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Whatís Bouncing Around in Bushís Head? Explaining More Idiotic Policies

As the savagely funny “Get Your War On” comic described George W. Bush last month,

“…his mind is like one of those spinning cages where you pull out the winning lottery numbers- but there’s only four goddamn little balls in his cage: ‘freedom,’ ‘democracy,’ ‘terror,’ and ’stay the course.’ He opens his mouth, one of the balls drops out.”Over the past month, Bush’s cage has been spinning with dizzying rapidity. Whether addressing skyrocketing casualties in Iraq, the explosive prisoner abuse scandal, the beheading of American Nick Berg or his proclamations on various other subjects, the president has recklessly repeated the four stock phrases that have summarized his presidency.

For example, Berg was murdered not by Islamic terrorists in ski masks but by “the enemies of freedom.” As for the families of American soldiers killed in Iraq- now, almost 800 of them- they can take comfort in knowing their sons and daughters died to bring democracy to the sands of Iraq. And of course, staying the course in the war on terror goes without saying. The problem is that the American public no longer believes their state’s justifications for war.

However, while it may be to his speechwriters, this is not just rhetoric to the president. It’s abundantly clear that George W. Bush sincerely believes his is a divine calling to proliferate freedom around the world. And his actions continue to reflect this belief. Much to everyone’s misfortune, the president seems to be just hitting his stride now. How else can we explain the nearly simultaneous announcements to sanction Syria, cut off Cuba, and even censure key allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia ¬ñ all coming at the same time as his presidency crashes to earth, engulfed in the flames of the rapidly spreading Al Ghraib prison scandal?

Yet Bush apparently plans to meet fire with fire. Astonishingly, he’s chosen to up the ante with the rest of the world- at precisely the moment when he should have been cowed into showing a little humility. Despite his apologies to the victims of the Abu Ghraib torture regime, Bush continued to antagonize Muslims this week by slapping sanctions on Syria, a move which resulted in a “unanimous Arab decision” to condemn the sanctions by Arab League foreign ministers convening in Cairo this week. So much for winning over the Muslim world.

Bush claims that Syria is developing WMD- just like Saddam was- and “not doing enough” to prevent guerrillas from crossing over its long border into Iraq. However, Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad today denied the claims, arguing that Washington had provided no “evidence of infiltration” regarding the alleged militants: “…we have no [received] response to the request to give us one passport, one name … So far, we haven’t received anything.”

The sanctions were announced as being justified by the “Syria Accountability Act,” a galling bit of imperial arrogance that sailed through congress in November 2003. This bill “requires” the president (OK, twist his arm) to impose “at least 2 of 6″ kinds of sanctions as a punishment for Syria’s alleged bad behavior. Now, direct flights between Syria and the US will be forbidden, as will all US exports to Syria except for (overpriced) medicine and food. And, while the government claims that the sanctions will have “mostly a political impact” for American companies in Syria, “…US officials suggested that even though US companies technically still will be allowed to conduct business, they could find it extremely problematic.”

In other words, the Bush administration is telling businessmen that Syria is indeed off-limits, to expedite Bush’s desire to crush the country economically and foment anti-government resistance. Yet this colossally stupid policy will actually achieve the opposite of what Bush wants: either it will encourage Syrians to draw ranks behind their president and unite in opposition to America, or it will encourage destabilization and exacerbate anarchic and violent tendencies. Either way, the result will not be good for the war on terror, will not be good for America, and will of course not be good for the Syrians themselves.

However, predictably enough the “symbolic” sanctions let some interests- namely, big oil- off the hook. The sanctions don’t apply to American oil barons investing in Syria, and don’t affect “…U.S. oil imports from Syria, reported at $259 million in 2003.” After all, Bush must partially tolerate Syria’s alleged refusal to join the war on terror and embrace freedom in this election year, when oil prices have soared to all-time highs, leaving many American voters disgruntled. Yet this only exposes further his hypocrisy and sketchy motivations.

Perhaps Bush is hoping that the sanctions will force the Syrian government to fall, or at least to repeat the humanitarian disaster that occurred in Iraq following UN sanctions in 1991. This time around, there’s no chance that Bush will get the UN to go along with his scheme for Syria- one which will only increase America’s isolation, not Syria’s, from the rest of the world. That the sanctions owe largely to an “Israel First” policy doesn’t help the world’s perception of America, either:

“…The Syria bill was passed in part due to lobbying from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The group is holding its annual convention in Washington next week, and members were likely to lobby lawmakers to put additional pressure on the Bush administration about Syria.”

Even more inexplicable than the Syria sanctions was Bush’s move against Cuban leader Fidel Castro this week. The decision to restrict remittances from Cuban-Americans to their families, while practically preventing the former from visiting the latter, was made in the alleged int
erests of a “free” Cuba. According to a recent IPS report, the action was directed by the

“…Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which was created by the US government last year to help focus efforts on achieving its objectives of ‘hastening Cuba’s peaceful transition to a representative democracy and a free market economy.’”

The Commission, which is being awarded with $59 million for the “implementation” of its wisdom, also recommended “…the designation of a ‘Transition Coordinator’ in the State Department ‘to facilitate expanded implementation of pro-democracy, civil-society building, and public diplomacy projects and to continue regular planning for future transition assistance contingencies.’”

The prospect that the US will actively set up a successor government for the aging Castro is breathtaking in its arrogance. Worse still are the tangible measures with which the US will attack ordinary Cubans and Cuban-Americans. Besides a crackdown on ‘illegal’ transfers of money (i.e., anything over a miserable $1,200 a year),

“…the measures will limit family visits to Cuba to just one trip every three years, under a specific license only valid for visiting immediate family members. They will also reduce the amount that visitors from the United States can spend on food and lodging in Cuba, from 164 dollars a day to just 50 dollars a day. In addition, they will limit ‘recipients of remittances and gift parcels to immediate family members.’”

One would think Castro had just declared war on America. How else could such a concerted and ruinous campaign be rationally explained? The horrendous timing of Bush’s Cuban crackdown indicates just how desperate the president is for a foreign policy success, as he’s obviously not getting one in Iraq. Yet meddling in the affairs of a peaceful neighbor such as Cuba is completely unnecessary. And even for those who have a problem with Castro, his case exemplifies perfectly the argument for letting the “biological solution” take its course.

It’s clear that the Cuba policy will backfire in Bush’s face. It already has. He doesn’t need to make more enemies now, especially in his own hemisphere. Perhaps one of his campaign strategists thought that vilifying Castro would help woo the Cuban exile vote in the pivotal state of Florida. If so, they thought wrong. All of the major anti-Castro dissidents came forward this week to denounce Bush’s action as wrongheaded and offensive imperialism.

Take Eloy Gutiйrrez Menoyo, a guerrilla commander way back in the 1950’s and then a political prisoner for 22 years under the Castro regime. According to IPS, he called the naming of a State Department ‘Transition Coordinator’ “an insult to the Cuban people,” and rejected America’s interference. In a letter to Colin Powell, the elder statesman damned Bush’s recommendations as “…practically an incitement to armed conflict.”

Another leading dissident and spokesman for the Arco Progresista, social democratic opposition coalition is Manuel Cuesta Morъa. He refused America’s “assistance” point-blank: “…the United States has absolutely no right to define the how, what or when, or the pace and timing of the democratic transition in Cuba.”

Oswaldo Payб, a dissident honored in 2002 with the EU’s Sakharov Prize for human rights, added that “…it is up to Cubans to design the changes… It is not right, nor do we accept, any external element, whether from the United States of America, Europe or anywhere else, trying to design the Cuban transition process or supposedly becoming an actor in that process.” And Elizardo Sбnchez, the president of the Comisiуn Cubana de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliaciуn Nacional (Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation), called Bush’s proposal “absolutely counterproductive” and “objectively meddlesome.”

This stinging rebuke to Bush’s visionary interference should give the leader of the free world a reason to pause and rethink. The only problem being that he’s never quite done that. Bush has never been guilty of “waffling” (apparently for him synonymous with thinking). And it’s possible he will never know what the Cubans think of his plan, since he is proud to say that he doesn’t read newspapers, and enjoys being surrounded by yes-men feeding him only “the facts.”

Indeed. A spoon-fed president, sitting in his high chair, dressed up to look like a leader. In the end, is he Bush or is he Chimp? You be the judge.