It’s been awhile since I started this blog, and the time has finally come to
post an article complaining about the George W. Bush administration. It was only a matter of time before I could resist the chance to exercise my right as an American to free speech, and say a few words from my little hole in
Costa Rica.
The last few days I have found myself feeling dumbfounded by the fact that we elected this man a second time (or was it actually the first) to one of the most powerful positions on the face of the planet. Especially considering the fact that “the other guy” we could have voted for back in 2000 recently was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
It seems like one never can really tell what President Bush has up his sleeve, and where his interests lay. During his first presidency, the Republican Party managed to squeeze through a Medicaid bill that cost our government far too much money, and was clearly to galvanize more of the elderly vote for our conservative Elephants. Not that I’m against legislation that helps our nation’s sick, but at the time I was highly skeptical and these last couple weeks I have realized where this skepticism has risen from…
George Bush is not an actual human being. He is, in fact, a highly sophisticated robot designed by the Nixon administration during the Cold War as a last resort weapon against the left-wing hippies and eco-bolsheviks that would dare threaten America’s stability. How do I know this you say? How else do you explain a president that rejects a bill designed to give health insurance to our nation’s poorest children, after passing a bill to help our elderly? Nobody with a soul would ever consider vetoing such a bill. Even some of his most loyal supporters in Congress claimed that perhaps the President was just “receiving bad advice” on the matter.
Yet, perhaps I do understand where he’s coming from. We’re now engaged in a war of liberation, purging the Islamic world Muslim by Muslim of radical terrorist who loom in our midst waiting to blow us up. How could we possibly afford to help our own nation’s sick when we’re spending over a billion dollars a day blowing up other nation’s children? Lord knows we’re going to be fighting this war against terrorism for quite some time, because the way I see it, the conflicts we are currently involved in are fuelling the next two generations of vehement anti-American terrorists. Fortunately, we have private armies run by civilians such as Blackwater who gladly bill the government to defend our nation by attacking innocent civilians and drink while patrolling Iraq’s war-torn suburbs with semi-automatic rifles. Makes me proud to be an American taxpayer, that’s for sure.
Before the Bush administration blatantly fabricated a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s population did not in any way want to seek revenge against the United States for any previous hostilities. Today it’s a very different scenario. Many naysayers have pointed to the fact that much of the Iraqi population wants the US military to stay for fear that the civil war will break out to an even greater extent than we have seen. Though I believe that this is true, what many are forgetting is the fact that once the dust settles between Shia and Sunni in Iraq, both sides will remember the blood spilled by Americans in a war that they feel was unjustified. An article in the Economist recently pointed out that many Iraqi’s want to kill Americans, but no just yet.
It’s not like Sad
dam Hussein was a shining example of human rights and ruled Iraq with fair and balanced approach. He was a brutal dictator, and met an end that he probably deserved. On the other hand, am I the only one that sees the hypocrisy of the American government in the ever-recurring patterning of supporting dictators that we like, and deposing them when we see fit? Perhaps many of my fellow citizens have forgotten our misdeeds in toppling liberal governments in Iran, Guatemala, Argentina, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, and El Salvador….just to name a few. One doesn’t need to look into a history book to learn about the many brutal regimes we have supported (including Iraq at one point not so long ago). Just pick up a newspaper and you’ll see our friend Pervez Musharraf, a partner in the war on terror, who controls Pakistan through the executive branch as well as the military. Of course, because he attacks his own population in Waziristan just enough to keep the US off his back, we allow him to do whatever he wants without objecting despite that it enrages another population of liberal Muslims who see nothing but the Bush administration’s willingness to support one corrupt regime and attack another.
Once again, I’m not condoning the actions of any of these groups. Waziristan is a hotbed of terrorism and has been helping to refuel the Taliban in their quest to continue oppressing the people of Afghanistan through imposed Sharia law. This too is highly unacceptable and should be condemned and dealt with, but not unilaterally by the United States. I’m just sick and tired of traveling around to different places in the world and being from “that country that attacks all the other ones”. It’s hard to explain to people you don’t support militaries when you’re from a country that has a military base in nearly ever single country on the planet for our “protection”.
I for one believe the American population would be far better off if our military expenditures were spent more on our failing education system, instead of continuously enlarging what is already the world’s biggest military budget. The US military budget is larger than the next six largest ones all put together. Are we really so in danger every day from attac
k that we need such a massive amount pumped into weapons of mass destruction? America and the world would be safer if we began destroying these terrible weapons instead of coming up with more creative ways to kill people. Just google “Rods from God” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Although this article has been aimed mainly towards venting my negative emotions about the Bush administration, I do not want to exonerate any preceding administrations either. Although I feel that this current administration is perhaps the worst this country has ever seen, many of these atrocities have gone on since this country was created and will continue for a long time. Unfortunately, basically all governments tend to be corrupt and engage in vile behavior. The world is an ugly place, and sometimes I feel those of us with privileged lives tend to forget that about 80% of the world lives in abject misery. Instead of alleviating the woes of those who needlessly suffer, we make political decisions to promote our “interests” overseas and start conflicts with perceived “enemies”.
Well I for one am sick of not saying anything about it and here I take my stand. It saddens me that the 50% of the population that does not approve of our government’s action doesn’t do anything. These people, who my elected officials tell me are my enemy, are not the enemy in the sense of a daily threat. The odds are that as long as I live I will never be involved in any incident involving some sort of armed conflict or terrorist plot, and I absolutely refuse to live me life as if I am inextricably linked to these various ongoing conflicts that the TV screens tell me are an intricate part of my life.
The people that truly scare me are the ones that continue to urge congress to take away the civil liberties and freedoms that have been enjoyed for centuries by the American people. I say no to eavesdropping, no to sweeping away members of our own population to Guantanamo like we did to our Japanese population during WWII, no to torture and secret prisons in Eastern Europe, and I say no to more war.
