The Case against W Bush

The case against George is strong. All questions of intelligence and incompetence aside, actions are the best way to judge a man. The decisions of this administration are unconscionable when considered from the view point of one human being.

Bush's campaigning is simply dirty. His attack on John McCain, veteran and candidate for Republican party nomination for President in 2000, included standing beside a discredited Green Beret who claimed McCain "stabbed veterans in the back" by voting for a bill. McCain's position on the latest attack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad, is that it is dishonest and dishonorable. Bush has denied supporting the ad, and signed the McCain Feingold Bill to reform campaign finance - but he does not address the fundamental issue. Bush should not take a position allowing a group to attack his competitor and simultaneously avoid responsibility for that attack.

Bush's policy on the environment is avoid, reduce, and eliminate industry restrictions. His "Healthy Forest Initiative" eliminates the restriction of logging in areas that don't have roads - and by doing so clearly underscores his lack of concern for the environment. Why would anyone log an area of the forest so far from civilization that it is not near any road, and then claim they are doing it to protect people from forest fires. The Forest Service itself has claimed they want to log areas to help protect the California Spotted Owl habitat from forest fires, when studies have shown that the birds do not show any preference for living in burned/unburned areas. California logging has increased over a factor of three in these past four years. One of the first National Parks to be taken off the No-Roads protection list is Alaska's Tongass NP. This park was commisioned by Roosevlet and alone accounts for over 8% of the total National Forest. His policy also includes removing wild horses from national parks and allowing further snowmobile activity in area against scientific recommendations to the contrary.

Hie economic policies are deplorable. He instituted a tariff on steel when the steel industry complained about "unfair" practices. The intent was to protect the steel industry from countries that would lower the price of steel below cost. However, this was proven not to be true. The damage to the US economy was universally criticized - even by the steel industry as it turns out. His tax cuts for the rich are well known, and particularly despicable when we are currently in a four decade trend of the wealthy improving their position relative to the poor. He has even said that he believes a sales tax would be "intriguing."

His position on abortion has been well established. He currently supports the Pro-Lifers by nominated federal judges with anti-abortion leanings. John Ashcroft opposes abortion even in the case of rape.

His position on Gay Rights is well established with the recommendation for a Consititutional Amendment defining marriage to be a union between a man and a woman. How's that for a compasionate conservative?

But the crowning achievement of his policies is his fumbling of the war on terrorism. The most critical action he could have taken prioir to September 11th would have been to track down the terrorists responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. That effort got no support, and it wasn't until September 11th that there was any progress in that area.

September 11th happenned and the response was to attack Afghanistan. War comes at a cost, and many Afghani citizens were killed in the struggle. However, there will not be many tears cried for the Taliban. The international community could barely tolerate their corrupt system. What needs to occur now, is the support of the new democracy. At all costs!

The main complaint against the war in Afghanistan comes in our diplomacy with Pakistan. This country countered every effort to find Osama bin Laden before September 11th. We asked, even pleaded to Musharaf, to help us. This country had ties with the Taliban and could have applied pressure, but there is no evidence that anything was done. Pakistan's choice in our time of need needs to be remembered. And the choice of the government of Pakistan was not to help us. It was only after September 11th that any action occured - under the threat of military response - that Pakistan took a more concilatory tone with the US.

The War in Iraq is a disaster for counterterrorism. We cannot win any battles against terrorism in a country that did not have any terrorists before we came. Iraq's only fault - and this is the current reason Bush uses for our war - was throwing out the UN weapons inspectors. The other side of the story, corrobrated by independent news organizations, is that the UN weapon's inspectors were spying on Iraq's conventional weapons abilities. The UN weapon's inspectors were undermining Iraq's ability to defend itself in any type of war with the West.

To be certain, some elements in Iraq were funding terrorist organizations - not al Qeada, however. But this situation is no different when judging the US. Some elements within our own country fund terrorist organizations.

This war has been sliding out of focus from the beginning. First and foremost it was a war on terrorism. Then it became a war against the Taliban, not a major change in focus, but the Taliban were not terrorists. The Taliban was an organization that supported terrorists. So now we have a battle against all organizations that support terrorists, thus the phrase "You are either with us, or against us". This dilutes our ability to win the war. The next major loss of focus occured when we claimed that all nations that support WMD programs were part of an "axis of evil." This is a major loss in the political war. There was now no major distinction between the axis of evil and the US and its allies. Further, this axis of evil designation blurred our ability to look at terrorism as the main culprit. Somehow we forgot that the biggest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor did not employ WMDs.

So with the concern of WMDs on the horizon, we boldly charged into Iraq - now we were claiming Iraqi Freedom the mission. The loss of focus is a systematic error. Our major goal in this war is to install a functioning Democracy as the government of Iraq. What the hell does this have to do with terrorism?

George W Bush has failed and has tarnished the reputation of this country. Worse yet, he has endangered the lives of the innocent by setting alight the burning fires of fundamentalist hatred.

How do we answer the charges that Geroge W Bush is no better the Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein killed many defenseless Iraqis, the estimate is many tens of thousands killed after the war with Iran. Yet the US has sponsored a war on Iraqi soil, this time also leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Where is the human accountability to these policies?

Democracy is a beautiful system, and a powerful ally in any war against terrorism. Yet how have we done justice to democracy? How can any population support an institution that causes so much death? How do we know that democracy is right for a people that have lived so long without it? Democracy begins with, and is founded upon, internal public support. I don't understand how it can be enforced.

And still, democracy is not the issue of importance. How has this war on terrorism been effectively conducted with these battles in Iraq?

One major front in the battle is being fought in the courts. The US must answer to its position on prisoners. The Bush administration has denied the rights given under the Geneva convention to its prisoners at Guantanamo, Cuba. Prisoners have been tortured with "approved methods" of extracting information at various known and secret locations around the world. The photos of torture at Abu Ghrain are used a recruiting posters by anti-US groups everywhere. This issue requires US response now! It is now almost four years since the USS Cole bombing and we have not learned the lesson of required response. We had to respond to the USS Cole and we did not, just like we have to respond to the charges of abuse.

Meanwhile, Iranian Defense minister has threatened a preemptive attack on the US. There can be no justisfication for these remarks, especially from a country that undisputably has ties to terrorist organizations. A response to these threats must be given. And somehow I don't know if there can be any political support for this response. It is clearly political suicide for Bush to threaten war on Iran. In truth he has mortgaged our political power in the international scene by demonstrating a lack of focus. So further aggression by the US cannot be tolerated easily. We have been caught in a regrettable situation where our President has no political power to defend our country's interests against another country that is clearly sponsoring terrorism.

There can be no excuse.