Yesterday Thom Hartman had Bruce Fein as his radio show guest; this morning it was Paul Craig Roberts.  Both are conservative former members of the Reagan Administration.  They both make the case for impeachment of Bush and Cheney now - before it's too late - otherwise its curtains for our constitutional democracy.  As Randi Rhodes is fond of saying, and as Paul Craig Roberts reasserted this morning, our country will never fall from terrorist attacks.  Instead, the very freedoms that define us are in grave danger of being given away completely in exchange for false promises of security - empty promises to protect us from amplified legitimate fears at the very least, or manufactured fictitious fears at the very worst.  Paul Craig Roberts basically posed this rhetorical question:  Given the choice between leaving office in disgrace - with the Republican Party all but destroyed, or making a final grab for absolute dictatorial power, what will Bush and Cheney do?
 
The pieces are already in place - or to use a more apropos Pink Floyd metaphor - the bricks for the wall are already being stacked.  Unfortunately only a vast minority of Americans are paying attention long enough to recognize what is right in front of their eyes:
 
  • Habeas corpus has been eliminated under the Military Commissions Act
  • The media has been crippled and commercialized, the legislature has been cowed (at least up to now), and the judiciary has been infiltrated.
  • They have a private military to enforce their decrees in case the regular military refuses.  This private military will have the full economic might of the military-industrial complex behind them.
  • They have built a nearly impenetrable wall around the Executive Branch of government, and as backup, a shadow government that operates totally in the darkness.
  • They have NSPD 51 to "legitimize" the wanton and capricious use of martial law,
    and now they another executive order to effectively castrate all of their potential critics.
 
Yesterday on the Jeff Farias Show, Joe from Phoenix called to complain that the majority of Americans are idiots; not because they were blissfully ignorant of the overt Fascism rising up all around them, but rather, because they didn't recognize, as is apparent to Joe alone, that Israel is the root of all our problems in the world today.  He chided the other listeners who phone into the show to declare their tired partisan viewpoints, or attempt to draw clear distinctions between Republicans and Democrats.  He seems to consider this kind of thing a lot a namby-pampy liberal whining.

I'm reluctant to address Joe's comments because, from what I have heard on many different occasions, he is obviously a smart guy who often makes excellent points.  He has an impressive resume and firsthand knowledge of what he speaks.  He has the credentials to back up most of his assertions.  But his credibility makes it even more important to answer the recurrent anti-Zionist theme that creeps into nearly all of his on air statements.

I'm a part of that liberal audience that he scoffs at, and I think our voices on the radio are just as important as Thomas Paine's pamphlets were when our Founding Fathers cried about their own King George.  It's not that we are wasting our time crying; it's that we aren't crying enough - at the top of our lungs - so that everyone will hear us.
 
The reality is that Bush and Cheney do not give a flying frig about Israel.  When and where Israel can be used to forward the Bush/Cheney agenda, they will be the stalwart defenders of Israel (whether it is in Israel's best interests or not).  Yes, AIPAC is far too strong and intrusive, and yes, its influence upon our politicians is inordinate and corrosive, and yes, it is little more than a unregistered foreign interest posing as a Capitol Hill lobby group -- but these observations are of no consequence to the Unitary Executive.  When it comes to the dominating and self-serving role of the US in geopolitics today, the Israeli tail definitely is not wagging the imperial US dog.
 
Israel is as much responsible for our misguided policies today as Prescott Bush was responsible for Hitler's policies during WWII.  I am not throwing out accusations of antisemitism here.  This is not a defense of Israel by any means.  But please, let's keep some perspective on what is happening.  We are dealing with Caesars, not Zionists.  The constitutional crisis is here in the United States, not in Israel.  As John Nichols said so concisely last week on Bill Moyer's Journal, "An impeachment is not a constitutional crisis. Impeachment is the cure for a constitutional crisis."