BUSH'S KEY OBJECTIVE

The following article will appear in April 1 issue of the Mid-Hudson
Activist Newsletter.
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BUSH?S KEY OBJECTIVE

By Jack A. Smith

Even as President Bush plans to extend his military adventures to
various other countries, winning the so-called war on terrorism is not
his primary objective.  It is but a means to attain the principal goal
of regaining GOP control of the Senate, increasing the Republican
majority in the House, electing more conservative governors next
November,  and, above all, getting himself reelected in 2004.  

Wars favor the party in power and no president has been turned out of
office during wartime.  This is a big reason why the White House has
insisted from the beginning  that the vaguely defined, open-ended war on
terrorism will last for many  years, at least spanning Bush?s dream of
realizing the two-term presidency denied his father. And it?s why -- if
the extreme war hawks in the president?s entourage can arrange it --
there will be a war on Iraq starting later in the year, closer to the
elections.

George Bush amassed some stunning victories for the right-wing in his
first year in office  -- the huge tax-cut for the rich, breaking the ABM
treaty, scuttling the Kyoto accords to reduce global warming, carrying
his counterattack upon a relatively small band of fundamentalist
terrorists to a number of nations innocent of involvement in the events
of Sept. 11, and gaining approval from a pliant Congress for his
scandalous $48 billion hike in Pentagon spending, while cutting social
programs for working people.  Now he advocates using nuclear weapons
against non-nuclear nations and appears to have approved a first-strike
policy, without complaint from a subservient Democratic opposition. 
Just imagine what a conservative ideologue like Bush could accomplish in
eight years of rule with both the Senate and the House in his pocket and
a fearful majority of the American people viewing him as their bulwark
against an evil hoard of bearded lunatics  boxcutting their way through
our amber fields of grain.

We remain skeptical of conspiracy theories suggesting government
complicity in Sept. 11, but objectively speaking, Osama bin Laden has
become the deus ex machina for  the ultra-conservative cause in
America.   On Sept. 10,  a bumbling Bush (with an approval rating
hovering just above 50% after winning office with a minority of votes in
a tainted election) was stumbling toward a failing, one-term
presidency.   By Sept. 12, Bush was the iron-willed Commander in Chief
as the nation -- including almost every Democratic politician and the
entire corporate media -- was rallying ?round the presidential pennant,
cheering the administration?s every jingoist excess.

The Republicans owe an enormous debt to the alchemist ?Evil One,? who
transmuted a pampered inheritor of the family crown into a warrior-king
virtually taking meals upon his battleshield like Tiberus, when he
wasn?t dining at $20,000-a-plate Republican fund-raisers.  Bin Laden, of
course, has lately been relegated to obscurity by the White House
propaganda corps because directing public attention to his continual
reluctance to be captured or to die (an annoying trait shared with the
great majority of Al Qaeda?s leadership and most of its international
network),  would subvert Washington?s crowing over the Pentagon?s great
victory against poor, bedraggled Afghanistan.

So far, no leading Democrat politician has expressed opposition to the
war on terrorism. The most extreme critique of Bush?s handling of the
war by a top Democrat came from Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle when
he declared recently that ?I don't think it would do anybody any good to
second-guess what has been done to date.  I think it has been
successful.... But I think the jury's still out about future success....
Clearly, we've got to find [Taliban leader] Muhammad Omar, we've got to
find Osama bin Laden, and we've got to find other key leaders of the Al
Qaeda network, or we will have failed.... Before we make commitments in
resources, I think we need to have a clearer understanding of what the
direction will be." 

Even this hesitant, obscure comment elicited verbal massive retaliation
from Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, who blustered, ?How dare
Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war
on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field? He should not
be trying to divide our country while we are united." And there you have
the Republican soundbite for the midterm elections, assuming the White
House succeeds in maintaining the country in a state of war, as
planned.  Only a handful of Democrat politicians are going to brave this
kind of rhetoric.

The GOP?s main objective in November is to retake the Senate, where just
one more Republican will compensate for last year?s apostasy by Sen. Jim
Jeffords, who metamorphosed from Republican to Independent in response
to political bullying from the White House.  Next on the Republican
agenda is to at least keep their 11-seat lead in the first congressional
elections after a presidential contest, when the opposition party
usually picks up seats.  If just six seats change hands, the Democrats
will control the House.  At this stage, according to the polls, the
trend is toward the Republicans, mainly because of President Bush?s
relatively high ratings since the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington?s and
New York.

Suppose the Democrats do manage to gain control both Houses of
Congress.  There are political differences between the two establishment
parties, of course, but in regard to geopolitical objectives the
Democrats not only favor the war on terrorism but support its
camouflaged, though far more important, corollary  -- the projection of
U.S. military power from the Middle East deep into heretofore off-limits
Central Asia as part of Washington?s grand design to exercise hegemony
throughout the globe.   At best a Democratic Congress might insist upon
being consulted on major decisions and to even have a say about what
country to attack next, but not much more.  True, the Democrats may not
be as fanatical as the right-wing about launching a war against Iraq,
but President Clinton massively bombed this destitute society in 1998,
worked to destabilize the country  in order to replace the Baghdad
government with U.S. puppets, and continued the sanctions which killed
many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children on his eight-year watch. 
And if it?s not going to be Iraq for the Democrats, they can always find
another Yugoslavia upon which to let slip the dogs of war.

Neither of the two major parties has even hinted that the dreadful
events of last September had a cause other than the ?inexplicable? and
?evil? mentality of bin Laden and his fundamentalist recruits.  
Regardless of which party controls Congress or the White House, neither
is prepared to initiate policies to obviate the main causes of the
desperation that spawns modern terrorism.  In the Middle East, such
causes include over a half-century of U.S. maneuvers to dominate the
region and its extraordinary oil wealth by means of armed force and
subversion; support for reactionary Arab regimes against the interests
of their populations; the harassment or destruction of governments which
showed an interest in progressive reform and independence from U.S.
dictates;  the prevention of a balanced solution to the Israel-Palestine
conflict; economic sanctions leading to 1.5 million civilian deaths in
Iraq; and the intrusion of military bases throughout the region.   Until
the U.S. political system terminates the imperial deeds that have
contributed greatly to the rise of terrorism, Washington like the
Bourbons will have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from a history
that continues to repeat itself. 

No progressive person wants to see Congress and the White House in the
hands of the right-wing as a result of the next elections. But in terms
of foreign and military policy in particular, including the present war
and the historic factors responsible for Sept. 11, the difference
between the Republicans of the right and Democrats of the center is
essentially insignificant.    Bush will wage war mainly against
oppressed and exploited people to get re-elected, and Democrats will
support that war in hopes of defeating him.  The only real winner in
such a contest is war -- and, of course, the big corporations, financial
houses, arms manufacturers,  globalizers of inequality, Wall St.
brokers, energy conglomerates, media empires, multi-millionaire families
and their lackeys in the political game who profit enormously when other
peoples halfway ?round the world are subject repeatedly to our rockets?
red glare and bombs bursting in air.

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--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31

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