15 Things Learned About Bush&Co.: An Impeachment List
By Bernard Weiner
The Crisis Papers
(edited version) in entirety here: scoop.co.nz.
Below is a quick list of fifteen things that I -- and maybe half of my fellow Americans -- have learned since George Bush first moved into the Oval Office four-plus years ago.
1. I've learned that while many of us in the late-'80s and early-'90s were celebrating the implosion of Soviet-style communism and the end of the Cold War, others already had been drafting aggressive plans to exploit the fact that the U.S. was now the sole Superpower on the planet.
2. I've learned that these neo-cons realized their aggressive views were way out of the mainstream and thus that their goal of assuming "global hegemony" would have to be put on hold "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." Their wish came true on September 11, 2001; then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said 9/11 presented the Bush Administration with "an enormous opportunity" for the implementation of its agenda in the world. (Note: All the words inside quotation marks are theirs, not made up by me.)
3. I've learned that Karl Rove, et al., taking note of how so many presidents (especially Bush the Elder) plunged in the polls after successful foreign adventures, realized that while Americans rally around a president during wartime, other concerns often take precedence once the hostilities cease. So Rove and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Wolfowitz decided to make sure that hostilities never cease.
TORTURE AS STATE POLICY
4. I've learned that Bush toady Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel, used this "permanent war" rationale as a justification for instituting the closest thing to a dictatorship in the U.S. since Richard Nixon, except that the Bush Administration makes Nixon's crimes look fairly puny in comparison.
5. I've learned that Gonzales and Pentagon lawyers, using the "commander-in-chief-during-wartime" rationale, have attempted to legally justify use of "harsh interrogation techniques" (read: torture) on those terror suspects by inventing a new term, "enemy combatants," not used in the Geneva Conventions Against Torture of Prisoners of War.
6. I've learned that among the first actions taken by the Bush Administration in early-2001 were those eliminating legal liability for U.S. officials or soldiers from domestic criminal laws and international conventions regarding the torture of prisoners in U.S. care. We didn't fully understand why the Administration was taking these steps until a year or two later, when the extent of U.S. abuse (and deaths) of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and elsewhere become evident. The Administration made sure that only lower-level guards and officers were charged with the deaths and abuse crimes, even though the orders and "atmosphere" that winked at anti-torture laws had come down the chain of command from the White House and Pentagon authorizing the use of "harsh interrogation methods" of terrorist suspects.
"RENDERING" AND AMERICA'S SHAME
7. I've learned that the hardest prisoners to crack were either "ghosted" -- i.e., kept off the rolls so that the International Red Cross would not know they existed to check up on their interrogations and care -- or were "rendered" to countries abroad (such as Uzbekistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al.) where they could be severely tortured without running afoul of U.S. laws and military regulations.
8. I've learned that torture and permanent war abroad have been linked to police-state tactics at home -- mainly in controversial sections of the so-called USA Patriot Act, barely read (if read at all) and passed in great haste and fear after 9/11. The result is the creation of a militarist, neo-fascist atmosphere within America. Those opposing this, or other policies of this Administration are smeared with accusations of giving aid and comfort to the enemy (Ashcroft), or being soft on terrorism (Rove/Cheney).
9. I've learned that much of the corporate-owned mass-media -- newspapers, network news, cable pundits, radio talk-shows -- support the Bush Administration, out of fear of reprisal or because they are ideologically or economically in tune
10. I've learned that the HardRightists are not content to control the Legislative and Executive Branches, and much of the Judicial Branch and most of the news media. They are moving to obtain near-total control of the Judiciary by packing the important appellate courts with extreme rightwing judges, and Bush is hoping to nominate at least two FarRight justices to the Supreme Court during this second term, which could alter American jurisprudence for decades to come.
REALITY-BASED VS. SELF-DELUSION
11. I've learned that this is an Administration that appears to be severely allergic to fact and truth.
12. I've learned that the Bush Administration, which does everything to ease law-enforcement pressure on polluting corporations, has the worst environmental record in modern times.
DEMOCRATS AS AN "OPPOSITION PARTY"
13. I've learned that the Democrats in the Senate and House too often are complicit in helping Bush&Co. implement their plans and programs by rolling over in the face of the Republicans' smash-mouth politics. The Dems are a bit better now than they were in Bush's first term, but they still haven't figured out that being an Opposition Party means acting like one, not trying to play patty-cake with the Republicans, who mainly want to politically slash their throats and eliminate them as an obstacle to seizing full control over everything.
14. I've learned that America's voting system is thoroughly corruptible and cannot be trusted to yield the actual results. It's not that I object because Republican companies manufacture the voting machines and control the secret software that counts the votes; I would feel the same way if Democrat companies were in charge.
THE WHITE HOUSE HORRORS: IRAQ
15. Finally, there is Iraq, which (as was the case with Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam) will be the death of Bush's legacy and which potentially could get him impeached during his term, or put on trial domestically and in The Hague after he leaves office. Thanks to insiders who have left the Administration, the demonstrable facts, and now the so-called Downing Street Memos from England, I have learned, we all have learned, that there were immense immoralities and crimes perpetrated by our own government (and the Blair regime) in preparing for, launching, and carrying out this war and occupation. And those crimes continue to this day.
FORCED ENTRY & NO EXIT PLAN
Because of its Iraq invasion, occupation and tortures, the U.S. is a hated pariah in most of the world, morally isolated, economically vulnerable, anathema to Muslims worldwide (many of whom have not forgotten that Bush initially used the term "crusade" to describe his mission), a magnet target for terrorists everywhere. Our already-streched-thin troops are bogged down in a bloody quagmire in Iraq now and presumably will be for years to come; Rumsfeld the other day said a dozen years is not out of the question.
If they resign right now, I say let's pardon them all. Anything. Just go!
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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. has taught government & international relations at various universities, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle, and now co-edits The Crisis Papers ( www.crisispapers.org) . Send comments to crisispapers@comcast.net .
Originally published at The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 6/28/05.
Copyright 2005 by Bernard Weiner. |
