In the administration of George W. Bush, the Republican Party has achieved the greatest combination of idiocy and evil in human history.

The Republicans have bogged America down in a gratuitous and illegal war. The war has destroyed Iraq, killed between 650,000 and 1 million Iraqi civilians, displaced 4 million Iraqis, and littered the country with depleted uranium. Bush's war remains unwon despite its five-year duration and $1 trillion in out-of-pocket and incurred future costs.

Bush's invasion of Iraq is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard, a direct counterpart to Hitler's invasion of Poland. Both were based on lies and deception, and the declared reasons for both were masks for secret agendas.

Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his planned attack on Iran and his support for Israel's attack on Lebanon and genocidal policies toward the Palestinians have radicalized the Middle East and Muslims worldwide. American and Israeli aggression have vindicated Osama bin Laden's propaganda, produced massive recruits for al-Qaida, and unleashed destabilizing forces throughout the Middle East

Bush's wars are strengthening Islam. Abdullah Gul has just been elected president of Turkey. Gul is described by the American media as "former Islamist." Gul is supported by the ruling political party of Prime Minister Erdogan, another "former Islamist."

Gul's election to the presidency by 76 percent of the Turkish parliament has upset Turkey's secularized military, long in the pay of the U.S. government. On Aug. 27, Turkey's military chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, declared that "centers of evil systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic." The Turkish military, many believe at the request and pay of the United States, has overthrown four Turkish governments since 1960, the last only 10 years ago.

With President Bush's rant about "bringing democracy to the Middle East," the Turkish military is less able to impose Western values on an Islamic people. Similarly, the American puppet in Egypt cannot as easily suppress the Islamic values and aspirations of Egyptians.

U.S. puppet rulers in Jordan and Pakistan, and even the Saudis and oil emirates, report the ground shaking under their feet. America's puppet in Pakistan is in trouble, and his difficulties are compounded by U.S. military incursions into that nation. The Bush administration is considering contingency plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the event the American puppet is overthrown, delusional plans considering the overstretched U.S. military.

In the postwar years, the United States managed with its money and influence to secularize an elite class in Middle Eastern countries, an elite that identifies with the West and not with its own cultures. This artificial elite has produced a wide political gap between the masses of the people and the rulers. Increasingly, Muslim masses perceive their rulers as allied with foreign powers against them.

In Iraq, the American puppet government of Nuri al-Maliki seems to be on its last legs. The Sunnis have pulled their support, as has the most important Shi'ite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, who realizes that the Maliki government is too complicit in U.S. crimes to be a legitimate ruler of Iraq. With both the Bush administration and Congress blaming Maliki for America's failure in Iraq, Maliki's fate looks increasingly to be that of Ngo Dinh Diem, America's Vietnam puppet who was blamed for the unsuccessful U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Just as Hitler long denied German defeats on the Russian front and even in his last days was ordering nonexistent German divisions to relieve Berlin, the Bush regime finds a new straw to grasp in Iraq each time the previous straw proves to be a delusion. The latest straw is "the surge."

While Americans surge, the British have been defeated in southern Iraq and have withdrawn to two bases in eerie similarity to the French at Dien Bien Phu. The British are subjected to between 30 and 60 mortar and rocket attacks each day. British generals want their troops out of Iraq. The longer British Prime Minister Brown keeps them in Iraq in order to appease the Bush administration, the harder it will be to rescue the survivors.

With American retreat south to Kuwait now potentially cut off, how will the United States extract its troops and equipment when American defeat can no longer be denied?

The Bush administration and its politicized military are already blaming the failure of "the surge" on Iran. Iran is alleged to be training and arming Iraqis who resist the U.S. occupation. Bush has said he will hold Iran responsible. There is abundant evidence that the Bush administration is preparing yet another illegal attack on a Muslim country without assessing the consequences.

The Bush administration seems destined to produce such disasters that it will be driven to the use of nuclear weapons in order to avoid defeat. The Bush administration possesses the combination of evil and stupidity required to escalate a failed "cakewalk war" into a nuclear one.

Many of the administration's most evil members — Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales — have been discarded as the tragedy deepens, but Dick Cheney remains ensconced, as does the moron in the White House. Before they fall, Bush and Cheney will bring more sorrow to the world and more shame to Americans.

To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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