans fail to understand is that it is entirely possible to have democracy and dictatorship at the same time. Democracy entails the use of elections to place people into positions of power. Dictatorship entails the extent of the powers that the ruler is able to exercise after he assumes office.

Therefore, it is entirely possible to have a democratically elected dictator – a person who has been duly elected to office who exercises dictatorial powers. This is exactly the case of George W. Bush.

Some Americans become offended whenever critics bring up the name of Adolf Hitler in discussing the dictatorial powers that President Bush is now exercising. They miss the point. When critics bring up Hitler’s name in the context of Bush’s exercise of dictatorial powers, they’re not suggesting that Bush and Hitler are somehow equivalent evils or that Bush has committed the horrors that Hitler committed.

What they’re instead saying is that Hitler sets a good benchmark for what dictatorship involves. Therefore, he provides a good means by which to measure the powers being exercised by another ruler. If George W. Bush or any other American president exercises the same types of omnipotent powers that Hitler exercised, that should serve as a powerful wake-up call for the American people, who have long wondered how the German people could have allowed Hitler to become a dictator (see my article “How Hitler Became a Dictator”).

Therefore, the issue is not whether Bush is a “good” man, as many of his supporters contend. The issue is whether this “good” man has assumed dictatorial powers in the wake of 9/11. The issue also is whether any man, good or evil, should ever be given dictatorial powers.

In fact, Vice President Cheney was making much the same point when he recently said that Venezuela’s democratically elected president, Hugo Chavez, was comparable to Hitler. Cheney wasn’t suggesting that Chavez had instituted concentration camps in which millions were being killed. What he was saying was that Chavez, albeit democratically elected, was “consolidating power.”

The question that the American people must ask is: Has President Bush been doing the same thing – “consolidating power” – ever since 9/11, especially as part of his “war on terrorism” and his invasion of Iraq? Everyone would have to concede that he has.
Dictatorial powers

Consider the specific powers the president is claiming:

1. The power to order the Pentagon to take any American anywhere in the world, including here in the United States, into custody and punish him, even execute him, without according him the protections of the Bill of Rights. Under this power, all the Pentagon has to do is place a document in front of the president labeling any particular American a “terrorist,” and once the president signs it the Pentagon has the omnipotent power to punish the “terrorist.”

Does the person who is labeled a “terrorist” have the right to appeal such a determination? No. Even if the designated terrorist is a newspaper editor, a prominent celebrity, or a well-known anti-war critic, the president’s determination is final. Keep in mind that, according to the president and the Pentagon, we are at war and neither the courts nor the Congress should be permitted to interfere with the military decisions made by the Pentagon and the commander in chief.

Are there any restraints on the particular type of punishment that the military metes out to a designated terrorist? No. Since the president and the Pentagon consider a terrorist to be an illegal enemy combatant, they refuse to be bound by the Geneva Convention, which provides long-established protections for prisoners of war. No one needs to be reminded of how U.S. military personnel have subjected the “terrorists” held in U.S. facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere to torture, sex abuse, rape, and murder. While Americans have not been subjected to the same mistreatment, that is simply owing to a discretionary decision by the president and the Pentagon; it could be changed at any time.

2. The power to record telephone conversations of the American people without first securing a search warrant from a magistrate in the judicial branch, as the Bill of Rights requires. In fact, under the president’s rationale, there’s nothing to prevent him from conducting any warrantless searches as long as they are part of the “war on terrorism.”

3. The power to send the entire nation into war against a foreign nation without a declaration of war from Congress, despite the fact that the Constitution expressly delegates that power to Congress, not the president.

No one can deny that those three powers are dictatorial in nature. But it’s important that they be considered in the context of the president’s own justifications for exercising such powers. It is those justifications that have sent America sailing into the uncharted waters of dictatorial rule.
The congressional justification

The president cites two primary justifications for exercising omnipotent power, which he interweaves. First, he says that Congress authorized him to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to seek out and arrest or destroy the terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Second, he says that since we are now at war – the “war on terrorism” – he is able to exercise omnipotent powers as the nation’s military commander in chief.

Bush’s first justification involves the congressional resolution that was enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which authorized him to use force against those who had conspired to carry out the attacks.

Ironically, Bush’s justification is quite similar to the one that Hitler used to justify his dictatorial powers. After the terrorist attack on the German parliament building, Hitler went to his legislature and argued for a temporary suspension of civil liberties. After heated discussion and debate, including Hitler’s suggestion that such legislation was necessary to protect the freedom of the German people, the necessary number of votes for passage was finally secured. The law granting dictatorial powers to Hitler became known as the “Enabling Act.”

How is this different, in principle, from Bush’s claim that the authorization-of-force resolution that Congress enacted immediately after 9/11 gave him omnipotent powers to deal with the “terrorists”?

There are two major problems with Bush’s reasoning. One is that, unlike Germany’s Enabling Act, which expressly suspended civil liberties, the resolution enacted by Congress did not do any such thing. Yet Bush is effectively interpreting it to mean that Congress granted him what the German Enabling Act granted Hitler – the power to override constitutional protections of civil liberties.

More important, however, is the fact that, under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is not empowered to pass laws that nullify the protections and guarantees in the Constitution. The only way that any provision in the document can be nullified is through constitutional amendment. A statutory attempt to nullify jury trials, search warrant requirements, due process of law, and right to counsel has no legal effect whatsoever.
The commander in chief justification

Bush’s other justification for the assumption and exercise of omnipotent powers is his role as commander in chief of the armed forces during a time of war. What war? The “war on terrorism,” which, again ironically, was the same type of war that Hitler declared after terrorists struck the Reichstag with a firebomb.

There is one crucial difference between Hitler’s claim of power and Bush’s claim of power, however. The Enabling Act was only a temporary grant of powers. Each time it was set to expire, Hitler would duly return to the Reichstag and secure legislation “temporarily” extending it.

Bush’s rationale for his omnipotent powers, on the other hand, is that, as the nation’s military commander in chief in the “war on terrorism,” his omnipotent powers will last as long as the war continues. Of course, since it is impossible to know with any degree of certainty when the last terrorist is exterminated or neutralized, that means that for all practical purposes the “war on terrorism” is perpetual, which means that Bush’s powers are perpetual as well (and will as well be held by his democratically elected successor in 2009).

There is no merit whatsoever, however, to Bush’s argument that the Constitution grants omnipotent powers to a president when he puts on the helmet of a military commander in chief. In fact, there is no suggestion whatsoever in the Constitution that war gives rise to the exercise of any powers that nullify any of the other restrictions on power in the Constitution, especially in the Bill of Rights.

What Bush is relying on is the old European notion of imperial dictatorial powers that were claimed by a ruler when he led his military forces into war against another nation.

Think about Napoleon, who became a dictator by centralizing power, especially in his role as commander in chief of French military forces. Or, closer to home, think of the president of Mexico, Santa Anna, whose centralization of power not only made him the “Napoleon of the West” but also precipitated the insurgency in Texas.

This is how Bush views himself as the nation’s commander in chief – as a Napoleon or a Santa Anna, along with the omnipotent powers that those two dictators exercised. It’s the old European notion of inherent imperial powers granted the sovereign, both as emperor and as commander in chief of the nation’s military forces.

There’s just one big problem with Bush’s analysis, however. Our American ancestors fully and completely rejected the notion of inherent imperial powers with the enactment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That, in fact, was one major reason for limiting the powers of the president by expressly enumerating them in the Constitution – to negate the old European notion of “inherent” sovereign powers.
Dictatorship or liberty?

Of course, there are those who say, “The situation is not really that serious. President Bush is a good man. He can be trusted to do the right thing. He won’t abuse these powers. He’s exercised them against only a few Americans.”

They’re missing some important points. One is that no matter how good a man President Bush is, dictatorships are the opposite of liberty and, therefore, are morally wrong, no matter how good or benevolent the dictator is. Moreover, once dictatorial powers are relinquished to a “good man,” there is no assurance that he won’t become a bad man or that a bad man will not succeed him. A good test is: Would I want the most despicable character I can think of – say, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or Mao Zedong – to have any of these powers over me and my country? If your answer is “No,” then your answer should be the same with respect to George W. Bush.

As history has shown, once a ruler is given dictatorial powers, there is no assurance that the powers will not be expanded to larger groups of people and abused much more extensively, especially if there is a huge crisis that strikes fear and panic among the citizenry. After all, keep in mind that, in the absence of the terrorist strike on the Reichstag, Hitler might well not have been able to secure passage of the Enabling Act. Ask yourself: How would the compliant, Republican-controlled Congress respond to a request by President Bush for an expansion of powers if terrorists exploded a massive bomb today in the middle of the U.S. Capitol?

Unfortunately, many Americans, like other people in history, don’t want to face the disquieting truth about the dark and ominous direction in which their nation is currently headed. They simply wish to bury their heads in the sand and not analyze too closely the logical implications of the president’s and the Pentagon’s position. They don’t want to face that we are now traveling in uncharted waters with respect to dictatorship.

Here is the unvarnished truth that Americans are trying to avoid confronting: Both the president and the Pentagon have repeatedly emphasized that the nation is at war. It is a war against the “terrorists.” In this war, the entire world is the battlefield, including both Iraq and the United States.

In this war, the president is the nation’s commander in chief and, as such, wields omnipotent powers to defeat the enemy and win the war. These powers include the power to arrest and punish Americans as illegal “enemy combatants” – denying them jury trials, due process, lawyers, or any federal court interference. They have the power to take people into custody and transport them to foreign regimes for torture. They have the power to record telephone conversations without warrants.

In other words, the president and the Pentagon have the same powers to wage their “war on terrorism” in the United States as they have in Iraq. Yes, you read that right – Iraq. That is the logical consequence of what these people are saying. They have the power to do everything they’re doing in Iraq right here in the United States: the power to break people’s doors down and search their homes and businesses without warrants; the power to arrest and indefinitely detain people; the power to torture and abuse prisoners and detainees; the power to fire missiles into cars or apartment complexes where the “terrorists” are traveling or hiding out; the power to confiscate guns.

Ultimately, the solution to dictatorship lies with the citizenry – a citizenry whose love of liberty trumps everything else, including fear and the desire to be taken care of. Time will tell whether that love of liberty is still a powerful force within the hearts and minds of the American people – sufficiently powerful to overcome the fear and quest for “security” that currently hold people in their grip – sufficiently powerful to restore freedom to our land.

August 31, 2006

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Copyright © 2006 Future of Freedom Foundation

The Lies that Kill: Why Isn't Bush in the Dock?

May 17, 2005
The Lies that Kill
Why Isn't Bush in the Dock?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America's reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America's reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the US. America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.

As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush's far more serious lies. Bush's lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America's reputation, caused one billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.

America's reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat. Anti-American riots, which have left Afghan cities and towns in flames and hospitals overflowing with casualties, have forced Bush's Afghan puppet, "president" Hamid Karzai, to assert his independence from his US overlords. In a belated act of sovereignty, Karzai asserted authority over heavy-handed US troops whose brutal and stupid ways sparked the devastating riots. Karzai demanded control of US military activities in Afghanistan and called for the return of the Afghan detainees who are being held at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century. The secret British government memo (dated July 23, 2002, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936), leaked to the Sunday Times (May 1, 2005), reports that Bush wanted:

"to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. . . . But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. . . . The [UK] Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult."

This memo is the mother of all smoking guns.

Why isn't Bush in the dock?

Has American democracy failed at home?

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: pcroberts@postmark.net

Impeach Bush?

Rep. Congressman: Impeach Bush For Violating Constitution - Not Partisan Payback
Says American Union is bellwether for world government

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | July 10 2006

Republican Congressman Ron Paul says President Bush has presided over a doctrine of violating the Constitution at every turn and that he should be impeached - but that likely Democratic efforts to do so will be in the interests of playing politics and not the health of the nation.

During an interview with Alex Jones on the GCN Radio network, Paul outlined the likely scenario as to how impeachment proceedings would unfold.

"I'd be surprised if they win both - I think they're going to win one body and if they win the House right now they do not say they would have an impeachment but I think the way that place operates I think they probably will make every effort," said Paul.

"If they happened to have a ten or fifteen vote margin that would be a political thing - it would be payback time."

Paul said that Bush should be impeached not under the umbrella of partisan vengeance but for ceaselessly breaking the laws of the land.

"I would have trouble arguing that he's been a Constitutional President and once you violate the Constitution and be proven to do that I think these people should be removed from office."

Opining that the US had entered a period of "soft fascism," Paul noted that the legacy of the Bush administration has been the total abandonment of Constitutional principles.

"Congress has generously ignored the Constitution while the President flaunts it, the courts have ignored it and they get in the business of legislating so there's no respect for the rule of law." said Paul.

"When the Presidents signs all these bills and then adds statements after saying I have no intention of following it - he's in a way signing it and vetoing - so in his mind he's vetoing a lot of bills, in our mind under the rule of law he hasn't vetoed a thing."

Asked what the ultimate agenda was behind the American Union and the push on behalf of the Bush administration to homogenize the US with Mexico and Canada, Paul was clear in his response.

"I think the goal is one world government - we have not only the U.N. - we have the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, then we have all the subsidiaries like NAFTA and hemispheric governments, highways coming in."

"I just hope and pray that we can wake up enough people," said Paul, noting that Texans in his own backyard were more aware of Bush selling out the country for an American Union than anyone in Washington.

The PATRIOT Act Abuses the Constitution A Threat to Liberty By Rep. RON PAUL

The USA PATRIOT Act and Terrorism Prevention Act (HR 3199) in no way brings the PATRIOT Act into compliance with the Constitution or allays concerns that the powers granted to the government in the act will be used to abuse the rights of the people. Much of the discussion surrounding this bill has revolved around the failure of the bill to extend the sunset clauses.

However, simply sunsetting troublesome provisions does not settle the debates around the PATRIOT Act. If the PATRIOT Act is constitutional and needed, as its proponents swear, why include sunset provisions at all? If it is unconstitutional and pernicious, why not abolish it immediately?

The sunset clauses do perform one useful service in that they force Congress to regularly re-examine the PATRIOT Act. As the people's representatives, it is our responsibility to keep a close eye on the executive branch to ensure it does not abuse its power. Even if the claims of HR 3199's supporters that there have been no abuses of PATRIOT Act powers under this administration are true, that does not mean that future administrations will not abuse these powers.

HR 3199 continues to violate the constitution by allowing searches and seizures of American citizens and their property without a warrant issued by an independent court upon a finding of probable cause. The drafters of the Bill of Rights considered this essential protection against an overreaching government. For example, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, popularly known as the library provision, allows Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts, whose standards hardly meet the constitutional requirements of the Fourth Amendment, to issue warrants for individual records, including medical and library records. HR 3199 does reform this provision by clarifying that it can be used to acquire the records of an American citizen only during terrorist investigations. However, this marginal change fails to bring the section up to the constitutional standard of probable cause.

Requiring a showing of probable cause before a warrant may be issued will in no way hamper terrorist investigations. For one thing, federal authorities still would have numerous tools available to investigate and monitor the activities of non-citizens suspected of terrorism. Second, restoring the Fourth Amendment protections would in no way interfere with the provisions of the PATRIOT Act removing the firewalls that prevented the government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies from sharing information.

The probable cause requirements will not delay a terrorist investigation. Preparations can be made for the issuance of a warrant in the event of an emergency, and allowances can be made for cases where law enforcement does not have time to obtain a warrant. In fact, a requirement that law enforcement demonstrate probable cause may help law enforcement focus their efforts on true threats, thus avoiding the problem of information overload that is handicapping the government's efforts to identify sources of terrorist financing.

The requirement that law enforcement demonstrate probable cause before a judge preserves the Founders' system of checks and balances that protects against one branch gathering too much power. The Founders recognized that one of the chief dangers to liberty was the concentration of power in a few hands, which is why they carefully divided power among the three branches. I would remind those of my colleagues who claim that we must set aside the constitutional requirements during war that the founders were especially concerned about the consolidation of power during times of war and national emergences. My colleagues should also keep in mind that PATRIOT Act powers have already been used in non-terrorism related cases, most notably in a bribery investigation in Nevada.

HR 3199 does take some positive steps toward restoring respect for constitutional liberties and checks and balances that the original PATRIOT Act stripped away. However, it still leaves in place large chunks of legislation that threaten individual liberty by giving law enforcement power to snoop into American citizens' lives without adequate oversight. This power is unnecessary to effectively fight terrorism.

Ron Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas.

On Imperialistic Corporatism

Former (unfortunately) Congressman Jack Metcalf (WA) made the following speech from the floor of the House in 2000. He and Ron Paul are two of the few who really see who are the REAL masters in our government and exactly why they engineer the "crises" we have been experiencing in the past few years.

In the speech he explains in detail the agenda of those who really run things and why they do what they do---this explains the Patriot Act/Homeland Security Act/FISA to a tee. Read and understand. (Editor)

[Congressional Record: September 26, 2000 (House)][Page H8195-H8197]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov][DOCID:cr26se00-116]

THREATS TO OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf)
is recognized for the remaining time until midnight.

Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken before on the absolute
necessity of maintaining U.S. sovereignty in every area stated by our
Constitution. We must be ever alert to threats to our sovereignty. That
is our responsibility and it is the theme of my message tonight.

During 1969, C.P. Kindelberger wrote that, ``The nation-state is just about through as an economic unit.'' He added, ``The world is too small. Two-hundred thousand ton tank and ore carriers and airbuses and the like will not permit sovereign independence of the nation-state in economic affairs.''

Before that, Emile Durkheim stated, ``The corporations are to become the elementary division of the State, the fundamental political unit. They will efface the distinction between public and private, dissect the Democratic citizenry into discrete functional groupings which are no longer capable of joint political action.'' Durkheim went so far as to proclaim that through corporations' scientific rationality

[[Page H8196]]

``will achieve its rightful standing as the creator of collective
reality.''

There is little question that part of these two statements are accurate. America has seen its national sovereignty slowly diffused over a growing number of international governing organizations, that is IGOs. The WTO, the World Trade Organization, is just the latest in a long line of such developments that began right after World War II. But as the protest in Seattle against the WTO ministerial meeting made clear, the democratic citizenry seems well prepared for joint political action.

Though it has been pointed out that many protesters did not know what the WTO was and much of the protest itself entirely missed the mark regarding WTO culpability in many areas proclaimed, yet this remains a question of education and it is the responsibility of the citizen's representatives, that is us, to begin this process of education.

We may not entirely agree with the former head of the Antitrust Commission Division of the U.S. Justice Department, Thurman Arnold, 1938 to 1943, when he stated that, ``The United States had developed two coordinating governing classes: The one called `business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other called `government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world, it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine.''

But surely the advocate of corporate governance today, housed quietly and efficiently in the corridors of power at the WTO, the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank, clearly they believe.

Corporatism as ideology, and it is an ideology; as John Ralston Saul recently referred to it as, a hijacking of first our terms, such as individualism and then a hijacking of western civilization. The result being the portrait of a society addicted to ideologies. A civilization tightly held at this moment in the embrace of a dominant ideology: Corporatism.

As we find our citizenry affected by this ideology and its consequences, consumerism, the overall effects on the individual are passivity and conformity in those areas that matter, and nonconformity in those which do not.

We do know more than ever before just how we got here. The WTO is a creature of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT, which began in 1948 its quest for a global regime of economic interdependence. By 1972, some Members of Congress saw the handwriting on the wall and realized that it was a forgery.

Senator Long, while chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, made these comments to Dr. Henry Kissinger regarding the completion and prepared signing of the Kennedy Round of the GATT accords: ``If we trade away American jobs and farmers' incomes for some vague concept of a new international order, the American people will demand from their elected representatives a new order of their own which puts their jobs, their security, and their incomes above the priorities of those who dealt them a bad deal.''

But we know that few listened, and 20 years later the former chairman of the International Trade Commission argued that it was the Kennedy Round that began the slow decline in America's living standards. Citing statistics in his point regarding the loss of manufacturing jobs and the like, he concluded with what must be seen as a warning:

``The . . . Uruguay Round and the promise of the North American Trade
Agreement all may mesmerize and motivate Washington policymakers, but
in the American heartland those initiatives translate as further
efforts to promote international order at the expense of existing
American jobs.''

Mr. Speaker, we are still not listening very well. Certainly, the ideologists of corporatism cannot hear us. They in fact are pressing the same ideological stratagem in the journals that matter, like Foreign Affairs and the books coming out of the elite think tanks and nongovernmental organizations. One such author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, proclaimed her rather self-important opinion that state sovereignty was little more than a status symbol and something to be attained now through transgovernmental participation. That would be presumably achieved through the WTO, for instance? Not likely.

Steven Krasner in the volume, International Rules, goes into more detail by explaining global regimes as functioning attributes of world order: Environmental regimes, financial regimes, and, of course, trade regimes.

``In a world of sovereign states, the basic function of regimes is to coordinate state behavior to acquire desired outcomes in particular issue areas . . . If, as many have argued, there is a general movement toward a world of complex interdependence, then the number of areas in which regimes can matter is growing.''

But we are not here speaking of changes within an existing regime whereby elected representatives of free people make adjustments to new technologies, new ideas, and further the betterment of their people. The first duty of the elected representatives is to look out for their constituency. The WTO is not changes within the existing regime, but an entirely new regime. It has assumed an unprecedented degree of American sovereignty over the economic regime of the Nation and the world.

Then who are the sovereigns? Is it the people, the ``nation'' in nation-state? I do not believe so. I would argue who governs rules. Who rules is sovereign.

And the people of America and their elected representatives do not rule nor govern at WTO, but corporate diplomats. Who are these new sovereigns? Maybe we can get a clearer picture by looking at what the WTO is in place to accomplish.

{time} 2340

I took an interest in an article in Foreign Affairs, a New Trade Order by Cowhey and Aronson. Foreign investment flows are only about 10 percent of the size of the world trade flows each year, but intrafirm statements, for example, sales by Ford Europe to Ford USA, now accounts for up to an astonishing 40 percent of all U.S. trade.

This complex interdependence we hear of every day inside the beltway is nothing short of miraculous according to the policymakers that are mesmerized by all this, but clearly the interdependence is less between people of the nation-states than people between the corporations of the corporate states.

Richard O'Brien in his book titled Global Financial Integration: The End of Geography states the case this way. The firm is far less wedded to the idea of geography. Ownership is more and more international and global, divorced from national definitions. If one marketplace can no longer provide a service or an attractive location to carry our transactions, then the firm will actively seek another home. At the level of the firm, therefore, there are plenty of choices of geography.

O'Brien seems unduly excited when he adds the glorious end-of-geography prospect for the close of this century is the emergence of a seamless global financial market.

Mr. Speaker, barriers will be gone, services will be global, the world economy will benefit and so, too, presumably the consumer. Presumably? Again, I think not.

Counter to this ideological slant, and it is ideological, O'Brien notes the fact that governments are the very embodiment of geography, representing the nation-state. The end of geography is, in many respects, all about the end or diminution of sovereignty.

In a rare find, a French author published a book titled The End of Democracy. Jean-Marie Guehenno has served in a number of posts for the French Government including their ambassador to the European Union. He suggests this period we live in is an Imperial Age. The imperial age is an age of diffuse and continuous violence. There will no longer be any territory to defend, but only order, operating methods, to protect. And this abstract security is infinitely more difficult to ensure than that of a world in which the geography commanded history. Neither rivers nor
ocean protect the delegate mechanisms of the imperial age from a menace as multiform as the empire itself. The empire itself? Whose empire? In whose interests?

Political analyst Craig B. Hulet in his book titled Global Triage: Imperium in Imperio refers to this new global regime as imperium in imperio or

[[Page H8197]]

power within a power, a state within a state. His theory proposes that these new sovereigns are nothing short of this: they represent the power not of the natural persons which make up the nations' peoples, nor of their elected representatives, but the power of the legal, paper-person recognized in law. The corporations themselves are, then, the new sovereigns. And in their efforts to be treated in law as equals to the citizens of each separate state, they call this national treatment, they would travel the sea and wherever they land ashore they would be the citizens here and there. Not even the privateers of old would have dared impose this concept upon the nation-states.

Mr. Speaker, can we claim to know today what this rapid progress of global transformation will portend for democracy here at home? We understand the great benefits of past progress. We are not Luddites here. We know what refrigeration can do for a child in a poor country, what clean water means everywhere to everyone, what free communication has already achieved. But are we going to unwittingly sacrifice our sovereignty on the altar of this new God, progress? Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork?

Can we claim to know today what this rapid progress of global transformation will portend for national sovereignty here at home? We protect our way of life; our children's futures; our workers jobs; our security at home, by measures often not unlike our airports are protected from pistols on planes, but self-interested ideologies, private greed and private power? Bad ideas escape our mental detectors.

We seem to be radically short of leadership where this active participation in the process of diffusing America's power over to, and into, the private global monopoly, capitalist regime, today pursued without questioning its basis at all.

An empire represented not just by the WTO, but clearly this new regime is the core ideological success for corporatism.

The only step remaining, according to Harvard professor Paul Krugman, is the finalization of a completed multilateral agreement on investment which fails at the OECD. According to OECD, the agreement's actual success may come through, not a treaty this time, but arrangements within corporate governance itself, quietly being hashed out at the IMF and the World Bank as well as the OECD. In other words, just going around the normal way to accomplish things. We are not yet the united corporations of America, or are we?

The WTO needs to be scrutinized carefully, debated with hearings and public participation where possible. We can, of course, as author Christopher Lasch notes, peer inward at ourselves as well when he argued the history of the 20th century suggests that totalitarian regimes are highly unstable, evolving towards some type of bureaucracy that fits neither the classic fascist nor the socialist model. None of
this means that the future will be safe for democracy, only that the threat to democracy comes less from totalitarian or collective movements abroad than from the erosion of its psychological cultural and spiritual foundations from within.

Mr. Speaker, are we not witness to, though, the growth of a global bureaucracy being created, not out of totalitarian or collectivist movements but from autocratic corporations which hold so many lives in their balance? And where shall we redress our grievances when the regime completes its global transformations? When the people of each nation and their state find that they can no longer identify their rulers, their true rulers.

When it is no longer their state which rules?

The most recent U.N. development report documents how globalization has increased in equality between and within nations while bringing them together as never before.

Some are referring to this globalization's dark side, like Jay Mazur recently in Foreign Affairs, and I am quoting him, ``a world in which the assets of the 200 richest people are greater than the combined income of the more than 2 billion people at the other end of the economic ladder should give everyone pause. Such islands of
concentrated wealth in the sea of misery have historically been a prelude to upheaval. The vast majority of trade and investment takes place between industrial nations, dominated by global corporations that control a third of the world's exports. Of the 100 largest economies of the world, 51 are corporations.''

With further mergers and acquisitions in the future, with no end in sight, those of us that are awake must speak up now, or is it that we just cannot see at all: believing in our current speculative bubble, which nobody credible believes which can be sustained much longer, we miss the growing anger, fear and frustration of our people; believing in the myths of our policy priests pass on, we miss the dissatisfaction of our workers; believing in the god progress, we have lost our vision.

Another warning, this time from Ethan Kapstein in his article Workers and the World Economy of the Foreign Affairs Magazine, while the world stands at a critical time in post war history, it has a group of leaders who appear unwillingly, like their predecessors in the 1930s, to provide the international leadership to meet the economic dislocations.

{time} 2350

Worse, many of them and their economic advisors do not seem to recognize the profound troubles affecting their societies. Like the German elite in Weimar, they dismiss mounting worker dissatisfaction, fringe political movements, and the plight of the unemployed and working poor as marginal concerns compared with the unquestioned importance of a sound currency and balanced budget. Leaders need to recognize their policy failures of the last 20 years and respond accordingly. If they do not respond, there are others waiting in the wings who will, perhaps on less pleasant terms.

We ought to be looking very closely at where the new sovereigns intend to take us. We need to discuss the end they have in sight. It is our responsibility and our duty.

Most everyone today agrees that socialism is not a threat. Many feel that communism, even in China, is not a threat. Indeed, there are few real security threats to America that could compare to even our recent past.

Be that as it may, when we speak of a global market economy, free enterprise, massage the terms to merge with managed competition and planning authorities, all the while suggesting we have met the hidden hand and it is good, we need also to recall what Adam Smith said, but which is rarely quoted:

``Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbors and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination because it is usual and, one may say, the natural state of things. . . . Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink wages of labor even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution. . . .''

Thus, now precisely whose responsibility is it to keep an eye on our masters? That is the question we need to think about.

"You can go your own way" by Dan Phillips

Dan Phillips has an excellent offering on the Team Pyro website @ http://teampyro.blogspot.com/

Our Men's Fellowship is going through R. K. Law's version of John Owen's Communion with God (Banner of Truth: 1991). Law breaks up Owen's complex, involved sentences, leaves out the Greek and Hebrew excursions, and updates the language to a degree. Some of us try to stay up to speed while reading both versions.

Last Saturday two passages in particular struck me. I shared the first in "Somebody up there must like me"? This is the second.

The great John Owen, once again almost in passing, wrote this in part two, chapter three, digression two of Communion with God:

It was but to leave them inexcusable, that his power and wrath against sin might be manifested in their destruction. And therefore he calls it “a suffering of them to walk in their own ways,” Acts 14:16; which elsewhere he holds out as a most dreadful judgement, — to wit, in respect of that issue whereto it will certainly come; as Psalm 81:12, “I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lusts, and they walked in their own counsels:” which is as dreadful a condition as a creature is capable of falling into in this world.

Here's Law's update:

Therefore God allowed "them to walk in their own ways," which is shown to be a most dreadful judgment (Acts 14:16; Psa. 81:12). To be given up to our own heart's lusts and to be left to walk according to our own ideas is as dreadful a condition as a creature is capable of falling into in this world.

This absolutely arrested me, as we worked through it together last Saturday. I saw here, in the boldest terms, the colossal chasm dividing men in Adam from men in Christ.

I saw two men standing before God. God says to both: "Go your own way."

The first man leaps to his feet with a surprised, happy shout. "All right!" he cries. "Now that is exactly what I wanted to hear!" He dances a gleeful little victory-dance, then shoots out of God's presence faster than Satan heading off to do Job misery. You can hear his joyous laughter and whoops of delight fading in the distance.

But at the very same moment, the second man also leaps up. "Oh, dear God, no! No, God, no -- anything but that! Have mercy, Lord! Do anything, but don't leave me to myself!"

Autonomy. It is the essence of Hell, it is sin's direst judgment, it is the Christian's most horrifying fear. Left to oneself, left to go one's own way.

The rebel imagines that he knows what is best for himself. He believes in his passions, his drives, his notions. The word of his viscera and glands is the word of his god. Anything that opposes his will is his enemy; anything that would thwart him or frustrate him, or force consequences upon him, is his sworn foe.

And his chief foe is God. Because "joy" to him is unbridled autonomy, unfettered self-will, God truly is a "cosmic killjoy."

Charnock (Existence and Attributes of God, 1:142), says it wonderfully well:

God cannot outlive his will and his glory: because he cannot have any other rule but his own will, or any other end but his own honor. The setting up self as our end puts a nullity upon the true Deity; by paying to ourselves that respect and honor which is due to God, we make the true God as no God. Whosoever makes himself a king of his prince's rights and territories, manifests an intent to throw him out of his government. To choose ourselves as our end is to undeify God, since to be the last end of a rational creature is a right inseparable from the nature of the Deity; and therefore not to set God, but self always before us, is to acknowledge no being but ourselves to be God.

The sinner's very image of Paradise is the saint's vision of Hell. He knows what is in his heart. He knows that, left to himself and given the proper drives and opportunities, there is literally no sin, no degradation, no depth of depravity, of which he is truly incapable. He knows his heart to be "the laboratory of evil," as Bridges remarks on Proverbs 6:14. He knows the "way" in which his heart would ultimately lead him (Proverbs 14:12). And he has learned that the "way" of God is a way of ultimate, true delight and joy (Psalm 1; 16:11; Proverbs 4:18; Matthew 7:14; John 14:6).

The rebel's greatest fear is that he would be denied the desires of his heart. The saint's is that he would be abandoned to his.

Were God to offer the option, the first would bellow "Yes!", even as the other screamed "No!"

And this, at bottom, is the stark demarcation between the heart left to itself, and the heart made alive by the sovereign grace of God in Jesus Christ (Romans 1:18-32; Ephesians 2:1ff.).

Dear God, whatever You do, don't let us go our own way.

FISA and The Patriot Act

For a good discussion and to vote your opinion on this issue go to:

http://www.sharperiron.org/showthread.php?t=3081

Create a problem---solve a problem?

This came to me via email today from the Patriot Post---how appropriate!

“Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of ‘emergency’. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And ‘emergency’ became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.” —Herbert Hoover

Re: FISA and The Patriot Act Do Violate the Constitution

George the V (GWB) has many strange ideas regarding the Constitution and the safeguards of our civil liberties. It is amazing how similar his ideas are to those of the radical fascism that was epitomized by both Hitler and Mussolini. Corporate fascism by any other name is still fascism. The President's recent public statements (and his Administration's public statements) regarding his orders to secretly surveil telephone and email conversations without court order or finding of probable cause have landed him and his Administration in hot water.

Amazingly, there is a federal judge who is not afraid to call FISA and the Patriot Act what they are: acts of tyranny.

To see the memorandum and order recently rendered by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor go to:

http://www.aclu.org/
images/nsaspying/asset_upload_file689_26477.pdf

And from the ruling by Judge Taylor:

"As Justice Warren wrote in U.S. v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967):

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending
those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would
indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would
sanction the subversion of . . . those liberties . . . which makes the
defense of the Nation worthwhile. Id. at 264."

James Madison had something very relevant to say regarding this discussion as well:

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." THE FEDERALIST NO. 47, at 301 (James Madison).

RR for the War on Iraq

Yet another article from the Baltimore Chronicle:

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/021406Wellen.html

Lebanon: Why Bomb Haifa?

Attached is an article and pictures of a new military base in Israel---near Haifa. It is U.S. military base----could this be a reason why things are happening in Lebanon and Israel?

American Imperialism marches on!

http://www.thegoldenreport.com/asp/jerrysnewsmanager/
anmviewer.asp?a=928&print=yes

The Real Reason for the War in Iraq

Take a look----it's all about geopolitical economic control, guys.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

Here is the Synopsis:

Synopsis

It would appear that any attempt by OPEC member states in the Middle East or Latin America to transition to the euro as their oil transaction currency standard shall be met with either overt U.S. military actions or covert U.S. intelligence agency interventions. Under the guise of the perpetual `war on terror' the Bush administration is manipulating the American people about the unspoken but very real macroeconomic reasons for this upcoming war with Iraq. This war in Iraq will not be based on any threat from Saddam's old WMD program, or from terrorism. This war will be over the global currency of oil. A war intended to prevent oil from being priced in euros.

Sadly, the U.S. has become largely ignorant and complacent. Too many of us are willing to be ruled by fear and lies, rather than by persuasion and truth. Will we allow our government to initiate the dangerous `pre-emptive doctrine' by waging an unpopular war in Iraq, while we refuse to acknowledge that Saddam does not pose an imminent threat to the United States? Furthermore, we seem unable to address the structural imbalances in our economy due to massive debt manipulation, unaffordable 2001 tax cuts, record levels of trade deficits, unsustainable credit expansion, corporate accounting abuses, near zero personal savings, record personal indebtedness, and our reliance and over consumption of Middle Eastern oil.

Regardless of whatever Dr. Blix finds or does not find in Iraq regarding WMD, it appears that President Bush is determined to pursue his `pre-emptive' imperialist war to secure a large portion of the earth's remaining hydrocarbons, and ultimately use Iraq's underutilized oil to destroy the OPEC cartel. Will this gamble work? That remains to be seen. However, the history of warfare is replete with unintended consequences. It is plausible that the aftermath of the Iraq war and a U.S. occupation of Iraq could increase Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorism against U.S. targets, or more likely create guerilla warfare in a post-war Iraq. Moreover, continued U.S. unilateralism could create economic retribution from the international community or OPEC.

The question we as Americans must ask -- Can the US military control by force all oil-producing nations and dictate their oil export transaction currency? In brief, the answer is no. Will we forfeit any pretense of practicing free-market capitalism while we enforce a military command economy for global oil transactions? Is it morally defensible to deploy our brave but naïve young soldiers around the globe to enforce U.S. dollar hegemony for global oil transactions via the barrels of their guns? Will we allow imperialist conquest of the Middle East to feed our excessive oil consumption, while ignoring the duplicitous overthrowing of a democratically elected government in Latin America? Is it acceptable for a U.S. President to threaten military force upon OPEC nation state(s) because of their sovereign choice of currency regarding their oil exports? I concur with Dr. Peter Dale Scott's sentiments on this question:

". . . hopefully decent Americans will protest the notion that it is appropriate to rain missiles and bombs upon civilians of another country, who have had little or nothing to do with this (financial) crisis of America's own making."

"A multilateral approach to these core problems is the only way to proceed. The US is strong enough to dominate the world militarily. Economically it is in decline, less and less competitive, and increasingly in debt. The Bush peoples' intention appears to be to override economic realities with military ones, as if there were no risk of economic retribution. They should be mindful of Britain's humiliating retreat from Suez in 1956, a retreat forced on it by the United States as a condition for propping up the failing British pound. [25]

Lastly, how can we effectively thwart the threat of international Al Qaeda terrorism if we alienate so many of our European allies?

Paradoxically, this administration's flawed economic policies and belligerent foreign policies may hasten the outcome they hope to prevent -- further OPEC momentum towards the euro. Furthermore, using U.S. military and/or the threat of force is a rather unwieldy instrument for Geostrategy, and as such it is unlikely to indefinitely thwart some OPEC members from acting on their `internal discussions' regarding a switch to euros. Informed U.S. patriots realize this administration's failed economic policies in conjunction with their militant Imperialist overreach is proving not only detrimental to our international stature, but also threatens our economy and civil liberties. Thus, remaining silent is not only misguided, but false patriotism. We must not stand silent and watch our country continue these imperialist policies. The US must not become an isolated `rogue' superpower, relying on brute force, thereby motivating other nations to abandon the dollar standard -- and with the mere stroke of a pen -- slay our superpower status?

This need not be our fate. When will we demand that our government begin the long and difficult journey towards energy conservation, development of renewable energy sources, and sustained balanced budgets to allow real deficit reduction? When will we repeal the clearly unaffordable 2001 tax cuts to facilitate a balanced fiscal budget, enforce corporate accounting laws, and substantially reinvest in our manufacturing and export sectors to gradually but earnestly move our economy from a trade account deficit position back into a trade account surplus position?

Indeed, over the last two decades, the significant loss of U.S. manufacturing capability to foreign competition has adversely affected our ability to maintain a sustainable economy. The "New Economy" paradigm of the 1990s has created a false `service sector economy' that simply cannot sustain the U.S.'s economic and military power status in a competitive globalized economy. Undoubtedly, we must make these and many more difficult structural changes to our economy if we are to restore and maintain our international "safe harbor" investment status.

Furthermore, it would seem imperative that our government begins discussions with the G7 nations to reform the global monetary system. We must adopt our economy to accommodate the inevitable ascendance of the euro as an alternative international reserve currency. I concur with those enlightened economists who recommend the U.S. begin the process of convening the next `Bretton Woods Conference.' The U.S. government should compromise and agree to the euro becoming the next international reserve currency. A compromise on the euro/oil issues via a multilateral treaty with a gradual phase-in of a dual-OPEC currency transaction standard seems inevitable. It would also seem prudent to investigate a third `Asia bloc' of the Yen/Yuan as reserve currency options to give balance to the global monetary system.

While these multilateral reforms may lower our excessive oil consumption, force the US government to engage in fiscally responsible policies, and reduce some of our global military presence, perhaps these adjustments could also reduce some of the animosity towards U.S. foreign policies. Secondly, it is hoped such reforms could improve the quality of our lives, and that of our children by motivating the U.S. to finally become more energy efficient. Creating balanced domestic fiscal polices, rebuilding alliances with the E.U./world community and energy reform are in the long-term national security interests of the U.S. Global Peak oil is a challenge to humanity itself, and will require an unprecedented amount of international cooperation and coordination to overcome this history-making event. Furthermore, global monetary reform is not only necessary, but could mitigate future armed or economic warfare over oil, ultimately fostering a more stable, safer, and prosperous global economy in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, the proposed multilateral conference on monetary reform and energy reform is viewed as abhorrent to the current neoconservative movement, which is premised upon the US as the "Pre-eminent" global Empire. [26] Even a cursory reading of the neoconservative agenda as outlined in the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) policy document illustrates their idealistic goal is US global dominance -- both militarily and economically. Indeed, the Bush administration's entrenched political ideology appears quite incompatible with multilateral economic reform. The neoconservatives seem to view compromise as antithetical. Ultimately We the People must demand a new administration. We need responsible leaders who are willing to return to balanced budgets, conservative fiscal policies, and to our traditions of engaging in multilateral foreign policies while seeking broad international cooperation.

Equally important, we must bear in mind the wisdom of founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson who insisted that a free press is vital, as it is often the only mechanism to protect democracy. The American people are not aware of the issues outlined in this essay because the US mass media has been reduced to approximately six large media conglomerates that filter 90% of the information that flows within the U.S. Sadly, part of today's dilemma lays not only within Congress but also a handful of elitist, imperialist-oriented media conglomerates that have failed in their Constitutional obligations to inform the People. Critical information about the Iraq war was only available via the Internet, which should not be our only source of real, unfiltered news.

Finally, despite the media reporting otherwise, the current wave of `global anti-Americanism' is not against the American people or against American values -- but against the hypocrisy of militant American Imperialism. I respectfully submit the current polices of the neoconservative movement as expressed through various PNAC documents, their manipulation of the citizenry through fear, and the application of unilateral U.S. military force is treasonous not only to the American Public, but incompatible to the very fundamental principles that founded our nation.

It has been said that the vast majority of wars are fought over resources and economics, and even so-called "religious wars" usually have economics or access to resources as a hidden motive. The Iraq war is no different from other modern wars except it appears to usher in `oil currency' as a new paradigm for warfare. However, the world community may not tolerate an imperialist U.S. Hyper-Power that ignores International Law while using military force to conquer sovereign nations. Indeed, the facts suggest additional oil-producing nation states will eventually exercise their sovereign right by pricing their oil exports in euros instead of dollars.

I will reiterate the fundamental issue facing our country -- Can the US military and intelligence agencies control the governments in all oil-producing nations -- as well as their oil export currencies? In brief, the answer is no. The question becomes how many countries will we allow our government to overthrow under the false pretext of the next "war on terror?" Additionally, how much international "blowback" against the US and its citizens would such a Geostrategy create? Likewise, if President Bush pursues an unprovoked and basically unilateral war against Iraq, the historians will not be kind to him or his administration. Their agenda is clear to the world community, but when will US patriots become cognizant of their modus operandi?

"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

-- Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

(Revisited - The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq:
A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth
by William Clark)

What is Going on in Lebanon?---No, Really!

My sister's husband is from Lebanon just north of Beirut. (For obvious reasons I will not divulge the town at this point.) His family still lives there though currently not exactly in their home---they live out doors.

My brother-in-law comes from a very old Maronite Catholic family who treasure each other in a way that only those from the Middle East really understand. Right now, it is hard for him to speak with his family as the telephone lines are not always available for obvious reasons.

The view from his non-Muslim perspective is something quite different than most Americans really want to hear about---but I think we should. The black out in our media here in America as compared to other national news services around the globe is really a frightening indication of just how deep the corruption and control in this country goes.

V for Vendetta comes to mind.

I am, in the next few days, going to attempt to communicate this other viewpoint since the American media has iced the coverage to obey its master.

Pray for my brother-in-law's family. They have personally suffered the ravaging of both Israeli and Muslim combatants----and you might be surprised who is the greater agressor.

More news coming your way.

Who REALLY knows God?---and How do you know?

The Bible records for us what it is that happens when men and women meet the God of the Bible as revealed in the Covenant and demonstrated in Jesus Christ. There are certain things that happen that appear to be normative when this encounter occurs.

If our experience does not match the normative as recorded in the Scriptures, is it not incumbent upon us to evaluate our experience as compared to the Biblical norm?

In other words, when the God of the Bible encounters men and women He does so in a very specific and predictable manner. The Tabernacle system reveals in the mind of God how it is that men and women may approach and know Him. There is no variation in His requirements.

If we were under the OT sacrificial system, before we ever brought a sacrifice to the Tabernacle or Temple, certain things would necessarily have had to occur in our minds and hearts. I do not believe that anyone would bring an animal, present it to the priest, have a priest hand them a blade, and then each sacrifice bringer cut the throat of that animal and watch it die in his place, without some kind of previous instruction as to the reasons why. You have to admit, it was a pretty gruesome event to take part in without understanding why and having some conviction that what was being done was true.

The mistake we make, well, one of them, is to suppose that the basis for the New Covenant is anything less than it was for the Old Covenant: We actually must bring the Lamb, "cut its throat" and offer it in our behalf still. Unfortunately, we have attempted to divest the declaration of the gospel of all of its "gruesomeness." In so doing, we present another gospel and another Christ. This may be the beginnings of the explanation of the disparity between the experience of our predecessors in the faith and our experience today. The implication of course, is that we may not have encountered the God of the Bible on His terms and no redemptive transaction actually occurred.

I know that sounds harsh. But when men and women encounter the God of the Bible He implants within them Himself, His Life, and there are certain things which are inevitable when that occurs. An orange tree produces oranges because it has "orange tree life" within it. It's inevitable because of the kind of life within the orange tree.

So it is with the Christian. Certain things are inevitable. And if these things are not evidenced, well, "By their fruit ye shall know them."

We come to Him on His terms or we do not come at all. Attempting to gain access to God through the wall surrounding the Tabernacle rather than through the entrance He has established is certain death. It is also called Religion.