George HW Bush
The Real Other Shoe Dropping In Iraq
A couple of airborne loafers didn’t stop Bush from walking all over the Constitution. Again.
December 15, 2008 | Read More
Reason #89: Saddam Hussein - Just Another American Rent-a-Thug
If we hope to understand this war and its senseless killing, we need to take a hard, cold look at how the disaster began with our own shameful foreign policy. We need to talk about our good buddy Saddam, and all the back-slapping and cigars we shared with him. He was just another one of “our guys” like Manuel “Rent-a-Colonel” Noriega.
For more than a decade, beginning in the 1970s, the United States gave him weapons and he did favors in return. He helped get American oil interests set up in the Middle East. And, beginning in 1980, he went to…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
World Boss History Reason #10: Another Illegal Invasion
The war in Iraq wasn’t the first time our country invaded a sovereign nation to take down its leader. People tend to forget that we did the same thing in Panama in 1989. And, just like when we invaded Iraq, a Bush was in the White House and a man named Dick Cheney was with him.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush and then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney sent 300 aircraft and more than 50,000 troops into Panama-to get one man. Worst of all, the Army barred the Red Cross and the press from entering Panama City for days after the invasion.…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
World Boss History Reason #8: Narco Politics - The Rise and Fall of Rent-a-Colonel
The Contras in Nicaragua weren’t our only drug smuggling friends in the region. Panamanian strongman and CIA informant, Manuel Noriega, moved enough cocaine in his crooked career to ski on the beach. Noriega’s code name tells you everything you need to know about the man: “Rent-a-Colonel.” He held no firm allegiances. He was on the CIA’s payroll for decades. He spied on his friends for us and helped the Contras in Nicaragua’s civil war. In 1986, he even offered to “take care of” Nicaragua’s leaders for us. But Manuel played both sides of the fence. He sold information to the Nicaraguans…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
World Boss History Reason #1: Strange Fruit
Our military is not supposed to protect private companies and their profits. But for well over a century, that seems to be what many leaders have thought was its prime role. The case of the United Fruit Company is a choice example. In the early 1950s, United Fruit, a U.S. company, owned vast tracks of land in Central America. At one time they controlled more than 400,000 acres in Honduras alone. And on the east coast of Guatemala the company controlled 550,000 acres. They seemed to be everywhere you looked.
But in 1951, the Guatemalan people elected as president a man…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Slam the Revolving Door
Men like George Bush Sr. should be ashamed. After he left office, he went to work jetting around the world and shilling for the Carlyle Group. In other words, he cashed in on his time as president like it was some kind of corporate internship instead of public service. He’s not alone. Just about every other president has used his post-White House years in similarly vulgar fashion.
This kind of unsavory exploitation of public office is all too common-and it’s a real problem. How can we trust our leaders to make the right decisions while in office if they’re all just bucking…
August 26, 2008 | Read More
Reason #32: The Carlyle Group - Putting Government to Work
Brown and Root and Enron both used their political connections to call in favors and earn handsome profits. But no company has used Washington insiders to reap huge windfalls like the powerful investment firm, the Carlyle Group. Carlyle treats the highest levels of government like one big recruiting pool. They hire politicians and policymakers straight out of office and, in return, those figures exploit their inside knowledge of the system.
Carlyle treats the highest levels of government like one big recruiting pool.
Back in the late 80s, for instance, Carlyle brought newly retired defense secretary Frank Carlucci on as CEO. Carlucci parlayed his Pentagon…
August 26, 2008 | Read More
Reason #19: Voodoo Economics Reborn
From 2001 to 2003, George W. Bush pushed through some of the biggest tax cuts in our nation’s history. His own treasury secretary at the time, Paul O’Neill, tried to convince him the cuts were shortsighted. O’Neill rightly predicted they would kill revenues and send the government deeper into the red over the long term. Bush not only failed to listen to him, he forced him to resign.
The President pledged that the tax cuts would actually lower the national debt by spurring the economy. He promised 800,000 new jobs would be created because of them. Instead, the country lost 2.7 million…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
Reason #14: The White House Hustle - Presidents Cash In on their Offices
Until the advent of the career politician, most of our presidents not only emerged from the private sector, they returned to it again after they finished their terms. In other words, their time in politics was a temporary phase of their lives, not their be-all-end-all calling.
Thomas Jefferson, Millard Fillmore, and James Monroe worked in higher education in their post-White House years. Andrew Jackson and Franklin Pierce went back to ranching. And numerous ex-presidents took up writing. When his time in Washington was up, former President Harry Truman moved back to his modest home in Independence, Missouri-packing his belongings in his…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
