by Shawn Hammond
Editor's Note: Shawn Hammond, besides being a great friend, is a technical writer/journalist who has worked for two of Utah's largest newspapers, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Standard-Examiner, and whose articles appear in international publications such as Guitar Player, Guitar World, Bass Player, Guitar World Acoustic, and Bass Guitar magazines.
Planning on voting in the 2004 Presidential election?
Here are a few Bush Administration facts to keep in mind when you’re in the voting booth:
Bush and National Security
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Ignored intelligence from top counter-terrorism experts warning of al Qaeda attacks on American soil—including the possibility of hijacked passenger jets being flown into major U.S. buildings; refused to fund and implement recommended anti-terror measures such as the Department of Homeland Security until after 9/11. (Time magazine, August 4, 2002; The New York Times December 30, 2001)
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Directed the FBI to help bin Laden family members fly out of the country on Saudi-chartered planes before significant 9/11 investigation had begun. (National Review, September 12, 2002; MSNBC, September 7, 2003: msnbc.msn.com/id/3080245/)
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Refused to turn over documents helpful in investigating the 9/11 tragedies. (CNN: August 7, 2003: cnn.com/2003/LAW/07/29/findlaw.analysis.dean.911/index.html)
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After months of resistance, finally relinquished some documents to the 9/11 investigation commission, but redacted 28 pages of the final congressional report because they implicated Saudi royalty—close friends of the Bush family and its oil interests. This, despite the facts that Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudi royalty was known to have contributed financially to al Qaeda. (Salon.com, archive.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/01/baer/)
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Violated the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (signed by 188 nations) by authorizing resumption of nuclear testing, as well as threatening nuclear strikes against non-nuclear states in its 2001 Nuclear Policy Review. (The Guardian, guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,527596,00.html)
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Violated the 1972 treaty against testing of germ weapons (signed by 144 countries) by authorizing resumption of bio-warfare testing. (New York University Global Beat Syndicate, nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/hallinan021003.html)
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Announced plans for withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. (CNN, August 24, 2001, cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/08/23/bush.defense/index.html)
Bush and Iraq
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Planned to remove Saddam Hussein from power since 2001—despite the fact that President Bush’s father helped arm and support the dictator during the Reagan Administration. (The Christian Science Monitor, csmonitor.com/2004/0114/p03s01-uspo.html)
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Diverted the majority of funds and military resources away from fighting terrorism and apprehending Osama bin Laden, applying them instead to unrelated operations in Iraq.
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Lied to the entire country—and world—about intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and then denied making the bogus claims.
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Squandered worldwide goodwill toward America after 9/11 by bullying nations opposing the Iraqi invasion, and defying the will of the United Nations Security Council—which had only asked for one more month to complete investigations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
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Refers to the invasion of Iraq as the "central front in the war on terror," despite admitting a complete lack of evidence linking Saddam Hussein’s regime to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations attacking Americans.
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As of mid January, estimates of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq range from 3,000 to 9,000 (the administration refuses to reveal exact figures), while more than 500 had been killed—the majority after President Bush declared an end to major combat aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. Researchers estimate at least 5,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the invasion. (National Public Radio, January 7, 2004, npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1587762; CNN, cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/)
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Continually misleads Americans into believing the attacks on Allied troops in Iraq are carried out by the same terrorist groups responsible for 9/11—despite the fact that letters found on the captured Hussein warned his supporters against aligning with Muslim extremists. (The New York Times, January 14, 2004, nytimes.com/2004/01/14/international/middleeast/14INTE.html)
Bush, Ethics, and Revenge
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Took 74 days to begin investigating which of his White House officials, in apparent political retribution, illegally revealed the identity of an under-cover CIA agent specializing in investigating weapons of mass destruction. The agent, Valerie Plame, is the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, who publicly criticized the president for claiming Iraq purchased weapons-grade uranium from Niger and ignoring Wilson’s own government-commissioned investigation that debunked the claim.
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Took one day to order an investigation into whether his former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill—who criticized the administration’s policies and ethics in a highly publicized book—possessed classified documents. The documents were released to O’Neill by the administration’s own Treasury Department personnel.
Bush and Business
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Unethically awards friendly corporations with government contracts worth billions of dollars, completely bypassing well-established fair bidding processes. (Financial Times, January 16, 2004)
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Allows mega-rich corporations undue say, via closed-door consultations, in political, environmental, and economic policy that adversely affects average Americans.
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Consulted with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay—orchestrator of the biggest corporate accounting scandal in recent memory, not to mention George W. Bush’s number-one lifetime campaign contributor—when drafting its energy policy. (The Guardian, January 24, 2003, guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,638645,00.html; Texans for Public Justice, tpj.org/pioneers/kenneth_lay.html)
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Practiced insider trading of Harken Energy stock and was subsequently placed under SEC investigation. Mysteriously, the investigation—which was opened while George W. Bush’s father was president—went nowhere. (Salon.com, archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2002/07/02/bush/index1.html)
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Is heavily influenced by a Vice President currently under investigation for a $180 million bribery scandal during his days as CEO of Halliburton. (The Nation, December 29, 2003, thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040112&s=ireland)
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Contrary to recent claims, Dick Cheney still has a financial stake in Halliburton, which currently enjoys exclusive, highly lucrative government contracts (approximately $9 billion) for the restructuring of Iraq. Halliburton also secretly conducted business in Iran, despite strict U.S. sanctions, and is in the midst of a Pentagon probe into whether its Iraq operations overcharged the U.S. government approximately $61 million. (Financial Times, January 17, 2004; The Washington Times, December 22, 2003, Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2001)
Bush and the Environment
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Spurns the widely accepted expertise of scientific experts because it conflicts with "gut-feeling" ideologies. For instance, the administration rejects the reality of global warming and the greenhouse effect. (Time magazine, June 7, 2001)
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Proposes environmental legislation—such as the "Clean Air Initiative" and the "Clear Skies Initiative"—that legalizes significant increases in pollution.
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Rejects the Kyoto Treaty, though virtually all other industrialized nations recognize its import and have ratified it.
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Appoints to environmental regulatory posts not scientifically adept, well-rounded experts but businessmen concerned more with the prosperity of industry than the health of Americans and preservation of natural resources for future generations. (Salon.com, November 13, 2003, archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/13/slurry_coverup/index_np.html)
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His proposed energy bill would exempt the "hydraulic fracturing" oil and gas drilling process—invented by Dick Cheney’s friends at Halliburton—from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. (bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000024.php)
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The federal Superfund account that pays for cleanup of the nation’s most contaminated sites via taxation of polluting industries will be empty by the end of 2004. Bush is the only president since establishment of the Superfund in 1980 to fail to ask Congress to reauthorize taxation of the industries responsible. Henceforth, average Americans will be taxed to fund the cleanup. (bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000022.php)
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In the 30 years since establishment of the Endangered Species Act, Bush is the first president since Nixon signed the bill into law to refuse to list a new species without a court order. (bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000018.php)
Bush, Education, and Health Care
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Proposed the grand educational reform, "No Child Left Behind," then cut funding to the already-ailing school system. (National Education Association, nea.org/lac/fy04edfunding/index.html)
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Proposed health care initiatives that decrease benefits to disadvantaged children and elderly, while rewarding enormous financial gains to the pharmaceutical industry. (Detroit News, February 1, 2003; USA Today, December 8, 2003; TomPaine.com, tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9654)
Bush, Jobs, and the Economy
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Against the advice of expert advisers and nonpartisan economists, enacted not one but two tax cuts that benefited the wealthy far more than middle-class and low-income families.
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Despite a struggling economy and escalating unemployment in America, chose to invade Iraq; experts estimate that the total monetary cost for the war will be between $180 and $245 billion. (USA Today, September 7, 2003, usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-07-cover-costs_x.htm)
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Turned the largest national surplus in U.S. history—$230 billion—into a record-setting deficit of $500 billion in the course of three years.
(CNN, September 27, 2000, cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus/; CNN, January 20, 2004; cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/sotu.advance/index.html)
Are these the hallmarks of moderation, morality, and "compassionate conservatism" that George W. Bush promised in his 2000 campaign?
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