What has George W. Bush done for us?
In Monty Python's
The Life of Brian, Reg asks
"What have the Romans done for us?". With George W. Bush
campaigning for another term in office, it's the right time to ask what he
has done for us, the citizens of the world.
- George W. Bush has made the world a more dangerous place
-
George W. Bush says that his
"unwavering"
leadership is the way to win the war on terror®.
However, of the 2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the world from September
2001 to September 2004, 58 percent of them - 1,709 - have occurred this year.
(Source: MSNBC).
- Senior U.S. intelligence officials note that in fact, the frequency of
terrorist attacks carried out by Muslim radicals is increasing, not decreasing.
Moreover, they say the attacks carried out by what they now refer to as
"central al-Qaida" are being dwarfed by those carried out by affiliates,
such Ansar al Sunnah in Iraq, the Chechen rebels and even ad hoc groups like
those who blew up the Madrid train stations (ibid.).
-
You may argue out that this is not Bush's fault, but he is basing his entire
credibility on his ability to win the "war".
- Tragically, 2,801 people died in the World Trade Center attack. The
Indonesian
Embassy in London tells us that "In three shocking years since
September 11, more civilians have died as a result of the war on terror,
than terrorists have killed in the past 35 years.
A conservative tabulation of civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq...
puts the number at more than 30,000".
- It is a simple fact that George W. Bush's vengeful policies have made
the world more dangerous, not less.
- George W. Bush destroyed the United Nation's authority
-
The international legal rules governing the use of force take as their
starting point Article 2(4) of the
U.N. Charter, which prohibits any
nation from using force against another. The charter allows for only two
exceptions to this rule: when force is required in self-defense (Article 51)
or when the Security Council authorizes the use of force to protect
international peace and security (Chapter VII).
- Legally, the use of force in self-defense
is justified when the need for action is "instant, overwhelming, and
leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation".
- The World Press Review
notes that "such circumstances - in which an
armed attack occurs or is imminent - [did] not aptly describe the Iraqi crisis".
- Of course the Security Council did not authorise the use of force, which
leaves us with the fact that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. The U.N.
Secretary General, Kofi Annan
said
that ,"I have indicated it was not
in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view,
from the charter point of view, it was illegal".
- If the world's only superpower pays no attention to the United Nations,
there really is no point in having the institution, and this is directly due
to Bush's policies.
- George W. Bush has wrecked any implementation of international law, by breaking it
-
Bush has a long history of contempt for international law. In the days after
September 11, 2001, he
demanded
that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. The Taliban wanted evidence that
bin Laden was involved, which the U.S. did not provide.
- The attacks of September 11 were a crime, and the perpetrators should be
charged and given as fair a trial as possible. What we have instead is
Camp X-Ray.
The wide international legal protests over Camp X-Ray are too numerous to mention,
but one particularly powerful report
from the Human Rights Watch points out that,
"Washington has ignored human rights standards in its own treatment of
terrorist suspects. It has refused to apply the Geneva Conventions to prisoners
of war from Afghanistan, and has misused the designation of 'enemy combatant'
to apply to criminal suspects on U.S. soil".
- Bush has decided not to honour the International Criminal Court and even
threatened to stop all peacekeeping missions if Americans were subject to the ICC and
therefore international law.
-
Perhaps the most outrageous and obvious display of illegal behaviour is the
Iraqi prisoner abuse.
This disgrace speaks for itself.
- George W. Bush has seriously endangered the world's environment
-
Note that it is the world's environment, not the United States'.
George W. Bush has:
- George W. Bush has directly damaged the US economy
- In the first year of office, Bush:
- George W. Bush has made a joke of the sanctity of life
- Bush makes no secret of his so called pro life views on abortion. If he
was genuinely pro life, he would not have tied U.S. foreign aid to pro life
policies with the resultant
deaths of thousands of African women.
- At the same time as proclaiming to be pro life, Bush had 152
people executed whilst Governor of Texas. Whilst in the White House, he has
"expanded use of
the death penalty through new terrorism-related
provisions and he is seeking further broadening of the Patriot Act to allow
capital punishment in more cases". Very pro life.
- George W. Bush has made the United States into more of a police state
- By June 2003, there were an incredible
2,078,570 people in American prisons.
That's 480 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents.
While the nation contains only 5 percent of the global population,
its prisons now house 25 percent
of the world's inmates!
- Bizarre laws like the Patriot Act will only increase the level and
frequency of incarceration.
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Legal
The international legal rules governing the use of force take as their
starting point Article 2(4) of the
U.N. Charter, which prohibits any
nation from using force against another. The charter allows for only two
exceptions to this rule: when force is required in self-defense (Article 51)
or when the Security Council authorizes the use of force to protect
international peace and security (Chapter VII).