America, A Country on the Brink of Destruction; a summary of the Bush presidency

America, A Country on the Brink of Destruction; a summary of the Bush presidency,

by Lonna Gooden VanHorn,

  OpEdNews.com

 

G.W. Bush has done his best (or worst) to destroy this country in every way in 4 years.  He said he would be a uniter, but we have never been so divided.  Clinton brought us to surpluses as far as the eye could see and Bush has taken us to deficits as far as the eye can see, all to benefit his rich family, friends, and campaign contributors at the expense of the poor, middle-class and the environment. He is the only president to cut taxes during a war.  He has consistently lied about who his tax cuts benefit most. 

 

John Kerry was against cutting taxes for the richest among us.  He co-sponsored a bill that asked the richest 1% of Americans to forgo their tax cut for one year to pay for the $87 billion Iraq appropriations bill, but Bush said he would veto that bill, so instead, the Republicans in Congress tacked the cost of that bill onto the debt our grandchildren will be paying for generations.

 

The only argument among historians is if Bush is the worst president in history or only one of the three worst.  One of the ten Nobel prize winning economists who slammed Bush's policies and endorsed Kerry, says he is the worst, as does Helen Thomas.  Economists warn that if he is elected, we are in for a South American style fiscal meltdown.  http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/opinion/04KRIS.html?ex=1391230800&en=70f32da2ac9ab04d&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND. We may be anyway because of the damage his reckless fiscal policies have already done.  Economists believe we have a chance with Kerry but no chance with Bush.  It is a given that the first place Bush will steal money from is Social Security.  His international and fiscal policies are so disastrous that for the first time in his life, ret. General John Eisenhower, Ike's son, will be voting for a Democrat for president. http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657 

 

Roger Morris, the Republican diplomat who resigned his post in protest after Nixon bombed Cambodia, is making speeches telling other diplomats to resign from "the worst foreign policy regime by far in the history of the republic."  http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0525-14.htm. 186 diplomats have announced their support for Kerry, an unprecedented number to publicly come out against a sitting president.  Scientists and environmentalists despair over his policies and methods and say his election is the greatest threat to our environment.  A surprising number of church leaders denounce Bush's brand of Christianity.  A retired bishop of his own church calls his campaign "blasphemous."  http://www.thedailyreview.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13106694&BRD=2276&PAG=740&dept_id=226958&rfi=6 The co-chair of "Veterans for Bush" in 2000, General Tony McPeak is campaigning for Kerry.  He says he would not vote for Bush again if he was running against Grandma Moses who has been dead for decades.  Mideast specialist (and Republican) General Anthony Zinni agrees.  Col. Hackworth shares many of their concerns.

 

According to lifelong conservative Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski who was working in the Pentagon in the run up to war, the Office of Special Plans was formed to manufacture and twist intelligence to get it to say what the administration wanted because they wanted to go to war.  She took early retirement rather than be a part of such dishonesty.  Bush's family is making money off the war (and yes, I can prove that), and, obviously Halliburton is.  One soldier writing home said he thought we went to war so that Halliburton could win contracts to help offset the cost of all the asbestos lawsuits filed against it.  Intelligence agents were so disgusted they formed "Veteran Intelligence Agents for Sanity" headed by 27 year agent (served under Bush I) Ray McGovern who now works for a Christian outreach program.  He said the motto for the CIA, now, should be "we cook estimates to go." http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0805-10.htm

  

Bush was warned about the terrorist threat when he came into office, but did nothing.  The August 6th PDB was titled "Bin Laden determined to strike inside U.S." but he did nothing.  As a former fighter pilot, he, of all presidents, should have at least known enough to put up fighter interceptors 24/7 after that warning, but he did nothing.  He is the best recruiting poster Bin Laden has ever had.  Especially after Abu Ghraib.  He let Bin Laden go at Tora Bora, and now Al Qaeda has dispersed to 60 or more countries, and its ranks grow every day.  Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we invaded but it is now.  Bush was inept in not preventing 9/11, he was inept in taking us to war with Iraq, and then when he did do it, doing it without a plan.  But because he blusters and threatens, he is considered "better" on both terrorism and Iraq??  He spent money going to war that should have been used to make the home front safer.  The entire administration deliberately invoked the name of Saddam Hussein along with the word terrorists, so that 70% of the American public believed Hussein had something to do with 9/11.  We are less safe because of his priorities, which are, again, world domination by American corporations for the sake of American corporations, his campaign contributors.  Because of Bush more people around the world hate Americans enough to be willing to die taking us out.  How has that made us safer?  Bush fought the formation of the 9/11 commission and stonewalled it every step of the way, possibly because he did not want his family's ties with the Saudis, the people who were behind the attacks, to be exposed.  Gore would have never survived had 9/11 happened when he was president.  He would have been impeached.  Why Bush has been made a hero of because of an attack that happened while he ignored the terrorist threat is beyond my understanding!  He diverted resources from the hunt for Bin Laden to launch a war against a country not involved in the attack.  He has seriously damaged our guard and reserve units because of his war fought out of choice rather than from necessity.  Col. Hackworth, among others, believes that because of this war, the draft will necessarily be reinstated.  http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=92&rnd=6.366868406010195  

 

He lied us into a war out of ignorance, arrogance and hubris.  1000 military people, many of then high ranking officers wrote him a letter saying going to war with Iraq was the worst thing he could do if he wanted to stop terrorism,  http://www/alternet.org/story/15356/  but he did not even meet with them,  just as he did not meet with any religious leaders, except, perhaps, a papal envoy.  He tried to cut soldiers' and veterans' pay and benefits in 2003.  The Democrats stopped him, but a huge cut of $910 million? is on tap for 2006.

 

He has rolled back environmental standards and written regulations to benefit his campaign contributors.

 

He has made the United States the most hated nation in the world.  Think of that!!  We were a beacon of light to the world.  Russia was the thug nation, the bully nation.  Under Bush we have become what we hated.  We have also become the imperialist nation we fought a revolution to free ourselves from in 1776. Still, we have never had more weapons and we have never felt less safe.

  

He has learned from Nazi operatives Goebbels and Goering to manipulate people through fear rather than inspiring them to greatness.  Nazi leader Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials in 1947 said, "Why of course the people don't want war" But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along"All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

 

Bush threatens and bullies.  He has no diplomatic skills.  He cannot admit a mistake.  He cannot even say "I wish I would have paid more attention to the terrorist warnings before 9/11."  or "Maybe we should not have cut taxes for the rich."  Unlike truly great leaders such as Lincoln, he has no humility.  We spend $420 billion a year on Defense, but Reservists recently mutinied because they would not go on a suicide mission with unsafe equipment.  Reservists and Guardsmen are being locked in their barracks before deployment to Iraq so they don't desert.

 

Bush has done nothing right.

 

Above all, the campaign he is running, just like all of his campaigns, shows the character of the man.  He has Jeb in Florida still disenfranchising voters.  He has the Swift Boaters, who have been totally discredited airing their ads.  Former POW, Senator John McCain asked him to denounce those ads, specifically, but he would not.

 

The truth is nowhere in G.W. Bush, and neither is honor.  He made his money unethically, as did his brothers.  Martha Stewart is doing time for what Bush did while with Harken Energy, except Bush made much more money with his insider trading.

 

The linchpins of his administration are greed, materialism and a lust for power.  When did greed become a Christian principle??  Bush was a partier, as are his daughters, but his "abstinence only" in sex, drug, and alcohol programs do not apply to them -- only to the average person.  And I think it is very likely that, as Kitty Kelly wrote, his pregnant girlfriend had an illegal abortion in the early 70's.   He unquestionably received preferential treatment to get into the guard.  He unquestionably was grounded from flying, he unquestionably was AWOL which means "absent without leave for less than 30 days."  He lies and tells half-truths about important things.  No one who is so dishonest about important things is either moral, or a good Christian.  Can you imagine Jimmy Carter acting in the manner Bush does, or running a campaign like his??  Jimmy Carter would have demanded those dishonest Swift Boat ads be stopped, but G.W. does not because he knows negative ads work.  He used them against John McCain in 2000, and the Republicans used them against Cleland in 2002. 

 

The differences between the two campaigns should be obvious to anyone.  And, in fact many newspaper articles have been written about the unprecedented dishonesty and vileness of our "Christian" president's campaign.  http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/opinion/25sat1.html?ex=1098331200&en=7cc2e8ac6acf863f&ei=5070&oref=login, http://bernardmoon.blogspot.com/2004/05/holy-biased-batman.html , http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41097-2004Feb13?language=printer  FAIR has documented it as well.

 

George Bush is incompetent.  He is a hypocrite.  Because of what his policies have done to the people of this country and the world, if he is elected, he must then be impeached!! 

 

American kids are dying and being maimed every day because he wanted to rule the world.  And now no one has any idea how to get us out of the mess he has gotten us into.  He was warned if he went to war this would happen.  Especially if he did not go in with enough troops.  His war has been so inept that the people we went in to "liberate" would prefer to have their murderous dictator back in power to having our troops there.  The atrocities at Abu Ghraib happened during his watch.

 

His campaign is not about policies or his accomplishments, because he has no accomplishments.  His campaign is all about smearing a good man, who even a newspaper which endorsed Bush in 2000 but is endorsing Kerry this year said "is head and shoulders above his opponent."  If the draft is reinstated it will be because of his disastrous, unnecessary "war of choice."  Eisenhower, that great patriot, who warned that corporations of the military industrial complex could become so powerful, policy decisions would be made for their benefit  must be spinning in his grave!!  But for what has gone wrong under this administration, what do the Republicans do??   What they always do.  Their only answer to anything is to blame Clinton!

  

If Bush is elected it will be because of all the lies and half-truths told about John and Teresa, and because the Republicans have more money to spend.   America has gone downhill ever since he and his brother and Katherine Harris stole the election for him in 2000. His presidency has been a disaster, but his family has benefited from it. They are much wealthier because of the tax cuts he pushed and enacted, as well as the fact that while he was president, his father's and Jim Baker's Carlyle Group went from 43rd to 11th among defense contractors.                                                            

 

George Bush is incompetent.  He is a hypocrite.  Because of what his policies have done to the people of this country and the world, if he is elected, he must then be impeached.  Reportedly, even some of the Republicans in his circle fear his "messianic complex" and believe he must not be elected. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?oref=login&pagewanted=1&oref=login

   

Perhaps the four hurricanes in Florida this year were God's punishment for the Bush family's greed, dishonesty, and immorality!!

 

Bill Mahrer said he almost hopes Bush is elected.  Bush has never had to clean up a mess he has made in his whole life.  It would only be right if he was made to clean up this mess.  The way Bush has set his programs up, the costs of them will not come into effect until after he is out of office, so if Kerry is elected, Kerry will be blamed.  If Bush is elected, one thing we can be sure of is it will not be his fault.  His presidency has been a disaster, but he admits no mistakes and accepts no responsibility for the consequences of the mistakes he does not admit to making.

 

The problem is, of course, that Bush will not clean up the mess if he is elected.  He will only make it worse.  Our only hope is John Kerry.  The people of the world hate Bush.  They do not hate Kerry. 

 

If Bush wins the election or if, again, with the help of his brother and the media he steals it, people who vote for him will get the president they deserve.  So, unfortunately, will all the rest of us.