The current episode of
Star Wars is dynamite for the duplicitous Bush
administration. Palpatine, a Sith Lord masquerading as a
galactic Republican, becomes Chancellor of the Galactic
Republic through deception. Palpatine uses wars that he
instigates to elevate security over the power of the
Senate and to become dictator.
In a moment of triumph, Palpatine
tells the Senate: "In order to ensure our
security and continuing stability, the Republic will be
reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe
and secure society." The senators respond with
sustained cheering and applause.
Padme says, "So this is how liberty dies, with
thunderous applause."
Sith lords use the powers of the
dark side of the force. Jedi knights use the power of
the good side. The Jedi are selfless and use their
incredible powers to protect the Republic. Sith are evil
and crave absolute power.
Palpatine, who is really Darth
Sidious, manipulates the Senate and enlists the Jedi
Council`s patriotism to "defend" the Republic
against a "separatist" army that he secretly
directs. The purpose of the orchestrated war is to erode
liberty in the name of security. The naïve Jedi catch on
too late and are decimated. The Republic falls.
Bush`s "war against terrorism"
is no less orchestrated than Palpatine`s war and has led
to the same result: a society dominated by security
concerns.
The top secret British government
memo that was
leaked to the London Times proves beyond all
doubt that
Bush invaded Iraq for none of the changing reasons
that he has given a too-trusting public. Bush did not
invade Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction or
because he wanted to bring democracy to Iraq.
Why did Bush invade Iraq? No one,
least of all the Bush administration, has come up with a
believable reason. Yet, there is no shortage of
patriotic Republicans who sincerely believe that Bush
has made America safer by turning the Muslim world
against us and stirring up a hornets nest of terrorists
united by their hatred of America.
Moreover, like Palpatine`s war,
Bush`s war in Iraq appears to be interminable. US
military commanders say the US will be fighting in Iraq
for years to come. Forecasts are that the war will have
cost taxpayers $600 billion by 2010.
Meanwhile, Bush, like Palpatine,
has brought civil liberties to a crisis. In the US civil
liberties are everywhere biting the dust. Not content
with the Orwellian-named
"USA PATRIOT Act,"
the Bush administration is pushing for
expanded secret police powers. Even
conservative Republican Bob Barr (Washington
Times, May 17) writes that provisions of the
"Patriot Act" go far beyond fighting terrorism
"and undermine our constitutional freedoms and Fourth
Amendment rights."
Barr is chairman of a coalition,
Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances. In other
words, dear readers, the checks and balances are gone.
Bush has enabled the police to bypass the courts.
Executive power rules, and there are no Jedi knights.
The Sith, however, are everywhere.
In our day the Sith masquerade as neoconservatives.
Neocons deal in absolutes. They believe the end
justifies the means. As the Jedi master Obi-Wan tells
Anakin, who is turning to the dark side and emerging as
Darth Vader, "only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes."
Anakin to Obi-Wan: "If you`re not with me, you`re my
enemy."
Palpatine is able to manipulate the
Galactic Senate with the clever use of words that play
upon emotions. People want to feel secure. They want
their side to prevail and will do whatever it takes to
win, including trading their Republic for an Empire.
Palpatine prevails because people deceive themselves.
Republicans have become adept at
self-deception. They will believe any argument that
justifies Bush and no news report that casts doubt on
Bush`s war. The leaked British government memo is
dismissed as just more anti-Bush propaganda from the
liberal media, like
Dan Rather and
Newsweek.
Newsweek`s retraction of its
story that US soldiers flushed a
Koran down a toilet proves to Republicans that the
only problem is an anti-American liberal media. The fact
that Newsweek was absolutely correct in reporting
desecration of the Koran by US troops—and only got wrong
the particular way in which the holy book was
desecrated—has been totally ignored by Republicans.
Republicans believe everything Bush
says. When he tells them he needs a police state to save
them from terrorists, they believe him.
Who will save us from Bush`s police
state?
Just as
Child Protective Services has had to frame innocent
parents and
child care providers as child abusers in order to
justify its budgets and a massive bureaucracy, the vast
Homeland Security apparatus will have to "find"
terrorists. Otherwise, there is no point to all the
expanded police powers and the huge budget.
Just as the indignities of Airport
Security and its assorted searches fall on loyal
American citizens, the police state measures will also
fall on loyal American citizens.
With the courts bypassed, a
terrorist is whomever the secret police say is a
terrorist. The US government is already committing the
crime of kidnapping people mistakenly identified as
terrorist suspects and flying them to brutal regimes to
be tortured.
Police states have an insatiable
need for enemies. In Stalin`s time, the secret police
conducted "street sweeps." People waiting for buses and
shopping for food were carted off to prison, where they
were tortured until they implicated others. Thus was the
Gulag filled with innocents.
"It can`t happen here," but the beginnings of it
already have. The US prison at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba is full of mistaken identities and people who just
happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time—including, according to the
Associated Press, a chicken farmer and an invalid.
Bush`s brand of democracy—a regime that holds people in
prison for three years without charges—does not have
civil liberties at heart.
Republicans are cheering. According
to news reports Congress has passed—and Bush is about to
sign—a law requiring a national identity card (Real ID)
containing invasive digital information about the
person.
How long will it be before the card
specifies whether the person is a gun owner? If it is
dangerous for air travel to permit a passenger to have a
toothpick or nail clippers, how can a
terrorist-threatened society
permit mass gun ownership?
If the constitutional protections
of civil liberties can be suspended in order to better
fight terrorism, the
Second Amendment doesn`t have a chance. A government
that spies on its citizens will not trust them with
guns. When gun control becomes an essential feature of
Homeland Security, the
National Rifle Association and talk radio
conservatives will be as astounded as Bail Organa and
Padme when they hear Palpatine declare "an empire . .
. and a sovereign ruler chosen for life."
Paul
Craig Roberts, a former Reagan Administration official,
is the author of
The Supply-Side Revolution and, 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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