Hilding Linquist’s comments on the similarity between the Nazis and Neocons are very astute. This is the structure of any tyranny, not democracy. I would also add that this cult of loyalty and obedience is also the hallmark of the Mafia. I sometimes wonder if Godfather Dick Cheney’s lieutenants and syncophants kiss his hand in private. We already know that they figuratively kiss a lower, posterior section of his anatomy in public.

Responding to comment #6807 by JSD with whom I basically agree in that the Bush Administration is positioning itself to “do something ... in order to derail a House of Congress controlled by Democrats bent on holding investigative hearings.”

JSD questions whether Bush is as religious as I contend in my earlier comment (#6794). My family is Fundamentalist Christian. I was raised a Fundamentalist Christian. Bush is a Fundamentalist Christian. He’s just not very bright, and he’s a puppet rather than a leader.

I will expand on another comment I posted elsewhere on truthdig.com (#6826) in response to “Specter Calls for Bush to Speak on Leak” in “Ear to the Ground”:

The Neocon strategy to attain power is based on the following tenets/concepts (and as you examine them you will be able to clearly identify their application in Neocon tactics):

- The primary aim of all human groups is to gain more power than one’s rivals because only then can one attain one’s goals.

- If you are unwilling to use the power you have then you don’t deserve to have it. Other ways of understanding this are, Power that can’t be used is not power, or, Use it or lose it.

(Note: The following two concepts come out of the concrete experience of today’s United States/Israeli leaders.)

- Hitler came to power through a democratically elected government; therefore democratically elected governments in and by themselves are no guarantee against evil leaders assuming power.

- It is up to good leaders to make sure that evil leaders never again attain power that can threaten the good people of the world. (Note: By definition, “we” are the good people of the world. “We” are the ones Chosen by Almighty God to fulfil a Manifest Destiny here on earth.)

- Those loyal to each other are a base of power.

- Loyalty to the base of power is its ‘glue’.

- Encreasing the number of those loyal to the base of power encreases the power of the base.

- Rewarding loyalty encreases loyalty, and punishing disloyality decreases disloyalty. (Note: We’ve seen a lot of both of these tactics by the Neocons.)

(Note: Now here is the kicker. This is where Bush #43 comes in. He has become the “Authority Ordained By God to Rule Over Us”! They need this authority to provide the legal constraints on loyalty ... if you are disloyal, you are unpatriotic.)

- Human loyalty is strongest in a religious framework with a belief system calling for total obedience to an Almighty God.

Stop and reflect for a moment. It’s all there in front of us.

The scarey part is thinking about where else we have you seen this framework. Well, in street gangs for one, where total obedience to the gang and the gang leaders is rewarded with the loot and disobedience is punished unrelentlessly.

It was also the frame for the German Nazi’s.

In fact, it is a mirror of the Nazi’s framework for encreasing their power, and was considered so successful that the Neocons adopted it for their own, thinking by doing so they would preserve the power of the good, the Chosen People of God.

Please note: This is an evolving draft of a set of core ideas I am putting together for a larger work, but I have no copyright on the draft, the set, or the separate ideas. I would like others to analyze their relevence with the idea of getting ahead of this gang of war criminals who have labeled themselves Neocons.

I think that there is much to admire in the vision of comment # 6794 by Hilding Lindquist. I doubt that W. is all that religious. Maybe I need to be educated in that, but I see Bush as a mediocre type at best, in anything that he is involved in. I think that he may think that he is a clever politician.

But, his thinking is uninformed in all areas of his activity, and now he is being kept that way as a kind of natural phenomenon of a politician in his position, insulated and isolated.

But, others are more connected, presumably. Certainly, the calculating minds surrounding the Executive see clearly, one should expect, the consequences of their acts in the light of a Democratic takeover of a House of Congress. Their lies and deceptions could very well land some of them in prison. They won’t risk this if they can avoid it.

Their expertise is in political manipulation of U.S. public sentiment. They used the attack of 9/11 masterfully to get what they wanted, and have tried to extend a dwindling public support into a reconstituting of the relationships of U.S. public institutions into a concentration of power in the Executive with as many dictatorial prerogatives as they can get away with.

Clearly, what they have done and tried to do needs to be examined. Perhaps it already has been examined and I need to be educated in that as well, but certainly, the kind of investigation that a House of Congress could conduct with subpoenaed testimony under oath of the players in the Bush administration most responsible for their indictable offenses, is clearly what we need to see.

Just as clearly, they cannot allow such a thing to befall them. So, my best guess is that they will feel it necessary to gamble on some such move as an attack on Iran leading possibly to a declaration of war. If they feel that they need to do something like this in order to derail a House of Congress controlled by Democrats bent on holding investigative hearings, so far, I see nothing in their character that could constrain them.

President George W. Bush views Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “potential Adolf Hitler”

At least he has it right for once, a ‘potential’ whereas he himself is the real thing.

But then where else in the world could Bush possibly test his new war toys without creating too much of a stink ?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2081800,00.html

“BRITAIN has been secretly designing a new nuclear warhead in conjunction with the Americans, provoking a legal row over the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

BTW, the lady mentioned in the article - Cherie Booth - is the wife of Britain’s Prime Minister.

And no, the IAEA is not allowed to inspect those and most other premises in Britain.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/uk/uk-031204-irna01.htm

An attack has been in the coming since before the 2004 elections and at worst can still be carried out, like the invasion of Somalia, weeks before the hand over to the new administration in 2008 who can then clean up the mess. So father, so son.

Is this country run by Morons???  (wait, don’t answer that) Who on earth thinks up this crap? The only regime change we truly need is in Washington.

Well, seeing how the Iraqis all rushed to overthrow their government when George Sr bombed them after the Kuwait invasion, there’s no doubt in MY mind that this must be the right way to go in Iran.  The Iranians are obviously praying for us to relieve them of their government, kind of like we were so happy to overthrow ours after the trade towers were hit by Osama.  And we’ve done SUCH a good job in Iraq to hold up to them as a shining example of what the good ol’ U S of A can do to a country…  Now excuse me while I throw up.

Can you hear me now (actually, Kevin Phillips)?

We are expanding the war in the Middle East (rather than, say, North Korea) because of a religious viewpoint pumped up on the steroids of oil:

G.W. is a Messianic True Believer who does not doubt the Fundamentalist Christians literal interpretation of the end times prophesied in the Bible.

He believes in the actual Second Coming of Jesus to straighten out the mess we humans create hear on earth BECAUSE we are unwilling to become born-again Christians. (The corollary view is that the ONLY way to help human beings is to first bring them to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.)

He believes in the final climatic battle between the forces of God vs. the forces of Satan aka good vs. evil in the Battle of Armageddon taking place in the Middle East.

He believes he is ordained by Almighty God (of the Judaic-Christian Bible) to lead us in these troubled end times. (... and that these ARE the end times.)

He believes he has the inherent authority in a time of war to decide what it is we need to do to protect and defend the United States of America.

He believes he cannot allow the Democrats to regain effective control of one or both of the Houses of Congress if it means that the Democrats allow our destruction by not resisting the forces of evil in the world as strongly as he does.

He has already rolled the opposition on the core values that keep us free. (The election of 2000, preemptive war, selected suspension of habeas corpus, torture, circumvention of judicial review of spying on citizens ... )

Where are the men and women who are willing to standup for our founding principles of inalienable human rights and the separation of powers in a republic? Are we going to allow this man—Bush #43—to shred our constitution?

I strongly suggest that everyone reads Kevin Phillips book, AMERICAN THEOCRACY, and get ready for a big event that allows G.W. to impose martial law and suspend habeas corpus.

Well, Bush the “Blitzkrieg Boy Emperor” can make all the “Hitler” accusations he wants but these “pre-emptive” war strikes, already in Iraq, and foreseeably against Iran, are simply a repeat of what Hitler’s own invasion against Poland in 1939.