By Ralph Nader, published on CounterPunch.org, 9/1/06
The chronically no-fault White House
and its no-fault President were on their no-fault roll again
around the country. George W. Bush, the Commander-in-Chief of
the politics of non-faultism-went on another redundant symbolic
trip to Katrina land. There, near the wreckage that even now
is much of New Orleans, he announced: “I take full responsibility
for the federal government’s response.”
Politicians often resort to
such “full responsibility” language when they know
no one can impose any real accountability-in this case for a
continuing cascade of Bush’s governmental blunders, incompetence,
corrupt contracting and fundamental dereliction of duty. All
these abysmal failures are occurring in spite of the many billions
of dollars made available by Congress for rebuilding and critical
services.
Month after month, the same
pictures of huge swaths of the devastated city dominate television
news programs. Half of the population of New Orleans has not
returned because there is still nothing to return to. Most of
the hospitals are still closed.
Thousands of trailers purchased
for the people who lost their homes are still parked, undistributed
along the affected Gulf regions, in Hope, Arkansas-the hometown
of Bill Clinton. Your 400 million tax dollars at work.
If George W. Bush heard one
message from the bone-weary residents during his trip again and
again, it was the question, “Mr. President, are you going
to turn your back on me?” “Not again,” he replied
to one witness. And then off he flew to the ranch at Crawford
before taking off again to visit cities sounding his anti-terrorism
theme. A theme he is hoping will win for the Republicans in the
November mid-term elections.
Polls and other indicators
show that he is losing ground. More and more Americans are going
with the majority who don’t believe him on Iraq and not just
his fabricated arguments for the boomeranging invasion of 2003.
They don’t believe the Iraq war is: worth the cost; worth the
distraction from the problems here at home, or has anything to
do with the terrorism he invokes when he speaks of 9/11.
This past week the President-obsessively-compulsed
with his disastrous war policies-chose assemblies of veteran
groups to reach new depths of historical hysteria. He compared
the struggle against “Islamic extremists” to the battles
against Nazism and Communism.
Consider this grotesque exaggeration.
The Nazis launched an expansionist world war against numerous
countries with what was then the most powerful military machine
in the world. They slaughtered many millions of civilians. The
Soviet communists possessed multiple nuclear capabilities which
could destroy the United States in an hour-as the U.S. could
do to them. Does George W. Bush have any idea what his prepared
cue cards are telling him to utter?
The thrust of the opposition
to the U.S. in the Middle East is to get the U.S. out of their
land, their oil resources, and to stop backstopping the Israeli
occupations of Arab land and control of precious Arab water in
Palestine and Syria. Many in the Middle East want an end to the
decades long military, political and diplomatic support of what
they see as dictatorships over their own people.
As Mr. Bush, Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld each said
once in the aftermath of 9/11, dictatorships, destitution, poverty
and hopelessness are breeding grounds for the emergence of terrorists.
But Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld are not following the
logic of such a recognition in perpetuating their failed and
perilous policies overseas.
Inside the Bush Administration-from
the General Casey to then CIA Director, Porter Goss-to outside
the government among prominent former Generals, Ambassadors and
intelligence officials, there is the realization that our military
presence in Iraq is a recruiting magnet for training more and
more young men for violent sabotage.
Many of the retired government
officials, who have served under Republican and Democratic Administrations,
have spoken out. They have written articles, given media interviews,
co-signed letters, testified and some have marched in protest.
But they’re not yet ready to say publicly that Bush and Cheney
should resign for their disastrous performances against the interests
of the United States and its position in the world.
The Bush regime simply has
no standards for failures in its operations because it has no
intention of ever admitting their failures and changing course.
The no-fault-Bush and Cheney have every intention of continuing
the loss of the lives of American soldiers and the bloody casualties
among Iraqis until they hand the situation in Iraq over to their
successors in January 2009. Mr. Bush has said as much a few weeks
ago.
He will never withdraw our
troops and close our military bases no matter what the cost to
our country and its ignored critical necessities here at home.
So, taking the lead in full
page advertisements in The New York Times is a new group
by the name of The World
Can’t Wait. They are not waiting for Congress to impeach
Bush. They want a mass mobilization to make Bush/Cheney resign.
Richard Nixon resigned and Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resigned
for causes far less momentous than the crimes of these stubborn
recidivists in control of our federal government.
In one of his desperate rhetorical
reaches last week, Mr. Bush assailed his critics as “blaming
American first.” No, Mr. Bush, a growing majority of Americans
are blaming you-George W. Bush-not America. Every day you demonstrate
how you are ruining America.
Accept your responsibility
at long last and retire to Texas along with Mr. Cheney, as an
act of mercy.