George Bush You Are…


An imperialist

2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

Bush (like Blair) fabricated evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to justify an imperialist war on Iraq. Even his hand-picked head of the Iraq Survey Group has failed to unearth any such WMDs after seven months searching.

Save Freedom, Stop Bush placard on Nov 20 demo. Photos by Paul Mattsson

Health aid agency Medact reports that between 22,000 and 55,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians died as a direct result of the war. Unexploded mines and munitions continue to maim and kill. The health system has collapsed, there is mass poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease.

US multinationals like Haliburton (formerly run by Vice-president Dick Cheney) have secured all the major and most profitable reconstruction projects.

Warmonger

20 November 2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

20 November 2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

Apart from invading Afghanistan and Iraq and threatening Syria, Iran, Cuba and North Korea, Bush has embarked on a new, imperialist arms race. Last year the US spent more on nuclear ‘defence’ than any time since 1962 – the year of the Cuba missile crisis.

Bush has given the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear bombs – “mini-nukes”. He also opposes the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, (which hasn’t been ratified by Congress). The Republican-run Congress has overturned its 1993 ban on developing “low yield” nuclear weapons.

Environmental wrecker

Of the 63 people on Bush’s energy advisory team, 62 had corporate energy interests. This team donated $8 million to Republican candidates in 2000.

20 November 2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

20 November 2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

Tony Blair with Stars and Stripes

Despite massive power failures caused by the deregulated and privatised (and, in the case of Enron, corrupt and bankrupt) energy sector, Bush has refused to demand an upgrade of the crumbling electricity grid infrastructure.

Bush has failed to ratify even the weak protocols of the Kyoto treaty on global warming, despite the US contributing the world’s highest greenhouse gas emissions per head of population.

His administration has severely weakened the Clean Water and Clean Air acts enabling the energy companies to avoid investing in anti-pollution measures; cut funding to the toxic waste clean-up programme; reduced fines for criminal industrial pollution by two-thirds.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Bush’s presidency says it cannot regulate car exhaust emissions because it claims that carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant! The EPA also concealed from New Yorkers the dangerous air quality near Ground Zero.

Creator of US poverty

Three million Americans have lost their jobs since Bush became President in January 2001.

On the demo

Last year another 1.7 million slipped below the poverty line bringing the total to 34.6 million or one-in-eight of the population.

31 million were deemed to be “food insecure” and the number of Americans dependent on food stamps has risen from 17 million to 22 million.

44 million people are without medical insurance. Since 2001 the numbers of uninsured have risen by 10% – four million people.

Friend of the rich

Nearly 50% of Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax cut went to the richest 1%, while 60% of this year’s cut will go to those earning over $100,000. Bush demanded the repeal of an inheritance tax that affected only the wealthiest 2%, as well as cutting corporate tax (by $128 billion), and attempting to abolish tax on dividends. This is hardly surprising as every member of his cabinet is a millionaire.

Bush’s tax cuts will account for almost $300 billion of the expected $500 billion budget deficit.

Anti-democratic rights

Bush has massively extended the powers of the state to spy on citizens and attack democratic rights. Under the repressive Patriot Act, which was rushed through Congress by Bush in the wake of 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, nearly 1,200 people were detained without legal recourse (figures have been withheld since November 2001). Of 762 Arab and Muslim immigrants jailed and held incommunicado, some for months, by the Justice Department, not one was convicted of terrorist activities.

Bush has also created a new domestic surveillance agency – the Department of Homelands Security – costing billions.

In June 2002, right-wing Attorney General John Ashcroft gave the FBI sweeping new powers to spy on US citizens, reversing Congressional limits on the agency imposed after the 1970s Watergate scandal. Bush has proposed an even more draconian, Patriot Act II.

Bush has also signed the first federal ban on safe abortion to satisfy his right-wing Republican backers.

Responsible for global inequality

20 November 2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

20 November 2003 anti-war demonstration, photo by Paul Mattsson

While preaching the virtues of ‘free trade’ to the world’s poorest countries Bush subsidises US agriculture by $170 billion over ten years but blocks imports into US markets. The world’s poorest countries lose $24 billion a year due to these subsidies and a further $40 billion because of protectionism by the West.

Bush’s much lauded $15 billion (over five years) in aid to Africa to combat HIV/AIDS is a mirage. Aid agencies complain that this money hasn’t materialised, yet Bush authorised $87 billion for the occupation of Iraq. Moreover, much of the promised money is to promote ‘sexual abstinence’ as part of Christian morality instead of family planning.