The Liberty Bush brings

[yurbud]

I sent this as a letter to the LA and NY Times.



When Bush said he wanted to spread freedom in his inaugural address, nearly all Americans probably agreed. We would like to think we are routing Nazis, Commies, and Ba’athists and giving people democracy and control of their own destinies. Too often though, we only respect other countries democracies as long as they do what our corporations want.

When the democratically elected government of Turkey refused to allow US troops to invade iraq from there, Paul Wolfowitz of the Bush administration threatened to take the matter to their military, implying we would back a military coup. When the democratically elected president of Venezuela wanted to keep more of his countries oil wealth to help his people, we backed a coup during which he was kidnapped, and a recall which he won by a comfortable margin. When the president of Haiti wanted to raise the minimum wage for his dirt-poor people, American troops showed up at his door, and escorted him to Africa. He was told he would be killed if he returned.

Miraculously, the former Unocal consultant we picked to be interim president of Afghanistan won their first elections. A similar miracle will probably occur in Iraq with Iyad Allawi, a former hit man for Saddam who shot six suspected insurgents at point blank range shortly after being named interim prime minister. The very timing of Iraq's elections was delayed to allow the privatization and theft of Iraq's oil and other assets since, as GOP architect of the plan Grover Norquist told journalist Greg Palast, "The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election." 


If we wanted to spread democracy, it would be far cheaper in money and lives to start with our allies like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. We support the dictators in those countries with billions of dollars in aid and weapons. If we withdrew that support or made it contingent on democratization, we would see fairly quick results. Saudi Arabia, for example, has the worst human rights and democracy record of any country in the world. Some would say because of their oil reserves and investments here, we can’t afford to upset the royal family. But in fact, without our advisors military equipment, advisors, and troops nearby, they would be hanging by their ankles from their palace walls before sunset.

This is even more ironic now as the Bush administration beats the drum to invade Iran. In the 1950’s, they had a secular, democratically elected president. He was a tough negotiator for oil contracts, so we overthrew him and replaced him with the Shah, who was so hated, his own people overthrew him and replaced him the Muslim fundamentalists we find so troublesome today. If we had placed democracy over doing the bidding of the oil companies in the first place, we wouldn’t need our military over there now.

The Bush people do not even believe in democracy and freedom here. His brother led the way in illegally purging black voters from registration rolls, and his cronies sell states rig-able voting machines that are impossible to do recounts with. He ignores the Freedom of Information Act, ignores reporters who ask tough questions, and let’s his servants call anyone who dissents a traitor.

A con man never tells you he wants to steal your life savings. He tells you you’ll get rich or the money will help Tsunami victims or find a cure for cancer. Liberty is Bush’s cure for cancer, and he’d like to sell it to the whole world.