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THE SAD AND DANGEROUS LEGACY OF
GEORGE W. BUSH by Will C. Justice
What will historians say about the Bush legacy?
Backtalk: What legacy? If
he has a legacy, it is a sad and dangerous one. This is what historians will say about the Bush years:
*Iraq
Bush deliberately pinned his Presidency on the outcome of the Iraq
War. Called during his Presidency the "worst foreign policy
mistake" in American history, the relatively easy initial invasion
morphed into a deadly three-way civil war. Americans sided
with the Shia sect, which is more radical than the Sunnis, and hated
by them. Prior to the occupation, of the 50-plus Islamic
nations, there was only one Shia-ruled nation--Iran. Now
there are two. And Iraq has been dismembered into three weak states
dominated by three ethnic/religious groups: Kurds, Shia, and Sunni
*The United Nations
This institution is now in tatters, thanks to the loathing that Bush and his right-wing
enablers feel toward it. With all its shortcomings, the UN was a place where the great powers of the
world could debate and negotiate before they fought, a forum where
little nations as well as large could be heard.
*Japan
Little noticed, this may be one of the most ominous parts of Bush's
legacy. Japan's constitution, drafted after WWII, forbade the
nation to create offensive military forces or deploy its forces
abroad. Yielding to intense pressure from the Bush
administration to join the Coalition of the Willing, Japan sent token forces to Iraq.
Japan is now
creating an offensive military force, with the encouragement of the
Bush administration--a
development that has rattled Japan's neighbors who were occupied by
Japan during WWII.
*Church and State
Unlike most nations, the US has escaped the horrors of religious war primarily
because religious groups have been
forbidden to support their activities with tax dollars. No
longer. Motivated by Bush's desire to privatize social welfare
and the zeal of fundamentalist enablers who dream of turning the US
into a religious state, hundreds of millions of tax dollars now flow
into religious coffers.
*Scandal
Not since the days of President Grant or the "Teapot Dome" has the nation
seen more scandal.
Halliburton, Abramoff, DeLay,Cunningham, Foley, "Scooter Libby,"
Gonzales--almost one every two weeks. At latest count, the Bush
numbers for major government-related scandals exceed those of the
Nixon administration by approximately 30 percent and those of the
Carter administration by 100 percent.
*A Nation
Divided
After 9/11, the nation came together. Today, the nation
is as bitterly divided as it was during the Viet Nam war.
*International
Prestige
American prestige is at an all-time low, and in the Middle East,
polls regularly show respect for the US in the single digits.
*The
Middle East
Bush's uninformed crusades to bring "freedom" to the Middle East
have energized radical Islamic groups that are larger and more
dangerous than ever.
*Torture
and the Geneva Conventions
Secret prisons, extreme forms of interrogation, and detentions
without charges are now routine. Guantanamo has become
America's Siberia.
*Hurricane
Katrina For decades, weed-covered East Berlin
provided world-class evidence that the ideology of the Soviet Empire
did not work. Today, the Bush Administration's response to
Katrina tells the same story: its ideology does not work. This
great American city struggles just to stay alive. Why? A
belief system that belittles governmental response to calamity at
home combined with astonishing incompetence.
*The
Federal Budget
Bush inherited the largest budget surplus in American history and
quickly transformed the surplus into the largest deficit in American
history.
*National Health Care
The statistics are stunning: 47 million
Americans, including millions of children, are without any health
insurance.
THE REIGN OF
ERROR
SEVEN CANNOTS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS IGNORED
by Will Justice
You cannot
succeed if you wage wars you cannot win.
Bush seems to believe he can wage preemptive war against any ruler
he happens to dislike, regardless of the cost or loss of human life.
You cannot
win wars without reliable intelligence.
American intelligence in the Middle East is limited and flawed,
compounded by occupying forces that understand neither the languages
nor the cultures. You must not kick down doors unless you know who
is behind them.
You cannot wage wars without raising
taxes.
The cost of the Iraq war is astronomical and has been passed along
to succeeding generations in the form of an enormous national debt.
No American President before Bush has dreamed of waging a war
without increasing taxes.
You cannot
expect puppet governments to be strong.
Bush’s puppet government is so weak that it dares not appear in
public outside the Green Zone. Even the Vichy government, Hitler’s
French collaborators, functioned in public.
You cannot
create democracy at the point of a gun.
Individual freedoms contract rather than expand during armed
conflict, and extremists drown out voices of reason.
You cannot
expect good government if you mock government.
Bush scorns the federal government while drawing a federal
paycheck. To create a good society, you must attract good people to
serve in it.
You cannot
always to depend on market forces.
The Bush administration has made a god of market forces, but market
forces do not have a brain or a heart. Sometimes market forces
help you, sometimes they do not. Sometimes you must intervene.
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