How George Bush Became a Dictator

An existential choice is forced upon us. Bush told us that we were either for his regime or we were for the "evil doers". I see a different paradigm: either we are for freedom or we are for Bush. Bush is spoiling for a Constitutional showdown that will force the issue and consolidate a dictatorship beyond the ability of Americans to change –short of violent revolution.

In his latest book "Conservatives Without Conscience", John Dean paints a stark difference between Richard Nixon and George Bush. Dean recalled the day the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to hand over the infamous White House tapes. Nixon, Dean reveals, toyed with the idea of defying the high court. It was Nixon, after all, who had said that if the President does it, it's legal.

Pressured by his own party, Nixon spent a night talking to portraits and getting down on his knees in prayer with an embarrassed Henry Kissinger. By night's end, as the story goes, Nixon had had an epiphany. He would resign.

What brought him to a night of prayer was his decision to comply with an order of the US Supreme Court to turn over the secret recordings of his Oval Office conversations. They were notable for what was missing: an 18 minute gap, and also what was present: a tape recorded "smoking gun" in which then White House Counsel John Dean had warned Nixon of a "cancer on the Presidency".

But, Bush —Dean points out —is not Nixon. In the same or a similar situation, Bush will not budge. Bush will defy the Supreme Court of the United States. In doing so, America will no longer have the legal recourse of removal; impeachment will be a dead issue. If impeached, Bush will not leave the office. Having subverted every protection afforded the people by our founders, Bush will leave us no choice but slavery under a dictatorship or a popular uprising. Bush will leave us, therefore, no choice but revolution.

...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

—Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Nixon was called an "imperial President". Interestingly, the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were concerned with his abuse of the IRS, obstruction of justice in connection with the Watergate Scandal, and his various abuses of agencies to include the CIA. His secret bombing of Cambodia is not mentioned in the articles of impeachment against him. Nevertheless, Nixon's downfall is most certainly traced to hubris and disproportionate power invested in the modern Presidency.

Bush seems to have created a dictatorship by exploiting a national tragedy, by manipulating a wave of fear, by fanning the flames of racial and religious prejudice. He divided the world into two opposing camps: us and "evil-doers" and declared that if you disagreed with him, then you, too, were an "evil doer". Declaring that he did not do nuance, Bush made of stupidity a virtue.

He suppressed dissent and declared himself above the law. He declared that he could interpret even the rulings of the Supreme Court; he could pick and choose which portions of laws he might enforce and which portions he might ignore; he assumed the additional powers of the judiciary and the legislature. He dared anyone to stop him. "Who cares what you think?" he asked.
He tipped his hand: "This would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship ...just has long as I'm the dictator". If he, in fact, did not say "...stop throwing the Constitution up to me! The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper", he might as well have. His attitude and his actions are most certainly consistent with it.

When he was always wrong, he got support from a "liberal" media. What does being right have to do with anything? asked Thom Friedman. The GOP —Bushco in particular —is not restrained by common sense, concepts of good and bad, right and wrong.

Republicans appreciate that they are more likely to maintain influence and control of the presidency if the nation remains under ever-increasing threats of terrorism, so they have no hesitation in pursuing policies that can provoke potential terrorists throughout the world.

—John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience

Dean's book is widely reviewed as a study of the insidious nature of the conservative mentality. It is that to be sure but it is more importantly, a study of how that mentality is leading us inexorably to dictatorship. Dean cites the work of Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba whose 1981 book Right Wing Authoritarianism may have diagnosed the Bushco pathology.

Even the members of authoritarian groups appear to have changed during the '80s. The steely-eyed fanatic wearing a Nazi uniform and marching in Marquette Park (clearly one of "them") has been joined by the neatly dressed middle-class housewife throwing blood on abortion facilities. These authoritarian characters are so ordinary they could even be one of "us."

—Right Wing Authoritarianism

Defined by symptoms identified by Altermyer and Dean, Bush's authoritarian dictatorship may have ushered in a new era in which states wage war not against other states but against civilian populations. Bush's war against Iraq, for example, is unlike previous wars; his goals are chaos, death, and annihilation. Bush was not only wrong about Iraq, it is clear that he deliberately lied about WMD in particular.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them. U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

—George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003

When nothing said by Bush turned out to have been true, Dean followed up with an article that asked Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

—John Dean, Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?

The Iraq war —now a debacle of unimaginable proportions —turned out to have been sold with a deliberate hoax. Colin Powell's presentation to the UN consisted of fabricated evidence, out of date satellite photos, bogus information by compromised informants, and, most notoriously, a plagiarized student paper. In fact, not getting the information he wanted to hear, Donald Rumsfeld created an Office for Special Plans tasked with telling him what he wanted to hear. The authoritarian diagnosis explains why it no longer matters to modern American conservatives that nothing mitigates the American occupation of Iraq —a grand theft begun upon a world wide hoax turned debacle.

More recently, the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon —a Bush battle by proxy —is just such a case. While there is still the possibility that Iran and Syria will ally and join the fray, Bush will only exploit that as well. An authoritarian dictatorship, Bush's stock and trade, is fear; being "right" does not matter. Clearly —Bush has never shown himself to be concerned with consequences. What does matter to Bush is that Iraq is now off the front pages and just in time for the mid-terms.

How did we get from there to here? How was our Democracy snatched from under our noses? How did we wake up as cockroaches?

It may have begun with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947 [NSC-68]. It was then that the United States became a "security state”. The act was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything that preceded World War II.

It was not openly discussed at the time, but Senator Arthur Vandenburg —a Republican —reportedly told Truman "...that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better 'scare the hell out of the American people.'"

It would appear that Bush took that admonition to heart. But the issue with Bush and Reagan had not and is not a matter of finding ways to pay for high tech ways to blow things up, it's a matter of simply not paying for them at all —hence the Reagan/Bush deficits! Reagan left to Bush Sr the largest debt in our nation's history. Bush will do the same if he leaves office.

In the meantime, a climate of fear is maintained. The brief exception is Dwight Eisenhower. In an attack of conscience unheard of among latter day Republicans, Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state! We've been overfeeding the beast since 1947.

It was David Hume’s 1758 Of the First Principles of Government that stated:

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.

When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular.

—David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government

Hume was most certainly not alone in associating military governments with despotic governments. When any person puts himself both above and against the law, then the people of the US states are entitled lawfully to rise up —violently if necessary —to overthrow the tyrant, the self-proclaimed dictator.

John Dean makes this chilling point. Nixon, as we mentioned earlier, toyed with the idea of defying the high court, but, in the end thought better of it and resigned. Bush/Cheney won't budge. They have already declared that whatever may be alleged against them, they can, themselves "authorize" it and make legal –even after the fact. Bush has arrogated unto himself the power to interpret the laws. In a crisis, Bush will defy the court and the American republic is over.

Both Jefferson and Che Guevarra recognized that when government reaches this point, it operates outside the law. Both men recognized the terrible alternative to ultimate submission to tyranny. Revolution!

The success of revolution is by no means guaranteed. Lives will be lost; a terrible cost will be exacted. Victory is not cheap but the cost of failure is even more dear: our freedom. It is the existentialist position that we are most truly human in our acts of choice. Sartre said, for example, that “….man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.’ These are not empty words; consider the dreadful implications of making the wrong choice, but even worse, no choice. It is not so much the choice we make between a predetermined good vs a predetermined evil that is significant but, rather, the fact that we make a choice at all. Even Victor Frankl, inside the concentration camp, found his humanity in exercising the last choice left him: that of his own attitude. When Bush has denied us Democracy, we may either submit and be slaves, or choose freedom and fight.

From a review of this article:

This is an interesting commentary that discusses a lot of what Dean talks about in his new book, Conservatives Without Conscience.

I often use Nixon's decision to turn over the tapes as an example of how Nixon helped us avoid a disasterous constitutional crisis.

What if Nixon had continued to defy the SCOTUS order to turn over the tapes? What if Nixon just kept saying, "nope, you can't have them."?

Just who would have enforced the Supreme's decision?

When I ask my students this question, I get the usual answers:

The FBI. Nope they work for the president.
The Attorney General? Nope they work for the president.
The military? Nope, the president is the commander-in-chief.
The Washington D.C. police? Nope, not their jurisdiction.

The answer is, no one knows what would have happened. We do know that since all of the enforcers work for the president, it is unlikely that Nixon would have ordered any of the people under him to enforce an order by the Court that he was actively defying.

Nixon did us a huge favor when he changed his mind about not turning over the tapes and resigned. Nixon wasn't stupid. I think he realized the crisis that the nation was facing.

I just don't think Bush is smart enough about how our government works to understand something like this. And, if he does, he obviously doesn't care.

—Momwolf's Friends Page

Jonathan Schell has written an excellent analysis of the Bush dictatorship that will appear in The Nation —but we get a free preview here:

The US: Too late for empire

By Jonathan Schell

There is a large body of observations that at one and the same time have been made too often and yet not often enough - too often because they have been repeated to the point of tedium for a minority ready to listen, but not often enough because the general public has yet to consider them seriously enough.

...

President George W Bush sent US troops into Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but they weren't there. He said Saddam Hussein's regime had given help to al-Qaeda, but it had not.

He therefore took the nation to war on the basis of falsehoods.

His administration says the torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere has been the work of a few bad apples in the military, whereas in fact abuses were sanctioned at the highest levels of the executive branch in secret memos.

His administration lambastes leakers, but its own officials illegally leaked the name of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame, to discredit her husband politically.

He flatly stated to the public that all wiretaps of Americans were ordered pursuant to court warrants, whereas in fact he was authorizing and repeatedly reauthorizing warrantless wiretaps. These wiretaps violated a specific law of Congress forbidding them.

His administration has asserted a right to imprison Americans as well as foreigners indefinitely without the habeas corpus hearings required by law.

Wars of aggression, torture, domestic spying and arbitrary arrest are the hallmarks of dictatorship, yet Congress, run by the president's party, has refused to conduct full investigations into either the false WMD claims, or the abuses and torture, or the warrantless wiretaps, or the imprisonment without habeas corpus.

When Congress passed a bill forbidding torture and the president signed it, he added a "signing statement" implying a right to disregard its provisions when they conflicted with his interpretation of his powers.

The president's secret legal memos justifying the abuses and torture are based on a conception of the powers of the executive that gives him carte blanche to disregard specific statutes as well as international law in the exercise of self-granted powers to the commander-in-chief nowhere mentioned in the constitution.

If accepted, these claims would fundamentally alter the structure of the US government, upsetting the system of checks and balances and nullifying fundamental liberties, including guarantees in the Fourth Amendment to the constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures and guarantees of due process. As such, they embody apparent failures of the president to carry out his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States". ...

—Jonathan Schell, The US: Too late for empire

When did America STOP being the "good guys"?

Aussie veto stopped US war crimes

Cameron Stewart

July 29, 2006
29jul-mcnarn

Brigadier Maurie McNarn

AUSTRALIA intervened to stop key US military strikes against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, fearing they might constitute a war crime.

Major General Maurie McNarn, then a brigadier and commander of Australian forces in Iraq, on several occasions played a "red card" against the American plans, which included hits on individuals. His objections drew anger from some senior US military figures.

In one instance, Major General McNarn vetoed a US plan to drop a range of huge non-precision bombs on Baghdad, causing one angry US Air Force general to call the Australian a "pencil dick".

However, US military command accepted Major General McNarn's objection and the US plans were scrapped. ...

The Existentialist Cowboy
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Human Rights Watch: Bush Administration Lied About Torture; it's widespread, endemic, and goes right up the chain of command

In a 53-page report, “No Blood, No Foul: Soldiers’ Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq,” US soldiers reveal that contrary to previous statements by the Bush administration, detainees were routinely beaten, put in stressful positions, deprived of sleep and exposed to hot and cold extremes. Human Rights Watch bases its report on interviews, memoranda and sworn statements.

The report, consists of first-hand accounts by U.S. military personnel and provide details of detainee abuses that are at odds with previous statements by the Bush administration. The official program of torture took place at "...an off-limits facility at Baghdad airport and at other detention centers throughout Iraq." Soldier accounts allege that abusive techniques "...were authorized by the military chain of command". This directly contradicts various Pentagon statements and cover stories. It directly refutes the "few bad apples" defense.

The report is consistent with widely reported efforts by the Bush Justice Department to find legal justification for torture even as various administration officials were denying that it had taken place or that it was widespread.

Soldiers were told that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and that interrogators could use abusive techniques to get detainees to talk. These accounts rebut U.S. government claims that torture and abuse in Iraq was unauthorized and exceptional – on the contrary, it was condoned and commonly used.”

—John Sifton, the author of the report and the senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch.

From the report:

Many of the crimes detailed in this report are violations of international humanitarian law, U.S. military law, and U.S. federal criminal law. The U.S. government’s failure to properly investigate these violations is an affront to the victims of the abuses, and a violation of U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions, which obligate states to prosecute serious violations of the conventions’ provisions (“grave breaches”).

The accounts in this report are further evidence that detainee abuse was an established and apparently authorized part of detention and interrogation processes in Iraq for much of 2003-2005. The cases also show that U.S. military personnel have faced systemic obstacles to reporting or exposing abuses, that the U.S. military in numerous cases has not taken adequate measures to stop reported abuses. The report also shows that the U.S. military has often failed to properly investigate and prosecute perpetrators, including officers who allowed abuses to occur on their watch.

—Conclusions, No Blood, No Foul, Soldiers’ Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq, Human Rights Watch

Serious abuses are associated with a special task forces —Task Force 20, Task Force 121, Task Force 6-26, and Task Force 145 — which was stationed at an off-limits detention center at the Baghdad airport, called Camp Nama. Other incidents referred to include facilities near Mosul airport, and a base near al-Qaim, on the Syrian border.

George Bush has repeatedly insisted, "We do not torture." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has repeatedly claimed that the United States does not engage in "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. And CIA Director Porter Goss affirms that his agency "does not do torture. Torture does not work." But no one believes the BUsh administration on this issue and for good reason.

—John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience

Dean goes on to point out that the Bush administration had coaxed the Justice Department into re-defining torture out of existence. Meanwhile, the Economist disounted Bushco's absurd claims that if the President authorized it, it is legal —and his equally absurd claim that the US is not bound to the Geneva Conventions.

Since then, of course, the Supreme Court dealt the Bush rationale a death blow. By a vote of 5-3 SCOTUS, in 'Hamdan v. Rumsfeld', ruled that Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees. The administration had claimed that the detainees were not entitled to Geneva protections because they were not prisoners of war. This is, of course, another inconsitency in Bush's position. We are told we are at war, yet "prisoners" taken in that war are not "prisoners of war". If they are not, then we are not at war.

In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens forcefully rejected the Bush argument, writing:

Congress has not issued the executive a 'blank check,"' [adding:] "Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here.

Bush had claimed that the US was not bound by Geneva at all. Clearly —that is not the case. The US is, in fact, bound to International Law as well as U.S. "...laws prohibiting torture and other ill-treatment of any person in custody in all circumstances." Human Rights Watch states that the

"...prohibition[s] apply to the United States during times of peace, armed conflict, or a state of emergency. Any person, whether a U.S. national or a non-citizen, is protected. It is irrelevant whether the detainee is determined to be a prisoner-of-war, a protected person, or a so-called “security detainee” or “unlawful combatant.”

In other words, prohibitions against torture and ill-treatment of prisoners are absolute despite Bush's various efforts to re-define torture and to make legal, after the fact, the crimes that he's already committed.

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Israel Commits War Crimes in Lebanon

Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, says that "...war crimes may have been committed in Lebanon" by Israel. Her comments clearly target Tel Aviv, warning that war crimes liability is not limited to military personnel; it applies equally to the politicians who decide, direct and approve military operations.

In my opinion, there is no reason to exempt either Israel in Lebanon or the US in Iraq from liability. Her warning, therefore, was most certainly heard in Israel by backers in the Bush administration and the British government of Tony Blair. One hopes her words will resonate among people of goodwill throughout the world.

According to the BBC, Ms. Arbour is a former justice of Canada's Supreme Court. She was a chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, indicted the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. "

International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligations to protect civilians during hostilities

-Louise Arbor, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

She says that the same obligation exists in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is my position that these principles, likewise, apply to George W. Bush and various members of his administration with regard to the attack, the invasion, and the disastrous, illegal occupation of Iraq.

Arbour stresses the "supreme obligation" of states to protect civilians and refers to the "scale of killings" in Lebanon, where the Israeli reaction is clearly seen to have been massive and disproportionate. The 1949 Geneva Conventions sought to prohibit, by international law, attacks which mainly targeted civilians as the Israeli bombardment seems to have done. Article 51 of the First Protocol to the 1949 agreements (updated in 1977) states:

Article 51: Protection of the Civilian Population

The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances.

The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.

Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:

those which are not directed at a specific military objective;

those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or

those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

-Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977

Article 52 adds: "Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives..." Therefore, there is a war crime if civilians are specifically attacked as civilians. However, it is different if they are killed as a result of a strike against a military or a "dual-use" target. More about that in a moment.

I venture to say that there is no reason to believe hat the government of Ehud Olmert has taken prudent measures to reduce civilian causalities. So far, Lebanese deaths have topped 300. In a mounting humanitarian crisis some 700,000 Lebanese civilians have become displaced refugees -by some estimates about 1/7 of the entire population. The reality on the ground is thus summed up: the entire nation of Lebanon is under attack and faces utter destruction of infrastructure and basic services.

In the meantime, Robert Fisk notes the significant difference between the "pin-point accuracy" of Israeli technology on the attack and the antiquated Hezbollah defense. Israel can and does target precisely. If civilian targets are disproportionately destroyed, it would appear to be by design. In other words, Israel can -if it wishes -avoid the mass murder of innocent civilians. But as Fisk points out: "...they continue to fill Lebanon's body bags with infants, women and children." At what point does deliberate targeting become "ethnic cleansing". Chillingly, Israel's prosecution of these attacks bears an increasing resemblance to the systematic destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto by Nazis in World War II.

This is a war crime! The American people must demand of our illegitimate Bush administration that we join the rest of the entire world in demanding an immediate cease fire.

Aside from US culpability in Iraq, the US -Israel's top ally -has obstructed a cease fire. Condoleeza Rice resorted to double talk about the status quo and, even here, she is wrong. Holding out hopes of a lasting but unlikely peace, her words are but a red herring -indeed, it is Rice who holds out the mirage, the "false promise" of "lasting peace". A status quote ante is preferable to the ongoing slaughter. Her "talks", therefore, are doomed to failure. One cynically suspects, that the Bush administration knows this full well. It is increasingly difficult not to believe that Condoleeza Rice has departed for the Middle East to "negotiate" in bad faith. It is also difficult not to believe that this cynical administration deliberately seeks to exploit this issue to split the "progressive" movement.

An update and commentary from the Washington Post:

Hunker Down With History

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; Page A19

The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.

This is why the Israeli-Arab war, now transformed into the Israeli-Muslim war (Iran is not an Arab state), persists and widens. It is why the conflict mutates and festers. It is why Israel is now fighting an organization, Hezbollah, that did not exist 30 years ago and why Hezbollah is being supported by a nation, Iran, that was once a tacit ally of Israel's. The underlying, subterranean hatred of the Jewish state in the Islamic world just keeps bubbling to the surface. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and some other Arab countries may condemn Hezbollah, but I doubt the proverbial man in their street shares that view. ...

An update from Maureen Dowd:

Condi doesn't want to talk to Hezbollah or its sponsors, Syria and Iran — "Syria knows what it needs to do," she says with asperity — and she doesn't want a cease-fire. She wants "a sustainable cease-fire," which means she wants to give the Israelis more time to decimate Hezbollah bunkers with the precision-guided bombs that the Bush administration is racing to deliver.

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Bush plays politics with human life

George Bush has made yet another bad choice. He has chosen to play politics with human life. He has chosen to deny hope to millions of Americans who suffer from debilitating diseases, millions for whom stem cell research represented their best chance of cure or a better quality of life. Bush's bad decision will be applauded by a minority of Americans who disingenuously call their movement: "right to life". For the life of me, I can't see how condemning millions of Americans to an early death has anything to do with the "right to life".

This was the first time Bush has used the veto and that he chose this bill will define his failed presidency as much as his failed war of aggression in Iraq where, likewise, the civilian death toll is the anti-thesis of "right to life". Our very presence in Iraq, Bush's policy of torture, the rising civilian death toll at the hands of frustrated US troops proves the lie to "right to life".

Bush's veto may very well bring about an end to research that might have led to new cures for juvenile diabetes, leukemia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and many others. That 70% of Americans disagree with Bush on this issue was of no consequence to him. Bush is a man who has placed himself above the law and now he has appointed himself the arbiter of our very lives and deaths.

The bill itself would have permitted research on excess pluripotent cells found only in developing embryos generated during the process of in-vitro fertilization. Bush and the GOP say that the embryos will be destroyed if they are used for stem cell research. What Bush and his Christian right backers will not tell you is that these embryos would be discarded anyway. They will not be placed inside anyone's "womb"; they will never be born. Therefore, Bush's veto will make absolutely no difference to those embryos. Bush's veto will not save one of them! None of them will be "spared" because he denied life to millions of ailing Americans. Bush played politics with human lives and he did so for evil motives.

Similarly, no one seems to mind that some 50% of all fertilized embryos are lost naturally. And there is no brouhaha among right wingers about the fact that the embryos in question are created artificially to begin with. This is the kind of calculus that is only to be found inside the GOP, a party that is tone deaf to morality, common sense, and logic. Bush's cynical decision is but a sop to his increasingly radical, extremist base.

Fundamentalist "Christians" lead the attack against stem cell research by raising a smokescreen. That question is: "When does life begin?" A blastocyst, indeed, even a single cell has within it the DNA code from which a human being may develop. But a blastocyst is not a mini human being. Indeed, the scientific evidence is clear: stem cells are not human life; they have only that potential. The GOP has deliberately distorted the scientific facts about this issue in order to advance a religious, theocratic agenda.

Here are some comments that were made about my article on another web site; my comments are in response to the comments in blockquotes:

The issue I see with your somewhat emotional and logically lacking rant is the fact that you attempt to equate science with religion in your attack on the Christian view of the subject.

I flatly deny that my rant lacked logic. Secondly, my description of the research and the definitions therein are entirely consistent with science to the extent that "popular" writing about this subject can be.

You say that Christians hide behind a smokescreen, the idea that even the initial single cell created at conception is a living organism, and is human in nature. You refute this view with the comment, "indeed, the scientific evidence is clear: stem cells are not human life; they have only that potential."

The RR always gets the science wrong. Clearly, a strand of human DNA is not a human being; neither is a single cell. Neither is a blastocyst. The RR, Tom DeLay, George Bush definition of "human being" is a theological definition for which there is, by definition, no empircal proof.

Moreover, they confuse "human potential" with "human being". To claim that every string of DNA that has "human potential" to be a "human being" -as Tom DeLay has flatly done -is just absurd on its face. Bush/RR characterizations of themselves as "pro-life" is blatantly hypocritical; they continue to defend the slaughter of innocent human being (of both sides) in Iraq. Clearly -for Bush and the RR -life is sacred only before birth and fair game afterward.

Significantly, you did not bother to address that point, a point that I consider to be crucial to my thesis: Bush is playing politics with human life.

As the subject of my comment suggests, you are comparing apples and oranges, so to speak.

Not so! I never compared apples to oranges, even metaphorically!

Even as an agnostic, I will readily admit that science and Christianity can commingle, yet it is illogical and illegitimate to claim that a religious claim is wrong, simply because scientists support the diametric of said claim.

Theological positions cannot be proven true nor false empirically. Secondly, if Christianity and science co-mingle, this is not the case in which they do so. Besides —if theologicy could be proven empirically, it would not be essential to believe it upon faith! If the existence of God, for example, could be proven empirically, religion —by definition an act of faith —would cease to exist. At last, passing laws upon mere faith and hoping that everything turns out all right is folly.

State a single statement made by the RR that is, in any way, verifiable either by logic or by experiment. State it and then, lacking proof, state the conditions under which that statement may be proven to be either true or false. Simply -you can't! And neither can DeLay or Bush for whom this issue is pure posturing. The good new is: it has already backfired on them.

It rather immediately become a matter of "he-said-she-said" (again, for lack of a better term...). Unfortunately, while I will give you credit enough to assume you have at least semi-logical reasoning behind your position on stem-cell research, I'm afraid I cannot in good conscience give you credit for proving your point successfully in this article.

Because you merely call it "semi logical" doesn't mean that it is!

The burden of proof is upon Bush et al. But, as you can see, there is no proof for their position; there is, in fact, no empircal proof for statements based on ideology. To the extent that their statement follows from their religious ideology, their arguments are all circulus en probando fallacies.

Their statements are thinly disguised theology -not science; and, to the extent that laws are based upon their theology, the First Amendment is violated. The First Amendment guarantees what Thomas Jefferson called a "wall of separation" between church and state.

I fear that you have been fooled by the RR's slick PR experts, propaganda, and focus groups. Let me put it to you in these terms: scientific propositions are those propositions that can be proven - empirically -to be either true (or in some cases, highly probable) or untrue! Propositions that can never be proven to be either true or false are either theology, poetry, or just simple nonsense. Of those three categories I leave the classification of Bush and the RR to the reader.

Some updates:

Scientists fear US research will fall behind

By Rebecca Knight in BostonThe US scientific community expressed frustration and disappointment yesterday at the announcement that President George W. Bush would veto bipartisan legislation to ease restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

"It's not surprising but it's very sad," said Terry Devitt, a director at the University of Wisconsin's stem cell research programme. "The president has affirmed a policy that is out of step with both science and public opinion. It means we may have to wait for a new president to move this type of research into the clinic." ...

Experts rip Rove stem cell remark Researchers doubt value of adult cells

By Jeremy Manier and Judith Graham
Tribune staff reporters
Published July 19, 2006

When White House political adviser Karl Rove signaled last week that President Bush planned to veto the stem cell bill being considered by the Senate, the reasons he gave went beyond the president's moral qualms with research on human embryos.

In fact, Rove waded into deeply contentious scientific territory, telling the Denver Post's editorial board that researchers have found "far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells."

The administration's assessment of stem cell science has extra meaning in the wake of the Senate's 63-37 vote Tuesday to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The measure, which passed the House last year, will now head to Bush, who has vowed to veto it.

But Rove's negative appraisal of embryonic stem cell research--echoed by many opponents of funding for such research--is inaccurate, according to most stem cell research scientists, including a dozen contacted for this story.

The field of stem cell medicine is too young and unproven to make such judgments, experts say. Many of those researchers either specialize in adult stem cells or share Bush's moral reservations about embryonic stem cells.

"[Rove's] statement is just not true," said Dr. Michael Clarke, associate director of the stem cell institute at Stanford University, who in 2003 published the first study showing how adult stem cells replenish themselves.

If opponents of embryonic stem cell research object on moral grounds, "I'm willing to live with that," Clarke said, though he disagrees. But, he said, "I'm not willing to live with statements that are misleading."

Dr. Markus Grompe, director of the stem cell center at the Oregon Health and Science University, is a Catholic who objects to research involving the destruction of embryos and is seeking alternative ways of making stem cells. But Grompe said there is "no factual basis to compare the promise" of adult stem cells and cells taken from embryos.

Limbaugh claimed "you need abortions to get" embryonic stem cells, "we need to re-examine" notion of "scientist" because "science has been so wrong about so many things"

Summary: Rush Limbaugh claimed that "the militant pro-abortion crowd" is "behind" efforts to legalize federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, "because you need abortions to get these [embryos]." In fact, embryonic stem cells "are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro ... and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors."

On the July 19 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program,
Rush Limbaugh claimed that "the militant pro-abortion crowd" is "behind" efforts to legalize federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, "because you need abortions to get these [embryos]." In fact, as the National Institutes of Health webpage points
out, embryonic stem cells "are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro -- in an in vitro fertilization clinic -- and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body [emphasis original]."

Additionally, Limbaugh claimed that, in light of scientists' belief that embryonic stem cells could be useful in medicine, "we need to re-examine this whole term 'scientist,' " because "[s]cience is all about politics, and science has been so wrong about so many things."

The Existentialist Cowboy
Bush
Atrocities
Stem Cells
Bush Veto
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The Existentialist Cowboy

John Cornyn's Demagoguery Refuted

I was in a feisty mood when I got the following "letter" from my Senator —John Cornyn of Texas. First his entire letter followed by my reply to the Senator in which I responded to his specific absurdities in block quotes:

Dear Mr. Hart:

Thank you for contacting me about efforts to uphold traditional marriage. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important matter.

As you may know, in 1996 over three-fourths of Congress passed—and former President Bill Clinton signed—the Defense of Marriage Act (P.L. 104-199). This federal law defines marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife."

Under the laws, traditions, and customs of all fifty states, marriage has historically been defined as the union of a man and a woman. However, judicial rulings—and outright lawlessness by local officials in some states—have threatened traditional marriage and moved this debate onto the national stage. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas provides lower courts with the leverage needed to invalidate traditional marriage laws. And the first major assault on traditional marriage came in Goodridge v. Mass. Dept. of Health, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court—citing the Lawrence decision—overturned that state's traditional marriage law. As such, constitutional scholars on both sides of the aisle agree that the Defense of Marriage Act and similar state laws are now in peril.

I believe that judges should strictly interpret the law and avoid the temptation to legislate from the bench or color their rulings with personal ideology. During my tenure as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights, I conducted a series of hearings to determine the steps necessary to uphold traditional marriage. As a result, on January 24, 2005, Senator Wayne Allard introduced a joint resolution (S.J. Res. 1) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I am proud to co-sponsor this joint resolution, which would allow the American people to decide on its ratification—rather than permitting traditional marriage laws to be invalidated by judicial fiat. S.J. Res. 1 has been referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for consideration.

You might also be interested to learn that the Texas Legislature passed a constitutional amendment (H.J.R. No. 6), which was added to the statewide ballot last year as Proposition 2. The "Texas Marriage Amendment" defined marriage as being only between one man and one woman, and on November 8, 2005, Texans voted overwhelmingly to pass Proposition 2 by a vote of more than 76 percent.

I appreciate having the opportunity to represent the interests of Texans in the United States Senate. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator

Now my reply:

I believe that judges should strictly interpret the law and avoid the temptation to legislate from the bench or color their rulings with personal ideology. —Sen. Cornyn

I just don't believe that to be the case with regard to the GOP and the right wing in general. The only "judicial activism" I see going on is from the right wing.

You might also be interested to learn that the Texas Legislature passed a constitutional amendment (H.J.R. No. 6), which was added to the statewide ballot last year as Proposition 2. The "Texas Marriage Amendment" defined marriage as being only between one man and one woman, and on November 8, 2005, Texans voted overwhelmingly to pass Proposition 2 by a vote of more than 76 percent. —Sen. Cornyn

A completely unnecessary amendment and one which I oppose. This proposed amendment is repugnant and intrusive, involving government in purely private matters. There is no need for either the Federal Government or the states to get involved with what is primarily a "religious" act. What both levels of government should do is to get out of the "marriage" business entirely —save for the creation of civil unions for the purpose of determining "...who gets what" when a separation occurs.

What right has the "state" to define "marriage" of any sort? Marriage —for thousands of years —has been and continues to be a religious act and ceremony. I deny that any state or government has the power to perform a "marriage" or to require of anyone a "license" to have sex or live together. As a marriage is a religious act, your proposed amendment violates the separation of church and state. Now —if an established religion chooses to recognize a "civil union" as a marriage, that is a right of that church that is protected under the FIRST AMENDMENT —little read of late by the GOP.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...

—First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Your proposed amendment is incompatible with the First Amendment on its face as it "...respects an establishment of religion". "No law ..." means "No law"! Now I understand that your proposed amendment applies to the state of Texas. But didn't a US Supreme Court, notable for its 5-4 GOP majority, strike down the work of a State court's ruling concerning its own state laws? Was this not completely without precedent? Was this decision not known as Bush v Gore? Was it not cheered by the GOP? What will be the reaction of the GOP when a federal court, likewise, dares to declare your amendment incompatible with existing federal, constitutional law to which the State of Texas is subject? How do Republicans manage to reconcile —within a single brain —two mutually exclusive propositions? Another example, how do Republicans manage to oppose abortion even as they turn a blind eye to the questionable executions on death row?

What ever happened to smaller, less intrusive government? If I had been expecting the GOP to deliver on that empty promise, then I would have been sorely disappointed. However, I have learned over some 60 years, that nothing said by the GOP can be believed.

Regards, but I will be working to defeat the GOP at every possible level and, respectfully, that includes you Senator and your colleague in the Senate.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush has been very credibly quoted by an experienced journalist, based upon several eye witnesses, to having said: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" Is this true? If it is true, then why has he not been impeached for violating his Oath of Office? He is sworn to uphold and defend that "...Goddamned piece of paper!"

I am increasingly and profoundly offended by this "President", in particular, and by the radical, anti-American nature of the GOP in general. When did Washington stop listening to the people? Was it when the lobbyists for big corporations and defense contractors proceeded to buy the government of the United States of America? Hey! Sen. John! You wanna debate me? How about high noon?

The Existentialist Cowboy
Bush
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The Existentialist Cowboy

Bush has de-stabilized the middle east, strengthened Iran, abandoned Lebanon

In the face of a disproportionate response by Israel, the US has abandoned Lebanon, the best hope for democracy in the Middle East. Bush's attack, invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq has irreparably undermined American influence and power everywhere in the Middle East. If what Bushco had said of Iran is true, then Bush risks driving Lebanon into an alliance with Iran at a time when the US has eschewed its traditional role of 'honest broker'.

The US failure to restrain Israel has only strengthened Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has already become a major player in the world wide scramble for Middle Eastern resources. As Israel's disproportionate attack on Lebanon nears the end of its first week, the fact that Lebanon —hitherto the region's best hope for Democracy —will find more in common with Iran than with the US who has clearly left Lebanon to its fate at the hands of Ehud Olmert. The so-called great game is lost; Bush, if not checkmated, is, at least, checked in what Zbigniew Brzezinski called The Grand Chessboard

In the year 2003, Juan Cole wrote:

Most Shiite leaders in Iraq have made a tactical decision not to resist the Anglo-American occupation during the coming year. They hope the US, in recreating Iraq as a parliamentary democracy, will give them the political power they deserve by virtue of their numbers. If not, or if the Americans overstay their welcome, the Shiites might well turn against them. It is not, however, clear that the community is united enough yet to effectively close ranks against coalition forces.

—Juan Cole, Shiite divisions give the US breathing room

Brzezinski's thesis, however, was taken up by Bushco, a group easily swayed by grandiose and megalomaniacal visions of American pre-eminence in a post-Soviet world. Brzezinski's thesis encouraged less gifted thinkers to envision the Bush administration holding absolute sway throughout the Middle East from oil-rich former Soviet satellites to the shores of the Mediterranean.

Instead, Iraq has become a black hole pointing up the fatal inconsistencies in Bush's plan for world dominance if not outright conquest.

Chess players will understand this analogy: Bush lost the game with a flawed opening. As early as July of 2003, the BBC would report that "...the new Centcom commander, John Abizaid, said coalition forces were facing what looks like a systematic guerrilla war". The Bush administration failed to understand and fully appreciate that much of the Middle East is less "state" oriented than tribal in nature. Power throughout the region is, therefore, capable of coalescing unpredictably to outside threats. In Iraq, specifically, Bush failed to anticipate the rise to power of a Shi'ite theocracy capable of forming an alliance with Bush's boogie-man du jour: Iran.

Shias account for about 90 percent of the Iranian population, some 70 percent of all people living in the Persian Gulf region. About 140 million people living in an area from Lebanon to Pakistan call themselves Shias; that's about 50 percent of all people in that region. It's not surprising that Bush himself would have been ignorant of these elementary facts. It is inconceivable, however, that Condoleeza Rice, as National Security Advisor at the time, would not have done at least five minutes of basic research before consenting to complicity in Bush's decision to commit US troops to a war of naked aggression cum quagmire cum disaster.

By liberating and empowering Iraq's Shiite majority, the Bush administration helped launch a broad Shiite revival that will upset the sectarian balance in Iraq and the Middle East for years to come.

...

Iraq's liberation has also generated new cultural, economic, and political ties among Shiite communities across the Middle East. Since 2003, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, coming from countries ranging from Lebanon to Pakistan, have visited Najaf and other holy Shiite cities in Iraq, creating transnational networks of seminaries, mosques, and clerics that tie Iraq to every other Shiite community, including, most important, that of Iran.

—Vali Nasr, Foreign Affairs, When the Shiites Rise

Reportedly, the Bush administration is worried about the way the world is trending. That's cold comfort. It is Bush and his gang of incompetents who may be credited with having fanned the flames. Could Bush have behaved otherwise? Yes —but only if he had represented the interests of the people of the United States instead of the combined interests of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, Unocal, the since failed Enron, and other representatives of big oil. Their long term interests are the control of the world price of the world's most addictive drug: Oil! American democracy and world peace are just not very high on their list of misplaced priorities.

The Existentialist Cowboy
Torture
Atrocities
Iraq
War Crimes

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The Existentialist Cowboy

Israel and Lebanon: How Bush lost his mojo

Accustomed to dictating the agenda, putting opponents on the defensive, dividing the rest of the world into good and evil, black and white, yin and yang, the Bush administration is now reduced to watching an escalating Middle East conflict from the sidelines. There are several reasons for that, but most prominently America's diminishing role throughout the world —traceable to Bush's failure in Iraq, the world wide rejection of his discredited policy of pre-emption, and the nature of the "new government" —if government it is —in Iraq.

Israel will ignore UN calls for restraint and the conflict will intensify because a principal player is missing in action, or should we say, inaction. That player is the United States —bogged down in Iraq, finding itself unable to restrain Israel, without any chance of dialogue with Syria or Iran. Bearing the brunt is Lebanon to whom the US can only say: "Hang in there, buddy!"

Over three decades, the US has tempered inflammatory situations, playing "good cop" to the Israeli "bad cop". Having given tacit approval to an Israeli "over-reaction" , the Bush administration compromises its traditional role of "honest broker". Without dialogue or leverage, Bush is not only out of the loop, he may even be on the wrong side.

Likewise, Israel lost control of the agenda when Hamas won recent elections in Palestine, a situation very nearly summed up by the Washington Post:

Since Hamas won control of parliament in the recent Palestinian elections, policymakers in Washington and Jerusalem have been faced with a dilemma: how to deal with a democratically elected government that is also on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. Last week, Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth interviewed Hamas's new prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, by phone in his home in the refugee camp where he lives with his wife and 12 children in Gaza.

Palestinian President Abu Mazen and the international community have put forward conditions for dealing with Hamas: 1) recognize Israel; 2) recognize existing agreements with Israel made by the Palestinian Liberation Organization; 3) renounce violence. Will you agree to these conditions?

We are surprised that such conditions are imposed on us. Why don't they direct such conditions and questions to Israel? Has Israel respected agreements? Israel has bypassed practically all agreements. We say: Let Israel recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinians first and then we will have a position regarding this. Which Israel should we recognize? The Israel of 1917; the Israel of 1936; the Israel of 1948; the Israel of 1956; or the Israel of 1967? Which borders and which Israel? Israel has to recognize first the Palestinian state and its borders and then we will know what we are talking about.

—'We Do Not Wish to Throw Them Into the Sea', Washington Post

Tragic irony! Bush's neocon base have long supported Israel and would have supported an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran. Iran, of course, now has close ties with the Shi'ites who now call themselves the government in Iraq. By way of Hezbollah, Bush's new Shi'ite government in Iraq may find itself in a war with Israel. More simply: Bush had no clue! Bush had no idea what he was getting into when he ordered US troops into harm's way in Iraq. Now Bush is reduced to watching it all unfold on TV.

Bushies will resort to form: the no one could have foreseen defense. We've all heard it before. Condoleeza Rice used it following 911 when she said that no one could have foreseen that hijackers would use airliners. That was not so, of course; everyone but Bushco had "gamed" it.

More recently, Bush himself whined to Diane Sawyer: no one could have foreseen that the levees would break. In fact, everyone but Bush had foreseen that possibility. National Geographic did a documentary about it. Now, Bush can be counted on to come up with something equally absurd like no one could have foreseen that Shi'ites would win the elections in Iraq or no one could have foreseen that Israel would want to attack Lebanon. Who is dispensing those mind altering drugs at the White House?

Additional resources:

• Washington Post: Aggression Under False Pretenses
• 'We Do Not Wish to Throw Them Into the Sea'
• Israel invades Lebanon over capture of soldiers

The Existentialist Cowboy
Bush
Atrocities
Iraq
War on Terror
Israel

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The Existentialist Cowboy

American conservatives are dead wrong and why it matters

According to John Dean in his new book Conservatives Without Conscience, Ric Santorum said: "Conservatism is common sense; liberalism is ideology". Therein lies the crux of the problem. Conservatives cannot think clearly about themselves, let alone "liberals" whom they've irrationally demonized over a period of some 30 to 40 yeas. Santorum is most certainly not the first self-confessed "conservative" to get it wrong; he is, however, among a radical elite who often get it 180 degrees the wrong way 'round.

Historically, conservatives have always criticized "liberals" from their ideological biases, primarily religious and economic. Liberals were too pragmatic, they said, and were lacking ethics based upon religious conviction. It's a fair question: when did those godless pragmatists suddenly become ideologues? My cynical response is: godless pragmatists and empiricists suddenly become ideological when Santorum's focus group told him that ideological was a better word with which to tar his opponents. Certainly the term liberal is by now a golden-oldie epithet so overused as to be a self-inoculating cliche. It doesn't even seem to be working for Rush Limbaugh who has a worse problem than drugs. Ratings!

The radical right is running out of red flag words. Liberal was so worn out that Ann Coulter had to call her book Slander and then: Treason! Now she's reduced to attacking the widows of 911 victims. What's next? Either it is true that Rush and Ann have not gotten that memo or it is true that you can't teach old dogs new tricks. It'll be interesting to see what the focus groups come up with. Easy livings depend upon something good ...or should I say evil?

Dean also quotes former Reagan aide, Michael Deaver who wrote of conservatives that they favor:

...limited government, individual liberty, and the prospect of a strong America. —Michael Deaver, as quoted by John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience

If conservatives are claiming now to be empirical and pragmatic, how is Deaver's comment to be taken seriously? Verifiable facts disprove Deaver's thesis. Let's take Deaver's three points in turn.

• Conservatives believe in limited Government.

Oh Really? Let's start with Ronald Reagan, whom conservatives have all but deified. Reagan tripled the national debt and ran up historically high deficits. Despite a respite in the 90's the bad old days are back under Bush, a fact not lost on some fiscal conservatives:

From 2000-2003, Washington had a rare opportunity to save the average household nearly $2,500 in taxes without reducing any federal services. After 50 years of steady increases, interest payments on the national debt declined by $247 billion from 2000 to 2003, thanks to the balanced budgets of the 1990s. Like the post-Cold War “peace dividend,” Congress and the president got a once-in-a-lifetime “interest dividend” of $247 billion.

And they squandered every penny.

—Capitol Magazine, Washington's $782 Billion Spending Spree

That was published in 2002. It's only gotten worse since then.

Conservatives would also have us believe that it's liberal entitlements that account for the sorry state of the US budget. That's not so either. From the same conservative source:

Others finger big-ticket entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, claiming that they're growing uncontrollably. However, these program's budgets haven't grown any faster over the last four years than they did over the past two decades.

—Capitol Magazine, Washington's $782 Billion Spending Spree

James Carville charged that Ronald Reagan significantly increased the Federal Bureaucracy in We're Right, They're Wrong; typically and unfortunately, however, Carville will be summarily dismissed by partisan Republicans and especially when he's absolutely correct and on target. He's both on this point. I have other sources for that information:

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, the popular belief was that the size of government would be cut and that some of the regulatory excesses of the prior decade would be rolled back. However, the growth of the federal government continued throughout the Reagan presidency and no agencies were phased out.

—Regulation and the Reagan Era: Politics, Bureaucracy and the Public Interest, Roger E. Meiners, Bruce Yandle (Editors)

In fact, Reagan increased the federal bureaucracy by 68,000 workers even as he very nearly tripled the national debt.

Reagan’s legacy is clear in the budget deficit neighborhood. He entered the White House in January 1981–after winning the presidency by campaigning that tax cuts and massive increases in defense spending could co-exists with a balanced budget. The budget deficit was $74 billion when he entered the White House; it grew to $231 billion in Reagan’s final year. The trade deficit was even worse, nearing $200 billion per year when Reagan left office. The national debt rose to $2 trillion.

—Michael Fauntroy, Reconsidering Reagan

These are facts that Republicans will deny to this day.

• Conservatives believe in individual liberty

Is that so? Not if they support George W. Bush. Nowhere has Bush attacked the separation of powers more strenuously than with his so-called unitary executive concept. At stake are regulatory agencies, independent since the Great Depression. Control has been shared between President and Congress. Bush would tip the balance of power by putting the agencies under his sole control and authority.

Elsewhere, Bush strikes at the very heart of individual liberties: the Bill of Rights. Many people seem to be unconcerned about their phone calls and their bank records, objects of Bush's program of widespread domestic surveillance. But, alas, it's not about bank records; it's not about phone calls. It's about probable cause —two words that stand between us and tyranny.

• Conservatives are stronger on national defense

Are they really? In fact, terrorism increased during Reagan's administration. We were less safe and even less safe now under Bush! During a period some two years in which Ronald Reagan waged a so-called "war on terrorism", terrorist attacks against the United States very nearly tripled. [Source: Total Acts of Terrorism in the U.S. 1980-98, America's Response to Terrorism, The Brookings Institute (Based on FBI Statistics)]

Typically, Reagan announced his "War on Terrorism" to a meeting of evangelicals on March 8, 1983. Reagan warned terrorists: "You can run but you can't hide"! A statistical analysis would seem to indicate that Reagan's War on Terrorism was as much a cause as a cure for terrorism. There are two possible explanations. One, Reagan's war —not well thought out —was simply impotent and ineffective. It may even have been counter-productive, a rallying cry to legitimate critics of US imperialism as well as terrorists.

Or —the raison d'etre may have been to rally a disparate GOP base. Typically, wars are easily exploited to stir feelings of patriotism and false pride. Just as Reagan's war made Americans less safe, Bush's war is increasingly perceived as making the world a more dangerous place. According to Pew, American skepticism about the war in Iraq has increased steadily from its inception; it is increasingly seen as harming the "war on terrorism".

A plurality (47%) believes that the war in Iraq has hurt the war on terrorism, up from 41% in February of this year. Further, a plurality (45%) now says that the war in Iraq has increased the chances of terrorist attacks at home, up from 36% in October 2004, while fewer say that the war in Iraq has lessened the chances of terrorist attacks in the U.S. (22% now and 32% in October). Another three-in-ten believe that the war in Iraq has no effect on the chances of a terrorist attack in the U.S.

—Pew Research Center, Iraq Hurting War on Terror

The level of vituperative rhetoric has dangerously divided and radicalized the right wing. John Dean, whose book I have previously referenced, still thinks himself a Barry Goldwater conservative though he has been among George Bush's most vocal critics. That he looks like a liberal now, he says, is only a measure of how far right the right has become. In fact, many so-called "conservatives" who support Bush are not conservative at all by Deaver's definition. They favor big and intrusive government; many, like Dick Cheney, believe deficits no longer matter; and, others —neocons in particular —openly pine for another Pearl Harbor that might be exploited for political purposes. [See: Project for a New American Century] Radical authoritarians, they have little in common with "conservatives".

Barry Goldwater may have been the last conservative. Indeed, he may have been the first —a short-lived movement of one. Certainly, contemporary conservatives have little in common with anyone who would tell John Dean that the conscience of a conservative was pricked by "any action or anything that debases human dignity". Dean asked: "Doesn't poverty debase human dignity?" Of course it does," Goldwater replied. He went on to tell Dean that if the family, friends, and private charities cannot handle the job, then the government must.

It sounds like FDR.

That Goldwater and Eisenhower would be called liberal today reveals the polarization that has taken place in this country. A radicalized right wing is a cancer upon the body politic; its roots are found in the left overs of Nixon's utterly failed administration. This is something about which Dean can write authoritatively. It was Dean, after all, who warned a President of a cancer on the Presidency.

Tragically — our enemy within takes the form of an increasingly authoritarian right wing which exemplifies what Sartre called mauvaise foi —bad faith! I've rarely believed what conservatives say about liberals, but even less of what they say about themselves. It is not unusual for a politician to lie to others. Conservative lies to themselves, however, are especially pernicious and destructive. Another word is delusion; delusion is a symptom of psychosis.

Sadly, many conservatives do not see themselves as subversives even as they support Bush assaults on the Constitution. The biggest lie yet told is that Bush took us to war to bring Democracy to Iraq. Perhaps, then, when he has done so, we should all move to Iraq so that we might enjoy the blessings of Democracy. We've all but lost them here at home. It was Jay Leno, as I recall, who asked: Why don't we let Iraq have our Constitution. We don't have any use for it anymore!

Thom Friedman recently asked: What does being right have to do with anything? Let him go to Iraq where he will learn what being dead wrong and lying about it has to do with everything!

Additional resources:

• John W. Dean: 'Triumph of the authoritarians'
• Findlaw: Articles by John Dean

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Bush and his Iraq war tar baby descend into hell

Facts on the ground have overtaken delusions and lies. Here's a quick round-up from media and blogosphere, painting a picture of Iraq descending into anarchy and chaos amid increased incidents of mass murder, rape and other war crimes by an illegal US occupation.

Iraq is continuing to deteriorate. The bloody curse of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice fiasco is reaching a pure descent into Hell, yet the mainstream corporate media is still providing a veneer of credibility to Bush, when all around the world is crumbling.

—Buzzflash Editorial

Maureen O'Dowd writes:

Baghdad Erupts in Mob Violence

BAGHDAD, July 9 — A mob of gunmen went on a brazen daytime rampage through a predominantly Sunni Arab district of western Baghdad on Sunday, pulling people from their cars and homes and killing them in what officials and residents called a spasm of revenge by Shiite militias for the bombing of a Shiite mosque on Saturday. Hours later, two car bombs exploded beside a Shiite mosque in another Baghdad neighborhood in a deadly act of what appeared to be retaliation.

While Baghdad has been ravaged by Sunni-Shiite bloodletting in recent months, even by recent standards the violence here on Sunday was frightening, delivered with impunity by gun-wielding vigilantes on the street. In the culture of revenge that has seized Iraq, residents all over the city braced for an escalation in the cycle of retributive mayhem between the Shiites and Sunnis that has threatened to expand into civil war.

The violence coincided with an announcement by American military officials that they had formally accused four more American soldiers of rape and murder, and a fifth soldier of "dereliction of duty" for failing to report the crimes, in connection with the deaths of a teenage Iraqi girl and three members of her family. ...

Former US soldier charged with killings, rape in Iraq

A former US soldier discharged from the Army with a personality disorder has been accused in court of raping an Iraqi woman and killing her and her family in March, US officials have said.

Former Private first class Steven Green, 21, who was stationed in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, appeared in court in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is expected to be sent to Kentucky where he has been charged with the attacks that took place in Iraq.

Green faces a possible death penalty if convicted. He has been charged as a civilian, but could be brought back on military duty and charged as a soldier, a defence official said.

According to a statement by the US attorney in Kentucky, Green is charged with going to a house near Mahmudiya with three others to rape a woman living in the house. ...

Another bleak report, this one from the Rubicon:

That criminal negligence starts at the top, negligence of Iraqi civilians and American soldiers alike. George Bush is the commander who first set the tone, notably in his juvenile challenge three years ago:

Anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some that feel like if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they are talking about if that is the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.

"Let me finish," he whines. It's well past time to interrupt his swaggering speeches—and his feckless military adventures. Bring the American militia home now. It's the only way to bring the killing to an end.

As of today, these are the numbers of the dead:

• 2,543 American military personnel
  
• 226 other coalition military personnel
  
• at least 341 coalition contractors
  
• more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians—at least 38,901 deaths have been fully documented in online media reports
  
• about 9,000 Iraqi military (during the invasion)
  
• at least 91 journalists

And in Afghanistan, 317 American soldiers and 91 other coalition soldiers have died.

The bloodshed and chaos in Iraq is beyond description. Making the task harder for working journalists on the scene is the fact that travel and access are restricted. Bush, meanwhile, wages another war on any media that dares to tell the truth about his quagmire.

Seven Questions: Covering Iraq

Reporting from Iraq has become one of journalism’s most difficult and dangerous jobs. FP spoke recently with Rod Nordland, who served as Newsweek’s Baghdad bureau chief for two years, about the challenge of getting out of the Green Zone to get the scoop.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Are Americans getting an accurate picture of what’s going on in Iraq?

Rod Nordland: It’s a lot worse over here [in Iraq] than is reported. The administration does a great job of managing the news. Just an example: There was a press conference here about [Abu Musab al] Zarqawi’s death, and somebody asked what role [U.S.] Special Forces played in finding Zarqawi. [The official] either denied any role or didn’t answer the question. Somebody pointed out that the president, half an hour earlier, had already acknowledged and thanked the Special Forces for their involvement. They are just not giving very much information here.

FP: The Bush administration often complains that the reporting out of Iraq is too negative, yet you say they are managing the news. What’s the real story?

RN: You can only manage the news to a certain degree. It is certainly hard to hide the fact that in the third year of this war, Iraqis are only getting electricity for about 5 to 10 percent of the day. Living conditions have gotten so much worse, violence is at an even higher tempo, and the country is on the verge of civil war. The administration has been successful to the extent that most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made. They keep talking about how the Iraqi army is doing much better and taking over responsibilities, but for the most part that’s not true.

FP: How often do you travel outside of the Green Zone?

RN: The restrictions on [journalists’] movements are very severe. It is extremely dangerous to move around anywhere in Iraq, but we do. We all have Iraqi staff who get around, and we go on trips arranged by the U.S. State Department as frequently as we can.

Clearly —Bush, his Neocon gang, the war hawks of both parties in Congress, and Bush supporters throughout the nation were wrong about Iraq amid a cacophony of jingoistic crowing, boycotts of French fries and Dixie Chicks. Dead wrong!

As Iraq fell apart, Thom Friedman still had the nerve to ask: "What does being right have to do with anything?" Let him go to Iraq! He will at least learn what being wrong has to do with everything!

The Existentialist Cowboy
Torture
Atrocities
Iraq
War Crimes

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The Existentialist Cowboy