Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush.
	Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:20:27 -0800 (GMT-08:00) 
From:
rainesco@earthlink.net 

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts144.html 

Catastrophe Looms

by Paul Craig Roberts

Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll 
and a New York
Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away 
with impeachable
offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of 
acquiring, processing
and understanding information.

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves 
as a disinformation
agency for the Bush administration. Fox "News" and 
right-wing talk radio are
the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting the 
standard for truth
and patriotism, all of the media is affected to some 
degree.

Despite the media’s failure, about half the population 
has managed to
discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them 
safer and that the
Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties is 
not a necessary
component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, 
lies with the absence of
due diligence on the part of the other half of the 
population.

Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four 
percent of the respondents
have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result 
of anti-terrorism
measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 
percent approve of spying
without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce 
the threat of
terrorism."

Why does any American think that spying without a 
warrant has any more
effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying 
with a warrant? The
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is 
disobeying, requires
the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal 
judges a warrant for
spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to 
prevent a president from
spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits 
the president to spy
first (for 72
hours) and then come to the court for permission. As 
the court meets in
secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective 
in reducing the threat
of terrorism than spying with a warrant.

Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has 
played along with the
Bush administration and formulated the question as a 
trade-off between civil
liberties and protection from terrorists. This 
formulation is false and
nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush 
administration to escape
accountability for illegal behavior by putting false 
and misleading choices
before the people?

The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally striking 
anomalies. Only 43 percent
said they approved of Bush’s performance as president. 
But a majority
believe Bush’s policies have made the US more secure.

It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans 
are safer as a result
of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly 
threatening two more
with military attack. The invasions and threats have 
caused a dramatic swing
in Muslim sentiment away from the US. Prior to Bush’s 
invasion of Iraq, a
large majority of Muslims had a favorable opinion of 
America. Now only about
5 percent do.

A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East 
experts have told the
American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is 
serving both to
recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which 
has grown many times its
former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded 
that al Qaeda has
succeeded in having its members elected to the new 
Iraqi government.

We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in 
Pakistan. In the
recent Egyptian elections, the radical Muslim 
Brotherhood, despite being
suppressed by the Egyptian government, won a large 
number of seats. In
Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda 
control about half of
the government. In Iraq, Bush’s invasion has replaced 
secular Sunnis with
Islamist Shia allied with Iran.

And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian 
election, we see the
total failure of Bush’s Middle Eastern policy. Bush 
has succeeded in
displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern 
governments and replacing
them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that 
this disastrous
result makes Americans feel safer!

What does it say for democracy that half of the 
American population is
unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous 
facts?

Americans share this disability with the Bush 
administration. According to
news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by 
the election victory of
the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the 
US-financed Fatah Party
from office. Why is the Bush administration 
astonished?

The Bush administration is astonished because it 
stupidly believes that
hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful 
that the US has
interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, 
setting up colonies and
puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to 
achieve, instead,
purposes of the US government.

Americans need desperately to understand that 95 
percent of all Muslim
terrorists in the world were created in the past three 
years by Bush’s
invasion of Iraq.

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush 
attacks Iran and
Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and 
American civil liberties
will disappear into a thirty-year war that will 
bankrupt the United States.

The total lack of rationality and competence in the 
White House and the
inability of half of the US population to acquire and 
understand information
are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.

America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, 
guided only by ignorance
and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.

January 28, 2006

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is Chairman of the 
Institute for Political
Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent 
Institute. He is a former
associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former 
contributing editor for
National Review, and a former assistant secretary of 
the U.S. Treasury. He
is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.