2008 Woodie Awards
Bush's atrocities unsurprising
Human, All Too Human
Eric Blevins
Issue date: 3/17/04 Section: Opinions
It seems like a lot of people want "anybody but Bush" to win the upcoming presidential election.
This has got to be the most ignorant position a person can take regarding a race for president.
The obvious problem is that it could be difficult to get a lot of support for one opposition candidate, which is necessary to defeat an incumbent. If you just say, "don't vote for Bush," but you don't give an alternative, you really don't have a chance of getting the man out of office.
What happens in this situation is that people who might have supported a third party or independent candidate surrender to the Democratic Party because they're the only ones who really have a chance to beat Bush, right?
The problem is that no Democrat is really much better than Bush. Bush has been somewhat exceptional in his ability to build public support for the unjust killing of masses of civilians. Well more than 12,000 dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan with much public support for the invasions in less than four years is quite an achievement.
But the only thing unique about these actions is the scale and amount of support. Every U.S. administration has engaged in this type of behavior.
Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that provided more than half of the poor country's antibiotics and vaccines. He also bombed Afghanistan and Yugoslavia and continued bombings of Iraq and economic sanctions against the country, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.
The first Bush attacked Panama when he got into office. Then one of his brutal dictator-type allies decided to invade Kuwait, which gave him an excuse to increase U.S. military presence in the oil-rich Middle East to defend the repressive Saudi regime.
Reagan started a covert war through much of Central America, where thousands of civilians were killed by death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua and other countries.
During the Carter administration, the U.S. sent arms to Islamic fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to draw the Soviet Union into a war that lasted more than a decade and ended with the radical fundamentalists we supported taking over.
There's no reason to think that something will change if we just elect another Democrat. A look at Sen. John Kerry's record confirms this. He supported the current administration's bombings of Iraq and Afghanistan and defended Clinton's bombing of the plant in Sudan. For more on how Kerry is like Bush, check out a recent article by Stephen Zunes at commondreams.org/views04.0305-03.htm.
Of course the reason some people want to get rid of Bush isn't that he killed so many civilians but that he lied to the American people to build support for his war in Iraq. Clinton lied when he said the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that he bombed produced nerve gas. Reagan tried to keep his Central American wars clandestine. American presidents lie about these things to justify them.
Then there's the problem of Bush ignoring international opinion and international law, but this is nothing new.
When the World Court convicted the United States of unlawful use of force in Nicaragua, we increased support for the Contra killers. Then the United Nations tried to get us to stop by passing a resolution requiring countries to uphold international law, but our support of the killers continued. The U.S. also has the worst record of vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Carter, Reagan, the first Bush and Clinton all ignored international opinion in their support for Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. They didn't have to ignore U.S. opinion because no one here knew or knows about what happened.
So Bush is not a uniquely bad American president. "Anybody but Bush" is not an improvement. A real opposition candidate cannot come from one of the two ruling parties.
Eric Blevins is a senior recording industry major and can be reached via e-mail at ericblev@hotmail.com.
This has got to be the most ignorant position a person can take regarding a race for president.
The obvious problem is that it could be difficult to get a lot of support for one opposition candidate, which is necessary to defeat an incumbent. If you just say, "don't vote for Bush," but you don't give an alternative, you really don't have a chance of getting the man out of office.
What happens in this situation is that people who might have supported a third party or independent candidate surrender to the Democratic Party because they're the only ones who really have a chance to beat Bush, right?
The problem is that no Democrat is really much better than Bush. Bush has been somewhat exceptional in his ability to build public support for the unjust killing of masses of civilians. Well more than 12,000 dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan with much public support for the invasions in less than four years is quite an achievement.
But the only thing unique about these actions is the scale and amount of support. Every U.S. administration has engaged in this type of behavior.
Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that provided more than half of the poor country's antibiotics and vaccines. He also bombed Afghanistan and Yugoslavia and continued bombings of Iraq and economic sanctions against the country, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.
The first Bush attacked Panama when he got into office. Then one of his brutal dictator-type allies decided to invade Kuwait, which gave him an excuse to increase U.S. military presence in the oil-rich Middle East to defend the repressive Saudi regime.
Reagan started a covert war through much of Central America, where thousands of civilians were killed by death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua and other countries.
During the Carter administration, the U.S. sent arms to Islamic fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to draw the Soviet Union into a war that lasted more than a decade and ended with the radical fundamentalists we supported taking over.
There's no reason to think that something will change if we just elect another Democrat. A look at Sen. John Kerry's record confirms this. He supported the current administration's bombings of Iraq and Afghanistan and defended Clinton's bombing of the plant in Sudan. For more on how Kerry is like Bush, check out a recent article by Stephen Zunes at commondreams.org/views04.0305-03.htm.
Of course the reason some people want to get rid of Bush isn't that he killed so many civilians but that he lied to the American people to build support for his war in Iraq. Clinton lied when he said the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that he bombed produced nerve gas. Reagan tried to keep his Central American wars clandestine. American presidents lie about these things to justify them.
Then there's the problem of Bush ignoring international opinion and international law, but this is nothing new.
When the World Court convicted the United States of unlawful use of force in Nicaragua, we increased support for the Contra killers. Then the United Nations tried to get us to stop by passing a resolution requiring countries to uphold international law, but our support of the killers continued. The U.S. also has the worst record of vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Carter, Reagan, the first Bush and Clinton all ignored international opinion in their support for Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. They didn't have to ignore U.S. opinion because no one here knew or knows about what happened.
So Bush is not a uniquely bad American president. "Anybody but Bush" is not an improvement. A real opposition candidate cannot come from one of the two ruling parties.
Eric Blevins is a senior recording industry major and can be reached via e-mail at ericblev@hotmail.com.
Be the first to comment on this story