Bush

An Angolan friend of Joe Wilson remarked: "One candidate loses the popular vote by over 500,000 ballots, but his brother is governor of the one state where the outcome is too close to call. The effort to count the ballots is disrupted by the Washington staffs of elected representatives from the candidate's party, and the court that ultimately adjudicates the outcome is made up largely by people appointed by the candidate's father. Sounds a lot like an election in Africa."; Joe Wilson: Politics of Truth; pg 281.

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all Fascist America, in 10 easy steps Naomi Wolf

“We’ve had bad presidents before but we’ve never had a goddamn fool” Gore Vidal

"Under George W. Bush, American government is dominated by corporate power to an extent unprecedented since the Gilded Age, when the sugar, oil, steel, and railroad trusts owned government officials and traded them like commodities." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Crimes Against Nature pg 195.

George W. Bush during his six years as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions, more than any other governor in the recent history of the United States. Still Republicans nominated him and we are all paying the price. Republicans at the very top spawned Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, secret prisons, and other lawless 'justice'. The US now has the highest rate of incarcerations in the world.

"If the president has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution"
Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School.

As a cure for the distemper of a restive electorate and a stop in the mouth or a possibly quarrelsome press, nothing works as well as the lollipop of a foreign war. The dodge is as old as chariots in Egypt, but by the autumn of 2003, the Bush administration had little else with which to demonstrate either the goodness of its heart or the worth of its existence. From Gag Rule, On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy by Lewis H. Lapham

"So far, I've seen nothing to eliminate the possibility that Bush is on the same course as Hitler. And I've seen far too many analogies to dismiss the possibility. The propaganda. The lies. The rhetoric. The nationalism. The flag waving. The pretext of 'preventive war'. The flaunting of international law and international standards of justice. The disappearances of 'undesirable' aliens. The threats against protesters. The invasion of a non-threatening sovereign nation. The occupation of a hostile country. The promises of prosperity and security. The spying on ordinary citizens. The incitement to spy on one's neighbors - and report them to the government. The arrogant triumphant pride in military conquest. The honoring of soldiers. The tributes to 'fallen warriors'. The diversion of money to the military. The demonization of government appointed 'enemies'. The establishment of 'Homeland Security'. The dehumanization of 'foreigners'. The total lack of interest in the victims of government policy. The incarceration of the poor and mentally ill. The growing prosperity from military ventures. The illusion of 'goodness' and primacy. The new einsatzgrupen forces. Assassination teams. Closed extralegal internment camps. The militarization of domestic police. Media blackout of non-approved issues. Blacklisting of protesters including the no-fly lists and photographing dissenters at rallies." from Truthout.

Both Senator Leahy and Senator Daschle were in positions capable of blocking the neo-Nazi PATRIOT Act. Both senators had negotiated with the Bush regime changes in the act that made it less tyrannical. However, the changes were not in the final draft of the act sent to Congress. Consequently, Leahy and Daschle were resisting the rush to passage. I have often wondered if Leahy and Daschle understood the anthrax letters to be Washington’s warning: “Get out of the way of Tyranny or we will kill you.” Paul Craig Roberts (4/18/2015)

"Legally, there are no significant differences between the investor fraud perpetrated by Enron CEO Ken Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud perpetrated by George W. Bush. Both involved persons in authority who used half-truths and recklessly false statements to manipulate people who trusted them. There is, however, a practical difference: The presidential fraud is wider in scope and far graver in its consequences than the Enron fraud. Yet thus far the public seems paralyzed." Elizabeth de la Vega

They were wrong about Afghanistan. They were wrong about Iraq. They were wrong about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong about what the U.S. military was capable of doing. The country imploded economically while they were at the helm. Geopolitically speaking, they headed the car of state for the nearest cliff. If fact, when it comes to pure wrongness, what weren't they wrong about ?" From the United States of Fear: Tom Englehardt

...the Bush administration’s contempt of the rule of law lays out most of the high crimes and misdemeanors ... The hypocrisy of US “support” for the United Nations. The “marketing” of the Iraq invasion. The unending conflation of Iraq and 9/11. The torture memos. Guantanamo. Extraordinary renditions. National Security Letters. The “disappeared” in CIA “black sites.” The euphemisms – i.e. “enhanced interrogation” – used to sanitize repeated US violations of the Geneva Conventions. The warrantless surveillance programs. The roundup and detention of foreigners suspected of being of Middle Eastern descent. The overhyped press conference trumpeting the arrests of “the worst of the worst” – later set free, deported or charged with far less egregious crimes. And the complicity of the president’s lawyers in finding “legal justifications” to condone the uncondonable, to ignore the separation of powers, and to promulgate the notion of a “unitary executive.”... It is now time for us to demand truth, justice and accountability from the Cowboy Republicans. (From a review of Cowboy Republic by Marjorie Cohn

G.H.W. Bush grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was a very early (1923) foreign contributor to Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi Party. GHW's father, Prescott Bush, was a banker for Nazi Germany, who continued doing business for them after Nazi Germany declared war on the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Indeed, Franklin Roosevelt, who of course knew the Bushes socially, had to call Prescott in February, 1942 and threaten him with arrest and imprisonment under the Trading with the Enemy Act if he did not stop doing so. Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

Re: Cuba
As further rewards for Batista's ruthless terrorism regime over Cubans, Florida Republican governor Jeb Bush appointed Batista's grandson to the Florida Supreme Court. Born in Fascist Spain, GOP was thankful for his help in FL 2000 election steal.https://t.co/94u4B8uh5M pic.twitter.com/4OVYiuEhld

— Puesto Loco (@PuestoLoco) July 12, 2021

Former US Attorney General Joins Lawsuit Against Bush for Illegal War in Iraq (6/17/2015)

War Criminals Among Us: Bush, Cheney, and the Eyes of the World (6/1/2015)

George W. Bush is one of the world's worst war criminals:

• murdered over one million Iraqis
• invaded Afghanistan
• established Guantanamo prison
• kidnapped/exiled Haiti's president
• supported a coup in Venezuela
• pioneered extrajudicial drone strikes

— Zach Carter (@zachjcarter) May 2, 2020

George W. Bush Did Something Much Worse Than Lie Us Into War (5/22/2015)

Let George W. Bush Discuss His Legacy However He Likes... from the Hague (4/25/2013)

Tutu: Bush and Blair should face trial at the hague (9/2/2012)

Spain Proceeding With Bush Torture Case (1/16/2012)

The Horror of Bush and the Problem for the Rest of Us (11/26/2010)

Worst. President. Ever (4/5/2008)

AI wants Bush on trial over torture

Republican partisans on the Supreme Court, backed by the corporate elite, were responsible for (s)electing Bush. Bush v Gore was just one of many decisions that should raise questions whether the Supreme Court should be determining the direction of the country. The Bush years were disastrous for the US on almost every criteria. Thomas Frank wrote about it in his book: The Wrecking Crew.

Russ Baker in his book, "Family of Secrets", asks...how is it that W , who had an unimpressive record of accomplishment, became President ? Like other books that do not reflect the official story, Baker's book got scathing reviews, but his notes are extensive and his publisher is first class.

Bush was not particularly well qualified to be President. He is not a very good speaker, has little interest in policy, had traveled little, had almost no military experience, and had a mediocre record in the private sector. As the son of a former President who was the head of the CIA, his placement in office not only created massive conflicts of interest (see the Carlyle Group), but allowed Bush the younger to shroud his father's records in secrecy. His record as President is the worst ever...until Donald Trump, an even worse Republican.

Bush Sr as a former head of the CIA was accomplished in techniques for winning elections, and of course had major connections to the oil industry and US military/industrial/media complex. The Bush family, as Kevin Phillips writes at length, has a tradition of putting its own interests first.

Bush Jrs selection highlighted long-standing corruption in US elections and a partisan Supreme Court. Election problems were widely reported in the foreign press. The Congress gave the illusion of action by passing the HAVA, but it did little to actually clean up or improve elections.

Electing W to the Whitehouse caused evangelicals great celebration. He told them God spoke to him. He defined the axis of evil (making diplomacy impossible.) He cut the size of government, including FEMA, and the result was plain to see with Katrina. He started a new crusade in Iraq ( which had nothing to do with 9/11), and little to do with Afghanistan causing huge loss of life and massive drain of wealth. He claimed to be above the law and so built a prison at Guantanamo, set up military tribunals, renditions, torture. He was seen as a war criminal and indicted, but never held accountable. From a world that admired the U.S. we are now regarded as the worst terrorist state. Middle East wars cost around $5 Trillion, which could have improved life at home a lot.

The Bush administration pushed hard for a strong-man, imperial Presidency. The Supreme Court deferred to him. Like other empires in history, we are well on our way to a dictatorship. We now seem to appoint 'czars' whenever there is a serious problem. U.S. Elections are sub-standard and do little to change policy. Trump continued in the same way.

Corporate media ,especially Fox News, cheerled these things and they were rewarded when Michael Powell pushed for still more media concentration. According to former CIA Director William Colby: "The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." For whatever reason media never held Bush or the Republicans accountable for their horrendous failures. Remember how Reagan was Teflon-man ? Fox News was complicit in spreading the lie that Iraq was complicit with the attacks of 9/11 .

Bush reliably favored the corporate interest over everyone else's. Actually, the dictionary definition of fascism is control of government by corporations. We've got that. Bush populated US government with corporate cronies who were determined to enrich themselves at the expense of most everybody else. It appears that none of the US agencies serve the people any longer. It is no surprise that the US is rapidly being deindustrialized as jobs continue to hemorrhage to low-wage countries. As corporations shed employee benefits, risk has been shifted to families, and everyone is more insecure. The weapons industry appears to be the employer of last resort for Americans, and automatically that translates to a takeover by the military-industrial complex. (Ike warned us about that, but media memory is very short or very selective.) James Risen in his book, Pay Any Price, points out that war profiteers are too big to fail.

Regulatory agencies became captives of their industries. This is obvious from the drug industry, meat packing, media, environment and others. See pollution notes. That is typical for Republicans.

Under Bush, US leadership was incompetent, illiterate, self-serving, and criminal. Bush did not listen to people who disagree with him, so we were condemned to bad decisions at the highest levels of our government. Nixon era, Iran-Contra felons were brought back, Enron refugees installed, right wing incompetents like Rumsfeld brought us massively expensive, morally repugnant, bad decisions. Secrecy covered most of it so Congress could do no oversight. Instead, we got an imperial Presidency and a pretext for empire.

When Bush Jr took office, there was a real danger that peace would break out. Bush was determined, according to Paul O'Neill and the Downing Street memo, to invade Iraq from the moment he took office. Francis Boyle writes in his book "Destroying World Order- U.S. Imperialism in the Middle East Before and After September 11. "It is now a matter of public record that immediately after being inaugurated as president in January 2001, George Bush, Jr., Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld, and his pro-Israeli 'Neoconservative' Deputy Paul Wolfowitz began to plot, plan, scheme, and conspire to wage a war of aggression against Iraq," Boyle writes. "Later, they manipulated the tragic events of September 11 in order to provide a pretext for doing so. The fact that Iraq had nothing at all to do with September 11 or supporting Al-Qaeda - as the CIA itself advised - made no difference to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, their Undersecretary of War Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, and the numerous other pro-Israeli Neo-Cons inhabiting the Bush, Jr. administration." The Downing Street Memo demonstrated an intent to manipulate 'intelligence' to go to war, the Bush agenda was enabled by 9/11, and Bush claimed "war powers" to justify an imperial presidency.

Although Bush was bad enough, Republicans managed to elect someone even worse: Trump It appears the very structure of the republic is at risk. Trump has highlighted many flaws in the Constitution. It is very hard to change, but without serious reform we may be headed for dystopia.

Bush, in his public statements, repeatedly mentioned Saddam and 9/11 in the same breath, conflating the two and characterizing Saddam as an immediate danger the the United States. He was capitalizing on fer and false hoods - and his push for war was echoed and amplified nonstop by Fox News and other right-wing media. A few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a Washington Postr poll fount that 70 percent of Americans believed the false premise that Saddam was "pe4rsonally involved" in the 9/11 attack. American Psychosis, a Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy by David Corn< pg 235

So we went to pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for decades.

Bush was also responsible for the universal surveillance being carried out to this day that allows the NSA to sweep up all electronic messaging. The Constitution has been shredded.

In the 1970's Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz made the case for a Soviet Union that was ten feet tall and resulted in the Reagan's trillion dollar arms bill. They duped us again. They twisted 'intelligence' to make a case for war in Iraq and enriched themselves and their cronies in the process. The War on Iraq was kept off the books, while Social Security was assessed as a financial problem. Bush tax cuts were regressive and provided little economic stimulus. As a result we have come closer to an aristocracy. It is one of the hallmarks of a banana republic that while taxpayers accumulate massive debt, an elite group enrich themselves. Again, as in the Reagan years, they cooked the books to disguise the mountain of debt that has all but bankrupted the US.

After 9/11 and a still unresolved anthrax attack struck fear into the hearts of Americans, made it the pretext for endless war, Republicans pushed through the Patriot Act, an assault on the Bill of Rights. Contrary to the Constitution, W took it upon himself to expand Presidential power, declared himself a war president and argued that he is above the law. A subservient Congress and a packed Supreme Court allowed this to happen, but it is at the expense of Constitutional government. Those checks and balances that we all learned about have been seriously eroded. Like other republics in history, we too are becoming an empire. We will share their fate.

The W administration used 9/11 to push through an agenda that had been a Neocon dream for decades: invading Iraq, rolling back civil liberties, and building a world dominating empire. The US has become a leader in incarceration of its own people.

Bush II Administration

Did Bush favor Criminals in his Administration ?

What do good Americans know ?

What do good Americans know ? They now know that their government wiretaps, tortures, builds secret prisons, disappears people worldwide using renditions and avoids the law by using facilities like Guantanamo. It sweeps up every electronic communication whether telephone, internet, social media, not to mention license plate scanners, automobile software, financial transactions, video surveillance, and, whether government or commercial all of this data is summarized in unlimited databases. Unlike Europe, the US has very weak privacy guards.

Bush not only thought he was above the law, his administration thumbed its nose at international law: the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, and the UN. He avoided Congressional oversight not only with the support of his own party, but by using hundreds of signing statements. He claimed executive privilege just as Richard Nixon did. He initiated bulk wiretaps illegally with the collusion of telecom companies. He continued to push for further consolidation of media to keep the right wing propaganda machine spouting info-pollution into our homes. He had the most secretive administration in US history. People are probably not informed enough to participate in a real democracy any more. If you are not convinced, consult your television listings.

W presided over the most secretive administration in history. A cloud of secrecy was scrupulously kept over the investigation of 9/11, war profiteering, unauthorized surveillance, and the justification for his endless war. Secrecy covered up his unauthorized, illegal surveillance of Americans as well as the torture and rendition committed in US facilities (some secret) around the world. His refusal to join the International Criminal Court is no surprise. The American Bar Association accuses President Bush, of violating both the Constitution and federal law. A President above the law is a dictator, not just an insult to the Constitution.

John Conyers (D., Mich.) released a staggering report with the hard evidence of crimes and abuses committed by President Bush and his administration (breaking 26 specific laws). This report, "The Constitution in Crisis," should provide the raw material for numerous news reports and point reporters toward fertile ground for additional investigations.

As Noam Chomsky points out in his book "Failed States", Bush brought us closer to nuclear and environmental disaster, thumbed his nose at international law, and earned the hostility of most of the world. See the bibliography below or books for more.

According to Seymour Hersh, the US helped plan Israel's invasion of Lebanon as a preliminary step to a possible pre-emptive strike on Iran.

Bush committed criminal acts and should be impeached. The Bush Crimes Commission documents the evidence on wars of aggression, detention and torture, destruction of the global environment, sabotage of global health programs, and the abandonment of New Orleans. Twisting 'intelligence', war profiteering, pre-emptive war, and hiding all of these crimes behind a veil of secrecy by making them 'classified' are all high crimes. See this link.

You are NOT safer.

The Bush-Nazi Connection (From the NH Gazette)

Think we'll attack Iran?

It is not a big story in the US, but Bush has been indicted for torture in Canada. (9/30/2011)

Bush Family Buys Land In Paraguay, Hasta La Vista American Chumps ? (6/20/2010)

Biggest falsehoods of 2006.

The evil is in our government.

Enough Evidence to Impeach and Imprison Bush & Co right now

Bush on Torture Echoes Charles I on Arbitrary Imprisonment.

Bush on trial for crimes against humanity. (See Torture.)

Three Ways of Looking at George W. Bush (8/29/2004)

Bush's bouts of crying, ghostly visions.

Unitary King George

Links (many of them.)

censurebush.org

Harper's Magazine makes the case for impeachment.

Ralph Nader's comments.

A flyer with some of the evidence

Oil-for-Food and other Bush family business

NRDC The Bush Record on the Environment

Bush News

afterdowningstreet.org

Rule of Law

Challenge

• W Doesn't Regret WaterBoarding (6/3/2010)
• Boycott Bush
• Bush Truth Commission
• Bush Torture Indictment 2.0 (9/28/2009)
• The Greatest Greatness of George W Bush (01/07/2009)
• Fraud Bigger than Madoff (2/16/2009)
• Add Up the Damage Bob Herbert of the NYT (12/29/2008)
• Bush's dangerous deal with India (12/31/2008)
• Bush's Final F U (12/25/2008)
• Bush gave written approval for torture (10/16/2008)
• Justice Department Scandal Buried by Financial Crisis (10/10/2008)
• GOP Judges Aid White House Cover-up
• Bush Order Expands Internet Monitoring By NSA
• The Next American Revolution
• House holds 2 Bush Aides in Contempt (02/14/2008)
• Bush administration lies.(01/23/2008)
• Bush cuts will cost lives (02/01/2008)
• Bush clampdown on flights to the US
• WH threatens to veto Bill to preserve Presidential Records. July 10, 2008
• General accuses WH of war crimes. (6/18/2008)
• Bush Administration supervised torture (4/11/2008)
• Bush vetoes Bill outlawing waterboarding (3/9/2008)
• McCain endorses Bush's Veto (3/10/2008)
• Kucinich introducing Articles of Impeachment (7/8/2008). Also see this.

Prosecute Bush for Murder

Bush Pardons Himself For War Crimes

George Bush: War Criminal (8/1/2008)

The Guardian. The Abu Ghraib photographs awakened many in the US to the abuses that lie beneath the rhetoric of the global war on terror but the institutions responsible have not taken the message on board. On the day the Congressional report into 9/11 was published, another document was quietly released - a military report that exonerated the high command for the Abu Ghraib abuses. The implications go beyond Abu Ghraib: without a repudiation of the administration's actions, there will be no remedy for the even more sinister treatment of the unknown number of prisoners not captured on camera - those who have been kidnapped and disappeared by US forces across the world. See this link also.

Bush Must Be Prosecuted

San Francisco proposal: name sewage treatment plant after Bush (6/25/2008)

Olbermann to Bush: "Your Hypocrisy Is So Vast" [VIDEO]

Manchurian Candidate in the White House

Bush's mass murder and war crimes (5/28/2008)

What is he capable of ?

Signing the Constitution Away By Eric Alterman 03 May 2006 "Last Sunday, the Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage broke a story that should be shocking to all of us had we not grown inured to the casual contempt toward the Constitution that the Bush administration deems to be its droite d’etat. ...Savage reported that, 'President [sic] Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.'" AfterDowningStreet.org

The New York Times disclosure of an official National Intelligence Estimate, which states that the Iraq invasion has worsened the global terrorist threat, carries an unspoken subtext - that the Bush administration is either woefully ignorant of how to combat terrorism or finds the terrorist threat a useful tool for managing the American public. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/092606a.html

Bush: Master of Disaster (10/28/2007)

A third term for Bush

Goodbye to checks and balances ?

Unitary King George

UN could prosecute bush for war crimes, says former US Terror Czar (6/9/2014)