9-11 Has Been Good to Bush
By
Mario Giardiello
[email protected]
September 11th is an excuse
for Bush to push his ultra-conservative agenda.
His plans to spend billions of dollars on the military, attack the Middle
East for its oil, act unilaterally on foreign policy, undermine civil liberties
(especially if you are Brown or Muslim) and cut social programs is made possible
because of the fear his administration has created through 9-11 and subsequent
terrorist threats.
The money that Bush is spending on the military is
outrageous. Liberals in Congress
have been bullied into passing the budget for fear of being labeled traitorous
or unpatriotic. It is even more
shocking when we find out how money the defense and oil contractor cronies of
the Bush administration are getting. No-bid
contracts for Haliburton, so far have reached over $8 billion.
That is almost 10% of the entire new budget Congress just passed.
The military is one of the few things that Republicans believe we should
be spending our federal money on, and now the Bush administration has a reason
to do so.
It has long been suspected that Bush’s motive for war in
Iraq has been oil. This suspicion
has been passed over by conservatives as being liberal sensationalism motivated
by politics. Now, in light of the
money being handed over to Bush’s friends, we realize it is a reality. The
U.S. hasn’t even started benefiting from the oil coming out of Iraq, but
friends of the Bush administration are already winning big. Haliburton, on one contract, is not even doing anything but
being the middle-man to pump oil from Syria to Iraq, and they are making
billions. They aren’t even the
one’s doing the pumping – they are just subcontracting it to a Syrian
company. Bush knew this war was a
gravy train from the beginning, and he is exploiting the situation unabashedly.
9-11 has also given Bush an excuse to act unilaterally on
foreign policy. For a long time,
ultra-conservatives have dismissed the U.N. as being too soft and no longer a
viable means to make global decisions. The
U.N. takes all parties into account before making decisions and this can be very
frustrating for a country that has a set agenda – to democratize the world and
open it up for a world market that is beholden to it.
When the U.N. considers what’s good for the global community, it gets
in the way of our capitalist agenda. So,
this administration has done its best to undermine a world-wide body that was
brought together after WWII to ensure no one country gets too greedy and to
prevent the civil liberty abuses we are seeing from the Bush administration.
Republicans have long believed that we should close our
borders to all. 9-11 has been a
good excuse to get tough on the Mexican border.
We have increased spending on border patrol and resources to ensure no
terrorist gets through our southern border.
Millions of dollars later, with thousands of people being mistreated and
hunted like dogs, there has not been one terrorist found infiltrating our
borders through Mexico. The closing
of the border could not have been done without the fear created by our
administration that terrorists can come through this border.
There has not been a time that our civil liberties have been in such
jeopardy since the McCarthy period. If
you have a Muslim name or look foreign in this country today, you do not enjoy
the freedoms promised to most Americans.
Our social programs are being sacrificed because of the
fear that the Bush administration is instilling in us.
The security threat is so hyped up that Americans are afraid to move.
This has been his plan from the beginning.
If we are afraid for our security then we can rationalize the
administration spending the money on military and homeland security rather than
the programs so desperately needed by the middle class and poor of this country.
Now, we are slowly watching our programs (that serve people) dry up.
From social security (that he promised he wouldn’t touch) to education
(no child left untested), he is undermining the hard work of social workers,
teachers, government services, and non-profit workers.
These are not programs that are wasteful but are directly linked to the
prevention of crime, gangs, drugs, homelessness, and people losing their jobs.
The loss of these programs will be felt in the coming years.
Finally, our economic woes are being covered up by
short-term gains from tax-cuts and low interest rates.
The tax cuts are not a jump-start for the economy.
This would suppose our economy is on the way to a full recovery.
This is an economy built upon false pretenses.
It is irresponsible to build up so much dept, especially since our last
President did such a good job of getting rid of it.
Clinton was responsible for trimming the fat in government, and reducing
the budget by more than $300 billion. Now,
we will be more than $300 billion in the red.
This has long been a warning from economic experts, but the short term
gains Bush stands to win shows he is selfishly thinking about his reelection
rather than this country. The only
thing that has sustained us economically for the past 2 years is the Federal
Reserve keeping interest rates so low. Without
Greenspan, Bush would have us in an even worse state.
Make
no mistake about it: 9-11 has been very good to George Bush.
It has enabled him to use his power to make his friends rich who are now
beholden to him, ignore our allies that took decades to build, and turn away
from the needs of the American people.
Unfortunately, we may not see the ills of Bush’s ways until after
November when we will be stuck with him for another 4 years.
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