It is a shame that America, the most powerful nation on the earth has had two losers in a row for president.
Having had time to examine both Bill Clinton and Bush II, I feel that neither has served our nation well. Both used the rhetoric of helping the citizenry, bringing peace and helping the US economy. Unfortunately, Clinton didn’t deliver for the citizenry and Bush hasn't either; neither brought peace, nor made great strides in that direction; and neither truly examined or solved the problems of our long term economy - leaving thousands of Americans unemployed with no strong prospects for the future.
Let’s start with Clinton. Clinton promised in his campaign against Bush I to bring a rapid peace to Bosnia; he didn’t. In fact, when he got into office, he tried to ignore it until the world’s outrage was so great that he finally had to do something. He promised to help the elderly with their medicare problems and to fix the healthcare system. Hillary went up to Congress, insulted everyone with her imperialist queenly attitude and no health care reform was passed. He promised to help the homeless and the destitute; he totally forgot about them once he got into office. Instead, he worked immediately on integrating gays into the military; but even that he botched and lost Senator Nunn’s support for the remainder of Nunn’s service in the senate (at that time, Nunn was the most powerful man in the senate). His final disaster was when he killed the Middle East Peace Process by turning on Arafat when all Arafat asked was for more time and to take Barak’s proposal back to his Palestine Council. He turned on Arafat, and at that time broke the most basic law of mediation—he criticized one of the participants rather than allowing the process to continue—just because Arafat would not accept the Clinton/Barak proposal. As it turns out, the proposal, though Clinton said it gave the Palestinians 90% of what they wanted, was not true; Clinton lied again. It allowed the hundreds of settlements to remain in the West Bank, it made what sections of Palestine that would be under PLO control nothing more than a bunch of Bantustans that were not connected, had no control over their water, electrical or air rights. Of course, to show you how hypocritical Clinton was in this area of his presidency, before his term was over he freed one of the major Zionist contributors, Mr. Rich, a felon, then proceeded in the first month after he left office to campaign in the US and Europe for funds for Israel!
Oh yes, and lest I forget what he did for the minorities in America—precisely nothing. Rather than thinking of the poor or elderly, Clinton bought whole-hog into the “workfare” program promoted by Republican Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin; this gave people training, but no jobs—so it was another shuck and jive . More jobs were lost when Clinton pushed NAFTA and WTO, corporations made more profits, workers wages went down and no future jobs were produced.It’s interesting that Ronald Reagan left both these pieces of legislation on the desk when he left office; Bush I ignored them, knowing they would help destroy the American economy. But Clinton, being the money hungry man he was, put himself in the pocket of big business and got them passed. Ironically, the only two things he got passed were matters that Reagan left on the desk; Clinton himself got nothing passed that he initiated.
Now we come to GW Bush. First, it is clear he did not get the majority vote in America and most likely his presidency is based on fraud, cheating and a Supreme Court made up of people biased in his favor. He said he’d try to help the people, instead he has helped big business in every way he and Dick Cheney can. I use Cheney because many observers in Europe, and even here in America, believe he is the real power at the White House, not Bush II--so we use them synonymously as Bush. When we had a power crisis in California, he said it was “California’s problem.” But when he found out that California’s economy, if it went bust, could bust the American economy, he sent his minion, Spencer Abraham, in to massage the situation. Dick Cheney called a meeting on energy and never let anyone hear of what was said by those loyal American corporations like Enron, Sempra, Edison and others. Even when the Congress wanted minutes of the meeting, Cheney and Bush said it was none of their business. To this day, the documents have never been turned over—though the scandal of Enron and its house of cards had tarnished Cheney and Bush in the eyes of at least the honest Republican lawmakers in DC. Then, when the economy was looking worse and worse, suddenly we had 9/11 and that’s when Bush took off. He blamed his failing economy on 9/11—he claimed anyone who was not with him, was a traitor and he started the biggest McCarthy repeat in history. He attacked civil rights through his evangelical fundamentalist Attorney General, John Ashcroft; when that wasn’t enough, he claimed Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. When that didn’t wash, he made clear that Saddam was in with Bin Laden and was responsible for 9//--and oddly enough, with the complicity of the US mass media, by the time he attacked Iraq, 60% of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein had bombed NYC! The US public had been made to forget about Bin Laden because Bush wanted people to forget him and to zero in on Saddam Hussein.)
When the UN inspectors said they found no nuclear or chemical or weapons of mass destruction, Bush went berserk—berating our allies France and Germany for not going along with his claim. Finally, after berating them and others at the UN and trying to destroy it, he sidestepped the UN and attacked Iraq with the help of his lackey, Tony Blair. When he realized he couldn’t find any “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, he called his war something new, “Iraqi Freedom.” The only problem is that the Iraqis didn’t want Saddam and they didn’t want the Americans to rule either—so he went from “liberating the Iraqi’s” to sending in a retired general, who is also a defense contractor and a man not known for anything having to do with peace, Jay Garner. In the process, he and his Defense Department employee, Donald Rumsfeld, allowed the Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad, even though they had been warned to protect it from looting and destruction since it contained much of the early history of mankind—they allowed it to be looted and wrecked in the process of their liberation. At first Bush tried to ignore this, Rummy’s remarks take cake, “In war, some things happen,” and “ I know things are a bit untidy in Iraq.” Finally, Bush is having the FBI go in to investigate because he’s worried because INTERPOL is already on the ground in Baghdad investigating.
As for jobs, no president has lost more jobs in this short of time in American history. We are also going in for a record deficit and national debt; there are no fixes in the horizon for the economy. Most influential economists in the world are sarcastic or laugh when they speak of Bush’s plans for major tax cuts to restart the American economy.
Even his father, when he was running against Ronald Reagan, called the plan that Bush II has adopted, “Voodoo Economics.” Bush I was right, but Bush II hasn’t learned from his father.
Another area in which both men failed was in terms of real leadership. Both men look to the polls, to the financial donors and not to what is best for America now and in the long run. Clinton, during the latter part of his reign was considered with “burnishing” his legacy; Bush has spoken to insiders about the fact that he wants to “be seen as a warrior, as a real leader” (thus, his war on Iraq). Neither man has the courage to do as Eisenhower when he forced the British, French and Israelis out of Suez after their illegal attack in 1956. Neither man has the courage Jimmy Carter showed when he gave the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. No, both men are under the control, by their own choice, of the money men and the pollsters who are taking political temperatures every minute of every day.
Another area on which both mean appear similar is in the area of lies. Both have been shown to be liars; Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal (and other sexual scandals too numerous to mention here) and Bush in terms of the reasons he went to war against Iraq. No sane, intelligent person would deny that oil and political power were the real aims of this war on Iraq; in the process, Bush did terrible damage to the UN and other international treatires, just as Clinton did great damage to the presidency by his continued lying about Monica, the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and his distortion of the reality of the Middle East process that he himself destroyed through his attack on Arafat.
As to Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi, the man Bush sent in to Iraq to help form the new government—during his first public appearance, he was shot at and almost killed; he is not welcome, his reputation as a convicted felon, con man and user has preceded him.
Even Chalabi’s father’s name, which is held in high esteem in Iraq was not, and will not be enough to save him, or Bush for that matter in Iraq. No, Bush has stepped into a quagmire as bad as Johnson and Kennedy stepped into in Viet Nam—and in all cases, Kennedy, Johnson and Bush have had bad advice from men who do not understand that reality is not what they say it is, reality is what reality is and it’s not an American reality.
This turned out to be the case in Viet Nam and it will be the case in Iraq; we were forced out of Viet Nam and we shall be forced out of Iraq. As with Johnson and McNamara, neither Bush nor Rumsfeld understand the Shi’a and their willingness to die for their cause; their cause at this time is to get America out of Iraq. Bush should remember what the Shi’a in Hezbollah did to the superior technologically equipped Israeli Army; this is but a harbinger for what will happen in Iraq if we don’t leave in time.
It is a shame that America, the most powerful nation on the earth has had two losers in a row for president. At this time, there doesn’t seem to be anyone on the horizon who is of the calibre of a Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson or even an FDR. No, we’re in a mess if we continue with Bush, but the Democrats, or as a friend of mine who is even more disgusted than I am, calls them DumbRats have no one else to show except the brave Senator Byrd and Congressman Kucinich—but neither of them has a chance at being president, though I’m sure Byrd doesn’t want it. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Leach of Iowa and Harkin are dark horses who could be good presidential timbre—the problem is that neither the Republican nor the Democratic National Committes will give any of these honest, intelligent and forthright men a chance to get to the White House. If this continues, America, its democracy, its leadership, its character, all will be lost.
Sam Hamod is an expert on world affairs; he is the former editor of Third World News, professor at Princeton, Michigan, Iowa and Howard, and served as an advisor to the State Department on Middle Eastern and Islamic Affairs.
Article originally published on Information Clearing House:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
Republished with permission.
Please also see:
Empire vs. Republic
George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive wars is creating a new deep divide in U.S. politics. On one side, Bush and his backers see the Iraq War as the start of an American global empire built around unparalleled military power. On the other, a scattered grouping of skeptics dig in for what they see as a fight for the soul of the American republic.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3049.htm
Having had time to examine both Bill Clinton and Bush II, I feel that neither has served our nation well. Both used the rhetoric of helping the citizenry, bringing peace and helping the US economy. Unfortunately, Clinton didn’t deliver for the citizenry and Bush hasn't either; neither brought peace, nor made great strides in that direction; and neither truly examined or solved the problems of our long term economy - leaving thousands of Americans unemployed with no strong prospects for the future.
Let’s start with Clinton. Clinton promised in his campaign against Bush I to bring a rapid peace to Bosnia; he didn’t. In fact, when he got into office, he tried to ignore it until the world’s outrage was so great that he finally had to do something. He promised to help the elderly with their medicare problems and to fix the healthcare system. Hillary went up to Congress, insulted everyone with her imperialist queenly attitude and no health care reform was passed. He promised to help the homeless and the destitute; he totally forgot about them once he got into office. Instead, he worked immediately on integrating gays into the military; but even that he botched and lost Senator Nunn’s support for the remainder of Nunn’s service in the senate (at that time, Nunn was the most powerful man in the senate). His final disaster was when he killed the Middle East Peace Process by turning on Arafat when all Arafat asked was for more time and to take Barak’s proposal back to his Palestine Council. He turned on Arafat, and at that time broke the most basic law of mediation—he criticized one of the participants rather than allowing the process to continue—just because Arafat would not accept the Clinton/Barak proposal. As it turns out, the proposal, though Clinton said it gave the Palestinians 90% of what they wanted, was not true; Clinton lied again. It allowed the hundreds of settlements to remain in the West Bank, it made what sections of Palestine that would be under PLO control nothing more than a bunch of Bantustans that were not connected, had no control over their water, electrical or air rights. Of course, to show you how hypocritical Clinton was in this area of his presidency, before his term was over he freed one of the major Zionist contributors, Mr. Rich, a felon, then proceeded in the first month after he left office to campaign in the US and Europe for funds for Israel!
Oh yes, and lest I forget what he did for the minorities in America—precisely nothing. Rather than thinking of the poor or elderly, Clinton bought whole-hog into the “workfare” program promoted by Republican Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin; this gave people training, but no jobs—so it was another shuck and jive . More jobs were lost when Clinton pushed NAFTA and WTO, corporations made more profits, workers wages went down and no future jobs were produced.It’s interesting that Ronald Reagan left both these pieces of legislation on the desk when he left office; Bush I ignored them, knowing they would help destroy the American economy. But Clinton, being the money hungry man he was, put himself in the pocket of big business and got them passed. Ironically, the only two things he got passed were matters that Reagan left on the desk; Clinton himself got nothing passed that he initiated.
Now we come to GW Bush. First, it is clear he did not get the majority vote in America and most likely his presidency is based on fraud, cheating and a Supreme Court made up of people biased in his favor. He said he’d try to help the people, instead he has helped big business in every way he and Dick Cheney can. I use Cheney because many observers in Europe, and even here in America, believe he is the real power at the White House, not Bush II--so we use them synonymously as Bush. When we had a power crisis in California, he said it was “California’s problem.” But when he found out that California’s economy, if it went bust, could bust the American economy, he sent his minion, Spencer Abraham, in to massage the situation. Dick Cheney called a meeting on energy and never let anyone hear of what was said by those loyal American corporations like Enron, Sempra, Edison and others. Even when the Congress wanted minutes of the meeting, Cheney and Bush said it was none of their business. To this day, the documents have never been turned over—though the scandal of Enron and its house of cards had tarnished Cheney and Bush in the eyes of at least the honest Republican lawmakers in DC. Then, when the economy was looking worse and worse, suddenly we had 9/11 and that’s when Bush took off. He blamed his failing economy on 9/11—he claimed anyone who was not with him, was a traitor and he started the biggest McCarthy repeat in history. He attacked civil rights through his evangelical fundamentalist Attorney General, John Ashcroft; when that wasn’t enough, he claimed Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. When that didn’t wash, he made clear that Saddam was in with Bin Laden and was responsible for 9//--and oddly enough, with the complicity of the US mass media, by the time he attacked Iraq, 60% of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein had bombed NYC! The US public had been made to forget about Bin Laden because Bush wanted people to forget him and to zero in on Saddam Hussein.)
When the UN inspectors said they found no nuclear or chemical or weapons of mass destruction, Bush went berserk—berating our allies France and Germany for not going along with his claim. Finally, after berating them and others at the UN and trying to destroy it, he sidestepped the UN and attacked Iraq with the help of his lackey, Tony Blair. When he realized he couldn’t find any “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, he called his war something new, “Iraqi Freedom.” The only problem is that the Iraqis didn’t want Saddam and they didn’t want the Americans to rule either—so he went from “liberating the Iraqi’s” to sending in a retired general, who is also a defense contractor and a man not known for anything having to do with peace, Jay Garner. In the process, he and his Defense Department employee, Donald Rumsfeld, allowed the Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad, even though they had been warned to protect it from looting and destruction since it contained much of the early history of mankind—they allowed it to be looted and wrecked in the process of their liberation. At first Bush tried to ignore this, Rummy’s remarks take cake, “In war, some things happen,” and “ I know things are a bit untidy in Iraq.” Finally, Bush is having the FBI go in to investigate because he’s worried because INTERPOL is already on the ground in Baghdad investigating.
As for jobs, no president has lost more jobs in this short of time in American history. We are also going in for a record deficit and national debt; there are no fixes in the horizon for the economy. Most influential economists in the world are sarcastic or laugh when they speak of Bush’s plans for major tax cuts to restart the American economy.
Even his father, when he was running against Ronald Reagan, called the plan that Bush II has adopted, “Voodoo Economics.” Bush I was right, but Bush II hasn’t learned from his father.
Another area in which both men failed was in terms of real leadership. Both men look to the polls, to the financial donors and not to what is best for America now and in the long run. Clinton, during the latter part of his reign was considered with “burnishing” his legacy; Bush has spoken to insiders about the fact that he wants to “be seen as a warrior, as a real leader” (thus, his war on Iraq). Neither man has the courage to do as Eisenhower when he forced the British, French and Israelis out of Suez after their illegal attack in 1956. Neither man has the courage Jimmy Carter showed when he gave the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. No, both men are under the control, by their own choice, of the money men and the pollsters who are taking political temperatures every minute of every day.
Another area on which both mean appear similar is in the area of lies. Both have been shown to be liars; Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal (and other sexual scandals too numerous to mention here) and Bush in terms of the reasons he went to war against Iraq. No sane, intelligent person would deny that oil and political power were the real aims of this war on Iraq; in the process, Bush did terrible damage to the UN and other international treatires, just as Clinton did great damage to the presidency by his continued lying about Monica, the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and his distortion of the reality of the Middle East process that he himself destroyed through his attack on Arafat.
As to Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi, the man Bush sent in to Iraq to help form the new government—during his first public appearance, he was shot at and almost killed; he is not welcome, his reputation as a convicted felon, con man and user has preceded him.
Even Chalabi’s father’s name, which is held in high esteem in Iraq was not, and will not be enough to save him, or Bush for that matter in Iraq. No, Bush has stepped into a quagmire as bad as Johnson and Kennedy stepped into in Viet Nam—and in all cases, Kennedy, Johnson and Bush have had bad advice from men who do not understand that reality is not what they say it is, reality is what reality is and it’s not an American reality.
This turned out to be the case in Viet Nam and it will be the case in Iraq; we were forced out of Viet Nam and we shall be forced out of Iraq. As with Johnson and McNamara, neither Bush nor Rumsfeld understand the Shi’a and their willingness to die for their cause; their cause at this time is to get America out of Iraq. Bush should remember what the Shi’a in Hezbollah did to the superior technologically equipped Israeli Army; this is but a harbinger for what will happen in Iraq if we don’t leave in time.
It is a shame that America, the most powerful nation on the earth has had two losers in a row for president. At this time, there doesn’t seem to be anyone on the horizon who is of the calibre of a Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson or even an FDR. No, we’re in a mess if we continue with Bush, but the Democrats, or as a friend of mine who is even more disgusted than I am, calls them DumbRats have no one else to show except the brave Senator Byrd and Congressman Kucinich—but neither of them has a chance at being president, though I’m sure Byrd doesn’t want it. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Leach of Iowa and Harkin are dark horses who could be good presidential timbre—the problem is that neither the Republican nor the Democratic National Committes will give any of these honest, intelligent and forthright men a chance to get to the White House. If this continues, America, its democracy, its leadership, its character, all will be lost.
Sam Hamod is an expert on world affairs; he is the former editor of Third World News, professor at Princeton, Michigan, Iowa and Howard, and served as an advisor to the State Department on Middle Eastern and Islamic Affairs.
Article originally published on Information Clearing House:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
Republished with permission.
Please also see:
Empire vs. Republic
George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive wars is creating a new deep divide in U.S. politics. On one side, Bush and his backers see the Iraq War as the start of an American global empire built around unparalleled military power. On the other, a scattered grouping of skeptics dig in for what they see as a fight for the soul of the American republic.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3049.htm