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History will show that George W. Bush and his conservative friends rigged the presidential election in 2000. It will also demonstrate that Bush lied to the American people and to the world about Saddam Hussein's supposed campaign to build, deploy and use weapons of mass destruction against Great Britain and the United States. History will record that the resident in the White House sent American soldiers off to kill and die in Iraq without proper armor for their bodies and for their vehicles; that Mr. Bush invaded Iraq in spite of warnings that the Iraqi people would resist an occupying army; that he did not have a coherent military strategy for defeating a guerrilla-style insurgency; and that he has been willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens and tens of thousands of dead and wounded Americans to secure Iraq's vast oil reserves.
But did Bush single-handedly dismantle or steal our nation's “democracy”? Unfortunately, many people appear to believe that before God told George W. Bush that he must become “the decider,” this nation was a beacon of peace, justice and democracy throughout the world. Our secret agents did not torture people, or teach others how to torture people, in places like Vietnam, El Salvador, Guatemala, Columbia, Honduras and Nicaragua. Our elected representatives did not support dictators in Chile, death squads in Argentina and homicidal killers in the Middle East and Africa.
Indeed, before Bush, Congress refused to support megalomaniacs who systematically violated the human rights of their own citizens. Congress showed great compassion for our poor by appropriating funds to rebuild North Philadelphia, the South Bronx, East New York, South Chicago and Baltimore. Before Bush became President, the Central Intelligence Agency did not assassinate people it deemed unfriendly to America's corporate interests. The School of Americas did not train soldiers from Central and South America in the art of torture and murder. The United States did not engage in chemical warfare by destroying the mangrove forests and jungles of Vietnam with Agent Orange; our military did not kill 2-5 million Vietnamese people.
Once upon a time, according to this revisionist history, the entire world admired the United States' commitment to peace and social justice. When the United States bombed Iraqi civilians during the first Gulf war, the world understood that it was for a noble cause. When we helped impose sanctions on Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 children, the world applauded our commitment to creating a world that works for everyone. When the United States supported Iran in a war with Iraq that killed more than a million people, we were demonstrating our commitment to spreading democracy in the Middle East.
Bush is merely the latest CEO of an empire that has used, and will continue to use, assassination, preemptive strikes, invasion and war to expand its power and influence throughout the world. Historians will surely conclude that G.W. Bush is the worst president in our nation's history, but they will not say that he is responsible for the fact that so many of our urban neighborhoods resemble war zones. He didn't create the climate of fear that compels millions of Americans to carry guns or keep guns in their vehicles and homes. He isn't responsible for an economic system in which CEOs make 400 times as much as the average worker — as much in one day as workers make in one year. He didn't create the myth that an economic system that exploits and punishes the poor while rewarding the rich is compatible with democracy.
George W. Bush should be impeached for lying to the American people, and then he and other members of his administration should be put on trial for war crimes. It doesn't appear that Congress has the will to hold Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Richard Cheney and others to account for destroying Iraq. And it does appear that many people, including progressives who should know better, will continue to express nostalgia for some golden pre-Bush era of democracy.
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