The Case against Bush

(and a Kerry comparison)

Wednesday, 27 October 2004

The U.S. presidential election is next Tuesday, and early voting has already started in many states. This election is shaping up to be the most important election in at least seventy years, maybe longer. President George W. Bush has presided over our country for a disastrous four years, and the prospect of him winning re-election must seem absurd to the average foreign observer. Yet he is poised to retain control for another term, unless reasonable voters--Democrat, Republican, Green, and Independent alike--turn out to vote in record numbers. Several major newspapers around the country have endorsed Bush in recent weeks (several have endorsed Kerry as well), most of them claiming that Bush would fight terrorism more strongly than Kerry. This claim is absurd on its face, since Bush has done an absolutely abysmal job of fighting terrorists for the past four years. And on domestic policy, it's not even close! Still, for a variety of moral, party-loyalty, and selfish reasons--and perhaps for other intangible, unfathomable reasons--a large number of people, perhaps half the country, plans to vote for another four years of Bush-Cheney. For those few who might still be undecided, or for those who might just have forgotten the past four years, I present the case against Bush under a variety of headings, both international and domestic.

Terrorism

• Bush touts the "War on Terrorism" as his greatest accomplishment. This is the same president who paid no attention to terrorism for his first eight months in office, until September 11 made him take notice. Before that tragic event, he could be more aptly described as the "goof-off president" (because of the number of vacation days he used, including the entire month of August!) rather than the "terrorism president."
• Bush says that September 11 changed the course of this nation. Yes it did, but it didn't have to. Although it's impossible to say what would have happened had Al Gore been in office, it's clear what happened with Bush in office: terrorists attacked the U.S. This was a month after Bush received a memo stating that Osama bin Laden planned to attack the U.S. with planes. Bush stayed on vacation after receiving the memo. (If nothing else, electing Kerry will assure the voting public that the president will be in the office more often than he's on vacation.)
• In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Bush was nowhere to be found, because Air Force One was hopping around the country. Mayor Giuliani in New York showed leadership and poise; Bush showed fear and lack of command abilities.
• When sources pointed to Osama bin Laden as the perpetrator of the attacks, Bush fairly quickly launched an attack against his camps in Afghanistan. These attacks were justified, though the methodology of bombing civilian targets was not (see my essay on the Unjust War Theory). After U.S. ground troops arrived on the scene, with Osama cornered, Bush inexplicably pulled his punches, and Osama got away. Well, maybe it wasn't so inexplicable, because Bush had a different target already in mind: Iraq.
• Bush's unwarranted attack on Iraq was a dream come true for Osama bin Laden, because recruiting for terrorists to resist the invading infidel suddenly boomed (so to speak). Yes, terrorists were killed (along with hundreds or thousands of civilians), but even more joined the ranks, with the result that the world as a whole, not just the U.S., is far less safe today than before the attack on Iraq.

Iraq

• It is clear that Bush was making plans to attack Iraq well before September 11, as former White House staffers have reported. September 11 was just a convenient excuse to implement a previously developed strategy. (Kerry doesn't share Bush's obsession with Iraq, so he is likely to be much better at evenhanded foreign policy.)
• Bush and his cohorts, and his ally in crime Tony Blair, cherry-picked intelligence that was most critical of Iraq, ignored all evidence to the contrary, and even relied on obviously forged documents and faulty information. The question of who forged the Niger-uranium document has never been fully investigated, but it's not hard to guess who might have been behind it (the Defense Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, or maybe Ahmed Chalabi).
• Bush claimed that he had not yet made a decision to attack Iraq just weeks before the actual attack was launched, but these claims were clearly lies. The decision to attack was made months in advance, and the only reason he didn't attack sooner was that the few reasonable people in his administration, especially Colin Powell, insisted on letting the inspectors continue their work, which wasn't finding anything. Eventually even Powell caved in to the pressure to go to war under false pretences. (Kerry also supported the war, although he claims that he wouldn't have if he had known the truth about the Bush administration's false claims. Perhaps, but plenty of other members of Congress, including Dennis Kucinich, and other politicians, including Al Gore and Howard Dean, were consistent in their opposition to the war, even before Bush's claims concerning Saddam's weapons systems were conclusively shown to be false.)
• Having made the decision to attack a country that had not attacked us and was no threat to us or our allies, Bush sent in enough soldiers to defeat Saddam Hussein's depleted army, but not enough to forcibly subdue the country after military victory.
• It was apparently a great surprise to the administration that ordinary, everyday Iraqis would object to their country being bombed, their cities being destroyed, and their families being killed. Who wouldn't appreciate such a gift? I'm sure that if Fidel Castro had bombed Florida after the stolen election in 2000, all Floridians would have welcomed Cuban troops with open arms!
• After declaring "Mission Accomplished" in May and prancing around in a flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier, Bush was unable to control the violence in Iraq, which continued to increase month after month.
• Disastrous, ill-conceived raids in Fallujah and elsewhere led to hundreds of unnecessary U.S. casualties, plus thousands of Iraqi casualties.
• U.S. soldiers, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, sexually abused and otherwise tortured Iraqi citizens in Abu Ghraib prison. After a worldwide outcry, the administration stopped the abuse, but only low-ranking soldiers, and not a single officer or civilian overseer, have yet been prosecuted.
• After a hurried, early handover of authority to a hand-picked interim government that is really nothing more than a U.S. puppet, American casualties actually increased.
• Since April 2003, more than 1100 Americans have died, and perhaps 20,000 Iraqis have died, most of them civilians. Most of these died directly as a result of American attacks, but an increasing number are dying at the hands of a variety of Iraqi insurgent groups, which are operating more or less with impunity. (Kerry says he has a plan to bring U.S. troops home as soon as possible. Hopefully he will begin implementing that plan right away. U.S. troops in Iraq only exacerbate the situation and cost lives, both American and Iraqi.)

International Treaties and Agreements

• Bush unilaterally walked away from the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Treaty. (Kerry supports the treaty.)
• Bush walked away from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, opening the possibility of a new nuclear arms race, and giving countries like Iran and North Korea moral justification for pursuing nuclear weapons. His proposal to begin building "small," battlefield (as opposed to strategic) nuclear weapons threatens to make the American military the only military in the world with nuclear weapons in its active arsenal--the only nation so far. (Kerry supports the treaty.)
• Bush rejected the International Treaty to Ban Land Mines. (Kerry supports the treaty.)
• Bush rejected the International Criminal Court, claiming that it would have the authority to try U.S. soldiers and political leaders for international crimes. That's true only if the U.S. declines to prosecute its own people for international crimes. Of course, since Bush probably has no intention of prosecuting high-placed American violators of international law (see the comments on Abu Ghraib, above), I can see why he wouldn't want to sign this one. (Kerry supports U.S. involvement in the ICC.)
• Bush completely walked away from the Kyoto Protocol that is designed to reduce the production of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, of which the U.S. is by far the worst offender. (Kerry supports the treaty, with some proposed modifications.)
• Bush has shown open disdain for the Geneva Conventions concerning the treatment of prisoners, not only at Abu Ghraib, but especially at Guantanamo Bay, where hundreds of prisoners have been held for as long as three years without access to counsel or even the Red Cross. Allegations of torture and mistreatment are rampant, but the Bush administration claims that the prisoners have no rights at all, since they are "enemy combatants" rather than soldiers and they are being held outside the U.S. proper. (Kerry has pledged to follow both the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions. As a former soldier who experienced combat, he knows that real soldiers want the U.S. to follow the Geneva Conventions so that, if they are captured, their captors will be more likely to follow them as well.)
• Bush has shown contempt for the United Nations, first trying to bully reluctant members of the Security Council into voting for the U.S. resolution to attack Iraq, then claiming that it didn't need the Security Council's approval to launch a pre-emptive war, when, according to international law, it most certainly did. Just a few weeks ago U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the war on Iraq illegal. (Kerry supports the U.N.)

Other International Issues

• Like his father, Bush intervened in Haiti to help those who wanted to overthrow the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, because he didn't agree with Aristide's politics. The result has been chaos, lawlessness, and the increased possibility of a civil war. In the meantime, former friends of the ruthless Duvalier dictators are among those who are now in power.
• Bush tried twice to oust democratically elected Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, once by providing encouragement and probably covert support to a failed coup, and once by supporting a recall election that also failed.
• Bush and his minions angered some of our strongest allies--especially France and Germany, but also Mexico and Canada--through their highhandedness in regard to Iraq and other matters. Donald Rumsfeld referred to them as "Old Europe." Our closest allies are now people like the increasingly dictatorial Vladimir Putin of Russia and the former(?) terrorist Ariel Sharon of Israel.
• The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war in the absence of a credible, imminent threat is a violation of international law, a moral atrocity, and a political disaster. (Kerry opposes the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war in the absence of an imminent threat.)

The Economy

• The number of American citizens below the poverty line has increased since Bush took office. In 2003 35.8 million Americans, or 12.5% of the population, lived in poverty.
• The number of American citizens without medical insurance has increased since Bush took office. About 45 million people, or 15.6% of the population, were without medical insurance in 2003.
• When Bush took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 10,588. Monday it closed at 9,888. That's a loss of 6.6% over four years, or a loss of 1.65% per year (non-compounded). By contrast, the DJIA grew from 3310 when Clinton took office in 1993 to 10,588, a gain of 219.9%, or a gain of 27.5% per year (non-compounded). Even the rich haven't done as well under Bush as they did under Clinton, despite Bush's massive give-aways to his "base."
• Bush has turned a projected $5.6 trillion surplus over ten years into a projected $5.2 trillion deficit, a turnaround of $10.8 trillion! (Surely Kerry will do better on the economy. He could hardly do worse!)

Jobs

• As of March 2004, almost three million fewer jobs existed in the private sector than when Bush came into office. The unemployment rate jumped from 4.1% to 5.6% during that time. Of course, this number is low, since it doesn't include those who have used up all their unemployment benefits or who have given up looking for a job.
• The minimum wage is still at $5.15, where it has languished since 1997. In terms of real dollars, the minimum wage is lower than it has been since about 1950. (Kerry has proposed to raise the minimum wage to $7.00 an hour initially.)

Civil Rights and Social Justice Issues

• Bush is an avid, even enthusiastic, supporter of the death penalty (see his debate with Al Gore in 2000, in which he gloated over the executions of certain prisoners). As governor of Texas, Bush presided over the execution of 152 people, by far the most of any state during those six years. Most Christians groups, following the lead of Jesus, are opposed to the practice. (Kerry opposes the death penalty, except in cases involving terrorism--still not an absolute ban, but this position would make Kerry the strongest opponent of capital punishment to sit in the Oval Office for at least fifty years.)
• In the chaos following the September 11 attacks on America, Bush unleashed his own attack on America, the so-called USA PATRIOT Act. While it contained some reasonable provisions making inter-agency cooperation easier, it reduced the civil rights of ordinary citizens and increased the government's authority to snoop into our lives. Among other things, the Patriot Act allows the government to perform sneak and peek searches (without notification of the person whose premises were searched), to see what books you check out from the library or buy from the bookstore (again without your knowledge), and to infiltrate houses of worship--mostly mosques, of course--without showing probable cause. The Patriot Act was apparently largely written prior to September 11, and the White House was waiting for the right moment to introduce it in Congress. The terrorist attacks provided the perfect smoke screen. If re-elected, Bush promises to pass a Patriot Act II, further limiting civil liberties. (Kerry has promised to repeal the civil rights violations contained in the Patriot Act.)
• In the aftermath of September 11, the Bush administration picked up thousands of people, mostly Muslims and Arabs, and held them incommunicado for weeks or months, without access to family or lawyers, and sometimes without acknowledging that they had even been arrested. (When the government announced the arrest of alleged "dirty bomber" José Padilla on allegations of terrorism, even though he had no bomb-making equipment in his possession or any specific plans for making a bomb, then held him without access to a lawyer, and without even filing charges against him, I knew, even from the government's initial claims, that they were exaggerating the case against him and were, in fact, probably lying. I went online that very day and joined the ACLU.)
• From Day One, Bush has been obsessed with giving his rich friends as many tax breaks as possible. When he first came into office, he argued that because we had a budget surplus, we could afford to give money back to the people. After September 11, budget deficits returned, and he argued that more tax cuts for the rich would help the economy recover more quickly. His economic policy is simple: more tax cuts (for the rich) all the time. Bush also pushed a bill through Congress reducing, and eventually eliminating, the estate tax, a boon for all those with estates worth over a million dollars. With all this money flowing back into the pockets of the rich, who pays for the difference? At the moment, nobody, hence the budget deficits. Eventually, the poor and middle class will have to pay more. (Kerry has pledged to roll back the tax breaks on individuals making more than $200,000 and to close corporate tax loopholes that encourage companies to set up offshore accounts and move jobs overseas.)
• The FBI and the Secret Service have become to a large extent Bush's personal police force, used to silence his opponents. Incidents of ordinary citizens arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts at Bush appearances, of legitimate citizens' groups being infiltrated by undercover agents, or of Bush opponents receiving visits from FBI agents for the purposes of political intimidation, are rampant.

Science and the Environment

• Bush is the first president in history to have a faith-based approach to science. The faith is sometimes based in his personal religious beliefs. Just as often, though, it is based on his belief in the glories of capitalism and his odd notion that the country as a whole is better off when large corporations prosper. His approach to global warming is one such issue. While the vast majority of scientists believe that humans are contributing significantly to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Bush has steadfastly either denied or downplayed the evidence, or he has said that global warming is no big deal. Recently, in an election-year conversion, Bush has admitted that humans do seem to be contributing to the rise in greenhouse gases. His solution is to study the problem for the next several years. What does he think scientists have been doing for the last several years? (Kerry knows the dangers of global warming and has pledged to reduce the U.S. output of greenhouse gases.)
• Bush's opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, beyond using already existing and largely contaminated lines of cells, may be based on his religious convictions, or it may be simply an attempt to appease his base in the religious right. In either case, alternative proposals to use already existing embryos that have been abandoned in fertility clinics are much more reasonable than Bush's approach. Using these embryos for research purposes has no connection with the practice of abortion, and the potential positive results are enormous for treating such conditions as spinal cord injuries and such diseases as Parkinson's. (Kerry is a strong supporter of embryonic stem-cell research.)
• Bush's opposition to therapeutic cloning (as opposed to reproductive cloning, which is another matter altogether), seems to be based on a misunderstanding of what scientists do with embryos in their search for effective treatments for life-threatening illnesses. Several cases of "therapeutic birth" have been documented, for example, where couples have a baby in the hope that the baby's bone marrow might be used to help combat a sibling's cancer. Surely therapeutic cloning is a saner, more humane approach.
• The Texas Republican Party Platform opposes the teaching of evolution as fact in schools, advocating that it be taught as "only a theory," alongside other theories, such as creationism. Since Texas is Bush's home state, and since he has failed to make any claims to the contrary, it is fair to suppose that he believes the same thing about evolution. The idea that evolution is "only a theory" shows a total ignorance of what a scientific theory is, an idea that is supported by both a theoretical framework and masses of scientific, including experimental, data. (Kerry understands what a scientific theory is, and he supports the teaching of real science in the classroom.)
• Bush's attack on the environment is unprecedented. His "Clear Skies" initiative has made the air dirtier than it otherwise would have been. His "Healthy Forests" plan is a give-away to the timber industry. His plans to spoil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by drilling for oil there are an unnecessary pillaging of the land for little return. His reversal of Clinton-era protections for government-owned lands are criminal. Bush is without a doubt the worst environmental president in American history. And did I mention his attitude toward global warming? (Kerry has a strong pro-environment record in the Senate.)

Religion

• From the time he came into office, Bush has pushed so-called faith-based initiatives of various sorts. These are policies that combine church and state in questionable, probably unconstitutional, and certainly unwise ways. For example, churches can receive government money directly for drug treatment programs in which they advocate a particular religion (usually a conservative form of Christianity) and practice discrimination in hiring. In the past, religious organizations had to set up separate corporate entities, which had to follow government guidelines regarding discrimination and using government funds to promote religion. (Kerry does not believe in the government sponsorship of religion.)
• Bush supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning gay marriages. Discrimination against homosexuals, which is already rampant, would be institutionalized by this amendment. Its passage would mark the first time that the Constitution was amended to take away one group's civil rights. (Kerry is opposed to a constitutional ban on gay marriages. He believes the matter should be left up to the states.)
• Bush sponsored a bill to outlaw the practice of partial birth abortions, without an exception for the use of the procedure if necessary to preserve the health of the mother. Clinton vetoed a similar measure because it didn't have this provision, and three different federal courts have already struck the law down as unconstitutional for the very reason that Clinton opposed it. If Bush were really interested in limiting the number of partial birth abortions rather than simply scoring political points, he would support adding the exception for the health of the mother to the bill. (Kerry supports the health of the mother provision.)

Intangibles

• Bush's promoters turned Kerry's heroics on the battlefield in Vietnam into a shameful, slanderous assault on Kerry's honor. While Kerry was serving his country in Vietnam, and getting wounded, and saving the lives of his fellow-soldiers, Bush was avoiding active duty, with the help of his father's political friends, and sometimes apparently also avoiding showing up to work. Bush's record in the National Guard shouldn't be an issue, except that the Kerry-haters in the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have succeeded in making it one. This group consists of people who are mad about Kerry's anti-war rhetoric after returning home, and their opposition to his ideas is fair game. However, slandering the candidate who served his country honorably while promoting the candidate who hid out in Texas and Alabama is despicable. Of course, Bush did the same thing to John McCain four years ago in the Republican primary, so this is just par for the course.
• Perhaps the most important intangible issue in the race is the question of leadership. Bush thinks of himself as a strong leader because he is so certain of his views, so resolute in his positions. He is wrong; that's not leadership, it's obstinacy. And it's dangerous. A person who is unable to admit mistakes (Bush) is unable to learn from his mistakes. A person unable to learn from his mistakes is doomed to repeat them. In Bush's particular case, that means sending more soldiers to their deaths, wasting more money on an insane and immoral war, driving the budget deficit higher, and continuing policies that rape the environment. As far as Bush is concerned, every issue has two sides: the right side (his) and the wrong side (anyone who disagrees with him). Bush has surrounded himself with yes-men and -women who tell him only what he wants to hear (those who didn't fit this role--such as Paul O'Neil and Christine Todd Whitman--either resigned or were fired). Bush himself never reads a newspaper or listens to anything other than Fox News, which is pro-Bush all the time. Even his campaign rallies are limited to those who are forced to sign a loyalty pledge before being admitted. By contrast, Kerry has shown the ability to deal with complex issues in a nuanced and thoughtful way. He listens to advisors, but he also listens to opponents. He knows how to read a newspaper. He has led men into battle, he's shown courage in opposing the Vietnam War after returning home from seeing its atrocities firsthand, and he's served honorably in the Senate for twenty years. The fact is that Kerry is a leader, while Bush is not.

To paraphrase Kerry, Bush is the wrong president in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's got to go, for the welfare of the country, for the welfare of the world.

From the point of view of progressive Christians, John Kerry is not a perfect candidate, but he is a strong candidate, and he is head and shoulders above Bush, not only physically, but morally, intellectually, and in terms of temperament and leadership. Kerry promises to be an excellent president.