Bottom Left Politics

Your daily dose of politics, with a progressive twist.

A Tale of Two War Criminals

This is a tale of two war criminals.

One is responsible for ruthlessly killing 8,000 men, women, and children in the largest genocide in Europe since World War II.

Karadzic

The other is responsible for well over 100,000 civilian deaths in the Middle East, not to mention thousands of soldier fatalities.

Bush2

I’m not here to say who is worse.  A human life is a human life.  There is no such thing as a “better” murderer.  But, in terms of raw numbers, Radovan Karadzic, the mastermind behind the 1995 genocide of 8,000 people in Srebrenica, takes a back seat in brutality to George W. Bush, the perpetrator of two unjustified wars that took the lives of well over 100,000 people (not including the people maimed for life, orphaned, and widowed).  Am I arguing that Radovan Karadzic should not be tried?  No, not at all – he should be tried, convicted, and sent away to rot in prison.  The news that he is boycotting his own trial is alarming and should be received as an indication that we need a much stronger International Criminal Tribunal.  That thugs like Karadzic can simply choose to “boycott” their own trial without much consequence is morally egregious.  But what is even more morally egregious is the fact that George W. Bush is living in comfort in Texas instead of growing out a beard and hiding in holes and caves while being pursued by the law.  How can we, as an international community, justify the prosecution of Karadzic when criminals like Bush – who overtly slaughtered literally thousands upon thousands of innocent people, indefinitely detained many others without charges, and allowed the illegal torture of still others – run amok in society?

Radovan Karadzic needs to be brought to justice.  But so does George W. Bush.  Until both of these rat bastards are wasting away in prison, justice will continue to be mocked by U.S. and world leaders and people will continue to needlessly die.

The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.

October 26, 2009 Posted by Kristofer Paul | George W. Bush | , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments Yet

This Just In: Bush Doesn’t Think Obama Has a Clue

Bush

Once in a while, in the midst of a health care reform unfolding, a looming civil war between humans and racist scumsuckers, and Kanye dissing Taylor, we just need some comic relief.  Thank God for Matt Latimer’s new book.

Latimer, a former Bush speech-writer, is writing a rather candid book entitled Speech-Less:  Tales of a White House Survivor, set to be released on September 22, in which we get a closer look at George W. Bush and what’s really on his mind.  In other words, it’s probably a very short book with lots and lots of pictures.

The mainstream media has released a few tidbits so far.  Among them, Bush calls the McCain campaign a “five-spiral crash,” and asks if Sarah Palin is “the governor of Guam.”  Probably the best, though, is this little Bushism which references Obama:

This is a dangerous world, and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it.  This guy has no clue, I promise you.

Some things are worth taking on and deconstructing.  This…well, this deconstructs itself.  All I can say is…wow.  Just wow.

The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.

September 16, 2009 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Barack Obama, George W. Bush | , , , , , , , , | No Comments Yet

So far, so good, Mr. President. Now investigate Bush.

As skeptical as I’ve been about Obama – both during the campaign and during the transition process after November 4 – I must truly admit that I was at least partly wrong about the guy.  Since January 20, President Obama has done nothing but please my left-wing ideology while, at the same time, acting deliberately so as not to upset his potential opponents.  Even on his first day in office, we saw swift action that proved the existence of his fundamental moral principles.  Through the closing of Guantanamo, the outright ban on torture, and the halting of the terror prosecutions, he has done more to make me smile than Bush did in his eight years in office.  Then, Obama ordered the restoration of funding to family-planning organizations, showing that, while he may believe in unity, he refuses to flinch when it comes to certain beliefs – in spite of the howls and cries from the right wing, the pro-lifers, and the evangelicals in general.  The more his term progresses, the more good we see;  we’re now seeing a complete reversal in Bush policy when it comes to California environmental standards for automakers.  Is it possible?  Is a true progressive really sitting in the Oval Office?

Apparently so.  So far, President Obama has not made a single misstep;  sure, I’m still pissed off about some of his Cabinet appointments, but, since January 20, he has really made up for some of his bad decisions made during the transition.  He’s almost bound to screw up somewhere along the way, but, until then, he has an A+ from me.  He has done more in his first few days in office than I expected him to do in his first month.  Now, all I can do is sit around and wait for him to make that tragic misstep.

That point might be closer than we think.  Despite the overwhelming call from the American people – through change.gov – for Obama’s Justice Department to investigate the war crimes of the Bush Administration, we’re hearing almost nothing from the new White House.  The Obama Administration has made somewhat clear, however, its intention to move forward, implying that an investigation of the crimes of the Bush Administration, including the very torture that President Obama has rejected, would actually be a step backward.  To a certain extent, we’re even seeing support from Democratic Congressional leaders for an investigation into the possibility (actually, inevitability) that war crimes were committed by officials within the Bush Administration.  Not surprisingly, Nancy “Impeachment-is-Off-the-Table” Pelosi has not shown support for an investigation of the torture that took place over the past several years, as such an investigation could show that Ms. Pelosi herself was aware of such activities.  But the general consensus among top Democrats is that an investigation is needed.

But will Obama – or, actually, assuming his confirmation, Eric Holder – act?  As much as I’ve come to loathe the Bush Administration, my insistence, and the insistence of other likeminded individuals, that the Justice Department pursue a war crimes investigation is not based upon spite.  Indeed, as much as I would like to see the top officials under Bush behind bars, that is not the driving force behind my thinking.  Even putting Bush and Cheney in prison will not erase the pain that the country has gone through over the past eight years;  the thousands of lives lost in this illegal war will not be restored, and the torture inflicted upon our prisoners will not be erased from history.  My main concern is that NOT investigating the Bush Administration will set a dangerous precedent.  I’m not worried about Obama, because I know that he has principles derived from the Constitution, and because I know that he values civil liberties just as much as I do.  But what about our next President?  What about a President Palin (God forbid)?  What then?  That President will be able to look back at the crimes of the Bush Administration and say, “I can get away with what they did, and probably more.”  What we need to do is act upon the idea of “change we can believe in” and actually change how the President and the military view torture.  If we don’t do it to save our ideals (which should be the case), we should at least do it in order to save embarrassment when international prosecutors undoubtedly pursue the case.

The world is ready to hold the Bush Administration accountable;  Obama and Holder should be willing to beat the world to the punch.  We can take an enormous step forward – not backward – by investigating Bush.  Don’t ruin your A+, Mr. President.

January 26, 2009 Posted by Kristofer Paul | Barack Obama, CIA/Torture/Terrorism, George W. Bush | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments Yet

Movie Review Friday: Bush’s Farewell Speech

I was going to review an actual movie, but this little thirteen-minute flick was just too good to pass up.

Well, it was just as I’d expected.  A clip, several minutes long, filled to the brim with the same neoconservative ideology and propaganda that got us into so much trouble over the past eight years.  It’s amazing to me that some people – most notably, Bill O’Reilly, who called Bush a “patriot” right after the speech – are still buying this rhetoric.  They still want to believe, in their heart of hearts, that Bush succeeded, and that their votes back in 2000 and 2004 were justified and morally admirable.

Well, as always, these people are blatantly wrong, because, if Bush’s speech last night told us one thing, it’s that he’s almost as stubborn as he is stupid.  Over the past eight years, we have seen one disaster after another – 9/11, the “War on Terror,” the war in Iraq, the attempt to privatize Social Security, torture, Alberto Gonzalez, America’s support for Israel in its war on Lebanon, tax cuts for the wealthy, and now America’s continued support for Israel in its strikes against Gaza AND an economic catastrophe.  Yet, watching and listening to Bush last night, if I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought that he hadn’t made any mistakes whatsoever.  His failure to illuminate just one – just ONE – failure (and, as even Bush knows, there have been many) simply validates what every sane person in this nation already knows…that George W. Bush is an arrogant, ignorant, stupid excuse for a human being.  He had the chance to redeem himself;  granted, he couldn’t really “redeem himself” when it comes to his crimes, but he (maybe) could have at least partially redeemed himself in American public opinion.  He could have stood in front of the American people and said, “Hey, look, I’ve made some mistakes.  Here are some of them.”  We would have probably seen him as a human being – a failed human being, but a human being nonetheless.  But, in this, just as in everything else, Bush failed, and failed miserably.

I learned a lot of things, though – for instance, I discovered that 9/11 was actually a freebie.  Or, at least, that’s what Bush wanted us to think.  He predictably spoke of 9/11 and how there hasn’t been a terrorist attack in our nation since;  as if 9/11 itself was a freebie, or the first accident under a new car insurance policy.  That didn’t count – 3,000 dead civilians, who were dying as this coward sat in a classroom in Florida, didn’t count.  The fact that Condi Rice received that memo – doesn’t count.  See, that was practice.  We should judge George W. Bush from 9/11 onward, right?  And the fact of the matter is that there hasn’t been another terrorist attack since 9/11, so hot damn for Bush.  A+?

Not so much.  Bush spoke of the United States as a champion of human rights around the world.  Which, of course, is why the international community, on the whole, dislikes us;  which, of course, is why the Arab world despises us.  This is why we fail to provide universal health coverage for all Americans;  this is why we refuse to defend the Palestinians of Gaza.  We slaughtered over 100,000 Iraqis and thousands of our own soldiers, yet we’re champions of human rights.

But, see, Bush lives in a different world.  Bush lives in a world in which “No Child Left Behind” is an accomplishment, in which his attempted privatization of our cherished Social Security Administration was (in his eyes) a success, in which democracy can be propped up anywhere and solve anything.  He lives in a world in which terrorists attack us because we’re free and not because of our foreign policy.  He lives in a world in which law – both domestic and international – can be ignored in the name of national security.  Over the past eight years, we’ve lived in the same world.  And, on January 20, I look forward to coming back to reality.

I give Bush’s farwell speech, appropriately, four Ws.

January 16, 2009 Posted by Kristofer Paul | George W. Bush | , , | No Comments Yet

On Shoe-Throwing

Let me be emphatic when I say that I do not condone violence in most contexts. I’m a big believer in diplomacy, negotiation, and all that happy stuff. But, every once in a while, there arises a situation so asinine and so egregious and so frustrating on a fundamental level that one just has to take off his shoes and throw them.

Such was the state in which an Iraqi journalist – whose name has apparently not been disclosed – found himself yesterday. As if you haven’t heard the news already, and as if you haven’t seen the clip over and over and over again, here I am blogging about it. During a press conference with George Bush and the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, an Iraqi journalist stood up and yelled in Arabic: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog.” He proceeded to throw his shoe at Bush, after which he said, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq,” as he threw his other shoe. Needless to say, he was swarmed by Secret Service agents and probably shipped to Guantanamo (no? Okay, maybe not).

Is it not clear enough? Is there still a sane person in this nation who thinks that our foreign policy is humane and decent in nature? Is there still a logical, reasonable individual who holds this philosophy – this twisted tangent of years of Wilsonian thinking – that America is the beacon of freedom for the world to emulate? Or is the man who threw his shoes just insane?

Perhaps he is insane. Perhaps we’re all insane. Surely seeing – as an Iraqi journalist must – the detriment of this illegal war day after day after day must have an effect on one’s mind. Certainly something must have snapped inside this man’s mental processes; something caused him to take off his shoes and throw them at the President of the United States, the symbol of freedom and democracy and godly capitalism. Maybe he just doesn’t realize what a favor this dimwit in the White House did for him by ordering the inevitable death of thousands of American soldiers in the quest for Saddam’s overthrow. Or maybe he does realize it, and he’s just not grateful. Are you ungrateful, Mr. Iraqi Journalist?

Yes, you are ungrateful, and you have every right to be. Despite the apologies of the other Iraqi journalists, I suspect that they feel the same way; they just don’t want their lives to be ruined because they threw their shoes at the President of the United States. You, on the other hand, had your fill, and you took those shoes off, and, by God, you threw them. Enough is enough. Sometimes, as you demonstrated through your act of mixed-emotion violence, enough is enough.

As we anxiously await for January 20, 2009, to arrive, as children awaiting Christmas morning, let us all rise, remove our proverbial shoes, and throw them. Don’t let this son of a bitch think – even for a MINUTE – that we’re going to just forget eight years of economic mismanagement, slaughter, and mayhem. Not for a minute.

December 15, 2008 Posted by Kristofer Paul | George W. Bush, Iraq/Afghanistan | , , , , | No Comments Yet