November 20, 2011
November 20, 2011
Alien Nation by Peter Brimelow 
Europe's Complicity in Evil
[An address by Hon.
Paul Craig Roberts,
Ph.D., Chevalier, Legion d'Honneur,
to
Mut zur Ethik
Conference,
"Sovereignty or Imperialism," Feldkirch, Austria, September 5,
2009]
There
is a widespread supposition that
Obama,
being black and a member of an oppressed race, will
imbue US foreign policy with a higher morality than the
world experienced from Bush and Clinton. This is a
delusion.
Obama
represents the same ideology of American
"exceptionalism" as other
recent presidents. This ideology designates the
United States as The Virtuous Nation and supplies the
basis for the belief that America has the right, indeed
the responsibility, to impose its hegemony upon the
world by bribery or by force. The claim of
American exceptionalism produces a form of patriotism
that blinds the US population to the immorality of
America's wars of aggression.
Nothing is any different under Obama. Obama has
escalated war in Afghanistan; started a new war in
Pakistan; tolerated or supported a military coup that
overthrew the elected president of Honduras; is
constructing 7 new US military bases in Colombia, South
America; is going forward with various military projects
designed to secure US global military hegemony, such as
the
Prompt Global Strike initiative
that
intends to provide the US with the capability to strike
anywhere on earth within 60 minutes; is working to
destabilize the government in Iran, with military attack
still on the table as an option; supports America's new
military African Command; intends to encircle
Russia with US bases
in former constituent parts of the Soviet Union; has
suborned NATO troops as mercenaries in US wars of
aggression.
How
should Europe react?
Europe should disassociate from the United States and go
into active opposition to US foreign policy.
Europeans should demand that their governments withdraw
from NATO as it serves no European interest. The two
aggressive militarist powers, the US and Israel, should
be sanctioned by the UN and embargoed.
Instead, Europe is complicit in US and Israeli war
crimes.
Because of the Cold War, Europe is accustomed to
following US leadership. The financial convenience
of the shelter provided by US military power negated
independent European foreign policies. In effect,
Western European countries became US puppet states.
How
does Europe escape from a subservient relationship of
many decades? Not easily. The US is
accustomed to calling the shots and reacts harshly when
it meets opposition. For example, French opposition to
Bush's invasion of Iraq brought about
instant demonization
of France by the US media and members of Congress.
The
US government uses financial sanctions and threatened
leaks of sensitive personal information gathered by its
worldwide spy networks to discipline any
independent-minded European leader.
Europe is essentially captive and forced to put US
interests ahead of its own. Consequently, unless
Europeans find their courage and discard their servile
status, Europe will be badgered into more wars and
eventually led into a devastating war with Russia.
One European country can do little, but concerted action
would be effective. For example, why do not
Europeans protest that the war criminal Tony Blair was
given
a post in the EU?
The
Obama administration's attitude towards
self-determination and the sovereignty of the people is
that these grand-sounding concepts are useful platitudes
with which to mask the hegemonic interests of the US
government. US money and propaganda foment
"velvet" or
"color"
revolutions that turn more countries into American
puppet states.
The
platitudes are useful also to disguise the overthrow of
US civil liberties, such as habeas corpus,
due
process,
and prohibitions against torture and pre-emptive arrest.
During the Cold War era, one of the mainstays of US
propaganda against the Soviet Union was the inability of
Soviet citizens to travel within their country without
the government's permission. This indignity has
now been inflicted upon US citizens. As of September,
2009, US citizens can no longer travel within their
country by air without the permission of the Transport
Security Administration.
The
Obama administration has adopted the Bush
administration's search procedures. Under these rules
travelers' computers, cell phones, and other devices can
be seized for searches that can take up to 30 days.
If you are on your way to a meeting and your
presentation is on your computer and your contacts'
numbers are on your cell phone, you are out of luck.
"Terrorist threat"
is the excuse for these Gestapo practices.
However, there have been no domestic acts of terrorism
in 8 years. The few
"plots" that
led to arrests were all instigated by FBI agents in
order to keep the nonexistent threat alive in the
public's mind. Yet, despite any real terrorist threat
the police state continues to gain ground. Considering
the extent of America's oppression of peoples abroad,
one would expect much more blowback than has occurred,
assuming that 9/11 was not itself an inside job designed
to provide an excuse for America's wars of aggression in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.
Europe must look beyond the empty American political
rhetoric about "freedom and democracy" and recognize the emerging Brownshirt
American State. Democracy is slipping away from
America. Its place is being taken by an oligarchy
of powerful interest groups, such as the financial
sector, the military/security complex about which
President Eisenhower warned, and
AIPAC.
Political campaign contributions from interest groups
determine the content of US domestic and foreign policy.
A country in which political elites are above the law
and can violate with impunity both laws against torture
and constitutional protections of civil liberties is not
a free country.
American political leaders and the American people need
Europe's help in order to avoid the degeneration of the
American political entity. American freedom, as
well as sovereign independence elsewhere in the world,
require criticisms of US foreign and domestic policies.
The US media, which was concentrated into a few hands
during the Clinton administration, functions as a
Ministry of Propaganda for the government. It was
the New York Times that gave credibility to the
neoconservative
propaganda and forged documents that were used to sell
the invasion of Iraq to the public. It was the
New York Times
that sat for one year on the evidence that the Bush
administration was committing felonies by violating the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It was not
until after Bush was re-elected that the reporter was
able to force his story through editorial opposition.
Americans need criticism from Europe to compensate for
the absence of an independent American media. Americans
need outside help in order to reach an understanding of
the immorality of their government's policies, because
they receive no such help from their own media. Without
Europe's help, Americans cannot regain the spirit of
liberty and tolerance bequeathed to them by their
Founding Fathers. America herself is a victim of
the neoconservative and liberal internationalist pursuit
of US hegemony.
We in
America need to hear many voices telling us that it is
self-defeating to become like an enemy in order to
defeat an enemy. As Germans learned under Hitler and
Russians learned under Stalin, it is the internal
enemy—the unaccountable
elite
that controls a country's government—that is the worst
and most dangerous enemy.
If
America has enemies who are against
"freedom and
democracy," then America herself must make certain
not to sacrifice her own civil liberties, and the
sovereignty of other peoples, to a
"War on Terror."
Acts of terror are a small cost compared to the cost of
the erosion of civil liberties that took centuries to
achieve. Far more people died to achieve liberty
than have died in terrorist attacks.
The
United States cannot pretend to be a guarantor of
liberty when the US government takes away liberty from
its own citizens.
The
United States cannot pretend to be a guarantor of peace
and democracy when the US government uses deception to
attack other lands on false pretences.
Europe, whose culture was wrecked by 20th century
wars, Europe, which has experienced tyranny from the
left-wing and from the right-wing, has a right to its
own voice.
America needs to hear this voice.
Hon.
Paul Craig Roberts was educated at the Georgia Institute
of Technology, the University of Virginia, the
University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford
University where he was a member of Merton College. Dr.
Roberts has held numerous academic appointments,
including Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, and William E. Simon Chair, Center
for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown
University. Dr. Roberts served in the Congressional
Staff in the House and Senate and was appointed
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury by President Ronald
Reagan. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in
1987. Dr. Roberts is author of 'Alienation and the Soviet Economy'
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
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