Tag Archive: bush


Vale Robert McNamara

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July 7, 2009

I cut my political teeth due to the Vietnam War. As the body bag count increased, I found myself reflecting that if I had been born a few years later, I could very well have been conscripted into being one of them. And without really knowing what I was fighting for. So, I decided it was time I discovered just what this Communism thing was. The more I delved into politics, the less reason I could see for us being in Vietnam, and my politics slowly moved to the left. No, I was never Communist, but I wasn't enamoured of the actions of our conservative government either.

Years later, I read McNamara's mea culpa, and respected the man for it, as I did our own ex-Army Minister Malcolm Fraser for his own admission that our involvement in Vietnam was wrong. When Bush decided to go invade Iraq, it was the sense of deja vu that impelled me to write numerous letters of protest to newspapers, and to march against the invasion in our own city.

In his defence, McNamara was big enough to admit his mistake. Can we expect a similar admission from Dubya and his neocon urgers? I don't think so, more's the pity. It isn't surprising that our own Bush acolyte, John Howard, still has no regrets. I do wonder though if there isn't just a twinge when they reflect on how they will be judged by the God they supposedly worship. It's almost enough for this confirmed atheist to wish that he was wrong.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bunch/robert-mcnamara-and-ameri_b_226188.html

Robert McNamara and America's Tragic Memory Loss

Robert McNamara died today at age 93. As Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and more notably Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s, it was McNamara who oversaw America's tragic military buildup in Vietnam. That made McNamara — right up until today's news — a vivid anti-icon to those Baby Boomers who opposed the war — and I think you can make the case that his death is that of the most historical significance of the
slew of recent "celebrity" passings, no matter how many millions of people are gathering outside the Staples Center to remember the Gloved One.

Bob McNamara was not a great man. He was a man with great intelligence that didn't prevent him from executing a plan that led to the unnecessary slaughter — for reasons that remain hard to fully comprehend — of tens of thousands of Americans and many more Vietnamese. He spent next four decades trying to come to terms with the banality of evil, with the horror of what he and those around him had done, but even his unusually candid apologies never seemed to go far enough:

The secretary of defense was a key figure in decisions to escalate the war between 1961 and 1965, and he readily concedes that the assumptions upon which he and his colleagues acted were badly flawed. They approached Vietnam, he recalls, with "sparse knowledge, scant experience and simplistic assumptions." Victims of their own "innocence and confidence," they foolishly viewed communism as monolithic, knew nothing about Indochina, and were "simple-minded" regarding the historical relationship between China and Vietnam. They badly misjudged Ho Chi Minh's nationalism and consistently overestimated South Vietnam's ability to survive. Regarding the key decisions of 1965, he admits he should have anticipated that bombing North Vietnam would lead to requests for ground troops. He concedes there should have been a public debate on the July 1965 decision for war. Over and over he acknowledges that he should have examined the unexamined assumptions, asked the unasked questions, and explored the readily dismissed alternatives.

The life of Robert McNamara was a personal tragedy, but it was also an American tragedy, our tragedy — because even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam, our policy-makers knew nothing or cared little about the long history and convoluted ethnic and religious politics of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no plan for the proper military follow-up to a period of "shock and awe" bombing. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we totally misjudged the "nationalism" of the people who lived there and how they would react to a long American occupation. And perhaps most importantly, In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no real "public debate" as we marched headlong and foolishly into 2003 — with way too many "unexamined assumptions," "unasked questions," and "readily dismissed alternatives."

I actually spoke, very briefly, on the phone with McNamara in early 2003 in an effort to interview him for the Philadelphia Daily News, where I am a reporter. Like a few other journalists in that critical hour, I was hoping some of his tragically acquired wisdom might infuse the tepid pre-war discussions, and like all other reporters in those pre-war months, he told me he was holding off on commenting (as noted in the link above, he had a lot to say in 2006…when it was too late). That was a damned shame — even though I can't imagine it would have tipped the rigged scales.

Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, it's hard not to imagine there wasn't some higher purpose to McNamara's longevity. You could argue that it was a cosmic punishment, of sorts, to live so many years with the searing memories of so many who died so horrifically because of his misguided decisions from the comforts of his big desk at the Pentagon. Or you argue that he was still here in the early 2000s as a kind of a warped prophet, a flesh-and-blood monument to the folly of militarism. If that is true, then the fact that America refused to pay any attention is Robert McNamara's greatest tragedy of all.

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Suck it up, conservatives. You supported this disaster and idiot Bush.

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January 4, 2009

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/installed+Iraqi+says+Bush+utter+failure/1138511/story.html

US-installed Iraqi ex-PM says Bush "utter failure"

By Khalid al-AnsaryJanuary 3, 2009

BAGHDAD — Former U.S.-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has denounced the policies of President George W. Bush as an "utter failure" that gave rise to the sectarian venom that ravaged his country.

In an interview published on Saturday in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Allawi found fault with American management of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 as well as the government of present Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Allawi ruled Iraq for almost a year after U.S. occupation officials handed power to him in 2004 as prime minister of an interim government. He was selected by a council hand-picked by Washington after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"Yes, Bush's policies failed utterly," said Allawi, describing the U.S. administration that once backed him. "Utter failure. Failure of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, including fighting terrorism and economic policy."

"His insistence on names like 'democracy' and 'open elections', without giving attention to political stability, was a big mistake. It cast shadows on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Egypt, and I believe this will be remembered in history as President Bush's policy," he said.

A former member of Saddam's Baath Party who fled into exile and agitated against the dictator, Allawi now heads a secular political movement which did poorly in elections in 2005. His bloc was part of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government but walked out last year.

Maliki's government was characterised by "weak performance, erected upon political quotas, major government corruption and infiltrated state agencies," he said. "Four years passed … and they can't build the police, army, national institutions."

"Ending Saddam's regime was essential, but replacing the Saddam regime with extreme chaos was not right," he said. "I did not imagine the political process would eat itself from inside or that it would abandon the rule of law and establish political sectarianism."

Sectarian violence has dropped sharply in Iraq, but reconciliation and political harmony remain elusive even as the United States prepares to withdraw its 140,000 troops by 2012.

© Copyright (c) Reuters

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You never know. There might be someone out there who believes him.

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December 21, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/111104/

Bush Tries to Whitewash History; Portrays Himself as a Victim

By Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect. Posted December 17, 2008.

Even after all this time, Bush views the Iraq War with regret not over anything he did, but rather, over something that was done to him.

It's tiresome to need to point this out at this late date but, yes, George W. Bush and his administration misled the country while making the case for war with Iraq and, remarkably, are still trying to mislead people about it. In a Dec. 1 interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson, Bush said that "the biggest regret" of his presidency was "the intelligence failure in Iraq."

In other words, his biggest regret wasn't regret over anything he did but rather regret over something that was done to him, a vague "intelligence failure" rather than a misguided decision to invade another country. Bush explained that "a lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence."

This is, even by Bush standards, a pretty breathtaking revision of history. In fact, very few members of Congress looked at the intelligence — Thomas Ricks reports in his book Fiasco that just five read the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities. But had more members taken the time, they would have found what Spencer Ackerman and John Judis reported back in June of 2003 — that the Bush administration removed a number of caveats and contrary pieces of evidence from the classified version of the estimate when producing a shorter, unclassified version for public consumption. More curious investigators might have been further interested in the fact, reported in the same piece, that even the more accurate classified version represented a dramatic change in the intelligence community's assessment of the Iraq situation. As Judis and Ackerman observe, when George Tenet offered his January 2002 review of nuclear proliferation issues "he did not even mention a nuclear threat from Iraq."

The main thing that changed over the course of 2002 wasn't anything about the intelligence, it was the fact that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq. Consequently, a new, more alarmist intelligence estimate was written up. Then a more alarmist redacted version was released to the public. And the administration's public statements were more alarming still. There were real intelligence failures here, but they were and are dwarfed by the policy failure. This failure was driven by administration hawks such as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith who appear to have embraced the deluded conspiracy theories of American Enterprise Institute adjunct fellow Laurie Mylroie (who thanks Wolfowitz in the introduction to her conspiracy-mongering book) and Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes (who followed up his entry into the genre with an authorized biography of Dick Cheney) who placed Saddam Hussein at the center of anti-American terrorism around the globe.

This policy failure persisted, of course, up until the very moment at which the decision to go to war was made. By that moment, though few in the United States ever seem inclined to remember it, whatever intelligence failures may or may not have occurred were irrelevant. Inspectors from
the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. were on the ground in Iraq, chasing down leads and searching for illicit weapons of mass destruction programs. They found some missiles whose ranges slightly exceeded what Iraq was permitted to have, and the missiles were duly dismantled. And before the invasion began, Mohammed El Barradei of the IAEA and Hans Blix, then a chief weapons inspector for the U.N., were both telling the world that they'd found no evidence of active weapons of mass destruction programs. Both told the administration that if it had additional intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, it ought to hand that information over to the inspectors so they could check it out.

Instead, Bush decided to invade.

The result has been the death of more Americans than were killed on September 11 and serious injuries to thousands more Americans. An unknown number of Iraqis — perhaps hundreds of thousands — have died in the resulting chaos, and millions have been displaced from their homes. Important American strategic objectives were left unfulfilled in Afghanistan, the once-promising prospects for a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran were scuttled, and North Korea accelerated its own proliferation activities. And all this at a fiscal cost in excess of $100 billion a year for a conflict that will be longer than the Civil War or World War II when it's done. That — not bad intelligence — is something to regret.

Meanwhile, one might wonder how Bush is able to get away with such bald-faced deceptions. The answer, unfortunately, goes beyond the fecklessness of the media. As Greg Sargent at the blog Talking Points Memo observes, "many supporters of the war — Dems and liberal hawks included — also have a vested interest in pretending that the good intel never existed and those inspectors never said what they said." There were some, of course, like former Sen. Bob Graham and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both former chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who did the work, read the reports, and refused to back the war. But many, such as key Democratic Party leaders including incoming Vice President Joe Biden and incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, did otherwise.

In the interests of party unity and moving forward with as strong a team as possible, President-elect Barack Obama has followed up a successful primary campaign based largely on a critique of these Democratic hawks' poor judgment with a spirit of reconciliation rather than an attempted purge. That's probably the right move, but it, combined with many Democratic leaders' bad record on this issue, means that there's no vigorous opposition to Bush's efforts to rewrite history. And that, in turn, is something we may have occasion to regret someday. Perhaps some future president will decide to repeat Bush's mistakes. Then one must fear that future legislators will repeat those of the members of Congress who failed to seriously challenge the president's distortions around Iraq and suffered so little for it personally, while the country and the world suffered so much.

Reprinted with permission from Matthew Yglesias. "Bush's Pity Party," The American Prospect Online: December 4, 2008. http://www.prospect.org. The American Prospect, 1710 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC, 20036. All rights reserved.


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My tribute to Riverbend

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October 21, 2008

Today marks the anniversary of Riverbend’s last post to her blog, Baghdad Burning.  Riverbend is the articulate young Iraqi woman who recorded her thoughts on the invasion of her city in 2003. She had a world wide following, as people looked to her to give the real story about what was happening in Baghdad, as against the sanitised version provided by the Bush spin doctors. She kept her blog chronicling her thoughts for four years, before she and her family were finally forced to flee for their safety to Syria. Riverbend’s blog serves as an indictment of the stupidity of Bush and the neocons for their cynical use of 9/11 to further the neocon imperialist objectives by invading a Middle East third world country that just "happened' to have the second highest oil reserves in the world.

 

That she hasn’t posted for a year concerns me greatly. I fear that she has been killed. The very thought of such a vibrant and intelligent young woman’s life being snuffed out fills me with horror. That the perpetrators of the events leading to her probable death still walk this earth unpunished fills me with a deep, gut wrenching anger.

 

That is one of the reasons the coming election assumes an importance like no other in my lifetime. I want to see the murderous neocons banished forever from any positions of power. I want to see the Bush regime end in total rejection of the insane policies that brought the world such human misery and economic chaos. I want to see Riverbend avenged.

 

So, as my tribute to Riverbend, every day, until Obama is elected President of the United States, I will post an extract from her blog, a blog that I hope will stand for eternity not only as a permanent reminder of the stupidity of man, but more importantly, as a beacon for humanity written in the words of a lovely young woman who articulated so well what we all want in our time on this planet, the right to live.

 

And so, to Riverbend:

 

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

 

Have You Forgotten?

September 11 was a tragedy. Not because 3,000 Americans died… but because 3,000 humans died. I was reading about the recorded telephone conversations of victims and their families on September 11. I thought it was… awful, and perfectly timed. Just when people are starting to question the results and incentives behind this occupation, they are immediately bombarded with reminders of September 11. Never mind Iraq had nothing to do with it.

I get emails constantly reminding me of the tragedy of September 11 and telling me how the “Arabs” brought all of this upon themselves. Never mind it was originally blamed on Afghanistan (who, for your information, aren’t Arabs).

I am constantly reminded of the 3,000 Americans who died that day… and asked to put behind me the 8,000 worthless Iraqis we lost to missiles, tanks and guns.

People marvel that we’re not out in the streets, decking the monstrous, khaki tanks with roses and jasmine. They wonder why we don’t crown the hard, ugly helmets of the troops with wreaths of laurel. They question why we mourn our dead instead of gratefully offering them as sacrifices to the Gods of Democracy and Liberty. They wonder why we’re bitter.

But, I *haven’t* forgotten…

I remember February 13, 1991. I remember the missiles dropped on Al-Amriyah shelter- a civilian bomb shelter in a populated, residential area in Baghdad. Bombs so sophisticated, that the first one drilled through to the heart of the shelter and the second one exploded inside. The shelter was full of women and children- boys over the age of 15 weren’t allowed. I remember watching images of horrified people clinging to the fence circling the shelter, crying, screaming, begging to know what had happened to a daughter, a mother, a son, a family that had been seeking protection within the shelter’s walls.

I remember watching them drag out bodies so charred, you couldn’t tell they were human. I remember frantic people, running from corpse to corpse, trying to identify a loved-one… I remember seeing Iraqi aid workers, cleaning out the shelter, fainting with the unbearable scenes inside. I remember the whole area reeked with the smell of burnt flesh for weeks and weeks after.

I remember visiting the shelter, years later, to pay my respects to the 400+ people who died a horrible death during the small hours of the morning and seeing the ghostly outlines of humans plastered on the walls and ceilings.

I remember a family friend who lost his wife, his five-year-old daughter, his two-year-old son and his mind on February 13.

I remember the day the Pentagon, after making various excuses, claimed it had been a ‘mistake’.

I remember 13 years of sanctions, backed firmly by the US and UK, in the name of WMD nobody ever found. Sanctions so rigid, we had basic necessities, like medicine, on waiting lists for months and months, before they were refused. I remember chemicals like chlorine, necessary for water purification, being scrutinized and delayed at the expense of millions of people.

I remember having to ask aid workers, and visiting activists, to ‘please bring a book’ because publishing companies refused to sell scientific books and journals to Iraq. I remember having to ‘share’ books with other students in college, in an attempt to make the most of the limited resources.

I remember wasted, little bodies in huge hospital beds- dying of hunger and of disease; diseases that could easily be treated with medications that were ‘forbidden’. I remember parents with drawn faces peering anxiously into doctors’ eyes, searching for a miracle.

I remember the depleted uranium. How many have heard of depleted uranium? Those are household words to Iraqi people. The depleted uranium weapons used in 1991 (and possibly this time too) have resulted in a damaged environment and an astronomical rise in the cancer rate in Iraq. I remember seeing babies born with a single eye, 3 legs or no face- a result of DU poisoning.

I remember dozens of dead in the ‘no fly zones’, bombed by British and American planes claiming to ‘protect’ the north and south of Iraq. I remember the mother, living on the outskirts of Mosul, who lost her husband and 5 kids when an American plane bombed the father and his sons in the middle of a field of peaceful, grazing sheep.

And we are to believe that this is all being done for the sake of the people.

“Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?”

No… we haven’t forgotten- the tanks are still here to remind us.

A friend of E.’s, who lives in Amiriyah, was telling us about an American soldier he had been talking to in the area. E’s friend pointed to the shelter and told him of the atrocity committed in 1991. The soldier turned with the words, “Don’t blame me- I was only 9!” And I was only 11.

American long-term memory is exclusive to American traumas. The rest of the world should simply ‘put the past behind’, ‘move forward’, ‘be pragmatic’ and ‘get over it’.

Someone asked me whether it was true that the ‘Iraqi people were dancing in the streets of Baghdad’ when the World Trade Center fell. Of course it’s not true. I was watching the tv screen in disbelief- looking at the reactions of the horrified people. I wasn’t dancing because the terrified faces on the screen, could have been the same faces in front of the Amiriyah shelter on February 13… it’s strange how horror obliterates ethnic differences- all faces look the same when they are witnessing the death of loved ones.

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Bush still doesn’t get why Iraqis don’t appreciate 100,000 of them being killed. Really?

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September 11, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/98147/

Woodward on Bush

 

Woodward: Bush Doesn't Get Why Iraqis Aren't Appreciative of Liberation

Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress at 8:49 AM on September 9, 2008.

From Woodward's 60 Minutes interview about his new book, "The War Within."

Sunday night on 60 Minutes, host Scott Pelley interviewed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward to discuss his new book “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008.” Pelley noted that one part of the story Woodward tells is President Bush’s “frustration with the attitude of the Iraqi people”:

WOODWARD: He has a meeting at the Pentagon with a bunch of experts and he just said, ‘I don’t understand that the Iraqis are not appreciative of what we’ve done for them,’ namely liberated them.

PELLEY: But tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in the invasion and through the occupation. He didn’t understand why they might be a little ungrateful about what had occurred to them?

WOODWARD: His beacon is liberation. He thinks we’ve done this magnificent thing for them. I think he still holds to that position.

Nearly 100,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives since 2003 (maybe more) and around 2 million have either fled the country or are internally displaced. For many years, ordinary Iraqis have had to deal with car bombs, suicide bombs, and other routine violence that ultimately resulted in civil war and the sectarian cleansing of Baghdad. Why wouldn’t Iraqis be grateful for all that?

Woodward also revealed during the interview that the “secret behind the success of the surge” was not the U.S. troop build-up but a “breakthrough” in “secret operational capabilities that have been developed by the military to locate, target and kill leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders.” Woodward would not provide any further details of the secret plan.

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Bill Moyers and Big Oil. Why Bush, the “Christian”, supported the murder of thousands of people.

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July 9, 2008

Bill Moyers and Big Oil

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Freedom of expression, McCain/Bush style.

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 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/90700/

Woman Arrested at McCain Event for "McCain=Bush" Sign

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise at 5:46 PM on July 7, 2008.

61-year-old librarian single-handedly proves that McCain=Bush.

Librarian ejected at McCain Town Hall meeting

A 61-year-old librarian was ejected from an ostensibly public McCain campaign event at the Denver Center of Performing Arts in Denver, CO on June 7 because she was brandishing a deadly memetic weapon: a hand-lettered sign that read "McCain=Bush."

Carol Kreck was standing outside the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, which is located on city property. When she was asked to either discard the sign or get out, Ms. Kreck objected that she was standing on city property.

She was lead away by police officers and subsequently ticketed for trespassing. As she was being removed, Kreck asked if was being arrested. The officer answered, "Yes." (Approximately 1:03 into the video.)

Carol Kreck, QED. McCain=Bush.

As ThinkProgress notes: "McCain has apparently taken a page from the Bush playbook. In 2005, the White House had three activists expelled from a Denver public forum with President Bush because it was the administration’s policy “to exclude potentially disruptive guests from Bush’s appearances nationwide.”"

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That’s some record….of incompetency, arrogance, stupidity….

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July 1, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/election08/89686/?page=entire&ses=2775959302c64807a93024488f1ab497

The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency

By Brad Reed, AlterNet. Posted July 1, 2008.

A shorter version of our long national nightmare.

In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration's 10 greatest moments — disastrous failures, all — is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush's memory before we go to bed every night.

Narrowing down the Bush administration's various debacles to a mere 10 was no easy feat. In fact, I expect that many people will express dismay that their least favorite moment was left off the list. "How could commuting Scooter Libby's sentence not even make the top 10??!!" I can hear some of you shrieking already. Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, I tried to rate each Bush disaster by two main criteria: its body count and its damage to the country's reputation. So while Bush's awkward groping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be personally humiliating to everyone, it doesn't have the same heft as, say, the Iraq War.

But for those of you who insist on seeing your least favorite moment get its due, here is list of every honorable mention I could come up with: warrantless wiretapping; Valerie Plame; Scooter Libby's sentence commuted; Bush believes Rafael Palmeiro is innocent; soldiers face neglect at Walter Reed; signing statements; the Kyoto treaty ripped up; loyalty oaths; the fake turkey; a staged teleconference with troops, staged FEMA press conference, extraordinary rendition, support for junk science; endorsement of neo-creationist "intelligent design"; inaction against global warming; record oil prices; record budget deficits; record trade deficits; record number of Americans without health insurance; two recessions; no-bid contracts; bin Laden still at large; the Federal Marriage Amendment; stem cell research vetoed; waterboarding ban vetoed; "Last throes"; "Old Europe"; "It's hard work"; "Bring it on"; "Yo, Blair!"; "I'm the decider"; "I'm the commander guy"; "I'm a war president"; "This is the guy who tried to kill my dad"; "So?"; "Let the Eagle Soar"; John Bolton; Kenny Boy; Harriet Miers; John Roberts; Sam Alito; Blair talks Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera; Cheney shoots some guy in the face; the Military Commissions Act; Jose Padilla arrested and held without charge or access to counsel; endless tax cuts for the rich; let's waste a shitload of money by sending people to Mars and let's hire some Heritage Foundation staffers to rebuild Iraq.

And with that, let's go onto our 10 worst moments.

10: Bush Gets Re-elected

BRAD1

In a way, Bush's re-election was even more depressing than the shady shenanigans the GOP used to get him elected in 2000. See, back then Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" who promised to be a "uniter, not a divider" who would run a center-right administration like his father did. By 2004, the myth of Bush the Uniter had been demolished by his exploiting the 9/11 terror attacks for political gain, by dropping poison pills into bills to make Democrats vote against their own proposals, and by supporting needless and divisive initiatives such as a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. On top of this, the Bush re-election crew ran one of the nastiest and most negative campaigns in recent memory. The low point in the whole affair came when administration allies and surrogates took to the airwaves to falsely accuse Democratic candidate John Kerry of lying about his service in Vietnam, even claiming in one instance that he intentionally shot himself to get out of the war.

The reason for this historically negative campaign was obvious: As Paul Krugman deftly observed at the time, Bush had "no positive achievements to run on." But this didn't stop more than 59 million Americans from voting to give Bush yet another four years to build on his already-impressive resume of negative achievements.

9: Alberto Gonzales' Congressional Testimony

BRAD2

One of the Bush administration's favorite pastimes over the past eight years has been gleefully urinating in the faces of the other two branches of government. This tendency is best exemplified by Ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions under oath about whether a group of eight federal prosecutors had been fired for partisan reasons. Essentially, all of the attorneys in question had exemplary performance records but were targeted because they did not prosecute several so-called "voter fraud" cases to then-presidential adviser Karl Rove's satisfaction. When the Senate Judiciary Committee called then-Deputy AG Paul McNulty to testify about the firings, he claimed that all of them had been dismissed due to "performance-related issues." About a month later, Gonzales penned an editorial for USA Today reiterating McNulty's claim that the attorneys were fired for performance reasons and called the entire controversy an "overblown personnel matter."

After it emerged that six of the fired attorneys had actually been given positive job evaluations, Gonzales rushed up to Capitol Hill to perform damage control. He said he "regretted" saying that the fired attorneys had lost his confidence, and then went on to say that he had no idea why the attorneys had been targeted for dismissal. Additionally, Gonzales said there was nothing at all improper about the firings, despite the fact that he admitted that he had "limited involvement" in the ordeal. Gonzales also responded to questions by answering "I don't recall" a total of 64 times.

Although several GOP senators called on Gonzales to resign in the wake of his testimony, Bush said Gonzales' performance had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job" and that he would stay on as attorney general.

And the fun didn't stop there. When the Senate Judiciary Committee hauled Gonzales back to testify about his frantic hospital visit to get a fresh-from-surgery John Ashcroft to approve Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, it resulted in the sort of clown show that would have put Barnum and Bailey to shame. The lowlight came during a classic debate between Gonzo and Arlen Specter over whether Ashcroft could have effectively performed his duties as attorney general while he was under heavy sedation. After Gonzales finally stepped down in August 2007, Bush stamped his feet and cried that Gonzo had had "his good name dragged through the mud."

8: North Korea Conducts a Nuclear Test

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush stated forthrightly that "the United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." And to show how serious he was, Bush decided to invade Iraq, a country whose vast stockpile contained precisely zero weapons of mass destruction.

But while Bush was busy freedomizing the Iraqis, North Korea — a country best known for being home of the world's worst government — steadily built up its nuclear capabilities and eventually conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.

Oopsie-doodles!

While there is a great deal of dispute over whether the North Korean test was actually a successful test, it seemed clear that Bush's strategic doctrine of ignoring our enemies until they meet every one of his demands has failed somewhat spectacularly. Naturally, Condi Rice declared that the test was actually a significant win for Bush administration policy, thus proving once again that down isn't just up for the Bush administration, but sometimes sideways as well.

7: Colin Powell's Bogus WMD Presentation at the U.N.

BRAD3

For those of you who are too young to remember, there was a time when Colin Powell was an internationally respected diplomat and military leader who was seen as the sort of rare Republican straight-shooter who also had a fine sense for global sensibilities. Indeed, at the time of Powell's appointment to the State Department, the BBC described him as Bush's "trump card" and as "a national hero whose charismatic image bridges America's racial divide." But little did anyone know that Powell's public image as a renowned warrior-scholar would come crashing down to Earth less than four years after his appointment.

In February 2003, Powell gave a presentation before the U.N. Security Council that was instrumental in convincing both the American public and large swaths of the international community that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to global security. During his speech, Powell told scary tales of mobile biological weapons labs, chemical weapons stockpiles and aluminum tubes that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. All of these claims turned out not only to be wrong, but based on sourcing that even Powell acknowledged was "deliberately misleading" in some cases.

And what's more, Powell knew how shaky a lot of the intelligence was before he made his infamous presentation to the United Nations. As Bob Woodward reported in his book Plan of Attack, Powell had deep doubts about an intercept between two senior members of the Iraqi Republican Guard that vaguely sortakindamaybe might have mentioned something along the lines of using vehicles for bioweapons labs. Yet despite reservations about the intel, Woodward reports that Powell "decided to use it" for his U.N. presentation anyway. Ditto for an "inferential" report on Iraqi Scud missiles that Powell acknowledged had not been seen by anyone.

Years after feeding bogus intel to the Security Council, Powell said his performance was a "painful" "blot" on his record. Well la-tee-da. I'm sure that's a fine comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who died needlessly as a result of Powell's Security Council boo-boo.

6: The Terri Schiavo Affair

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In what will no doubt go down in history as one of the craziest things our federal government has ever done, the U.S. House and Senate both passed an emergency law to save the life of a woman who had been near-brain dead for more than a decade. The case of Terri Schiavo, who collapsed in her home and who later lost oxygen to her brain after her doctors misdiagnosed the cause of her collapse, was undoubtedly tragic for everyone involved; it was also undoubtedly none of the federal government's business.

After numerous state courts had sided with then-husband and guardian Michael Schiavo and ruled that Terri's condition was irreversible and that her feeding tube could be removed to end her life, the Christian Right launched into an epic freak-out the likes of which America has not seen since 17th Century Salem. After much Tasmanian devil-style screeching and hollering from the GOP base, the Republican Congress passed a bill transferring jurisdiction of the Schiavo case to federal court. Bush, who seemingly never misses an opportunity to take a naked ride on the crazy train, interrupted one of his frequent Texas vacations to sign the damn thing into law.

Ah, if only he'd been this swift and alert when Hurricane Katrina hit (see Moment #4).

While there were several moments of sheer, unbridled lunacy throughout (Pat Buchanan calls Michael Schiavo and his supporters Nazis! Tom DeLay issues threats against judges who don't rule how he wants them to! Peggy Noonan calls Michael Schiavo supporters part of "culture of death!"), the craziest by far was then-Senator Bill Frist's declaration that Terri had been misdiagnosed after he spent an hour watching a video of her in his office.

5: Bush and Condi's Excellent Gaza Adventure

The Bush administration can be described as a slapstick comedy with an unusually high body count: Picture the Three Stooges and the Keystone Cops duking it out with cruise missiles.

There is no better example of this than Bush and the State Department's wild adventures in the Gaza Strip in 2006. As Vanity Fair's David Rose reported earlier this year, the trouble began when Bush started stamping his feet and throwing a hissy fit about having elections in the Palestinian territories. Essentially, Bush's desire to be seen as a "freedom president" meant forcing various swarthy third-worlders to vote in elections that would presumably result in U.S.-friendly regimes around the world. After Hamas predictably defeated Fatah in the elections, Bush decided he didn't like democracy in the Middle East so much after all, and he had Condi Rice tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas that "America expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and hold fresh elections." Apparently, Condi believed that having an American-backed leader dissolve a democratically elected government would warm the Palestinians' hearts to American aims. Long story short: The U.S. government decides to bolster Fatah by sending them a bunch of arms. Word of these shipments leaks to a Jordanian newspaper. All hell breaks loose; Hamas defeats Fatah and proceeds to use the American-supplied arms it confiscated from Fatah against Israel. The entire ordeal was an amazing illustration of the administration's complete inability to anticipate entirely predictable outcomes. Or as Khalid Jaberi, a commander with Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, put it: "Since the takeover, we've been trying to enter the brains of Bush and Rice, to figure out their mentality. We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves their overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise."

Epic, epic fail.

4: "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job"

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Yes, we're getting into Bush's real crowning achievements here. The Think Progress blog has done an admirable job of chronicling the entire affair, so I'm just going to summarize the lowlights from its timeline:

Aug. 29: Katrina makes landfall, then-FEMA chief Michael "Brownie" Brown warns Bush that the levees could overflow, Bush gives John McCain a cake. Brown, a Bush hack who had previously worked as "the chief rules enforcer of the Arabian Horse Association," also preemptively asks Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, if he "can quit now." He also declares himself "a fashion god."

Aug. 30: Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff learns that the New Orleans levees had failed, looters run rampant in New Orleans, Bush plays guitar, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan says that Bush will return to his Texas ranch for one more night of vacation before returning to Washington.

Aug. 31: Federal relief workers try to evacuate New Orleans residents in what Chertoff describes as "conditions of urban warfare."

Sept. 1: Bush says, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Brownie says he's received "no reports of unrest."

Sept. 2: Karl Rove begins to enact his strategy of blaming local officials for the Katrina disaster, Bush tells Brownie that he's doing "a heckuva job" and also says he's "satisfied with the response" of the federal government but "not satisfied with all the results," and pledges to rebuild Trent Lott's house.

Sept. 4: Chertoff says that "government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur."

And so on. While watching Katrina unfold live on my television, I suddenly had the urge to sell all my belongings, purchase several firearms, move out to a remote cabin in Montana and wait for society to fall apart. Because hey: If the entire world was going to completely collapse around me, I might as well have a wise-cracking psychic dog to keep me company.

3: Abu Ghraib

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In its May 10, 2004, issue, the New Yorker magazine published an explosive report by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailing the systematic torture of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Administration apologists used two distinctly different strategies to push back against the inevitable bad press that ensued: One was to condemn the guilty parties but refer to them merely as "a few bad apples" who weren't reflective of American policy; the other was to dismiss the entire scandal as "an out-of-control fraternity prank."

But it turned out, of course, that the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib weren't merely the work of a few rogue soldiers. Indeed, it turns out that the tactics employed in the infamous Iraqi dungeon were first taken out for a test spin at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And what tactics did those include, you ask? Why, sleep deprivation, stress positions, sexual humiliation and a technique called waterboarding that is meant to simulate the experience of drowning. And where did they get the idea to use these techniques? Why, from senior Bush administration officials, of course! With the full approval of Bush himself! As ABC News reported earlier this year, "the high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."

Amazingly, the Bush administration tried to justify its decisions by claiming that waterboarding was perfectly legal and did not constitute torture. Despite the fact that, you know, it was deemed illegal 40 years ago by U.S. generals in Vietnam.

This particular scandal was so bad that even the John Birch Society (!!!) concluded that the administration and its flunkies were war criminals.

2: 9/11

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The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most terrifying and traumatic moments in American history. Thousands of people perished that day, all due to an evil act carried out by a group of religious fanatics who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Penn. But while the loss of life on that day was indeed a major tragedy for all Americans, what happened afterward was in many ways more disturbing: In essence, the politicization of 9/11 caused us to lose our collective minds for a long period of time.

The first shot was fired by Karl Rove in a January 2002 address to the Republican National Committee in which he implored the GOP to "go to the country on (the War on Terror) because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." And sure enough, by the time the midterm elections rolled around, Bush and his GOP minions were milking 9/11 to get as many votes as they could. When Senate Democrats tried to extend union rights for workers in the newly created Department of Homeland Security, for instance, Bush issued a pissy veto threat, and then-spokesman Ari Fleischer described the Dems' proposal as "a step backward, not forward, in protecting the country."

And that's just a mild example. Here are some other choice GOP attacks that accused Democrats of helping al Qaeda win by not kissing Bush's ass with the sufficient level of enthusiasm:

"America sits and wonders why it is that al Qaeda, this ragtag bunch of terrorists scattered all over the globe, can reorganize themselves. I think the difference is that al Qaeda doesn't have a Senate. Al Qaeda doesn't have a Senator Daschle." — Dick Armey

"As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times." — An attack ad targeting then-U.S. Senator Max Cleland. Cleland is a vet who lost both legs and an arm in the Vietnam War.

"Al Qaeda terrorists. Saddam Hussein. Enemies of America. Working to obtain nuclear weapons. Now more than ever our nation must have a missile defense system to shoot down missiles fired at America. Yet Tim Johnson has voted against a missile defense system 29 different times." — An attack ad targeting Sen. Tim Johnson. This one was particularly rich, since a missile defense shield would have done precisely nothing to stop the 9/11 attacks.

"How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field?" — Trent Lott, who freaked out because then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle had the gall to suggest that we'd have to capture Osama bin Laden in order to consider the war on terror successful.

"(Daschle's) divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country." — Virginia Representative Tom Davis, also attacking Daschle's remarks. Who knew that demanding the capture of our enemies was tantamount to treason?

And so on. The Republicans' "The Democrats Want to Help al Qaeda Kill You" gambit worked for two consecutive elections before finally running out of gas in 2006. But even so, the ability of one political party to garner votes simply by yelling about treason incessantly is incredibly depressing.

Pass me that bucket of Freedom Fries, will you?

1: "Mission Accomplished"

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A lot has been written about Bush's aircraft carrier stunt over the past few years, and with good reason. After all, no other incident better illustrates how Bush's presidency was built entirely on hubristic arrogance, shameless propaganda and a destructive disregard for reality. In what Noam Chomsky correctly called "the opening of the year 2004 election campaign," George W. Bush delivered a so-called "victory speech" for the Iraq War after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet dressed in full flyboy gear.

Bush's posturing as a war hero was, of course, laughable. During the Vietnam War, Bush used his family connections to obtain a gentleman draft dodger's assignment flying planes in Alabama for the Air National Guard — a cushy assignment that he didn't even do very well. But no matter! As long as he gave off an aura of steely resolve, and as long as he wore a ridiculous outfit to emphasize his "manly characteristic," our ever-watchful pundit corps endlessly praised him as the gin-you-wine article.

A sample of the atrocities, painstakingly compiled by Media Matters:

"(T)hat's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?" — Chris Matthews

"A little bit of history and a lot of drama today when President Bush became the first commander in chief to make a tail-hook landing on an aircraft carrier. A one-time Fighter Dog himself in the Air National Guard, the president flew in the co-pilot seat with a trip to the USS Abraham Lincoln." — Wolf Blitzer

"And two immutable truths about the president that the Democrats can't change: He's a youthful guy. He looked terrific and full of energy in a flight suit. He is a former pilot, so it's not a foreign art farm — art form to him. Not all presidents could have pulled this scene off today." — Brian Williams

And in the time since Bush performed this grotesque PR stunt, roughly 4,000 troops have been killed in action along with tens of thousands of Iraqis, with nary a WMD in sight to justify the carnage. Heck of a job, all around.

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Brad Reed is a writer living in Boston. His work has previously appeared in the American Prospect Online, and he blogs frequently at Sadly, No!

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Lying bastard! He wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic about fighting in Vietnam when he was young enough.

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March 13, 2008

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23373394-12377,00.html

Afghanistan challenge romantic – Bush Image

By Tabassum Zakaria in Washington | March 14, 2008

US President George W Bush says he would fight in Afghanistan if he was younger.

President Bush spoke of his dream to work on the frontline in Afghanistan during a video conference with US military and civilian personnel in the war-torn country.

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said.

"If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.

"It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," President Bush said. 

President  Bush was briefed about problems and progress in Afghanistan where a war has dragged on for more than six years.

The President was told challenges range from fighting local government and police corruption to persuading farmers to abandon a lucrative poppy drug trade for other crops.

President Bush heard tales of all-night tea drinking sessions to coax local residents into cooperating, and of tribesmen crossing mountains to attend government meetings seen as building blocks for the country's democracy-in-the-making.

He was also told of efforts to reduce support for the Taliban in tribal areas as well as hopeful signs that schools were being built, more health care was reaching remote areas and local government officials were being trained in management.

Critics accuse President Bush of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of Afghanistan where the Taliban has persisted in fighting after being ousted from power by the US-led war in 2001 following the September 11 attacks.

President Bush will try to persuade allies at a NATO summit in early April to do more for Afghanistan.

He wants international support to reduce violence, boost the economy and provide social services.
"We're obviously analysing ways to help our NATO allies to be able to step up, and step up more," he said.

Canada has demanded 1000 more troops from other countries as a condition for remaining in Afghanistan to work near Kandahar where its 2500-strong force is fighting the Taliban.

"We're mindful of their request, and we want to help them meet that request," President Bush said.
NATO has a total of 43,000 troops in Afghanistan. The US has 29,000 troops in the country, about half of which are part of NATO, and is sending another 3200 marines.

The Afghan mission is the toughest ground war faced by the 59-year-old alliance and has led to open differences among allies over tactics and troop levels.

President Bush sat at the head of a conference table at the White House with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and others.

A Reuters correspondent was permitted to observe the White House exchange that took place with US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood and US military and civilian personnel in Kabul.

The video conference was stopped several times when the sound crackled, diagnosed by technicians as a bad microphone at Kabul's end, which was immediately swapped for a new one.

"You're looking beautiful but you're not sounding too good," said President Bush, who was in charge of the remote control, increasing and lowering the volume at will.

President Bush was told that if local governments can provide for their people, they will respond by breaking away from tribal law and the Taliban.

One of the American participants in Kabul said there was a saying in Ghazni: "Taliban begins where the paved road ends."

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One more lie; a million deaths. Bush’s legacy. When is he going to be tried for war crimes?

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/14/2189264.htm?section=justin

No link between Saddam and Al Qaeda: Pentagon

Posted 16 minutes ago

A detailed Pentagon study confirms there was no direct link between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda network, debunking a claim US President George W Bush's administration used to justify invading Iraq.

The US administration tried to bury the release of the study, limiting distribution of the report and making it available only at individual request and by mail – instead of posting it on the internet or handing it out to reporters.

Coming five years after the start of the war in Iraq, the study of 600,000 official Iraqi documents and thousands of hours of interrogations of former Saddam Hussein colleagues "found no smoking gun between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda," said the study, quoted in US media.

Other reports by the blue-ribbon September 11 commission and the Pentagon's inspector general in 2007 reached the same conclusion but none had access to as much information.

"The Iraqi Perspective Project review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism" and "state terrorism became a routine tool of state power" but "the predominant target of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens," said a summary of the Pentagon study.

Mr Bush, US Vice President Dick Cheney and top aides have insisted there were links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, citing the alleged ties as a rationale for going to war in Iraq.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Mr Bush said in June 2004.

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