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• Orchestrated the overthrow of the government of Afghanistan in 2001 after having given the "terrorist state" 43 million dollars of aid earlier in the year. Bombing targets included hospitals, mosques, Red Cross facilities, factories, water plants, power grids and other infrastructure essential to civilian life. Bush continued the longstanding routine use of depleted Uranium weaponry in the invasion of Afghanistan, and Afghan Cities subjected to allied bombing were later reported to have uranium concentrations at 400% - 2000% above normal, with birth defects and cancers sharply on the rise. 1.5 million impoverished Afghan refugees were forced to flee the American/British bombing, many dying of exposure and starvation. Meanwhile, international aid efforts were routinely stopped or hindered by US forces who, in order to show their good intentions, indulged in another longstanding military tradition by handing out candy to starving children. Much has been made of oil and gas industry interests in the region and the possible profits to be made with the removal of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. In 2002, the new US endorsed Afghan President Hamid Karzai, himself a former Unocal consultant and CIA contact, signed a pipeline deal paving the way for construction of a gas pipeline from the Central Asian republic through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden has not been captured and Afghanistan is still beset by grinding poverty, insurgent wars, entrenched militia forces, occupation by foreign troops and a leadership that includes many Afghan warlords responsible for much of the violence of the preceding decades. • Ordered the imprisonment of so-called "enemy combatants", captured in various parts of the world, at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay Cuba and in US controlled prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and reportedly in Eastern Europe, where they have been routinely tortured and denied any legal defense as provided for in the US constitution or international law. Methods of torture used by US forces include isolation, electrocution, humiliation, beatings and sexual abuse. Bush has vigilantly opposed efforts to give the prisoners, many of whom were arrested under the most dubious of suspicions or turned in by fellow civilians wishing to carry out vendettas, any form of legal proceedings. Meanwhile, tyrant and former US ally Saddam Hussein is given full legal proceedings in a trial expected to last several years. • Ordered the overthrow of the government of Iraq and endorsed fabricated evidence, contradicting US and UN intelligence reports, to indicate that Iraq had stockpiled "weapons of mass destruction" and had Al-Qaeda connections. US and British forces deployed thousands of tons of depleted uranium weaponry, with untold future health implications for both Iraqis and coalition service members. US forces have killed over 25,000 civilians in Iraq since the initial 2003 invasion. • Supported an unsuccessful coup, organized by the CIA, the Venezuelan business congress and right-wing elements within the Venezuelan military, to overthrow the government of Venezuela in 2002. Immediately following the coup attempt, in which Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias was kidnapped and many of his cabinet ministers put under arrest, the Bush administration immediately endorsed a new government under the head of the business congress, Pedro Carmona. However, after popular uprising, Venezuela's President returned to power and foiled US plans to eliminate so-called “socialism” from Venezuela. The US State Department, apparently upset about democracy in Venezuela, has invented a new set of terms for Chavez by referring to his government as an “elected dictatorship” or an “authoritarian democracy”. Chavez has upset US oil interests by enforcing quotas and redirecting the revenue from his country's oil (Venezuela is one of the top oil suppliers to the US) into social programs aimed at the country's poor. Speaking recently on the subject of Chavez, a white house spokesperson revealed that "Winning most of the votes,” does not make the Chavez government "legitimate,” a statement clearly representing the historic US attitude toward democracy in Latin America. |
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