�Early
Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire
resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn�t want her to vote for it.� Olmert
said. �I said �get President Bush on
the phone.� They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in
Philadelphia. I said �I�m not interested, I need to speak to him now.� He got
down from the podium, went out and took the phone call.�[PM:
Rice left embarrassed in UN vote, By Yaakov Lappin , Jerusalem Post,
January 12, 2009]
�Let me see if I
understand this,� wrote a friend in response to news reports that
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert ordered President Bush from the podium where he
was giving a speech to receive Israel�s instructions about how the United
States had to vote on the UN resolution. �On September 11th, President Bush is interrupted while reading a story
to school children and told the World Trade Center had been hit -- and he went
on reading. Now, Olmert calls about a UN resolution when Bush is giving a
speech and Bush leaves the stage to take the call. There exists no greater
example of a master-servant relationship.�
Olmert gloated as he told Israelis how he had shamed US
Secretary of State Condi Rice by preventing the American secretary of state
from supporting a resolution that she had helped to craft. Olmert proudly related
how he had interrupted President Bush�s speech in order to give Bush his
marching orders on the UN vote.
Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the
control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference,
President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects
America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli
colony.
Responding to mounting reports from the Red Cross and human
rights organizations of Israel�s massive war crimes in Gaza, the United Nations
Human Rights Council voted 33-1 on January 12 to condemn Israel for grave
offenses against human rights.
On January 13, the London Times reported that Israelis have
gathered on a hillside overlooking Gaza to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians
in what the Times calls �the
ultimate spectator sport.�
It is American supplied F-16 fighter jets, helicopter
gunships, missiles, and bombs that are destroying the civilian infrastructure
of Gaza and murdering the Palestinians who have been packed into the tiny strip
of land. What is happening to the Palestinians herded into the Gaza Ghetto is
happening because of American money and weapons. It is just as much an attack
by the United States as an attack by Israel. The US government is complicit in
the war crimes.
Yet in his farewell press conference on January 12, Bush
said that the world respects America for its compassion.
- The compassion of bombing
a UN school for girls?
- The compassion of herding
100 Palestinians into one house and then shelling it?
- The compassion of bombing
hospitals and mosques?
- The compassion of
depriving 1.5 million Palestinians of food, medicine, and energy?
- The compassion of
violently overthrowing the democratically elected Hamas government?
- The compassion of blowing
up the infrastructure of one of the poorest and most deprived people on
earth?
- The compassion of
abstaining from a Security Council vote condemning these actions?
And this is a repeat of what the Israelis and Americans did
to Lebanon in 2006, what the Americans did to Iraqis for six years and are
continuing to do to Afghans after seven years. And still hope to do to the
Iranians and Syrians.
In 2002, I designated George W. Bush �the White House Moron.� If there ever was any doubt about this
designation, Bush�s final press conference dispelled it.
Bush talked about connecting the dots, but Bush has failed
to connect any dots for eight solid years. �Our� president was a puppet for a cabal led by Dick Cheney and a
handful of Jewish neoconservatives, who took control of the Pentagon, the State
Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, and �Homeland Security.� From these power positions, the neocon cabal
used lies and deception to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, pointless wars that
have cost Americans $3 trillion, while millions of Americans lose their jobs,
their pensions, and their access to health care.
�These obviously
very difficult economic times,� Bush said in
his press conference, �started
before my presidency.�
Bush has plenty of liberal company in failing to connect a
$3 trillion dollar war with hard times. The Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities blames Bush�s tax cut, not the wars, for �the fiscal deterioration.�
Bush told the White House Press Corps, a useless collection
of non-journalists, that the two mistakes of his invasion of Iraq were: (1)
Putting up the �mission accomplished�
banner on the aircraft carrier, which, he said, �sent the wrong message,� and (2) the absence of the alleged
weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify the invasion.
Although Bush now admits that there were not any such
weapons in Iraq, Bush said that the invasion was still the right thing to do.
The deaths of 1.25 million Iraqis, the displacement of 4
million Iraqis, and the destruction of a country�s infrastructure and economy
are merely the collateral damage associated with �bringing freedom and democracy� to the Middle East.
Unless George W. Bush is the best actor in human history, he
truly believes what he told the White House Press Corps.
What Bush did not explain is how America is respected when
its people put a moron in charge for eight years.
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.