THE GREAT AMERICAN TREASON

In 1963, when asked for his thoughts about the death of President John F.
Kennedy, civil rights activist Malcolm X replied that Kennedy’s assassination
was simply an example of "the chickens coming home to roost."

by David R. Hoffman

Naturally, in a nation infected with terminal myopia, Malcolm X’s words generated
both controversy and outrage. But more than a decade later, after hearings in
the United States Congress revealed that governmental agencies, on both the local
and national levels, had participated in or encouraged the assassinations of
both foreign "enemies," and American citizens (the Central Intelligence Agency
[CIA] had even dubbed one of its assassination squads a "Health Alteration Committee"),
the prophetic nature of Malcolm X’s words became evident: A nation that uses
assassination as a political tool against others should not be surprised when
the same tool is directed against it.

But in the wake of the Bush dictatorship’s coup of 2000 and the corruption-ridden "election" of 2004, the chickens have again come home to roost in America. A nation that has incessantly imposed and/or propped up fraudulent democracies throughout the world has finally become a fraudulent democracy itself, controlled by the machinations of a cabal of corrupt oligarchs who satiate Americans with the illusion of "voting," while ensuring their preordained puppets are installed into office.

Those who doubt that "democracy" is moribund in the United States need only look at the antithetical reactions regarding allegations of fraud in America’s presidential elections, and allegations of fraud in the presidential elections held in the Ukraine.

Many western pundits, during their denunciations of the Ukrainian elections, routinely stressed that the alleged winner, Viktor Yanukovych, has a criminal record. Yet forgotten in these denunciations is the fact that George W. Bush is the first "president" to enter the White House with a criminal record, after pleading guilty to a drunken driving charge in 1976. Prior to this, he had also been arrested for disorderly conduct on two occasions. And, in the eyes of many throughout the world, he is a war criminal, responsible for the deaths of over one thousand Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis in an illegal war waged on nothing but lies.

In addition, while that alleged bastion of "justice," the United States Supreme Court, corruptly and unethically endorsed the electoral fraud that placed Bush into office during the coup of 2000, and while a primary architect of that fraud, Katherine Harris, was elected to the United States Congress, the Ukrainian Supreme Court had the integrity to invalidate the results of that nation"s presidential election.

Also in America, as Michael Moore illustrated in his documentary FAHRENHEIT 9/11, not a single United States Senator possessed the courage to challenge the coup of 2000, instead leaving that task to the hastily silenced voices of a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus. By contrast, the Ukrainian Parliament not only symbolically invalidated the results of its presidential election, it ultimately approved reforms that would prevent or reduce the prospects of such fraud in the future. In America, the Bush dictatorship expressed concern about the fairness of the Ukrainian democratic process, but demonstrated no compunction about profiting from fraudulent elections at home. But perhaps most notably, people in the Ukraine bravely held around-the-clock vigils in inclement weather, demanding that the honor of their democracy be respected and restored. In the United States, a nation supposedly comprised of freedom-loving, fair-minded people, the overwhelming majority of Americans (with the exception of a few scattered protests) apathetically ignored allegations of electoral fraud in states such as Florida and Ohio.

So what does this "tale of two elections" prove?: That the Ukraine is a democracy in its birth-pangs, where integrity in the democratic process is not only expected but demanded, while America is a democracy in its death-throes, where corruption and fraud have become an entrenched and accepted part of the political landscape. In fact, United States lawmakers are so unconcerned about the decline of democracy that one of their first acts after Bush stole his second election in 2004 was to alter procedural rules so Tom Delay, one of the biggest hypocrites in the United States Congress, could retain his influential position as House Majority Leader, even though a grand jury had charged three of his associates with illegally contributing to his Political Action Committee (PAC).

But how did America arrive at this sordid state, where fraud masquerades as democracy, where so-called "morality" apparently does not condemn the "bearing of false witness" to wage illegal wars, and where a man as venal, megalomaniacal, ignorant, dishonest and hypocritical as George W. Bush is viewed by many as a paradigm of virtue?

The answer resides in the Bush dictatorship"s ability to exploit and manipulate America"s reaction to the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001 (also known as 9/11), when the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. were attacked and thousands of people were killed.

But this exploitation and manipulation ignores one crucial reality. At the end of the day, when all the "official" commissions have ended, when all the blame is attributed to "intelligence failures," and when all the "reorganization" of intelligence agencies transpires, a single truth remains: The people who profited most from the 9/11 attacks were George W. Bush and his handlers.

Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Bush was a despised individual, viewed by many as having stole the presidency, and without a mandate from the majority of Americans. Historically those in his position have been largely ineffectual, and have often done more harm than good, particularly since their lust for power reveals a character more concerned with selfish ambition than with the good of the nation.

Bush and his handlers desperately needed something to make the majority of Americans forget the coup of 2000. This has led to widespread speculation that Bush and/or those in his inner circle, by deliberate act or omission, encouraged or permitted the 9/11 attacks to occur. This speculation can be broken down into three theories.

THE PEARL HARBOR THEORY

Analogies between the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the September 11th, 2001 attacks revolve around long-held beliefs that President Franklin D. Roosevelt ignored warnings of a planned attack on American soil in order to inspire the necessary outrage that would convince Americans to join the Allied forces in their battle against the Axis powers during World War II.

Although Americans, as demonstrated by their zealotry over the Iraqi war, have historically been more than willing to rush into warfare for dubious reasons, the aftershocks of World War One, with its immense casualties, devastating impact on the economy and detrimental effect on civil rights and liberties, had tempered this bellicosity to the point where warnings about the threat posed by growing fascism, uttered by groups like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, were largely ignored, even though Hitler used this war to test his military weaponry and strategy. Popular aviator Charles Lindbergh formed the "America First Committee," which vocally opposed entry into World War Two. Against this backdrop, Roosevelt faced an uphill battle in his efforts to convince a war-weary nation to support America"s entry into World War Two. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed all that.

Flash-forward to the year 2001 and a similar scenario arises. Although Americans had demonstrated a willingness to return to their jingoistic ways during the First Gulf War, the ghosts of the war in Vietnam still lingered, and it was unclear whether a majority of Americans would be willing to commit troops to a foreign land for a prolonged period of time, to endure significant American casualties, or to inflict even greater casualties on the civilian population of the nation they were purportedly "liberating."

Yet during this same period, if intelligence reports are to be believed, Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization, headquartered under the protection of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, were endeavoring to create biological, chemical and/or nuclear weapons that, when fully developed, could inflict tens-of-thousands, if not millions, of casualties if released in an urban area.

So to shed the specter of Vietnam, and to instill in Americans the necessary fear that would compel them to obediently support any law, any deed, and any war allegedly designed to "fight terrorism," members of the Bush dictatorship asked the ultimate cost-benefit question: "Do we sacrifice the few to ’protect’ the many?" The answer resulted in the attacks on 9/11.

THE REICHSTAG THEORY

But the Pearl Harbor Theory alone does not explain why the focus of the so-called "war on terrorism" suddenly shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq.

News reports in America recently revealed that several members of the Bush dictatorship, enamored with Iraq"s oil resources and the profits war would bring to companies where they had financial interests, and knowing how impulsively Americans would rally around their "commander-in-chief" during wartime, were eager to attack Iraq even before the events of 9/11 occurred. Also, as stated in previous PRAVDA articles, THE DEATH OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, PARTS I AND II and EULOGY FOR AMERICA, throughout American history there has been a quest for circumstances or events that would give the corrupt oligarchs who control America the opportunity to permanently destroy the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, thus transforming America into a neo-fascist nation. But, even though Americans complacently accepted the coup of 2000, the corrupt manner in which these oligarchs stole the presidency impeded their ability to disseminate to a skeptical populace the fictitious "threats" posed by the Iraqi government.

So a page was borrowed from Adolph Hitler"s political strategy. Hitler realized that in times of crisis if a leader repetitiously tells "great lies" to the masses, they will eventually come to believe them. In blaming the burning of Germany’s parliament, known as the Reichstag, on "communists," Hitler was not only able to cement his grip on power, he was also able to pass the "Reichstag Fire" and "Enabling" acts, which severely curtailed civil rights and liberties in Germany. This, in turn, permitted him to pursue his warmongering agenda. The effect of this strategy was succinctly explained in Professor Felix Gilbert"s book THE END OF THE EUROPEAN ERA: "[E]ven after the dictatorial character of the Hitler regime had revealed itself, almost 44 percent of the German people voted for the Nazis."

Hitler also unabashedly exploited religion to serve his selfish ends, proclaiming that "[t]he national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of the nation rests. It will offer protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press . . . in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past few years."

Although comparisons between the evils of George W. Bush"s dictatorship and Adolph Hitler’s have been noted in three previous PRAVDA articles, BUSH VS. HITLER, PARTS I and II and THE GREAT ALLURE, the "Reichstag Theory" underscores them. By planning or permitting the 9/11 attacks, the Bush dictatorship not only cemented its grip on power, it also was able to pass the "Patriot Act," which destroyed the Bill of Rights. From there "great lies" were disseminated about Saddam Hussein"s links to 9/11 and his "weapons of mass destruction," thus allowing the Bush dictatorship to pursue its warmongering agenda by invading, occupying and setting up a puppet regime in Iraq.

And, if the election results of 2004 are to be believed, "even after the dictatorial character of the Bush regime had revealed itself, over 50 percent of the American people voted for the [neo-fascists]," and many on the basis of the very distortions of Christianity that Hitler so openly exploited—a deceptive, pseudo-Christianity that substitutes hatred for love, that promotes arrogant self-righteousness over tolerance, that conceals its abuses of fellow human beings beneath ostentatious platitudes about morality, that seeks to impose alleged "moral" values upon others that it feels absolutely no obligation to impose upon itself, and that, as Hitler said, seduces people into believing hell is heaven and heaven is hell.

THE J.F.K THEORY

But the Reichstag theory does not explain why Osama bin Laden, the alleged "mastermind" behind the 9/11 attacks, was mysteriously removed from the Bush dictatorship"s most wanted list and replaced by Saddam Hussein. The answer resides in the J.F.K. theory.

Many conspiracy theorists have argued that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was the result of collusion between various governmental agencies and organized crime figures. Although such collusion remains speculative concerning the assassination itself, the belief persists because the United States government has, on several occasions, overtly or covertly conspired with criminal organizations to assassinate political figures. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in the early 1960s, conspired with members of organized crime syndicates to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also tried to lure organized crime figures into murdering comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory.

The Bureau even encouraged members of a "Black Nationalist Group," known as "United Slaves (US)," to murder members of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and, in January of 1969, the FBI sent an anonymous letter, signed "A black brother you don"t know," to the leader of one of Chicago"s largest street gangs, attempting to persuade him to murder Chicago BPP leader Fred Hampton. A portion of the letter read, "The brothers that run the Panthers blame you for blocking their thing and there"s supposed to be a hit out for you. . . . I know what I"d do if I was you."

After this letter failed to produce the desired results, Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark were killed in December of 1969 during a police "raid" on Hampton’s apartment.

While this list is not exhaustive, it does suffice to illustrate that some powerful agencies in the United States government subscribe to a philosophy where the "ends justify the means," and thus have little compunction about utilizing the services of unsavory people and organizations to achieve these ends. Given this sordid history, how far-fetched is it to hypothesize that George W. Bush and/or his handlers, given the Bush family"s links to the bin Laden family, used the services of Osama bin Laden to aggrandize Bush"s political stature and career?

In exchange for these services, Bush and/or his handlers agreed to redirect attention and resources away from the hunt for bin Laden, and toward the overthrow and capture of Hussein. As a bonus, the various warlords of Afghanistan gained relative autonomy to ply their drug trade. Meanwhile bin Laden agreed to continue releasing messages designed to keep the fear of terrorism foremost in the American public"s mind, thereby assisting the 2004 campaign of George W. Bush.

Of course, many will argue that if bin Laden is captured or killed, it will disprove the J.F.K. theory. But that is not necessarily true. The United States government has frequently disposed of "allies" who are no longer needed, or who fail or refuse to do its bidding. Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega learned this reality during the corrupt regime of Bush"s father, who diverted attention from a burgeoning "savings and loan scandal" by invading Panama. Saddam Hussein was also once an American ally, and his use of torture and murder was welcomed when the victims were considered to be enemies of the United States.

Those who scoff at the possibility of collusion between the Bush dictatorship and Osama bin Laden need only recall what occurred in the aftermath of the Hampton/Clark murders. While most of the so-called "news" media spinelessly accepted the "official" version of events describing a "shoot-out" between the Panthers and the police, one intrepid reporter decided to visit Hampton"s apartment himself. His investigation led to the revelations that the police had entered the apartment shooting, that Mark Clark had responded to the incoming gunfire with a single shot before being killed, and that his lone shot was the only one, of the more than ninety shots fired during the raid, that had been discharged by the Panthers. The bedroom where Hampton died from multiple gunshot wounds, including two to the head, had sustained only incoming gunfire. As one scrupulous law enforcement officer stated in the documentary, EYES ON THE PRIZE, PART II, "Even law-and-order people realized there had been a trial, a conviction and an execution in that house."

However, since the so-called "criminal justice system" in the United States is really designed to cover-up, excuse and rationalize government malfeasance, little was done to seek justice in the Hampton/Clark murders. State charges against law enforcement officials involved in the raid were dropped in exchange for the dismissal of the bogus charges filed against the surviving Panthers, and a federal grand jury refused to indict these officials for violating Hampton and Clark"s civil rights.

Still the discovery of truth has its own rewards. The lingering aftermath of the Hampton/Clark murders proves that America"s criminal justice system can no longer argue, with any degree of sincerity, that nobody is above the law, that the legal system is concerned with truth and fairness, that justice is blind, or that the government of the United States does not murder, or endorse the murder, of its own citizens.

In a recent poll over sixty-six percent of the residents of New York City said they do not believe Americans are being told the truth about the events of 9/11. But if the truth is to ever be known, the United States needs courageous reporters who, as journalist I.F. Stone once said, have not committed the cardinal sin of climbing into the same bathwater with those they cover. Such reporters will never be found as long as they are shackled and/or silenced by the profit-motivated, propaganda-driven, superficiality-focused, corporate-controlled media.

In his classic novel "1984," George Orwell stated that the motto of the New Order was "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." Although the dictatorship Orwell predicted arrived twenty years late, it has arrived nonetheless, along with a few more "edicts": Lies are Truth; Regress is Progress; Hypocrisy is Morality; Theocracy is Democracy.

Through the manipulation of the events of 9/11, the Bush dictatorship has been given carte blanche by the myopic masses to send poorly equipped troops into combat, to destroy the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians to satiate his own sadism, avarice and megalomania, and to exploit the United States military, not for purposes of defense or national security, but to line the pockets of his cronies with wartime profits while enhancing his political career.

Although those who oppose the Iraqi war are often accused of being many things, from cowards to traitors, one must wonder who the real traitors really are-those who believe that the resources of the military and the sacrifice of young lives should only be made for the good of the nation, or those who blindly and unquestioningly endorse any war, regardless of its motives.

It is ironic that America has become a nation so hypocritical that people will vehemently oppose the raising of taxes to provide better education or health care to the less fortunate, but will permit the wasting of billions of tax dollars and the loss of thousands of lives to promote an illegal, poorly planned, and even more poorly managed war. In calmer, more rational times such actions by an American president would be considered impeachable offenses at best, and treason at worst. But the exploitation of the tragic events of 9/11 has demonstrated the endurance of the following adage:

It is time that someone dare call it treason.

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