The Bush Presidency is the worst catastrophe to hit the US in recent memory.
President George W. Bush started an unprovoked war which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and turned millions of people into refugees. The Iraqi people and their leader did nothing to justify this war. Every justification Bush gave for starting this war were deceptions. Some people still haven't figured out that Iraq had nothing to do with the events of 9/11 and was compliant with UNSC resolutions. In fact a few weeks before the war began, Chief UN Weapon Inspector submitted a report to the UNSC which claimed that Iraq was cooperating and that all remaining disarmament issues would be resolved within a few weeks.
SECURITY COUNCIL 7 MARCH 2003
Conclusion of the 12th quarterly report of UNMOVIC
by Executive Chairman Dr. Hans Blix
...How much time would it take to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks? While cooperation can and is to be immediate, disarmament and at any rate the verification of it cannot be instant. Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude, induced by continued outside pressure, it would still take some time to verify sites and items, analyse documents, interview relevant persons, and draw conclusions. It would not take years, nor weeks, but months. Neither governments nor inspectors would want disarmament inspection to go on forever. However, it must be remembered that in accordance with the governing resolutions, a sustained inspection and monitoring system is to remain in place after verified disarmament to give confidence and to strike an alarm, if signs were seen of the revival of any proscribed weapons programmes.
Security Council 7 March 2003
Starting an unprovoked war is a war crime. George W. Bush should be held to the same standard as Germans who were convicted of starting an unprovoked war of aggression at the end of WW II. Instead this war criminal was re-elected.
Besides the tragedy of the Iraq war crime, Bush authorized the torture and murder of POWs at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and black sites around the world, the erosion of civil liberties, domestic spying and the abduction and extraordinary rendition of people (including Canadians) for torture and murder.
Bush's inaction during the Hurricane Katrina fiasco is just one example of Bush's gross incompetence.
Perhaps Bush's most lasting legacy is the damage done to the American economy during his presidency. Bush changed the US tax code so that it is biased in favor of the rich. Poor fiscal policies and decision making caused the US national debt to grow by 70 percent. Bush's inaction on the US economy and an de-regulated banking system led to US banking crisis with global repercussions. While Bush authorized trillion dollar bail out packages for banks and industry, the senior execs that took the risks which led to the crisis kept their jobs and their billion dollar bonus packages. When Bush left office, the US had a record $850 billion trade deficit and a weak dollar which remains on the edge of collapse.
And it gets worse. As a result of Bush's gross incompetence, the United States became less prepared than ever to face the future. Bush education cutbacks meant the US has not educated enough engineers, scientists and people with the skills required to compete with China, India and other third world nations which have made education a national priority.
Under Bush, creation theory and other Christian religious dogma determined scientific research priorities.
During Bush's Presidency, the US became more dependent on oil and coal.
Bush's worst screw up is probably his poor stewardship of the American economy. The economic effects of Bush’s presidency will last for generations. When George W. Bush took office, in January 2001, productivity gains, which had averaged about 1.5 percent a year from the early 1970s through the early 90s, approached 3 percent. During Bill Clinton’s second term, gains in manufacturing productivity sometimes even surpassed 6 percent. The Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, spoke of a New Economy marked by continued productivity gains as the Internet buried the old ways of doing business. Others went so far as to predict an end to the business cycle. Greenspan worried aloud about how he’d ever be able to manage monetary policy once the nation’s debt was fully paid off. Confidence took the Dow Jones index higher and higher. The rich did well, but so did the not-so-rich and even the poor. The pre-Bush boom years were the first time since Jimmy Carter that the US deficit was under control. At the rate the US was paying down their national debt when Bush came into office, the US would have been almost debt free by now. For the first time since the 1970s, incomes at the bottom grew faster than those at the top.
During the 2000 presidential debates between Al Gore and George Bush, the two men argued over how to spend America’s anticipated $2.2 trillion budget surplus. The country could well have afforded to ramp up domestic investment in key areas including scientific research and education. Instead, Bush's first major economic initiative was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Those with incomes over a million got a tax cut of $18,000—more than 30 times larger than the cut received by the average American. The inequities were compounded by a second tax cut, in 2003, this one skewed even more heavily toward the rich. Together these tax cuts, when fully implemented meant that in 2012 the average reduction for an American in the bottom 20 percent will be a scant $45, while those with incomes of more than $1 million will see their tax bills reduced by an average of $162,000.
By the time Obama came to office, the US was fighting two hot wars with no end in sight for either and the US economy was in the worst shape since the great depression.
Its hard to imagine what else Bush could have screwed up. Its a no brainer to figure out that Bush is the worst US President since the depression, yet I noticed that the same people who were duped into believing that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and had stockpiles of WMDs continue to praise Bush.
Basically anyone who believes Bush was a great president is a manipulated idiot. I'm not surprised millions of idiots are buying Bush's book. They bought all the other lies, so why not buy the book.
