Oracle Online

I’m not saying Bush isn’t a terrorist, but I think it would be instructive to hold him up to the Golden Calf of mainstream liberals, Bill Clinton, to show that Bush is nothing more than the latest in a long line of terrible presidents fulfilling their duty.

The New York Times published an article on Oct. 11 that discussed a study that concluded that 600,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because of Bush’s war in Iraq. Well, Clinton kept up a bombing campaign for his entire time in office in addition to brutal sanctions. On CBS’s 60 Minutes in May 1996, correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright, regarding the sanctions against Iraq, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” She replied, “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.”

This is the same Clinton administration that bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan on even flimsier evidence than Bush offered for invading Iraq. That factory was the only one in Sudan producing tuberculosis drugs and veterinary drugs, as detailed by the Guardian at www.guardian.co.uk/.

Estimates of those who died as a result of the destruction of the pharmaceutical plant range from 10,000 to 500,000. And after General Suharto in Indonesia massacred hundreds of thousands, a senior Clinton administration official, in The New York Times, Oct. 31, 1995, called him “our kind of guy.” Clinton bombed, attacked, or invaded Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Serbia, Kosovo, Somalia, and Haiti. So far Bush, a relative amateur, is only able to cross off Iraq and Afghanistan from his list.

Bush’s approach is not different. Although Bush is criticized for his unilateralism, it was Madeline Albright who expressed U.S. policy as “multilateral when we can, unilateral when we must.” When invading Serbia and Kosovo, Clinton didn’t even attempt to go through the UN like Bush initially tried.

Domestically, it’s much the same. Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, essentially a precursor to Bush’s PATRIOT act. Clinton reduced the capital gains tax just like Bush did. He increased corporate welfare while abolishing the Aid to Families with Dependant Children program. Clinton supported NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and increased the budget for the federally funded Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which gives loans to corporations to “invest” in developing countries.

Abortion? Clinton banned funding for any family planning group overseas if they offered abortion as an alternative. Gay rights? Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act and was responsible for the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

I don’t intend to single out Clinton. Truman dropped atomic bombs after Japan signaled its intent to surrender. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon waged a campaign of state terror against Vietnam that killed millions of Vietnamese. FDR put Japanese-Americans in internment camps.

Most--perhaps all--presidents up to and including Teddy Roosevelt waged campaigns of extermination against indigenous Americans.

George W. Bush isn’t the devil incarnate. He’s only fulfilling his expected duties as head of the world’s largest, and most heavily armed, rogue state. In fact, I would prefer Bush in office over Clinton. Where Clinton’s smoothness acquired widespread approval for horrific policies, Bush’s incompetent bungling has led to the emergence of a mildly cohesive opposition to those same historic policies. It is hoped that this opposition will realize it’s not Bush they oppose so much as the traditional policies and objectives which he, like his predecessors in the same office, is attempting to fulfill.