Bush Dismantling America’s Industrial-Military Backbone

By James Donahue

April 2005

Whether by design or pure incompetence, we are watching a disturbing pattern of behavior in Washington D. C. that is setting America up for a collapse as a world power.

Without going into all of the details, here is an overview of what the “Christian/conservative” controlled Republican Administration has been doing since President George W. Bush first took office over four years ago.

--The 911 attack in September, 2001, set the stage for a retaliatory strike against Afghanistan, a conflict that continues to this day. It also prompted our legislators to pass the Patriot Act, without reading it, giving state and federal police agencies powers that override individual Constitutional rights.

--Incorrectly declaring that Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction, Bush and the UK’s Tony Blair joined forces in an unprovoked assault on Iraq that toppled the Hussein government. A puppet government has since been established under the barrel of American guns. A guerrilla war continues to rage unchecked in Iraq and extreme anti-American sentiment exists.

--With two wars raging, and military forces occupying bases all over the world, the U. S. military is now so overextended that it can barely keep enough troops on the ground in Iraq to carry on that war. Other world nations are staying out of this mess and offering little or no help. The few little countries that went into it with us, have now withdrawn support. Bush promised in the last bid for re-election that he would not reinstate the American draft.

--Bush has threatened Iran, which is building a large nuclear power generating plant and appears to be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. Iran has had the support of both Russia and China in this project. Some analysts predict that the U.S. has a plan to extend military operations into Iran.

--China has been threatening military action against Taiwan, an island nation where newly elected leadership is declaring independence from China. It is an old conflict that is about to rear its ugly head soon. Bush has promised to defend Taiwan if China makes a strike. In fact, the U. S. has recently sold some highly sophisticated weaponry to Taiwan to help in that country’s defense in the event of an attack.

--As part of the Bush Administration’s War on Terror, the U.S. has sold sophisticated weapons systems, possibly with nuclear capability, to Pakistan. Pakistan and India are staring down gun barrels at each other over political and possibly religious differences. Our action has obviously angered the Indian government.

--India and China have just agreed to end an age-old border dispute and boost trade in a move toward a free trade agreement between the two countries.

--Since Bush took office, his administration has opened the door to the closing of many American factories as companies turn to “outsourcing” of U. S. jobs to foreign countries, taking advantage of a cheap labor market. India has been a recipient of many of those jobs from America.

--The closing of factories and lay-offs of hundreds of thousands of American workers has been good for American business interests, who paid to put Bush in the White House, but it has created a giant pool of unemployed and underpaid workers in the United States. The number of homeless people in the country is believed to exceed the level of the Great Depression years.

--Among the shut-down factories in the United States are steel plants. Most of American mined iron ore is now being shipped overseas where it is smelted into steel and then sold to world plants where steel products are manufactured.

--Bush recently used an executive order to establish a special panel that will have the power to close military bases all over the United States as a budget cutting measure. Without these bases, more jobs will be lost and we may lose the capability of training the manpower necessary to fight a global war.

--Most, if not all of the high-tech electronic equipment like computers, digital cameras and wide screen televisions are now manufactured in Japan, Taiwan, and other overseas countries. They are not being made in the United States.

--Since taking office, the Bush Administration has erased a $233 billion government cash surplus left by the Clinton Administration, to a $7 trillion deficit. That deficit amounts to a sum of $24,000 for every man, woman and child in America. This deficit is growing larger every day.

So here is the bottom line. Our military is overextended. Most people in America are either out of work or holding low paying jobs that barely sustain them. An untold number of Americans are homeless and living in shelters or in their cars. The world is gearing up for a world war against the United States. We may lack the capability to gear up to defend ourselves.