A Treatise on Bush

I will be writing about Prague shortly, but right now I need to say a few words about George W. Bush. I believe very strongly that he is a dangerous leader for our country, and I wish to explain why. I have been reading/listening to many books on his policies, and while I disagree with many of them, I wish to focus on two of the most important issues to this election: the economy and the war on terror. (I may later write about my contempt for his trying to constitutionally disallow gay marriage, something I see as a clear violation of equal rights, regardless of ones moral stance on the issue).

The Economy

George Bush has taken us from a huge budget surplus (from Clinton’s administration) to a huge deficit. He has done this by overspending and by issuing huge tax refunds. Now I like the idea of lower taxes as much as everyone else, but there are two main reasons why I don’t like the ones Bush issued. One, they were too big, and two, he lied about who would benefit from them.

In gathering data to support the refunds, Bush assumed huge future growth of the like we enjoyed during the enormously prosperous 1990’s. Of course, any economist will tell you growth like this is not sustainable, and perhaps can even lead to a reversal if the growth is too much (as happened to the equities market after 2000). Despite all this, Bush issued huge tax refunds supported by data assuming we would have a forever growth spurt, and of course now we have a huge deficit. Basically, he handed out free money now which will need to be paid back later. The money will be paid back when another president is in office, so Bush gets to be the divorced parent who spoils his kid with gifts, while a later president is forced into the role of stern disciplinarian. Gifts for kids are nice, but not when they come out of the college fund. He originally started handing out tax refunds because the government had a huge surplus. Handing out extra money in that situation is a fine decision, assuming you hand out what can be afforded by the government. But he handed out much more than that. Later, when the economy was visibly faltering, he issued more cuts to “stimulate the economy.” Issuing tax refunds to kickstart a faltering economy is like offering a credit card to someone whose bank account is empty so they can continue to spend – it merely gives them more cash now that they (or their family) will have to pay back, plus interest, later (not a good idea).

What angers me most about the tax cuts is that Bush flat out lied about who the money was benefitting. He said in many speeches that the “vast majority” of the money would go to the poorest Americans who needed it most. The truth is that by 2010 when his plans’ cuts are fully in place, 52% of the total tax cuts will go to the richest 1% of Americans (statistic cited from http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm). Regardless of how one might think the money should be handed out, I detest that Bush misled (it’s actually a flat out lie, since a majority goes to those who “need it” least) Americans about where the money will go. It is obvious why he did this. A “vast majority” of Americans would have detested the idea if they knew the “vast majority” of the money was being handed to the richest Americans. But in order for his plan to be well accepted by the public, he lied. You could make a case that he was just confused or simply misspoke, if in fact he hadn’t continued saying it once he had been shown it was incorrect, which he was (for details, read Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, by Al Franken). Because the mainstream media does not provide the public with critical analyses of proposed policies (but instead focuses on eye catching, sensational stories), the average American goes along with the plan because he believes the president that it will help him most, when in fact numerically the winners are overwhelmingly the rich. Please note I am not making a judgment on how the money was handed out. Even if you assume it was handed out fairly, he lied in order to sell it to America. This is a character trait I see in George Bush – he will say whatever he needs to (true or not) in order to get what he wants politically.

The War on Terror

I hate the terrorists. Let me just get that out of the way. Their methods are dispicable and should never be tolerated as a viable way of expressing their opinion or achieving any ends they desire. What I want to discuss here is the most effective way to wipe out terrorism, and how Bush’s approach is so dangerous and non-optimal for the United States and the world.

Bush and his cabinet were told in a transition meeting with the departing Clinton administratin that the number one security threat to the United States was Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. It was number one on a list of prioritized security issues discussed with them. Even so, in their 8 or 9 months in office before Sep 11, they gave no attention to it. They focused their attention on missile defense and Iraq. Richard Clarke, former terrorism advisor to Clinton and Bush, was going out of his mind trying to show Bush how critical the threat was (many requests for meetings that didn’t happen, many security warnings that were not regarded as important enough to act on immediately). Yet Bush devoted his security attention to the very issues affecting the country when Bush Sr. was in office, 8 years ago (Iraq and missile defense). I do not hold Bush responsible for the attacks of Sep 11. The terrorists are responsible for that act, which may or may not have been preventable even had Bush given the threat his full attention (not to mention so much of the planning happened on Clinton’s watch). But I am deeply uncomfortable with any president who ignores threats explained to him from a departing administration and from his terrorism advisor. It seems to me that partisanship (or perhaps simply his own bone to pick with Iraq) was much more important to him than going after the most important threats to our security. He was going after the security issues that his dad, the last Republican, had pursued. Without question, the terrorists are responsible for the attacks. But in the 8 months prior to them, Bush was actively chasing threats that the experts told him were much less threatening than the (number 1) threat from al Qaeda, which he ignored.

After the attacks, Bush sent our military directly after al Qaeda in Afghanistan. This was a great move. We had the sympathy of the world, and were strongly going after those directly responsible for the attacks, and those who still represented the greatest threat to us in the future. Bush then took us to war with Iraq, which I think was a huge mistake.

As Richard Clarke has explained (by the way, this Richard Clarke is a straight shooter, who is known for the great job he did for several administrations), after the attacks Bush directed Clarke and others to find a connection between the attacks and Iraq, despite an overwhelming knowledge by security experts (which was communicated to the president) that they were unconnected. In my opinion, the fact that the people at the top were trying desperately to link Saddam to the attacks led to the finding of evidence to support the linkage. When Afghanistan attacks were being discussed, Donald Rumsfeld actually said that there were no good targets in Afghanistan, but there were in Iraq. As if it doesn’t matter who gets attacked as long as they’re middle eastern and easily hated by Americans. An investigation is currently being conducted (by the way, Bush desperately tried to stop this investigation as well as the Sep 11 one from being conducted) to determine if and how the Bush administration manipulated the case for war. I believe this will show that they did manipulate it, although the report will not be released until after the election. I saw a television interview with a member of the security team assessing the threat from Iraq who said his heart sank as he watched Colin Powell present his evidence to the U.N. The guy said Powell just flat out lied about the threat.

Now it has been proven that Iraq was unconnected to 9/11, and that (barring some miraculous finding) they have no WMD’s. These were our reasons for going to war with them, and now those reasons have been discredited. I would think that warrants an apology. Even with this new evidence, Bush says it was the right thing to do, because it is good for the Iraqi people and for the world that Saddam is out of power. To me, this is the most dangerous sentiment of all.

It is true in part that it is good Saddam is out of power. He and his sons were horrible rulers, and now they aren’t ruling anymore. But being a bad ruler does not justify an invasion. First of all, it is obvious there are many other countries with horrible rulers that we are not attacking (not to mention horrible situations, like the one in Darfur, where we have so far done nothing). But more fundamentally, even if a country’s situation is horrible, it is not necessarily better if the U.S. invades to attempt to fix it. While it might be good Saddam is out of power, it is not good that 1,000 U.S. troops have died so far to achieve it. It is not good that many more than 1,000 Iraqis have died to achieve it. It is not good that Iraq is divided and war-torn now that the definitely corrupt and awful, but order-keeping Saddam has been removed. It is not good that the war on Iraq has sparked such hatred for the U.S. that terrorist recruiting efforts have been given a huge boost, not to mention the new groups that have formed. As you can see, when all factors are considered, it is very possible that attacking Iraq yielded, overall, more bad things (for us and Iraq) than good things. I would like nothing more than to rid the world of annoying gnats and houseflies. That would be terrific. Trouble is, removing them would no doubt cause a shock to the food chain that in the long run would cause me (and everyone else) much more harm than good. Bush making an appeal to Americans that it is good Saddam is gone is meaningless outside of the larger context of all the bad that has been caused. Anyone remember Vietnam?

I don’t believe Bush makes decisions by a consistent set of values. He himself has said he makes decision by his “gut.” While this can sometimes yield good results, it is dangerous to make decisions from the gut when your gut is angry that your country has been attacked. That is when level-headedness and wisdom are so important to utilize. Bush’s flip-flopping (couldn’t resist) values had him condemn Saddam for not cooperating with the U.N., and then defy the U.N. himself in order to meter out justice. His values lead him to condemn the terrorists for their horrible disregard for human life (which I agree with), and then claim enemies captured during our attacks are not entitled to the human rights afforded by the Geneva Conventions. What I deduce from these actions is that Bush is not making decisions from any set of values, but that he is simply doing whatever benefits his agenda in the moment. When he wants to blame Saddam, he accuses him of not cooperating with the U.N. When he wants to attack Saddam, he refuses to cooperate with the U.N. himself. These actions do not go unnoticed by the world.

Bush claims that because he sticks unyieldingly to his “gut” decision, he is decisive and a strong leader. I think instead this character trait makes him stubborn, self-righteous, and arrogant, and a bad leader. Bush makes appeals all the time that he is doing the “right” thing, which really (now that the threat was discredited) means the morally right thing. To him, Iraq’s guilt concerning 9/11 and WMD’s is not relevant, because we were still “right” to invade them. I am someone who often times gets caught up in convincing others I am right. This always has the same effect: whoever I am trying to convince, and also everyone within earshot, gets pissed off (as an aside, I am actively working on this). Nobody likes someone who thinks they are right and who is not willing to respect the opinions of those who disagree with him. Bush phrases like “You are either with us or with the terrorists” is a recipe for pissing off the world. By saying it, Bush tells the world that anyone who disagrees with him is a terrorist. It is the logic a third grader uses. It does not represent strong leadership. It represents arrogant, black and white thinking, the kind that has our gray nation divided. By the way, the terrorists feel they are right to conduct their attacks, since Allah wants all non-believers to be converted to Islam. I am not saying Bush is like a terrorist. What I am saying is that everyone thinks they are morally right, and it is just not a good enough justification for forcibly imposing your values on others. The world understands this, and that is why all the world’s sympathy we had after 9/11 is now gone.

Bush has proven his decision making is unsound. When proof of its unsoundness comes to light (such as attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11), he simply denies any wrongdoing and restates that he is right. To my knowledge, he has never taken responsibility and apologized for one bad thing that has happened on his watch. I guess there’s no need to apologize when you’re always right. I keep trying to tell Kelly that, but she doesn’t buy it. And you know what, neither do I.

To anyone planning to vote for Bush, please consider with an open mind the points I have made. If you are wealthy, please be willing to give up some of that wealth (in the way of tax cuts) in order to do what is best for America in the long run. Regardless of whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, I urge you to send a message with your vote that bad leadership should be stopped, not rewarded with another term. I urge anyone who reads this to vote for John Kerry. He is an unknown, but he served his country well during Vietnam, and has demonstrated he is a deep thinker who will consider all sides to an issue, not just use his gut to choose a side and then stubbornly cling to it despite its failings. I say the one who employs the smartest strategy for eliminating terrorism and guarding us at home is the stronger candidate, not the one who talks the toughest. And no matter who you’re backing this November, there is little debate over which candidate is the smartest.