Paul Craig Roberts on Bush and Hitler

Perhaps the first person to make comparisons between Bush and Hitler was not some "leftie" but the former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts. See The Brownshirting of America from October, 2004. Today he has another strong commentary, Bush Has Achieved America's Demise.

We are talking about over 1 million casualties that have no other cause than blatant lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the bloodthirsty neoconservative cabal that occupies Bush's subcabinet, and their corporate media propagandists, especially The Weekly Standard, Fox News, National Review, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. The Bush regime deceived America and the world with its lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that would be turned against the West by terrorists. By giving speeches that continually mentioned Iraq in the same context as 9/11, the Bush regime created the widespread impression, still prevalent among Americans, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.

What kind of government would destroy the lives through death or disability of over 1 million people for no valid reason?

Just like Hitler?

The same kind of government that fires its own lawyers for doing their constitutional duty. Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was assigned the task of bringing Salim Hamdan to a guilty plea before the unconstitutional military tribunal that President Bush created for Guantanamo detainees. Instead, Cmdr. Swift did his duty and defended his client, winning in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Bush administration retaliated by blocking Cmdr. Swift's promotion, which killed his military career and sent the chilling message to all U.S. military and government attorneys that constitutional scruples are career-enders in the Bush regime. Anyone who stands for the U.S. Constitution is against Bush and his neocon regime.

The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime proceeded. First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity from the government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You are with us or against us" – a formulation that leaves no place for duty to the U.S. Constitution. Patriotism is redefined from loyalty to country and Constitution to loyalty to the government's leader.

With us or against us!

When Bush the Decider claims unconstitutional powers and uses "signing statements" to negate U.S. law whenever he feels the rule of law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar to Hitler, the Führer, who told the Reichstag on Feb. 20, 1938: "A man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or to a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission placed upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an enemy of the people."