by Cliff Carson

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the superb article that I read this morning by Paul Craig Roberts - a very well-known Columnist and former Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in the Reagan Administration - "We Take Precedence". 

Here's an excerpt:

This slaughtering of foreigners doesn't seem to bother the American public. Americans take it for granted that Americans are superior and that American purposes, whatever they be, take precedence over the rights of other people to life and to a political existence independent of American hegemony.

The Bush regime has come up with a preemption doctrine that justifies attacking a country in order to prevent the country from possibly becoming a future threat to the US. "Threat" is broadly defined. It appears to mean the ability to withstand the imposition of US hegemony. This insane doctrine justifies attacking China and Russia, a direction in which the Republican presidential candidate John McCain seems to lean.

The callousness of Americans toward the lives of other peoples is stunning. How many Christian churches ask God's forgiveness for having been rushed into an error that has killed, maimed, and displaced a quarter of the Iraqi population?

Coming from a former Reagan Republican Government decision maker, and reflecting on the current state of Republican popularity, or lack thereof, I think it speaks volumes.  I do know that it reflects my beliefs.  And I also recommend the Charlie Reese article linked in Robert's piece.

I would also like to share a quote I once ran across, maybe from Tolstoy:

"Every war - with all its ordinary consequences - the murder with the justifications of its necessity and justice, the exaltation and glorification of military exploits, the worship of the flag, the patriotic sentiments - and so on, does more in one year to pervert men's minds than thousands of robberies, murders, and arsons perpetrated during hundreds of years by individual men under the influence of passion."

And one more from Tolstoy to go along with Robert's mention of  Anticipatory Wars in that context

"What an immense mass of evil must result from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen."

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