Confessions of an Alleged ‘anti-American’

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Don Nash (with an inspiration from and apologies to M. Junaid Alam)

In all good conscience, I cannot support George Bush. His political philosophy of Machiavellian expedience is morally bankrupt and without precedent in the history of the American presidency. Bush’s premise of ‘preemptive war’ is so inhumanely offensive, it smacks of being almost genocidal by it’s very definition.

According to the Limbaugh/Hannity/O’Reilly axis of incoherence, anyone that is not pro-Bush is anti-American. So be it, I can live with the tag as affixed by this consortium of genius. I have purposely left off a large number of the screaming right wing cheerleading team.

The Bush administration is wrong on every count that one might care to examine. The Bush administration is wrong to plunder America’s resources simply to satisfy some pre-election pact that they entered into prior to the 2000 election. The Bush administration was wrong to have pulled America out of the Kyoto Accord. The Bush administration was wrong to squander America’s treasury with the still untested missile defense system. If Bush and company are for it, I am against it.

It truly grates on my nerves to watch Bush do his arrogant smirk. The man is devoid of intellectual prowess therefore the arrogance is misguided. Bush gave a speech on 9/27/04, before a crowd of 50,000 of the Bush faithful. Bush accuses John Kerry of being wishy-washy on the issues of the preemptive Iraq war. At last count, Bush had changed his rationale for the Iraq atrocity at least a dozen times so, who is to be trusted? Let us not forget that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Saddam Hussein may have “desired” to reacquire the weapons but, the cold fact is, there were no weapons.

Desire is not a reason to wage a war, preemptive or otherwise. I’ll be accused of being anti-American and that is fine. I am against war, period. Violence spawns more violence. It is a waste of humanity and we would be better served if reasoned and logical approaches were found to solve the world’s problems.

The entire world came together for a brief moment in the wake of 9/11/01. George Bush could have seized the opportunity to make some real global change that would have benefited all of humanity, he squandered it. Bush and company were making plans to go preemptive on Iraq. Bush’s self-proclaimed “war on terror” is simple illusion. Bush had no desire to wage war on al-Qaeda or it would have been fait accompli. The only “war on terror” that is being waged by the Bush administration, is the very real attack on the civil liberties of the American people. I’ll be accused of being anti-American for not supporting the Bush war on terror. Okay, I can live with that. Can America live with it’s newly created police state?

Bush in his ardent support of Israel and his castigation of the Palestinian people, makes a mockery of any sense of fair negotiations. Israel gets whatever Israel wants and the Palestinian people get to die. The Palestinian people also get to lose their land as Israel appropriates more and more of the West Bank. Let us not forget the apartheid wall being built by Israel. George Bush should never have gone in front of the entire world with the King of Jordan, Ariel Sharon, and Colin Powell in tow to proclaim his “road map to peace”. There is no plan for peace in the Middle East and Bush never had a plan. Bush was doing another in a long string of Karl Rove media events to keep his image up and play “global leader” for the world.

I’ll be accused of being anti-Semitic AND anti-American. Okay, I can live with that. Let’s not forget that Israel is spying on America, using the A.I.P.A.C. and Doug Feith in his office of Special Plans at the Department of Defense. Whoops, I can’t support the brutality of Israel’s government and their spying on America. How anti-American.

I can’t support the Bush doctrine of torture as authored by John Ashcroft. I seriously doubt that Ashcroft actually wrote the doctrine himself, he pushed it off on one of the Justice Department flunkies and thereby provided himself an easy way out for when the proverbial legal pooh hits the jurisdictional fan. The Bush administration has no right to reinterpret the Geneva Convention to fit their ill-conceived plans to reduce humans to so much hanging meat. Torture may be the Bush expedient, it is still a staggering crime against humanity. Bush and company can’t spin their way out of international law irregardless of how badly they may want to ignore the consequences of international accountability. So, I’m anti-American for expecting the government to act like they are half-way above being stooges at work for a twenty first century inquisition. My bad, I’ll live with it.

Bush and company harp and I really mean harp, on connections between 9/11/01 and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Bush administration has been proven wrong time and time again. One would think that by now, they would give up this pathetic farce. No, they hammer it over and over. Dick Cheney sounds like a broken record stuck in the same miserable groove. Finger nails screeching down a chalkboard are preferable to listen to, than having to listen to Cheney. The litany is now bordering on the insane. I’m anti-American I admit it. Actually, I admit to being anti-insanity.

The rationales used by the Bush administration change and transform with the next pending news cycle and that is just nuts. Cohesion and coherent administration of government are not unrealistic expectations for the American people. Honesty by our elected officials especially when war is concerned are not only to be expected, they are to be demanded. An administration wants to sacrifice the bodies and souls of young American service personnel, the reasoning behind that sacrifice had better be sound, crystal clear, and above board.

Sadly, the Bush administration has failed on every front in that regard. The Bush administration has been deceitful from the very start. To question illegality, unconstitutional governance, war profiteering, crimes against humanity, war crimes, blatant stupidity, and the belief by the Bush administration that the American people are sheep, is as American as the red, white, and blue. To blindly go along with the questionable actions of the Bush administration is unpatriotic as it is irrational. So, I’m anti-American? I’ll live with the disgrace.

Published Friday, October 1st, 2004 - 02:45pm GMT

Don Nash is a poet and commentator living in Utah, USA.

Article submitted by the author to the World Crisis Web.

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