Is this man worth the loss of one human life?
Dying for Gee Dubya
People had already died for George W. Bush before we ever heard of him.
A BuzzFlash.com editorial gives the names and biographical information of 16 "young men from Midland, Texas (Bush's hometown), who died in Vietnam in place of George W. Bush, as he stayed in Texas, afraid to go to war."
And God knows how many of those 500 men who were on the Texas Air National Guard's waiting list before George W. was mysteriously put at the top of the list ahead of them had to go to Vietnam and died there. (Reported the Boston Globe in May 2000: "The ease of Bush's entry into the Air Guard was widely reported last year. At a time when such billets were coveted and his father was a Houston congressman, Bush vaulted to the top of a waiting list of 500. Bush and his father have denied that he received any preferential treatment. But last year, Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House in 1968, said in a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit that he called Guard officials seeking a Guard slot for Bush after a friend of Bush's father asked him to do so." See also the great Web site awolbush.com.)
So people were dying for Gee Dubya even before he became governor of Texas, and under his watch as governor, Texas executed at least 150 people, including the mentally retarded, setting a record for the death penalty in the United States.
The death and dying under "President" Bush continues.
At least 146 American military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the second Bush regime began its illegal, immoral, imperialistic and unprovoked attack upon the oil-rich nation in March.
Iraqbodycount.net estimates that more than 3,700 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the United States began its military conquest and occupation of Iraq in March. God knows how many thousands of Iraqi military personnel have been killed; it is not as though the Iraqi military could have counted the bodies, and the United States didn't even bother to.
Thousands of people have died because of George W. Bush.
Does this faze him at all? I would feel awful knowing that one person had died because of me. How does "President" Bush feel about the number of deaths he has caused?
Here's a clue: On March 22, early in the U.S. attack upon Iraq, the Associated Press ran a piece titled "Bush's Routine Changes Little Despite War" (unfortunately, the link to the AP story is no longer active; however, I can e-mail the full, original text of the story to anyone who would like it). It is worth recapping most of the AP story here:
War has brought little change to the regulated, by-the-numbers life of President Bush.
He is not worried or plagued by doubts, aides say, and is hewing closely to his usual routines and habits even as American bombs pelt Baghdad and allied tanks dash across the Iraqi desert.
"The president is following his normal routine," Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said before the president left to spend the weekend, as he has often throughout his term, at the secluded Camp David presidential retreat in the silence of Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
He has been working out almost every day, and a longtime Bush aide said he also seems to be sleeping well, is sticking to his diet and even giving up desserts as he tries to shave seconds off his running time.
Aides portray a war leader who prefers to make big decisions, then let them be implemented by the experts with little meddling from the commander in chief.
With public support strong, demonstrations relatively quiet and the war proceeding well so far, Georgetown University government professor Stephen Wayne says it's to be expected for the president to keep to the activities, such as exercise, family and time at Camp David, that make him most comfortable.
"I don't see any reason to get excited, from a presidential point of view," Wayne said.
...Since the air war's opening runs Wednesday night, Bush has been formally briefed on military operations several times a day and informed of crucial developments as they occur. But he doesn't seek out details in the Situation Room and, never a big TV watcher, isn't following television news accounts closely as the dramatic events unfold.
Through the incessant tension, Bush apparently has not lost his sense of humor. He was overheard laughing heartily during a meeting with his Cabinet. And although White House aides were angry that a live feed was broadcast abroad of Bush being coifed and made up before his Wednesday night speech to the nation, the president himself joked later about whether he had looked OK, the official said.
...Daily since the start of the assault in Iraq, reporters have asked about Bush's wartime mood, schedule and activities.
"The president's state of mind is very much focused on the missions and the country," Fleischer said Wednesday night, shortly after Bush had ordered the first airstrikes. "He's comfortable with this."
Asked if the responsibility of war, particularly the likelihood that innocent Iraqis will die, weighs on him, Fleischer said: "There's no question about that."
But, he added, the president believes the blame for that suffering will fall on Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, for putting "innocents in a place where their lives will be lost."
Bush, Fleischer said, also is determined he is taking the right path, despite the near-constant presence of protesters in front of his house and around the world, in large part because he believes it will prevent the deaths of American innocents like those lost on Sept. 11, 2001.
That clarity of purpose contributes to Bush's calm demeanor, Wayne observed. "One of the remarkable things about this president is that this doesn't seem to have been an agonizing decision," he said.
What kind of person loses no sleep when hundreds of people are dying because of him?
The answer, I think, is contained in an interview with Kurt Vonnegut in which he describes what he calls "psychopathic personalities – hereinafter P.P.s – the medical term for smart, personable people who have no conscience. P.P.s are fully aware of how much suffering their actions will inflict on others but do not care. They cannot care.
"The classic medical text about how such attractive leaders bring us into unspeakable calamities is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. An American P.P. at the head of a corporation, for example, could enrich himself by ruining his employees and investors and still feel as pure as the driven snow. A P.P., should he attain a post near the top of our federal government, might feel that taking the country into an endless war with casualties in the millions was simply something decisive to do today. So to bed.
"With a P.P., decisiveness is all...."
With the exception of being smart, G.W. fits Vonnegut's definition of a "P.P." to a "T."
But even as I find the answers to my questions, even more questions come to mind:
Why do we allow people to die needlessly for George W. Bush?
And how many more people will die needlessly for George W. Bush if we allow him a second term?
5:07:18 PM 
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