Roberts Rules

I rarely quote Julia Roberts, or Senator Pat Roberts, or Chief Justice John Roberts. But I quote Paul Craig Roberts all the time, and will likely continue to do so. As his old boss Ronald Reagan would say, "Here I go again!" PCR on torture and the Patriot Act:

The reason that the Bush administration and the neocons defend torture is that, having launched an illegal invasion and created an American police state, they are desperate for "evidence" of the terrorist threat in order to justify their illegal and unconstitutional policies.

The only way to obtain this "evidence" is to torture people until they confess to the plots that are invented for them. A steady stream of confessed "terrorists" serves to justify the police state that has been created. Bush revealed the ploy when he asserted on December 10 that terrorist violence will be the result if Congress does not renew the Orwellian-named "Patriot Act" by December 31: "In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without that vital law for a single moment."

What Bush declares to be a "vital law" is, in fact, the greatest assault on civil liberties in the history of our country.

Do Americans really want to give up the civil liberties granted to them by the US Constitution merely in order that the Bush administration can lord it over the Middle East, establish puppet governments over Muslim peoples, protect Israel from retribution for its crimes against Palestinians, and steal oil from Arabs and Persians?

If Americans do, what remains of their virtue?