- George W. Bush, the rancher from Crawford, Texas, has
finally done it. He has Daddy Bush mad at him. In a recent speech at Tufts
University, the elder Bush warned his son against a unilateral war against
Iraq. Bush 41 must also have been on the receiving end of some heated phone
calls from world leaders tired of the pomposity and bellicosity of the
Junior Bush. Bush Pere called for the United States to mend fences with
allies such as France and Germany. Junior Bush's messianic call to arms
has upset the world economy, rendered 40 year military and economic alliances
practically meaningless, soured world public opinion against the United
States, triggered political crises in the Britain and Spain, and caused
serious rifts within the U.S. and British military and intelligence structures.
The intelligence revolt is so serious, a Top Secret National Security Agency
tasking memo was featured in Britain's The Observer newspaper thanks to
high-level authorized leaks.
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- Although Daddy Bush was not the best presidential actor
available from central casting, he did bring to the table a long history
of involvement with both diplomacy and intelligence. He was a U.S. ambassador
to both the UN and China and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560254149/counterpunchmaga>
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- Both the UN and the CIA are steaming mad at Junior Bush.
Trying to stampede the UN into submission after bragging that there were
more "Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US" signs
in Midland than there were "God Bless America" signs has ruined
his cause on the banks of the East River. Similarly, at Langley, Virginia,
seasoned intelligence agents are under pressure to cook the books and come
up with smoking guns in Iraq that just do not exist.
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- Nevertheless, the war hawks in the Pentagon, the National
Security Council, State Department, and American Enterprise Institute continue
to call for total war. They talk openly of going after Iran, North Korea,
Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Cuba after Iraq is conquered. Hearkening back
to the Joe McCarthy days, they brand their opponents as terrorists, as
did the repulsive and repugnant ursine creature Richard Perle to New Yorker
journalist Sy Hersh on CNN.
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- The world has had enough of Junior Bush and his gang
of xenophobes, racists, anti-Arabs, anti-Muslims, fundamentalist Bible-thumpers,
crooked defense contractors and oil moguls, Moonies, right-wing ideologues,
and quislings like Tony Blair. Junior Bush's "coalition of the willing"
is more like a "coalition of the chilling."
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- But Daddy Bush's comments interestingly echo those of
Brent Scowcroft, Norman Schwarzkopf, Anthony Zinni, and other former luminaries
in past GOP administrations. Junior Bush's so-called press conference last
week, in which he snottily decided to ignore the doyenne of the White House
Press Corps, Helen Thomas, demonstrated that the Resident-in-Chief is under
some sort of medication. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd suggested
it was Xanax, others, aware of reports that Junior suffers from Attention
Deficit Disorder, opined that he was on Ritalin. Some recovering alcoholics
believe Junior fits the bill of a "dry drunk."
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- Whatever the case, the world is now coming to the conclusion
that the real threat t world peace is not in Baghdad, Pyongyang, Teheran,
Ramallah, or Tripoli, but right in Washington, DC. No nation or dictator
can be expected top remain calm when the President of the United States
lumps them into an "Axis of Evil" and calls the North Korean
leader a "pygmy." Even that term is pejorative, the Twa people
of Africa, once known as "pygmies," reject that term as racist.
And speaking of that, this reporter was just a little concerned when it
was discovered that "intelligence" documents previously cited
by the Bush administration were frauds. The case involved Iraq's supposedly
obtaining uranium from the West African nation of Niger. Now considering
Junior's previous problems with pronouncing foreign names, I can understand
why Ari Fleischer banned that question from last week's news conference.
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- Considering the fact that Daddy Bush is still on good
terms with many European and other leaders, it is apparent that he must
be verbally spanking his ill-tempered boy. It must be kind of sad for the
elder Bush to see his son going down in history as a very negative footnote.
After all, John Quincy Adams had a fairly successful administration. So
what's wrong with Junior?
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- It could be that he is mentally incapable of carrying
out his duties. In such case, the 25th Amendment is very clear on a course
of action. But Junior's problems actually lie with his closest aids, those
who manipulate him to carry out their sordid agendas. And for this, the
regime in Washington has started a fire that is spreading rapidly through
the corridors of power in Washington, state capitals, foreign capitals,
intelligence headquarters, corporate board rooms, royal palaces, and even
into the sanctified halls of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
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- The protests and resignations that started out with a
trickle are developing into a deluge. Only the U.S. corporate controlled
media, which is anchored on such Jingos as Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh,
Wolf Blitzer, Evan Thomas, Charles Krauthammer, Sean Hannity, William Kristol,
Fred Barnes, Don Imus, Michael Savage and their pathetic and much too numerous
clones, is missing the point.
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- Here is how this reaction against Junior Bush began.
On February 27, John Brady Kiesling, a 20-year career Foreign Service Officer
and the Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Greece, tendered his resignation
in protest over Bush's war plans. In his letter of resignation he stated,
"we have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of
international relationships the world has ever known." Brady was joined
by career diplomat John H. Brown on March 10. In his letter of resignation,
Brown, who represented the United States throughout Eastern Europe , stated,
""Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated
with the unjustified use of force. The president's disregard for views
in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving
birth to an anti-American century." Bravo Mr. Brown! Brown and Kiesling
represent the best of the State Department. Powell and his pro-Likud Party
ciphers, John Bolton and David Wurmser, represent the worst.
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- Last week, a group of disgruntled British intelligence
officials leaked a Top Secret/COMINT National Security Agency memorandum
calling on Britain's intelligence services to help America listen in on
the private communications of UN Security Council members and other UN
members not on the council. It was the most dramatic release of classified
information due to an internal policy dispute since the Pentagon Papers
were released by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. Although one 28-year old employee
of Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was arrested,
police were looking to arrest others. It would seem that the dissention
within the British government reached far higher than the spy agency nestled
in the Cotswolds.
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- International Development Secretary Clare Short threatened
to resign over Britain's support for Bush. She called Blair's policy "reckless."
There were rumors that former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was going to
quit Blair's Cabinet. A Labor Party Member of Parliament quit as permanent
private secretary for Blair's Environment Minister. Former Labor Defense
Minister Peter Kilfoyle joined in the attack on Blair. The longest-serving
MP, Tony Dalyell, a Laborite, called on Blair to resign. (Something can
be said for longest-serving parliamentarians, our own venerable and longest-serving
Senator Robert Byrd has accused Junior Bush of acting like a Roman Emperor).
The British revolt even spread to the Conservative Party where John Randall
quit as his party's whip over British support for Bush's Iraq adventure.
A wave of other resignations are expected. Labor Party activists are vowing
to "de-select" Members of Parliament who voted for Blair's war.
The effort may ultimately sink the war hawk administration of Blair, his
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and Blair brain trust Peter Mandelson.
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- But it is not just Blair who faces an internal revolt.
After Kiesling's resignation from the State Department came a blast from
within the ranks of the GOP. Jack Walters, the GOP Chairman in Boone County,
Missouri, resigned over Bush's war plans. Walters' letter made some cogent
points and posed some agonizing questions: "The consequences of our
planned attack on Iraq (and also probably Iran, given the size of our forces
and their location in proximity to Iran), should cause us all to pause.
The Pentagon has announced that we will hit Baghdad with a force almost
equal to the bombing of Hiroshima. Obviously many thousands of civilians
will perish, with untold thousands maimed. And for what? To liberate them?
To bring them freedom? Or democracy? Or is it to really secure the world's
second largest oil reserve and establish a base from which to subjugate
other Middle Eastern nations? Is it also the plan for Israel to use the
cover of war to forcibly relocate the Palestinian population (as has been
publicly stated by some members of Israel's current government)?"
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- The worst news for Bush is that Walters is a pro-life
Republican from an important swing state. He is not the type of anti-war
individual portrayed by Bush's lockstep supporters. Walters states "I
only sought the position of Chairman originally in the hope that I could
recruit God-fearing, thinking, pro-life believers in our Constitution to
stand for office." Not the rantings of a liberal by any stretch.
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- Grass roots movements have succeeded in passing anti-war
resolutions in over 120 state legislatures and city councils around America.
College student governments are joining in. From Syracuse, New York to
Dayton, Ohio, to Baltimore to Olympia, Washington, grass roots organizations
have worked with local politicians to enact the resolutions. Junior, or
at least his Svengali, Karl Rove, must realize that politics is local as
are presidential election polling places.
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- So Junior Bush has a dilemma. Daddy's irritated at him.
France and Russia are preparing to veto his resolution. His pals Tony Blair
and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar are facing domestic political revolts. Junior
snubs Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, accusing him of complicity with terrorists
in Colombia, this after his immigration storm troopers roughly detained
former MP Bernadette Devlin and deported her back to Ireland after accusing
her of being a terrorist. Count the Ireland peace initiative in big trouble.
Ditto the Palestinian-Israeli accords. Bush is linked by the navel to Ariel
Sharon. Yassir Arafat is also on the terrorist list once again. Nelson
Mandela, after saying Bush "cannot think properly," is on Junior's
baddie list. And the Pope, well Bush got "frank" with his special
envoy, which probably means he threw some sort of delusional fit.
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- America's closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, feel
the U.S. is a hostile nation. For the first time in history, the United
States is the source of refugees--immigrants seeking refuge and safety
from the Homeland Security storm troopers of the Bush regime.
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- Junior, let's face it, you have done more damage to the
world and your country in two years than most tyrants have accomplished
in decades. Your Dad now even believes you are way off base. Your predecessors
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton think you are an embarrassment. Your Dad's
best friends and colleagues think your Iraq adventure is ill-timed and
ill-conceived.
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- You need to either dump that aforementioned band of lunatics
you stuck into your administration and who are steering you into political
oblivion or you should let Laura and Daddy sign the papers and let the
25th Amendment take its course.
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- Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative
journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560254149/counterpunchmaga>Forbidden
Truth.
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- Madsen can be reached at: <mailto:WMadsen777@aol.com>WMadsen777@aol.com
- http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen03112003.html
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