The World Is a
More Dangerous Place

Bush’s Legacy

by Max Elbaum

Sympathizers of ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide shout at a squad of U.S. marines on March 8 in Port-Au-Prince.

A recent report from the International Institute of Strategic Affairs indicates that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has swelled the ranks of Al-Qaeda and increased the threat of terrorism worldwide. A large majority of Iraqis apparently agree; polls indicate that most believe they would be safer if U.S. troops left.

The continuing occupation of Iraq is the signature expression of President Bush’s failed foreign policy. Behind the fig leaf of a White House-selected "Interim Iraqi Government" 140,000 U.S. troops enforce the Bush administration’s will. The mounting death toll stands at more than 11,400 Iraqi civilians and 6,500 Iraqi soldiers or insurgents killed, along with more than 900 U.S. soldiers.

The Middle East: More Wars Ahead?

One of the CIA’s top counter-intelligence officials recently described U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East to the Los Angeles Times as: "…unquestioning support of Israel, its ‘targeted killings’ and other lethal high jinks…. relentless support for tyrannical and corrupt Islamic regimes that are systematically dissipating the Islamic world's energy resources for family fun and profit…. refusal to apply nuclear nonproliferation rules with anything close to an even hand; a situation that makes Israeli and Indian nuclear weapons acceptable while Pakistan's weapons are intolerable, perhaps because they are held by Muslims"

Each of these policies has had long-standing support from both Republican and Democratic administrations. But since Sept. 11 U.S. bullying in the Middle East has dramatically increased.

Bush’s April endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plans to annex the majority of the occupied Palestinian land on the West Bank marked a watershed. The president effectively renounced a host of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for the Israeli withdrawal that all previous U.S. administrations had formally acknowledged as the basis for Arab-Israeli peace.

Bush’s new stance substitutes Israeli-U.S. negotiations for Israeli-Palestinian talks, with the White House free to concede Palestinian land and rights.

A Palestinian legal advisor told The New York Times, "imagine if Palestinians said, `O.K., we give California to Canada.’ Americans should stop wondering why they have so little credibility in the Middle East."

And Washington has arrogantly dismissed the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel ’s "security fence"--which gobbles up thousands of acres of Palestinian land--is a blatant violation of human rights and international law.

Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Haiti

Ismat, 7, stands next to his mother at an Afghan refugee aid center on the outskirts of Kabul on July 22. More than 2-1/2 years after the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan is still in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

In Afghanistan --where Bush claimed victory three years ago--elections for a parliament have been postponed once again. The security situation is so out of control that the Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders is withdrawing its staff from the country. The group also charged the U.S. with "co-optation of humanitarian aid…for military and political motives."

In Haiti, Pierre Espérance, director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, says the U.S. backed coup of five months ago has ushered the murderous rightwing gangs back into power. The New York Times reports "Mayhem rules the streets." In late June, Amnesty International released a scathing report accusing the interim government and the U.S. Marine peacekeepers of failing to implement security and disarmament measures.

Bush imposed economic sanctions on Syria in March under terms of the so-called Syria Accountability Act. Administration figures were eager to scapegoat Syria for its inability to suppress resistance to the occupation of Iraq --and also to do a favor for Israel, which regards Syria as an obstacle to its regional ambitions.

Even more dangerously, Washington floated a trial balloon alleging Iranian involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Middle East expert Juan Cole warns that, "The same techniques used to set up the Iraq war are now being applied by the political right in the U.S. , including President Bush, to Iran. These include innuendo, guilt by association, vague fears and hyped capabilities."

Is this just bluff and bluster? Or with Iraq still bleeding, is Bush planning a deadly encore?

Venezuela to West Africa: Where There’s Oil….

The White House is pumping a million dollars a year into groups working to oust duly elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who challenged his country’s traditional ruling elite and utilized oil revenues to fund social programs for the impoverished majority.

Is it a coincidence that this Latin American candidate for "regime change" is the fourth largest oil producer in the world and the second largest exporter of oil to the U.S.?

Oil is also behind Washington's recent moves to significantly expand the U.S. military presence in West Africa. Three top U.S. generals made separate trips to African nations last February on missions that were not disclosed publicly.

This turn to Africa comes on the heels of pressure from U.S. petroleum industry and conservative policy groups to secure oil resources outside the volatile Middle East. Under a program called the Pan Sahel Initiative, the U.S. has recently dispatched Special Forces troops to four oil-rich nations-- Chad , Mali , Mauritius and Niger --purportedly to train African armies in counter-terrorist strategies and tactics.

Michael Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies, calls Bush’s war on terrorism and U.S. oil policy "two strands of the same strategy." He charges "the war on terrorism and the global pursuit of oil have become one vast and unbridled enterprise."

The Hiroshima Temptation

Did someone say "Weapons of Mass Destruction"? The President himself is the prime mover in reviving what international law expert Richard Falk terms the "Hiroshima Temptation". Washington ’s Might-Makes-Right arrogance has thrown the world’s fragile nuclear equation into full-scale crisis.

Under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, countries with nuclear weapons agreed to negotiate the elimination of their nukes in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of such weapons. No U.S. administration ever gave more than lip service to this bargain, but the Bush regime displays open contempt for the Treaty.

The Pentagon is currently developing a new generation of weapons despite the absence of any nuclear rival.

Above all, Washington has sent the unmistakable message that it will attack non-nuclear-armed targets (Iraq) but hesitate against countries with a nuclear or other significant military deterrent (North Korea).

This provides huge incentive for governments throughout the world to obtain nuclear weapons. But no one can win an unrestrained arms race in the 21st century. Bush’s policy is a nuclear time bomb, putting everyone in the U.S. as well as across the globe in peril.

Instead of grasping that the destiny of the U.S. people is connected to all others who inhabit this planet, President Bush is dedicated to go-it-alone-ism and preemptive war.

Because of Bush’s policies, the planet and its inhabitants are in grave danger. If campaign slogans really told the truth, the President’s banner would read: One Empire, Under Oil, with Justice for None and Insecurity for All.

Max Elbaum is author of Revolution in the Air and a War Times editor.

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