There is very little doubt in my mind that President elect, George W. Bush, regards the concept of Democracy to be one commensurate with that of a religious movement; and an American-Christian one at that. His administration's foreign policy does not offer democracy to nations peering out from under the yoke of tyranny, instead it is served up to them as a dictate.
What a mess America has wrought in the Middle East, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We put George Walker Bush into office as our leader - twice, and just look at where he and his gang of neo-con intellectuals and corporate front men and women have led us. The situation is now far past the point of being politically polite in reference to our nation's leader. We can no longer afford the luxury of holding back what must be said, under the aegis of respectful decorum normally afforded to the head of state of one's country. There is simply no way around the obvious.
In short, the mind of George Bush has, to date, never given birth to an original thought. And if so, he has deftly managed to conceal it somewhere within the inner recesses of his intellect - or what there is of it. Let's face it America, the man is a political incompetent!
The mind of President Bush is a scary realm to be lost in without a moral compass or, at the least, an ideological flashlight. Both he and his inner circle (the cabinet members he chose), have demonstrated by inaction rather than action, that they are willing to suffer the blood of thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, rather than ever admit to a mistake in judgment - or any mistake whatsoever.
By now, just about every sane, rational thinking human mind on this planet (excluding the 30-33 percent die-hard neo-conservative Bush voting bloc), have admitted to themselves a latent truth: the war in Iraq was not only unnecessary but, as a campaign to bring democracy to that bloodied troubled land, is also an absolute failure and a looming $500 billion American disaster of monumental proportions.
According to American military assessment Iraqis, caught in the midst of an evolving civil war (accelerated by our presence) are killing themselves off at an average rate of 100 per day. That level of sectarian violence, if sustained, averages out to 3000 a month or approximately 36, 000 a year. And for those who may have some difficulty fathoming the meaning of these numbers, let's compare them to those racked up by the ousted leader of Iraq, Sadaam Hussein.
Hussein's 24-year reign as the leader of Iraq ran from 1979 to 2003. During this period of time, specifically from 1983 to 1988, he is reputed to have ordered the murders of 50.000 to 100,000 Kurds, several thousand Iranian prisoners of war, and during the 1991 uprising another 30,000 to 60,000 of his countrymen. But since no authority is certain of the exact number of people murdered or executed by the Hussein regime, for the purpose of comparison, I will simply employ the highest estimates and double them. By my reckoning, that comes to approximately 336, 000 people.
The resultant number reveals that Sadaam Hussein's Ba'ath Party was killing Iraqis, over a 24-year period, at a mean average rate of 38 to 40 a day. Because of our involvement in Iraq, in a de facto sense, we are facilitating the killing of Iraqi citizens at a rate approximately 2.5 times that of the Hussein reign of power.
This is a breathtaking outcome of what was heralded in it's initial stage (the invasion of Iraq in 2003) as the 'liberation' of the Iraqi people from tyranny. They now suffer a lack of clean water, a severe gasoline shortage in a country with the world's second largest oil reserve, 3 to 6 hours a day of electric power (with average 90-110 degree daytime temperatures), and the streets of their capitol echo with the sounds of gunfire, intermittent car bomb explosions, and the putrid smell of uncollected garbage and raw sewage. All of this leads me to wonder what the outcome of another election would be if held today: Would the blue fingers come out of the voting booths to herald the triumph of democracy, or the return of the tyrannical order of Sadaam.
Until the advent of the Bush presidency, the United States maintained a workable foreign policy in place. Always reflective of the sitting Chief of State, it was never perfect, and sometimes circumvented in the case of a rapidly evolving emergencies (like the Korean War). But there was always one in place that was clearly delineated so that everyone, friend and foe alike, knew where we stood. There was always that line drawn in the sand and, most importantly, that sand was on neutral ground.
Now, the Bush administration, for purely partisan political purposes, has chosen to redraw that vitally important line in the sand of Israel; which in the present chaotic situation in the Middle East, is the absolute worst place it could be drawn. For by such, it separates us from not only from our enemies, but potential allies in the region as well: and heaven knows we need friends in the region. Israel alone won't do - they have no oil. And like it or not, that reality dictates diplomacy in that hemisphere, vital to the survival of the developed world.
The Bush Foreign Policy
Rule:(1) No matter how large or powerful and organization or country you control, no matter how well armed you may be, even be that with nuclear arms or potential, if we dislike or reject your behavior in the world, we will not speak or negotiate with you directly.
Rule:(2) We will determine which countries or organizations are terrorists and, as state policy, will disregard the differing opinions or viewpoints of other countries if that viewpoint or opinion differs with ours.
Rule:(3) The United States will be the final arbiter of which nations can or can not possess nuclear weapons or carry out nuclear research, and by our silence which nations are to be exempt from such restrictions.
Rule:(4) The given shall be regarded as the Bush Doctrine, and we fully expect all member countries of the United Nations to adhere to it's guiding principles, or our representatives will veto any action the organization takes that is contrary to our wishes.
Results of the Bush Foreign Policy
(A) President of Iran and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela are forming not only a close relationship, but also the beginnings of a growing cartel to use the petroleum supply (a combined 25-30 percent of our required imports) as a weapon against the United States.
(B) The leadership of the rogue state of North Korea, already sharing nuclear and long-range missile technology with Iran, is now in the process of forming close diplomatic ties with Venezuela.
(C) President Putin of Russia, already openly at odds with the Bush administration over UN and trading policy, has worked out an arrangement with Venezuela to both sell and manufacture Kalashnikov rifles in that country.
(D) Pakistan, barley suppressing displeasure with the Bush administration over its recent announcement of a lucrative and advantageous nuclear deal with India, has announced they are engaging in a major expansion of their nuclear weapons development sites.
The Lebanon Crisis
There can be no better, if not tragic, example of the failure of the Bush Doctrine that the present crisis in Lebanon. In the eyes of the world, based upon our actions in this humanitarian crisis, we have become an aggressor nation. For we have deliberately stalled all attempts to install a cease fire between Lebanon and Hezbollah, and in doing so, prolonged the bloodshed, without the Bush administration having to state their premeditated intent publicly. Clearly, to the rest of the world, their purpose in doing so is to allow Israel enough time to (in their own words) 'degrade' the fighting capabilities and resources of the Hezbollah forces.
Unfortunately for the innocent Lebanese civilians caught in the middle of this epic battle (mothers, fathers and children alike), Hezbollah has been able to hold its ground against the combined might of the vaunted Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and a massive re-supply of their forces by the United States.
The entire world has now been exposed to an open secret: the United States is sending 'bunker busting bombs' to the Israelis. These bombs are capable of penetrating a 5 or 6 story building, all the way down to its basement. The purpose in doing so is to destroy the arms that Hezbollah may be storing there. What is left out of strategic military equation by the both the Bush administration and Israel, is that between those 6 stories and that basement, there are families of non-combatants living: men, women and most importantly, children.
Every military in the world knows that the best way to root out such weapons stockpile is to invade and remove them house by house. Israel is queasy about the loss of IDF lives in such an operation. After all, they've suffered such losses before at the hands of Hezbollah during their eight year occupation of the south. So they have chosen to go the bloody route and, in chorus with the Bush administration, blame all of the resultant deaths on Hezbollah as they go about leveling Lebanon.
Supposedly the Bush administration wants to effect (in the often repeated phraseology of Condoleezza Rice) - a lasting peace, but it wants to do so without talking directly to the three parties directly involved in the present conflict; namely, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. They instead prefer to be the 'voice of diplomacy speaking from the shadows at the back of a dark room', working instead through surrogates. Their reasoning is that to speak directly with ones adversaries is equivalent to rewarding them for bad behavior. History has taught the world, long ago, this policy simply does not work. But like the fabled man chasing the horizon, by his actions Bush cries out, "You lie!", and runs on.
The White House Press Briefing from Bedlam
On August 7th I viewed the White House press conference given by a very haggard President Bush, accompanied by his visibly nervous and agitated Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. The image cast by the duo was a frightening one.
Here was the leader of the free world so out of step with reality, that he answered reporters questions in a rambling style more in tune with a state of inebriation. He constantly repeated himself and gestured nervously, slurred many of his words and mispronounced many more; far beyond his well known normal range.This was a man overwhelmed with the pressures of his elected office.
In retrospect, when he was finally led from the stage by his Secretary of State, he wore almost the same exact expression that was captured by cameras when he was informed of the 9-11 disaster in 2000. America saw it and, unfortunately, so did the rest of the world.
Nor did his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice do much better. Shaking her head repeatedly for empty emphasis, she responded to queries from the press with her well known litany of excuses for not giving a straight answer: "I will not respond to hypothetical's!", and "I will not offer specifics!" Since hypoytheticals and specifics form the essence of a question on diplomacy, her response was clearly - I'll talk about it when and after it happens, which translates to - You're guess is as good as mine.
Just a week before, Bush's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld's, best response to charges of incompetence by a Senate investigating committee on the progress of the Iraq war, or deadly lack thereof, and an American combat death toll rapidly closing in on 3000, was "Oh my!"
Rumsfeld was flanked on either side at the hearing by the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and General John P. Abizaid, Commander of U.S., military operations in the Middle East. Both men, stressed and visibly tense, admitted that their troops were virtually powerless to prevent, and not equipped to handle the present developing situation. "The sectarian violence is as bad as I've ever seen it," testified Abizaid. "If not stopped, it is possible Iraq could move toward civil war."
As of the writing of this editorial, the George W. Bush administration has approximately 28 months left of his presidency. Let us all cross our fingers, look to the heavens and hope and pray that no other major catastrophes or wars come our way until this man is out of office. We simply cannot afford any more applications of the Bush Doctrine.
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