Dandelion Salad
By Kathy Sanborn
08/13/08 “ICH”
Sanborn: When I read your article, “Marching Off Into Tyranny,” I was impressed by how you were able to concisely sum up one of the most important issues that we face as Americans, namely, the erosion of our civil liberties, mostly due to fabricated terrorism such as the anthrax scare and the attacks on 9/11. You talk about the Florida university professor, Al-Arian, who continues to be victimized by the Feds although a jury has cleared him of any terrorism charges. [As of August 8, 2008, the Associated Press states, “U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema postponed the trial indefinitely, questioning whether the government was overeager in filing charges.” –KS]
What was your wake-up call, Dr. Roberts, to the fact that the current administration was determined to take away the civil liberties of Americans?
Roberts: When they responded to 9/11 with the Patriot Act. That document was thick, and it would have taken months and months to prepare it, yet it came out shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Why does combating terrorism require an assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? It was clear to me that there was an undeclared agenda there.
On the day of 9/11, I knew right away that something was wrong. I had been an engineering student at Georgia Tech, and things just didn’t add up. As I watched the towers fall, I could see that the buildings were blowing up from the top, at least initially. The airplanes caused asymmetrical damage, and I don’t think the planes were large enough to cause the buildings to topple. When you chop a tree down, it doesn’t blow up, it falls.
The buildings were blowing up, not falling down.
Then when I saw pictures of the alleged terrorists, most of them looked just like kids. They were small, and airplane passengers wouldn’t have hesitated to try to take them down. The average American male should have been able to take care of the hijackers.
And how they could have fooled all of the intelligence agencies, outwit NORAD, and so on; it just didn’t make any sense.
They were really after our civil liberties. That was their undeclared agenda. The effect is that no one has any protection under the law.
Sanborn: In your article, you mention the anthrax scare as being a logical part of the 9/11 “false-flag” series of events. Now that we know the anthrax actually came from a US government lab and not from an alleged cave in Afghanistan, the theory seems to hold water. And you point out that recently scientist Bruce Ivins was implicated in the anthrax case after his apparent “suicide.”
You also discuss how the Bush administration lied to ABC reporter Brian Ross by telling him the anthrax was made in Iraq by none other than Saddam Hussein, thus clearing the way for the US to invade Iraq and to pass the Patriot Act. Dr. Roberts, are journalists these days in the habit of simply believing and accepting everything the administration tells them, or are some of them on the “company” (CIA) payroll?
Roberts: I suspect both. It’s a corporate-run media, especially since the Clinton administration days, and many of the journalists act as “disinfo” agents for the government.
Back in the 1970s when I was a Senate aide, I would turn on the TV in the evening and the news reports would bear no resemblance to what had actually happened that day. I noticed that there were no journalists in the gallery, so how had the stories gotten to them? It turned out that the aides were calling the press, and the journalists were taking the stories, virtually running them verbatim. Journalists are lazy.
When I was working in the Reagan administration, I noticed that Stockman, Darman, and Jim Baker had their own special spin on things in a way that served their own agendas, and not the President’s.
Sanborn: What is clearly shocking and “in your face” about this administration is the fact that, as you say, the administration officials wanted for questioning by Congress (such as Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers) simply refuse to comply, and that seems to be the end of the story. These officials demonstrate to us that they believe they are above the law. It brings to mind the recent flip comment by a shrugging Vice President Dick Cheney: “So?” That attitude says it all, doesn’t it, Dr. Roberts?
Roberts: They think they’re not accountable. They use the law against their enemies. The acquiescence of the Congress is hard to explain, though.
Sanborn: Sometimes I wonder if the Congress is being bribed or blackmailed. That could explain why they refuse to stop illegal wars and torture.
Roberts: The purpose of illegal spying is to get blackmail information on members of Congress, and it started well before 9/11.
Sanborn: You say that no amount of evidence would convince the American public that their government, or rogue elements therein, would ever have been involved in 9/11 or the anthrax scare. It almost sounds like Americans have been brainwashed to a certain extent. Dr. Roberts, why can’t the US populace get their minds around the fact that we are losing our rights by the day, and that this so-called “war on terror” is the root cause?
Roberts: Most of them think that because they aren’t doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear. I would ask them this: Why did the founding fathers write the Constitution?
Americans believe that they are the salt of the earth, and that “Evil tries to get us because we are so good.” Bush says, “They hate us for our freedoms.” That’s a farce.
Sanborn: Let’s assume that the Bush administration hasn’t had their fill of power quite yet. Based on everything we’ve seen so far, it might not be a stretch to speculate that Bush and company might wish to contrive an “event” in order to suspend the upcoming elections and to remain in control of the White House. What say you, Dr. Roberts, to this possibility?
Roberts: I think it is a possibility. I warned of this back in ’06, I believe. The event would have to do with Iran. However, we’ve run out of allies to attack Iran, except for Israel. Attacking Iran would cause more blowback than we could manage, and we can’t get Russia or China to go along with our administration’s desire to attack Iran. We can’t push the Chinese or the Russians around in any way.
People may wake up to the truth yet. Ron Suskind’s new book, The Way of the World, is powerful. [He states that the Bush administration produced a fake letter claiming to demonstrate a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, in order to justify war with Iraq. There was no such link. –KS]
The frame-up of a dead man, Ivins, in the anthrax case isn’t working with knowledgeable people, either. Ivins couldn’t have done it because he worked in labs that made vaccines, and he didn’t have the special equipment necessary to make the anthrax.
Sanborn: By the way, Dr. Roberts, I wonder what your take is on the recent news that former astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell has, once again, stated that there have been, and still are, alien visitors to Earth. Could this “aliens are officially real” story magically evolve into a fake “alien invasion” to replace the faux -and failed- “war on terror” gambit?
Roberts: I don’t think they could fake an alien attack. No one would expect the Bush administration to be able to defeat an alien invasion.
Sanborn: Switching topics now, I wanted to ask you about the state of our rather perilous economy. Because you are an economic expert (the “Father of Reaganomics,” I’m told), what is your opinion on where the economy is headed?
Roberts: The US economy is in serious trouble. They need to keep interest rates low to bail out all those exotic securities and products, and, at the same time, the government can finance the budget only by foreign borrowing. The inflation rate is higher than our bond interest rate, so foreigners lose money when they sell the bonds. We’re probably engineering deals now with the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis to buy our bonds.
A higher interest rate will worsen the economy, but it’s already going down the drain even with low interest rates.
In addition, most of the good jobs are shipped out of the country, and the remaining good jobs are filled with foreigners on work visas. In the 21st century, no net new jobs were created except in non-tradable, low-paid, domestic services.
Sanborn: Is this all by design, or just pure ineptness?
Roberts: I think it’s hubris. They don’t realize the effects of what they’re doing. They want to plunder while they’re in office, and give to their rich friends.
Sanborn: You make it clear, Dr. Roberts, that you believe we are running out of time. At what point will it be too late to take action? How much time do we have left, in your opinion, before all of our rights are stripped away?
Roberts: One more Republican to the Supreme Court will mean the end of civil liberties, the end of separation of powers, and the end of constitutional government.
The neocons would love to attack Iran, and have Iran retaliate. They could use any retaliation as an excuse to nuke Iran. The neocons are dying to use nuclear weapons. They’d love it if our aircraft carriers in the Gulf were sunk, because we could turn around and nuke Iran. I think that’s the scenario of Dick Cheney, the Weekly Standard, Bill O’Reilly, and others.
I don’t know if Iran realizes its peril.
But, as I’ve said earlier, attacking Iran would cause more blowback than we could handle.
Sanborn: Americans in the know always ask, “What can we do?”
Roberts: It’s almost impossible for us to do anything. We can vote, but votes are decided at the beginning of the election by the programming of the Diebold electronic voting machines.
Some people have written off democracy, honesty, and integrity . . . When you have corruption in the people themselves, it’s hard to do something about corruption in government.
I can’t say I’m hopeful, but the administration’s way is not as clear as it was on 9/11.
Sanborn: Dr. Roberts, thank you for spending time with me today.
Kathy Sanborn is an author, journalist, and recording artist. Currently Kathy is working on a new recording project, slated for completion in 2008.
Kathy welcomes your questions, comments, and suggestions for future articles. Write to her at sanbornkathy@yahoo.com
© 2008 Kathy Sanborn
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
see
Roberts-Paul Craig
***
Donate to ICH
Dandelion Salad 