“Israel, the US, and the Muslim world will continue to bleed.”

When the

neocons launched the Bush administration`s invasions
of Afghanistan and Iraq and announced plans for invading
Syria and Iran, I labeled Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, and Rice

"the five Morons." 
With the passage of time I see that I over-estimated
their mental capabilities.  

The "cakewalk" war has now lasted longer than
World War II with Nazi Germany, and no end is in sight. 
It has cost the US taxpayers $310 billion in
out-of-pocket costs with many additional hundreds of
billions coming due in veterans` medical bills and other
expenses yet to be paid.

To carry on the pointless war, which has achieved
nothing but death, destruction, and hatred of America,
Bush has had to call up inactive reserves who long ago
completed their active duty service to their country and
have managed to get on with their lives.  It is well
known that the older one gets the harder it is to find
employment or the energy to restart a mothballed
business. But Bush is too busy saving us from terrorism
to care about people`s lives.

Despite the lack of US troops and Bush`s inability to
prevail in Afghanistan and Iraq, neocons in Bush`s
government are working around the clock to instigate war
with Iran and Syria. 

I thought that I had Rumsfeld pegged as the complete
dolt, but I was stunned when I read Associated Press
reporter Robert Burns account of what Rumsfeld told 200
Navy aviators in a

question and answer session at Fallon Naval Air Station
on August 28.  "The thing that keeps me up at night,"
said Rumsfeld, is the success of terrorist groups in
"manipulating the media."  [Terrorists
lie, Rumsfeld says|Defense
chief says they use U.S. media Associated Press
August 29, 2006]

Rumsfeld told the pilots that terrorists "are
actively manipulating the media in this country" by
falsely blaming US troops for civilian deaths in Iraq
and Afghanistan. All that "collateral damage" we
hear about, the tens of thousands of dead and maimed
civilians, is just terrorist propaganda.  "The enemy
lies constantly . . . and with impunity.  . . . The
enemy is so much better at communicating."  Rumsfeld
made
similar remarks to the

Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nevada,
where he was presented the Dwight D. Eisenhower
Distinguished Service Award.  Eisenhower must be rolling
over in his grave.

Now I get it.  When Fox News` Sean Hannity and Bill
O`Reilly assured us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction that would be used against us if we
didn`t strike first, they were being manipulated by
Osama bin Laden, who used America to get rid of the
secular Saddam Hussein and to create a new training and
recruitment ground for al Qaeda and fundamentalist
fanatics.  

When the New York Times let Judith Miller serve
as a propagandist for war with Iraq, the Times
was being manipulated by Muslim terrorists, not by
neocons.

When CNN, the networks and columnists like Ann Coulter
and Michelle Malkin reassure us that we will win the war
unless we pull out prematurely, they are being
manipulated by terrorists.  Finally I understand what
the Weekly Standard, National Review, the Wall
Street Journal editorial page, AEI, and the online
site Frontpage are all about.

The terrorists are so clever at manipulation that
Americans cannot perceive that we have been sucked deep
into a war that is creating the Islamic fundamentalism
that we so desperately fear.

Obviously, I misjudged Rumsfeld`s intelligence.  Anyone
who can figure out the Muslim conspiracy is off the
charts. 

What I can`t figure is why Rumsfeld is willing for
America to continue to be sucked in.  Don`t tell me that
terrorists are manipulating Rumsfeld, too!

I keep waiting for the money appeal from AIPAC.  I
already know what it is going to say:

"Although AIPAC is undisputedly the most powerful
lobby in America and can determine with impunity the
fate of every elected official, we cannot match the
terrorists` ability to manipulate the media.  Polls show
that terrorists` manipulation of the US media is causing
American support for the war to dwindle away.  Please
send more millions to counter the terrorists` control of
the American media. We are winning in the Middle East
but losing at home."

One of the lessons one learns in life is that things are
not always what they seem to be. Before I watched 
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer`s

National Press Club broadcast on C-Span (August 28),
I regarded AIPAC as Israel`s friend and promoter. Now I
realize that I was wrong. As the two distinguished
professors made perfectly clear, anyone who cares about
the survival of Israel should scorn the bribes, threats,
and blandishments of AIPAC.

AIPAC led the Israeli government onto a path where
diplomacy is no longer a tool that Israel can use. 
Instead, Israel relies on Mao`s dictum that "power
comes out of the barrel of a gun" or from a
bulldozer that knocks down Palestinians` homes, uproots
their olive groves, and enrages Muslims at Israel`s
inhumanity.   Backed into a corner with no tool but
violence, Israel faces hundreds of millions of
increasingly angry Muslims. 

If Bush were a true friend of Israel, he would never
have let Israel again destroy Lebanon, this time under
the pretext of striking at Hezbollah.  

AIPAC and Bush have allowed, or caused, Israel to do
itself so much damage in the eyes of Muslims and the
wider world that a peaceful resolution in the Middle
East is no longer in people`s thoughts.  With the mighty
US military checked in Iraq by a handful of Sunnis, and
the mighty Israeli army checked in Lebanon by a handful
of Hezbollah, violence is unlikely to settle the matter
in a way that neocons in the US and Zionists in Israel
would like.

The only hope is that Bush and Olmert miraculously turn
into grown men, admit their mistakes, apologize, send
reparations and commit to winning acceptance of Israel
and America based on Israel`s and America`s good
behavior.  It would be nice to see in operation some of
the superior morality that the two claim.

Considering the extraordinary hubris and
self-righteousness of neocons and Zionists, nothing like
this can possibly happen.  Israel, the US, and the
Muslim world will continue to bleed.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul Craig Roberts
[email
him] was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.
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.