A dissection, piece by piece, of how George W. Bush and his neo-conservative cronies are not only pulling the wool over the eyes of America and the world, but how they may be leading us all down a path to destruction.

It's hard these days, staying a moderate liberal. After 9/11, the political climate in this country was shifted radically, so much so that what would have once been a moderate is now a liberal, and what once was a liberal is now bordering on an un-American communist. It didn't always used to be this way of course, and 9/11 itself did not cause that to happen. Instead, what has systematically occurred has been a political upheaval so covert in nature that many Americans still don't see the wool now pulled over their eyes — events and changes put in motion by opportunists who saw a chance to force very political issues and mandates through in a climate that has (or was supposed to be) anything but political. It's not even fair to call these people conservatives, because they give true conservatives a bad name. Unfortunately though, because America has never seen a group such as this in its political realm, "conservative" will have to do. No matter what you call them though, one thing is resoundingly clear to anyone who can ever remember America on 9/10/01: the leaders of this country, the Right, are dangerous and wrong. Very, very wrong.

Traditionally, it's not uncommon to see a Republican president overspend and lead us into a recession or national debt (even if they did inherit it, as some might say). Therefore, given the circumstances and events and general panic caused by 9/11 and the bursting of the dot com bubble, most Americans would be able to forgive President Bush for his desire to spend more on defense and less on domestic issues. But what is hard to ignore are two key figures: [link] $6.84 trillion and [link] $50-60 billion . The former is how high the US has set its debt ceiling (which it will likely to break through), determining the maximum dollar amount the government can borrow. This is a huge number, the highest in history and compared to the peak $236.4 billion surplus of President Clinton, quite staggering. The latter though, is what is important right now - especially in our "March to War". That is the cost of how much a war in Iraq will cost us (and no, that number is not included in the $6.84 trillion dollar deficit) to wage, regardless of if we go in with allies or not. And that's before we rebuild the country.

Ah yes, the war in Iraq. The subject not only on everyone's minds (besides 'American Idol' of course) but on their TVs and newspapers, is damn near impossible to avoid these days. Ever since President Bush's "axis of evil" speech, it has been very clear that we would eventually get to a war with Iraq, and that time seems to be now (it may have already started by the time this is published). Reasoning has played very little part in exactly why there is an imperative rush to get in there and take Hussein out, but from nearly the start of the Bush presidency, it has seemed as if everything was leading up to this. There is evidence that deposing Hussein was [link] planned for a long time , coming almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The only voice of reason since then has seemed to come from Colin Powell, who wisely talked the hawks of the Bush administration into at least trying to seek UN approval before a complete unilateral invasion. But even with that, it seems the game was rigged.

Not keen on giving anyone an edge in stopping them from what they wanted done, the US took Iraq's original report about their weaponry - all 11,000 pages of it - and [link] tore out 8,000 pages before giving it to fellow members of the security council. Nations fumed, but the political fallout cooled off for a little while...until it was found out that in order to get the votes they wanted, the US [link] spied on other delegates in order to know how much political pressure needed to be exerted. Don't think that we are using political pressure (not to mention just flat out bullying) to get people to fall in line? Take a look at France. After France condemned the US rush to war and basically asserted the right to speak their mind, something they are allowed to do since they share a seat on the Security Council with us, the United States responded by stating that France was [link] "no longer an ally" of the US and America must take action to prevent them from getting in its way. This is of course after we [link] accused France and Germany of being "old Europe" and declaring them "problems" in getting rid of Hussein.

So with pissed off allies and an economy in shambles, what IS the sudden rush to war about? For many people, it is about the rather tiresome "blood for oil" argument, which goes like this: the US is invading Iraq because we want to control their oil. To be fair, that is not an incorrect assessment. But the reasoning for war is a lot more complex than that. Taking over Iraq would grant the US a great opportunity to solve their energy and oil problems for decades, as well as break the back of OPEC, which has been a notorious thorn in the side of the US for a long time. With Iraq weak, there would be no country in the region that could stand up to the US in terms of military might, and thus the strength of OPEC would crumble, as the theory goes. And for Bush and many of his business supporters, an increase in the bottom line would be a welcome gift in this time of economic turmoil. His promise to allow American oil companies [link] control of Iraqi oil fields is further evidence of this. However, that is not all of the true purpose the US has for taking out Iraq. The goal of the Bush administration it seems, is to create something America has never technically been before - an empire.

I have [link] written on this topic before, but it still bears mentioning, especially when further evidence of this goal is becoming more and more clear to the public. While America has never been an empire in the traditional sense - a country that controls large pieces of land around it and/or all around the world, such as what Rome and Britain did previously - the Bush administration is still aiming to practice a bastardized version of an "empire", by all but flat out saying a synonym of it: imperialism. The following excerpt comes from the February 24th, 2003 issue of American Conservative Magazine (the full text of the article can be read [link] here :


A new war against Iraq was a gleam in the eye of a small but influential group long before 9/11. In 1998, the newly established Project for a New American Century (PNAC), an advocacy group chaired by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, began sending open letters from prominent foreign policy hawks. First, it wrote to the Clinton administration calling upon the United States to "remove Saddam’s regime." When its advice was ignored, PNAC asked Republican Congressional leaders to push for war. The signatories included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz (now number two at the Pentagon), Elliott Abrams (recently appointed to the National Security Council as a director of Mid-East policy), William Bennett, John Bolton (now Undersecretary of State), and the ubiquitous Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board and often considered the central figure in the interlocking web of neoconservative think tanks.

PNAC’s ambitions go well beyond Saddam’s overthrow. Immediately after 9/11, the group began pushing to expand the war against other Muslim states, calling for the U.S. to target Hezbollah and its sponsors, Iran and Syria. PNAC also wants the U.S. to stop trying to foster a peace between Israel and the Palestinians, advocating withdrawal of the small amount of aid the U.S. gives the Palestinian Authority and granting full support to Israel’s right wing Likud government.

These tactical measures are elements within a broader vision of a more militarized U.S. foreign policy, carried out without allies if necessary. In the final year of the first Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz penned a memo under the aegis of then Secretary of Defense Cheney, calling for the United States to ramp up its defense spending in order to deter any other country from "even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." China, Russia, Germany, and Japan were to be intimidated from seeking more power in their own regions. After the Wolfowitz draft was leaked to the press, it received widespread ridicule, and the Bush I diplomats rushed to reassure allies that Wolfowitz’s views did not truly reflect American foreign policy.

But during the 1990s they did become the views of the neoconservatives, packaged under the slogan "benevolent global hegemony" touted by Kristol and Robert Kagan. The positions of the neoconservative foreign policy team in exile (a sort of shadow subcabinet during the Clinton years) were fleshed out in a PNAC book, Present Dangers, which called for the U.S. to "shape the international environment to its own advantage" by being "at once a European power, an Asian power, a Middle Eastern power, and of course a Western Hemisphere power" and to "act as if instability in important regions of the world" affect[s] us with almost the same immediacy as if [it] was occurring on our own doorstep." In practice this meant assertive risk-taking virtually everywhere. Jonathan Clarke, reviewing the volume in the National Interest, wrote, "If the book’s recommendations were implemented all at once, the U.S. would risk unilaterally fighting a five-front war, while simultaneously urging Israel to abandon the peace process in favor of a new no-holds-barred confrontation with the Palestinians." This book has become the blueprint for the foreign policy of George W. Bush.


If this is not imperialism, then the world has never seen it. With all three branches of the government now under Republican control - and perhaps more importantly, under the controlling whim of President Bush - the president has a very decisive mandate to exercise this policy as best as he can, without much interference from the scatter-shot Democratic party. There also seems to be a very strong religious message behind Bush's words. A born-again Christian, Bush has frequently laced his political speeches with references to the Almighty, but as of late has began to take his own personal beliefs to a new level. As [link] this MSNBC piece shows, Bush not only believes that God is protecting America, but that America is [link] ordained by God to do His bidding. Nowhere is this more evident than in the embracing of Israel by the evangelical Christians who comprise a large part of Bush's key backers. Because of the poor image of Israel throughout the world following two years of Palestinian Intifada, many Jews felt that gaining political support - even if it meant [link] reversing previous rebuttals - would further their cause. The catch in doing so, and in befriending evangelicals as political allies, is understanding where they're coming from. Summarized, evangelical Christians believe that protecting the Jewish state - Israel - is a necessary component for bringing the Biblical prophecies of Revelations to fruition and thus enabling the Second Coming of Christ. What has made many Jews uneasy is in order for these prophecies to come true, millions of them would have to die in a war that would allow the "true believers" to ascend to heaven. By allying themselves with evangical causes, Jews get the needed protection for Israel, but at the possible cost of all out holy war. To assume that President Bush is bull-headedly heading down this path unchecked is foolish, for no matter how determined he is, there will always be people to keep him in check. But the fact that Bush would even be endeavoring in that direction should scare a lot of Americans who don't wholly subscribe to his belief system.

One thing is certain however, and that is that war with Iraq will be happening in the future. Despite evidence that greater threats seem to lie with "allies" like Saudi Arabia (which has been [link] linked many times over to the 9/11 attacks) or with rogue nations like North Korea and their [link] failed missile experiments , Bush seems determined to advance his mandate and remove Hussein. Since the time I began compiling facts to assert my argument, the number of troops sent to the Middle East has risen dramatically, from [link] 111,000 to nearly [link] 300,000 , on top of all the other military might that we are able to muster in the form of aircraft carriers and planes. Perhaps even more frightening is that while this will not occur during the war in Iraq, research is being conducted on creating [link] guilt-free soldiers , who may some day be able to kill without any remorse for what they are ordered to do. A legion of emotionless killing machines has been the dream of many military commanders and is undoubtedly doubly important to a country with strong expansionist leanings.

This mandate that Bush feels he has towards what seems to be an intentional undoing of virtually everything the Clinton administration, and Democratic presidencies before him accomplished, is not limited to just areas abroad. From a systematic [link]¬Found=true plan for banning everything from partial-birth abortions and the morning after pill to deliberately [link] concealing the dangers of asbestos, the malfeasance exercised under Bush borders on the downright criminal. Other policies, such as the Department of Justice seeking only to hire those who [link]¬Found=true agree with their agenda , and (possibly) applying pressure to a Republican senator who happens to have a [link] controlling stake in the company that counts 85% of election returns in the country may seem like the stuff of tinfoil hats and conspiracy theories, but one can hardly argue that the impact of neo-conservatism on the mainstream Republican party is benefiting only a few, rather than many.

Perhaps nowhere else is this evident - that a few are controlling the many, even in the Republican party - than in the attack on civil liberties in this country. The draconian restrictions placed upon citizens following the 9/11 attacks are, oddly, something that many conservatives should speak up about and yet fail to do so. We have all heard horror stories about people trying to get on airplanes (the worst of them probably being the very pregnant wife who was [link] groped before she could board the plane), and there are some who say these restrictions are necessary. Fair enough, airports bring in and send out people from all over the world, including those who might pose a security risk. Where the line should be drawn though, is in the field of surveillance. Both ends of the political spectrum fear an Orwellian government in which everything we say and/or do is monitored, and yet neither party seems willing to speak up when [link] secret warrants and wiretaps are placed on citizens who *MIGHT* be terrorists, thus allowing the administration to take the reins and exercise its fondest wet dreams of control. Though it has not clearly been said, many of these attacks (for the time being) seem to be directed towards Arabs and Arab-Americans, by rounding up and deporting those who don't meet the most rigorous standards of citizenship, such as [link] not renewing a student visa in time . Many of these powers came from the passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT, which allowed for greater use of wiretaps, the detaining of citizens and unparalleled surveillance powers (such as seeing what you check out at the library and not permitting you to know about it), but it seems that those who want to erode as many rights as possible were not just content with the powers that this brought them. An "alternate" justice system is being [link]¬Found=true sought , one that would allow citizens and non-citizens to be "investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system", all in the name of stopping "terrorism". An even further extension is also being sought, though covertly.

Called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act (or Patriot Act II by some), it would [link] further expand powers given in the first Patriot Act. Even overlooking the fact that it is being proposed by the Justice Department (who, last time I checked, have no legislative mandate to pass laws), what the Act proposes should be a radical wake up call to conservatives and liberals alike. It "would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.". When word of this proposed bill broke, some members of both parties were quick to condemn it, but it speaks volumes that part of the Republican party is operating on it's own mandate and excluding the rest of the party. For the most part, this policy of restricted rights and speech has been successful in creating a climate of harassment and fear amongst Americans, where even [link] wearing a t-shirt criticizing Bush can get you in trouble, or the slightest case of mistaken identity can [link] ruin a person .

Much of this is accomplished by the media mouth pieces of the Right. For the longest time, conservatives have complained about the "liberal media" controlling world opinion, turning it almost entirely into their mantra of an "us against them" battle. The enemies may be poorly defined - the New York Times, CNN and the 3 major networks seem to be on everyone's list but the rest are more subjective - but those doing the accusing are not. The strongest presence seems to come from television stations like Fox News and radio programs like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, who hijack their audience when they are at the pulpit in order to spew their beliefs of a great conspiracy. What separates them from any nut case on the street though, is that if ratings are any indication, people are listening to their - to use an overworked cliché - brainwashing, including it seems, the Bush administration. The way the system of back scratching seems to work is this: using media outlets who already agree with their agenda, someone in the Bush administration gives them an "exclusive" news story, that allows them to draw ratings. The ratings in turn, give the organization more clout and allows them to reach a broader audience for spreading their opinions, which in turn leads to more support for the President since they don't wish to bite the hand that's feeding them. Those who dissent or don't follow suit are left with watered down table scraps of interviews and general press conferences, which naturally has the opposite effect of those who support him. Some would say that this has always been happening since the media became an important resource in American's lives, and you would be correct in that assessment. However, no president has mastered this technique like Bush has. Early in his campaign, Bush promised to run the presidency, in so many words, like a corporation. Think of his current control over the media - where the most mainstream press organizations are afraid of truly criticizing him for fear of being bitten by rabid attack dogs like [link] Ann Coulter - as a marketing department. Even those wanting to offer an alternative voice are routinely attacked - even before actually speaking out - by those on the Right. Until her recent retirement, Charlotte Beers (a top advertising executive) was controlling much of America's PR image and was focused on selling America as a "brand", if that says anything at all about where this administration's thoughts lay.

And criticizing the President, even as an average citizen, is likely to earn a fierce backlash, as evident by the recent anti-war protests. Conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh were quick to attack and lay the rhetoric on the hundreds of thousands who protested Bush's plans on going to war, by calling them [link] un-American . When the protesters threatened to [link] boycott his advertisers , another mouthpiece - Bill O'Reilly - stepped up, attacking protesters to the point of actually [link] losing it with one on his show. For the most part though, the attempt to quell dissent has been successful, as support for the war has been rising, and exposure to dissenting voices has been limited to occasional sound bites, as opposed to actual airing of real grievances. When Colin Powell presented his report to the UN, the media here were quick to praise it as being an open and shut case, while the rest of the world was not so sure. It is a dangerous thing when we are censoring ourselves from the truths that we don't want to hear.

Systematically it seems, the United States of America is being led, step by step, towards a very dark and dangerous era. Threats seem to be coming from all around - economic collapse, war and terrorism, internal totalitarianism, or all of the above - and though they can not be blamed entirely on Bush and his administration, there is no doubt that he is speeding us along towards dangers that America has never before faced. It is time now to come to grips with this, for liberals, moderates and even traditional conservatives to unite and rally round each other, letting Bush know that policies that seek to make America less than what America is supposed to be will not stand. I leave you now with words from one of the most respected and cherished presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who may perhaps say more eloquently what I could not:

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it will spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we will live through all time, or die by suicide."
- Abraham Lincoln, speech at Lyceum