by James Glaser
October 3, 2002

Can you believe what Iraq is doing now? Get this, they are shooting at the American and British planes that are bombing them. The nerve of those guys, you would think they had a right to defend themselves, when the whole world knows that America would only bomb them for their own good.

Donald Rumsfled is beside himself with anger over this. The brashness of those Iraqis. Just who do they think they are. You mess with the Empire, no I mean, you mess with the United States and you had better watch out!

That pretty much sums up what is wrong with our foreign policy. We think that we are so benevolent that no nation should raise a hand to defend their soil from us. Donald Rumsfled and George Bush fail to understand that people in other nations have the same pride and sense of purpose that America has.

The people in Iraq have been taught their whole life, that their country is right and that their leader, Saddam, is the best of leaders. Sure we feel that is wrong, but what do you think they say about George Bush signing the death warrant for about a hundred and thirty five Americans while Governor of Texas and signing the death warrant for some severly mentally handicapped men. Don't you think they can make that sound pretty bad, hey, I think that is pretty bad myself.

President Bush and his administration went all agog when some German politician said that President Bush was using the same tactics that Adolph Hitler used. Well maybe George Bush isn't trying to imitate Adolph, but he is using some of the same tactics. Hey it is true so don't get mad a me.

George is constantly trying to get everyone to look at Iraq and terrorism, so that no one even thinks about domestic issues. Adolph did the same thing and it got Germany into a World War, but the German people were no longer thinking about hyperinflation or where they would get a job.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequences, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands by your slogan."

Well I can't say that the Bush administration is into slogans, but they constantly harp on "Homeland" Security which sounds just like the "Fatherland" that Adolph harped on. Also, who can say that they haven't harped on "Weapons of Mass Destruction" George and Donald have said that phrase hundreds, if not thousands of times, along with "regime change"

I am not saying that George Bush is using Mein Kampf as a guide to the way he governs, but I will say that he is using tactics that were proven to work on a population, by Nazi Germany.

I find that it is so scary that Adolph Hitler thought Germans were some sort of a Master Race and now the Bush administration thinks that America is a "special" country and only America can now be a Super Power because only America will bring freedom to the world. That sounds to me like we now think that every other country is our inferior. Is America the new master race?

What almost scares me more than that is the lack of understanding of what freedom is by those in the Executive Branch of our government. Judge Damon Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals wrote, "The executive branch seeks to uproot people's lives, outside the public eye, and behind a closed door. Democracies die behind closed doors. When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation."

Judge Keith was writing for the Court that unanimously ruled that the Bush administration had illegally held hundreds of deportation hearings in secret. Almost even more worrisome than this, is the case of Yaser Hamdi, an American citizen held in prison with no charge, no lawyer, and no rights.

In Mr. Hamdi's case, U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar wrote, "This case appears to be the first in American jurisprudence where an American citizen has been held incommunicado and subjected to an indefinite detention in the continental United States without charges and without access to a lawyer." This judge was appointed by Ronald Reagan and no flaming liberal.

I will admit that these two quotes by judges make me think right away of the, GESTAPO! I'm sorry, call me an alarmist, but someone, sometime, somewhere has to say something. This Bush administration is working without a clue of how people think, nor do they care about American rights. That is why they are so surprised and upset that people in Iraq are shooting at our planes when we bomb them. That is what I would hope and pray every American citizen would do if the roles were reversed, but this administration can't understand people in other countries can have patriotism too.

One more judge and one more quote. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said in 1928, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning, but without understanding."

All quotes came from Nat Hentoff, "False guarantees of individual liberties"