RUMSFELD IS ONLY A SYMPTOM—
BUSH IS THE CANCER
There was a time just a few short years ago when regardless to what horrors were taking place in the rest of the world I thought I could take comfort in the fact that “it could never happen here in America.” With the benefit of hindsight, however, I now see that I was clearly naïve, since less than sixty years ago a segment of the American populous was bringing picnic baskets to the public lynching of Black people all over the South. Nevertheless, America was able to put on a good front and convinced both me, and the world, that such behavior was an aberration, and far from representative of who we are as a people. They managed to convince us that the United States was an anointed place, chosen by God to show the rest of the world the way.
But in five short years the Bush Administration has managed to undermine all of the spin, disinformation, and public relations that America has so painstakingly spoon-fed the world over the past two centuries. In the graphic parlance of the street, “he’s pimped our [whoe] card.” Ordinarily I would thank him for bringing us back to reality, but in doing so he’s created a new reality—a reality that has placed America in serious jeopardy.
During the years that America benefited from the illusion of moral propriety, even our enemies paid us a grudging respect. They had second thoughts about carrying out their more malevolent tendencies due to the fear that their conduct might offend the moral sensibilities of this great beacon of moral propriety on the hill. But in a mere five years the Bush Administration has demonstrated that America at its worst is just as immune to moral propriety as any malevolent, tinhorn dictator that the world has ever known—and it’s much more dangerous, due to its awesome political and military might.
When Bush invaded Iraq under false pretenses, and then declared that he’s prepared to engage in preemptory military operations against any country that he perceives to be a threat to American security, essentially, he put the world on notice--what has happened to Iraq can also happen to them on just his personal whim. So in essence, he’s declared himself president of the world. As a result, friend and foe alike are looking at America in a far different way. They now see that America is greedy, power hungry, and cannot be trusted. And while they may well recognize that the Bush Administration may simply be a passing aberration in American politics, just the fact that they’ve been allowed to effect such vast changes in the American body politic demonstrates that the American character itself can turn on a dime, and therefore, makes for a highly unstable world entity. Thus, the only way to protect themselves from this hungry giant is to align themselves against it, and to move forward with programs to develop nuclear armaments as fast as they can. The nations of Iran and North Korea are perfect examples of that mindset at work.
The leaking of the Downing Street Memo is another example, but this time an example of our allies working to undermine American interests. The memo is a Top Secrete document to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was written by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign aide to the Prime Minister, after meeting with the Bush Administration. The document points out in graphic detail the Bush administration’s game plan to deceive the world in order to justify its decision to invade Iraq. It pointed out that “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” In short, it was saying that Bush wanted to go after Saddam but they were going to have to lie to justify it. Just the fact that this memo was allowed to see the light of day demonstrates that even our supposed allies are actively working to undermine this administration—and with good cause.
George W. Bush has always been a shady character and a failure at everything he’s ever attempted in life. In spite of the fact that he’s so willing to sacrifice American lives in Iraq, even after strings were pulled to place him at the front of the line to get him into the Texas National Guard to avoid going into the regular army, and possibly having to risk his own life in Vietnam, he ran away from his responsibility to serve out his term. That was swept under the rug. Then in 1978 Bush started an oil business called Arbusto Energy. It was a total failure and never turned a profit. But before the business went completely under, friends of the Bush family managed to merge it with another company call Spectrum 7 and made Bush the CEO. Within a few years that company was also in debt, but once again, Bush was bailed out by family friends. The new company was called Harken Energy. During his tenure at that company Bush was given $120,000 a year and huge stock options to do absolutely nothing. Just before that company collapsed Bush sold all of his stock for a huge profit. As a result he was being investigated by the SEC for insider trading, but by that time his father was president, so the investigation was quietly dropped. Now we find that Haliburton, the company that his vice president headed, thus, ended up getting no bid contracts in Iraq, has been knowingly serving our troops contaminated water. I could go on for many pages, but quite frankly, I don’t think it should be necessary.
Again, George W. Bush has been a man of shady character, highly incompetent, and an abject failure all of his life. Just the fact that we’ve allowed such a man to become the President of the United States is an indictment against our society, and should be a source of great shame and embarrassment to every American. But it goes much farther than that—remaining true to his nature, yet again, this man is about to crash and burn. So the question we must ask ourselves is this: Are we prepared to just stand by and allow Bush to take all of America down with him? Think about it—because daddy’s friends can’t save us this time.
Eric L. Wattree, Sr.
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BUSH IS THE CANCER
There was a time just a few short years ago when regardless to what horrors were taking place in the rest of the world I thought I could take comfort in the fact that “it could never happen here in America.” With the benefit of hindsight, however, I now see that I was clearly naïve, since less than sixty years ago a segment of the American populous was bringing picnic baskets to the public lynching of Black people all over the South. Nevertheless, America was able to put on a good front and convinced both me, and the world, that such behavior was an aberration, and far from representative of who we are as a people. They managed to convince us that the United States was an anointed place, chosen by God to show the rest of the world the way.
But in five short years the Bush Administration has managed to undermine all of the spin, disinformation, and public relations that America has so painstakingly spoon-fed the world over the past two centuries. In the graphic parlance of the street, “he’s pimped our [whoe] card.” Ordinarily I would thank him for bringing us back to reality, but in doing so he’s created a new reality—a reality that has placed America in serious jeopardy.
During the years that America benefited from the illusion of moral propriety, even our enemies paid us a grudging respect. They had second thoughts about carrying out their more malevolent tendencies due to the fear that their conduct might offend the moral sensibilities of this great beacon of moral propriety on the hill. But in a mere five years the Bush Administration has demonstrated that America at its worst is just as immune to moral propriety as any malevolent, tinhorn dictator that the world has ever known—and it’s much more dangerous, due to its awesome political and military might.
When Bush invaded Iraq under false pretenses, and then declared that he’s prepared to engage in preemptory military operations against any country that he perceives to be a threat to American security, essentially, he put the world on notice--what has happened to Iraq can also happen to them on just his personal whim. So in essence, he’s declared himself president of the world. As a result, friend and foe alike are looking at America in a far different way. They now see that America is greedy, power hungry, and cannot be trusted. And while they may well recognize that the Bush Administration may simply be a passing aberration in American politics, just the fact that they’ve been allowed to effect such vast changes in the American body politic demonstrates that the American character itself can turn on a dime, and therefore, makes for a highly unstable world entity. Thus, the only way to protect themselves from this hungry giant is to align themselves against it, and to move forward with programs to develop nuclear armaments as fast as they can. The nations of Iran and North Korea are perfect examples of that mindset at work.
The leaking of the Downing Street Memo is another example, but this time an example of our allies working to undermine American interests. The memo is a Top Secrete document to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was written by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign aide to the Prime Minister, after meeting with the Bush Administration. The document points out in graphic detail the Bush administration’s game plan to deceive the world in order to justify its decision to invade Iraq. It pointed out that “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” In short, it was saying that Bush wanted to go after Saddam but they were going to have to lie to justify it. Just the fact that this memo was allowed to see the light of day demonstrates that even our supposed allies are actively working to undermine this administration—and with good cause.
George W. Bush has always been a shady character and a failure at everything he’s ever attempted in life. In spite of the fact that he’s so willing to sacrifice American lives in Iraq, even after strings were pulled to place him at the front of the line to get him into the Texas National Guard to avoid going into the regular army, and possibly having to risk his own life in Vietnam, he ran away from his responsibility to serve out his term. That was swept under the rug. Then in 1978 Bush started an oil business called Arbusto Energy. It was a total failure and never turned a profit. But before the business went completely under, friends of the Bush family managed to merge it with another company call Spectrum 7 and made Bush the CEO. Within a few years that company was also in debt, but once again, Bush was bailed out by family friends. The new company was called Harken Energy. During his tenure at that company Bush was given $120,000 a year and huge stock options to do absolutely nothing. Just before that company collapsed Bush sold all of his stock for a huge profit. As a result he was being investigated by the SEC for insider trading, but by that time his father was president, so the investigation was quietly dropped. Now we find that Haliburton, the company that his vice president headed, thus, ended up getting no bid contracts in Iraq, has been knowingly serving our troops contaminated water. I could go on for many pages, but quite frankly, I don’t think it should be necessary.
Again, George W. Bush has been a man of shady character, highly incompetent, and an abject failure all of his life. Just the fact that we’ve allowed such a man to become the President of the United States is an indictment against our society, and should be a source of great shame and embarrassment to every American. But it goes much farther than that—remaining true to his nature, yet again, this man is about to crash and burn. So the question we must ask ourselves is this: Are we prepared to just stand by and allow Bush to take all of America down with him? Think about it—because daddy’s friends can’t save us this time.
Eric L. Wattree, Sr.
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