Welcome to no-fault government

"The Bush administration has now presided over three national debacles: 9/11; the $6.5-billion-monthly, unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and now, strike three, New Orleans.

Yet the White House claims the right and duty to bring good government to benighted foreign nations. Nation-building begins at home."

"The 9/11 attacks plunged normally decent, humane America into a period of temporary madness. Beating war drums allowed the White House to usurp national power, paralyzing the other two arms of government, Congress and the courts. America's democratic system stopped working.

Anyone who opposed the war or criticized its promoter, Bush, was branded a traitor. Mainstream media became a mouthpiece for the White House and war party. The Orwellian Patriot Act was enacted to curtail liberties and free speech.

National war fever and the lust for revenge that followed the 9/11 attacks allowed a small group of closet totalitarians, a cabal of neoconservatives and end-of-world religious fanatics to assume a dominant role in the Bush administration. They hijacked its foreign policy, and steadily pushed the U.S. into war."
(Eric Margolis -Toronto Sun)