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=> Will George W. Bush use terrorism to become America's Pinochet?

Will George W. Bush use terrorism to become America's Pinochet?
Posted by Tony (Guest) - Sunday, May 30 2004, 7:56:21 (CEST)
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Website: http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2004/897
Website title: The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Harvey Wasserman

By Harvey Wasserman, Columbus Free Press

Will George W. Bush use terrorism to become America's Pinochet?

Attorney-General John Ashcroft is priming the public for a terrorist attack,
which can only mean Bush is sharpening his blades to behead the
Constitution.

Augusto Pinochet seized absolute power in Chile on September 11, 1973. The
US national security apparatus, including George H.W. Bush, used terrorism
as an excuse to help Pinochet destroy what had been a constitutional
democracy.

So is Shrub a president? Or is he a Pinochet?

By a 4:1 margin American historians have already rated W. "a failure." More
than one in ten surveyed in the recent George Mason University History News
Network Poll also rate Bush as "the worst president ever."

But ultimately, this Bush has no peer among US presidents. Let's look at
three likely matches.

Richard Nixon trained Dick Cheney and Karl Rove as Dirty Tricksters. Nixon
is Bush's role model for corruption, cynicism and personal psychosis. But
Nixon was also a skilled, literate global diplomat who opened doors to China
and the former Soviet Union and supported environmental protection. Bush has
trashed all that.

Herbert Hoover callously presided over the beginnings of America's worst
economic depression. Bush is right there. But Hoover was also a skilled,
literate bureaucrat, and a Quaker-raised foe of war. Not exactly Bush.

Warren G. Harding was astonishingly corrupt. Bush, Halliburton and Enron
have more than matched him. But Harding also hated repression and brought
the anti-war socialist Eugene V. Debs straight from a federal prison cell to
meet him in the Oval Office. Bush might well have had Debs executed.

Ultimately, Bush's real peers are not US presidents but Third World
dictators, like Pinochet, many of whom his father also put in office. Their
coda is clear:

Use of "terror" as an excuse for totalitarian control;

Official secrecy for its own sake;

Seizure of power in contempt of free elections;

Totalitarian militarism;

Abuse of human rights and liberties;

Love of the death penalty;

Hatred of a free press;

Imprisonment without legal recourse;

Widespread torture;

Brazen theft of public billions;

"Free market" smokescreens for corporate domination;

Taxing the poor to benefit the rich;

Hatred of labor unions;

Decimation of the natural environment;

Assaulting elected leaders anywhere, anytime;

Contempt for international treaties;

Reactionary alliance with right wing church groups;

Contempt for women's rights;

Manipulating divisions of race and class.

The one American actually offered a dictatorship, George Washington, turned
it down, shaping the nature of the Presidency for more than two
centuries....until now.

Meanwhile Bush has beheaded the American economy, replacing First World
surpluses with Third World debt.

Reminiscent of Joe Stalin, foreign intelligence, economic assessment and
even basic science must not contradict Rovian spin or fundamentalist
prophecy.

American education, once the envy of the world, is in shambles, with global
students now turning away for the first time. America's moral prestige,
never higher than after September 11, 2001, has been trashed. No US
president has ever been so personally hated.

And never has a would-be Third World dictator stood more ready to shred our
Constitution.

Stalin once quipped that power resides not with those who cast the votes,
but with those that count them.

Bush may try to follow Stalin's (and brother Jeb's) lead by stealing the
2004 election, as in 2000. Or he may try to seize power like Pinochet did on
9/11/73 in a repressive crusade against convenient terrorism.

But one thing is certain: if Shrub's hyped-up power play succeeds, the
beheading of America will be complete.

HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE US is available at
www.harveywasserman.com. He is co-author (with Bob Fitrakis) of GEORGE W.
BUSH VERSUS THE SUPERPOWER OF PEACE (www.freepress.org).

© 2004 The Columbus Free Press

Reprinted from The Columbus Free Press:
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2004/897



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