[size=24pt]How America Was Lost — Paul Craig Roberts[/size]
November 7, 2013 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: civil liberty, government crimes, Lawlessness, police state, | Print This Article Print This Article

How America Was Lost

Paul Craig Roberts

“No legal issue arises when the United States responds to a challenge to its power, position, and prestige.” Dean Acheson , 1962, speaking to the American Society of International Law.

Dean Acheson declared 51 years ago that power, position, and prestige are the ingredients of national security and that national security trumps law. In the United States democracy takes a back seat to “national security,” a prerogative of the executive branch of government.

National security is where the executive branch hides its crimes against law, both domestic and international, its crimes against the Constitution, its crimes against innocent citizens both at home and abroad, and its secret agendas that it knows that the American public would never support.

“National security” is the cloak that the executive branch uses to make certain that the US government is unaccountable.

Without accountable government there is no civil liberty and no democracy except for the sham voting that existed in the Soviet Union and now exists in the US.

There have been periods in US history, such as President Lincoln’s war to prevent secession, World War I, and World War II, when accountable government was impaired. These were short episodes of the Constitution’s violation, and the Constitution was reinstated in the aftermath of the wars. However, since the Clinton regime, the accountability of government has been declining for more than two decades, longer than the three wars combined.

In law there is the concept of adverse possession, popularly known as “squatters’ rights.” A non-owner who succeeds in occupying a piece of property or some one else’s right for a certain time without being evicted enjoys the ownership title conveyed to him. The reasoning is that by not defending his rights, the owner showed his disinterest and in effect gave his rights away.

Americans have not defended their rights conveyed by the US Constitution for the duration of the terms of three presidents. The Clinton regime was not held accountable for its illegal attack on Serbia. The Bush regime was not held accountable for its illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama regime was not held accountable for its renewed attack on Afghanistan and its illegal attacks on Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen, and by its proxies on Syria.

We also have other strictly illegal and unconstitutional acts of government for which the government has not been held accountable. The Bush regimes’ acts of torture, indefinite detention, and warrantless spying, and the Obama regime’s acts of indefinite detention, warrantless spying, and murder of US citizens without due process. As the Obama regime lies through its teeth, we have no way of knowing whether torture is still practiced.

If these numerous criminal acts of the US government spread over the terms of three presidents pass into history as unchallenged events, the US government will have acquired squatters’ rights in lawlessness. The US Constitution will be, as President George W. Bush is reported to have declared, “a scrap of paper.”

Lawlessness is the hallmark of tyranny enforced by the police state. In a police state law is not a protector of rights but a weapon in the hands of government. [see Roberts & Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions] The accused has no recourse to the accusation, which does not require evidence presented to a court. The accused is guilty by accusation alone and can be shot in the back of the head, as under Stalin, or blown up by a drone missile, as under Obama.

As a person aware of the long struggle against the tyrannical state, I have been amazed and disheartened by the acceptance not only by the insouciant American public, but also by law schools, bar associations, media, Congress and the Supreme Court of the executive branch’s claim to be above both law and the US Constitution.

As Lawrence Stratton and I show in our book about how the law was lost, liberals and conservatives chasing after their favorite devils, such as child abusers and drug pushers, and prosecutors, judges, and police devoted to conviction and not to justice, have gradually eroded over time the concept of law as a protection of the innocent, With the atmosphere of threat created by 9/11, the final destruction of the protective features of law was quickly achieved in the name of making us safe from terrorists.

The fact that we are no longer safe from our own government did not register.

This is how liberty was lost, and America with it.

Can liberty be regained? Probably not, but there is a chance if Americans have the necessary strength of character. The chance comes from the now known fact that the neoconservative Bush/Cheney regime took America and its puppet states to war in Afghanistan and Iraq entirely on the basis of lies. As all evidence proves, these wars were not the results of mistaken intelligence. They were the products of intentional lies.

The weapons inspectors told the Bush regime that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Despite this known fact, the Bush regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN with fabricated evidence to convince the world that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” and was a threat to the world. Even if such weapons had existed in Iraq, many countries have them, including the US and Israel, and the presence of weapons does not under the Nuremberg Laws justify unprovoked aggression against the possessor. Under the Nuremberg Laws, unprovoked military aggression is a war crime, not the possession of weapons that many countries have. The war crime was committed by the US and its “coalition of the willing,” not by Saddam Hussein.

As for the invasion of Afghanistan, we know from the last video of Osama bin Laden in October 2001, attested by experts to be the last appearance of a man dying of renal failure and other diseases, that he declared that he had no responsibility for 9/11 and that Americans should look to their own government. We know as a reported fact that the Afghan Taliban offered to turn over Osama bin Laden to Washington if the Bush regime would provide the evidence that indicated bin Laden was responsible. The Bush regime refused to hand over the (non-existent) evidence and, with support of the corrupt and cowardly Congress and the presstitute media, attacked Afghanistan without any legal justification. Remember, the FBI has stated publicly that it has no evidence that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 and that that is why the crimes for which the FBI wanted bin Laden did not include responsibility for the 9/11 attack.

The war propaganda campaign was well prepared. Yellow ribbon decals were handed out for cars proclaiming “support the troops.” In other words, anyone who raises the obvious questions is not supporting the troops. Still today insouciant Americans sport these decals on their cars unaware that what they are supporting are the murder of foreign women, children and village elders, the death and physical and mental maiming of American soldiers, and the worldwide destruction of the reputation of the United States, with America’s main rival, China, now calling for a “de-Americanized world.”

A country with a population as insouciant as Americans is a country in which the government can do as it pleases.

Now that we have complete proof that the criminal Bush regime took our country to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq solely on the basis of intentional lies, how can the legal institutions, the courts, the American people possibly tolerate the Obama regime’s ignoring of the obvious crimes? How can America simply accept Obama’s statement that we mustn’t look back, only move ahead? If the US government, which has committed the worst crimes of our generation, cannot be held accountable and punished, how can federal, state, and local courts fill up American prisons with people who smoked pot and with people who did not sufficiently grovel before the police state.

Doubtless, the Obama regime, should it obey the law and prosecute the Bush regime’s crimes, would have to worry about being prosecuted for its own crimes, which are just as terrible. Nevertheless, I believe that the Obama regime could survive if it put all the blame on the Bush regime, prosecuted the Bush criminals, and desisted from the illegal actions that it currently supports. This would save the Constitution and US civil liberty, but it would require the White House to take the risk that by enforcing US law, US law might be enforced against its own illegal and unconstitutional acts by a succeeding regime.

The Bush/Cheney/John Yoo neoconservative regime having got rid of US law, no doubt the Obama regime thinks it is best to leave the situation as it is, rid of law.

Without accountability, America is finished. Not only will Americans live in a police state with no civil liberties, but the rest of the world is already looking at America with a jaundiced eye. The US is being reconstituted as an authoritarian state. All it takes is one failure of accountability for the police state to become entrenched, and we have had numerous failures of accountability. Does anyone really believe that some future government is going to make restitution to persecuted truth-tellers, such as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowdon, as was done for Japanese Americans?

Now that we know for a certain fact that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were based on propaganda and lies, Congress and the world media should demand to know what was the real secret agenda. What are the real reasons for which Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded?

No truthful explanation for these wars exists.


Paul O’Neill, the Bush regime’s first Treasury Secretary, is on public record stating that at the very first cabinet meeting, long prior to 9/11, the agenda was a US attack on Iraq.

In other words, the Bush regime’s attack on Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

What was the Bush regime’s secret agenda, kept secret by the Obama regime, that required an illegal, war criminal, attack on a sovereign country, an action for which officials of Hitler’s government were executed? What is the real purpose of Washington’s wars?

It is totally and completely obvious that the wars have nothing to do with protecting Americans from terrorism. If anything, the wars stir up and create terrorists. The wars create hatred of America that never previously existed. Despite this, America is free of terrorists attacks except for the ones orchestrated by the FBI. What the fabricated “terror threat” has done is to create a thorough-going domestic police state that is unaccountable.

Americans need to understand that they have lost their country. The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington’s huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity.

Wow!

This article blew my mind. What an interesting read!

I quite agree with you on the demise of Amercan power, which I have observed since the time of Bill Clinton.

Bill and Hillary Clinton as a couple demystified the U.S. presidency and showed the whole world that the chief executive of the America is not only a political leader and a symbol of national power but also a personality with the usual range of human frailites. Past U.S. administrations would rather resign on account of scandals in office, but Bill Clinton held on to power until the end. Bill Clinton himself noted when interviewed by Joe Klein of the New Yorker, that the office has been for a number of reasons, and with good and bad results, "demystified" during his administration.

It is uncertain if American presidents can ever win back the awe and reverence attached to that office. Liberalism and legal licentiousness became a major character flaw of the executive, legislative and legal systems during Clinton's era. Several legislation and judgements were passed in favor of gays, feminists and other behaviors considered unnatural before have given full legal status to minority agitators, while legislation and legal decisions have even been overtly against Christians.

Among corrupting influences of the Clinton administration is lack of integrity exhibited by the tendency of the President to lie without regard for decorum and his sympathy for ungodly practices. Apart from the presidential lies, Clinton vetoed three partial-birth abortion ban bills, legalized abortion, appointed licentious Supreme Court judge, involved in multiple scandals, cover ups and excuses and generally debased the presidency with deliberate inclusion of homosexuals and feminists in government. Before Clinton, less than 20% of voters would have supported gay rights, but in 1977 referendums, about 40% of voters supported gay rights. By the late 90s, Americans had already become more permissive to homosexuals, and they strongly supported President Clinton's initiatives to allow gays all rights and privileges of any other person. Progressively, by the end of the 20th century, virtual majority of the society was ready to tolerate gays in politics, armed forces, educational and religious institutions.

In spite of character flaws, Bill Clinton was twice elected into U.S. presidency. "It is the economy, stupid", a very popular quote in tabloids during the second electoral process of Clinton shows the materialistic nature of the current American society. Just for economic prosperity, the materialistic American electorate voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush (Snr.) too in the past. Quest for economic prosperity has made Americans forget morals. Economic prosperity without moral guidance at the time of President Clinton further encouraged Americans into queer behaviors.

Thinking that the move would provide wider markets for American goods and services, Clinton liberalized a main stream political strategy of the U.S. at the twilight of his administration by encouraging admittance of China into WTO. But present econominc indications have revealed that this move does not portend any serious gain for Americans. With limited purchasing power, underdeveloped nations have no option than to turn to cheaper products from China and other emerging economies at the expense of trade with the U.S. and America businesses never had the advantage of new markets in China because of the high costs of American products.

The Clinton administration fostered the current spate of globalization to produce a New World Order characterized by development of the Internet, U.S. militarism, interventionism and NATO/U.S. domination of global affairs. But globalization for developing nations has resulted in more economic adversity. Present global military conflicts began as a result of America's supply of military training and deadly weapons of war to both rebels and governments at the same time in order to have access to their mineral resources.

Mr. Clinton attempted sealing an end-of-conflict agreement between the Palestinians and Jews before his vacation of presidential office on January 20 2001. But in his desperation, he tried to force a concession from Israel on the transfer of custody of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians. But the Middle East Crisis proved a tough nut to crack for Bill Clinton. In spite of Camp David of Carter and Wye River agreements of Clinton, clashes between Arabs/Palestinians and Israel reared up in escalation of violence in the Middle East unprecedented since the early 70s. On leaving office, Clinton left a "half dead snake"; more dangerous than a live or dead one.

The disengagement of European nations from support of Israel was partly incited by the Clinton regime. In the past, initiatives on Israel have usually been taken jointly by the U.S. and Western European nations. With Clinton's unilateral decisions, Europe was alienated and subsequently became disinterested in their traditional support forAmerica's stauch stand for Israel. Suddenly, motions to condemn Israel which had in past been vetoed by the whole West as a single political bloc are now supported by several western countries.

Suddenly and without due consultation with EU, Clinton began unilateral global military intervention campaigns, starting from the invasion of Somalia. The division caused by this move remains to haunt the U.S. as European nations no longer see a duty to support U.S. military initiatives.
The Clinton administration's renewal of U.S. emphasis on militarism and interventionism to solve global and regional problems has set a precedence of might is right.

The death knell to global acceptance of American democracy style was confirmed by the imbroglio that followed the 2000 presidential election. The mess created by the electoral process demystified the supremacy of democracy as the antidote to global political problems. The whole world now knows that American democracy is not perfect after all. While Clinton was trying to please the masses of the U.S. he was at the same time displeasing other more powerful groups, leading to the fall of the Democrats from government after him.

Republican leaders have often accused the Clinton administration of being soft on crime. According to the New York Times of December 27, 2000 in an article titled Revival Helps Mask a Party's Flaws by Robin Toner, Democrats are charged as, "big taxers and spenders, addicted to giveaway programs…". The charge further states that, "they were achingly sensitive to the needs of minorities and the poor but cared little for the problems of the white middle class."

It was not until after Bill Clinton had left office that the world discovered that he and his wife, Hillary, are members of the Illuminati. Former FBI Agent, Gary Aldrich, wrote his book, "Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent inside the Clinton White House", only with an intention to expose the Clintons' actions which endangered National Security. In the occult, symbols are an essential way of expression and identity and his investigations revealed the Clintons' behaviors and use of signs common to Illuminist witches, provide strong proof that Bill and Hillary are, indeed, powerful Illuminist members!