/> WHAT WILL BE . . .© Farming is Falling, Effecting Food and Family © Be-Think: BUSH BIRTHDAY. FIFTY-NINE YEARS, SO MANY FOIBLES! ©

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

BUSH BIRTHDAY. FIFTY-NINE YEARS, SO MANY FOIBLES! ©

This is an invitation to the Bush Birthday Party. You are cordially invited to attend. Please RSVP; Répondez S'il Vous Plaît, your presence and voice are welcome. Please bring a guest, a quip, a query, or your own quality.

Attendees, thus far, are Environmental Issues, the Attack on Afghanistan, and the Iraqi Invasion.

Bush on the Environment
Russell Train once served as the Second Chief for the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Train worked with the agency while presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were in office. Train considers himself a Republican; he has a history of voting Republican. However, in 2004, he did not. He cited the Bush environmental record among the reasons for his change. In 2004, Train said, "It’s almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection, I find this deeply disturbing." Train spoke these words while in the company of other Republicans. Each was declaring the current policy dismal!

Since the beginning the Bush energy policy has been under dispute. The planners were corporate chiefs. Scientists and citizens were not present. Former Chief Executive Officer of energy and construction company, Halliburton lead the committee; that man is Vice President, Dick Cheney. All that was said and done remains secret, or at least that is the preference of the administration.

➢ Bush retreats from campaign promise to reduce carbon pollution [03/13/01]
➢ EPA issues an arsenic-in-tap-water standard higher than that recommended by public health advocates [10/31/01]
➢ Guts Tough Mining Protections [10/25/01]
➢ White House plans deep cuts in environmental spending [11/28/01]
➢ Snowmobile ban unlikely to be implemented in Yellowstone and Grand Teton [12/10/01]
➢ DOE weakens standards for Yucca nuclear storage [12/14/01]
➢ Bush administration weakens federal program for cleaning up dirty waters [12/21/02]
➢ Forest Service rewriting rules to increase logging, remove wildlife safeguards [11/26/02]
➢ EPA exempts oil and gas industry from storm-water pollution rules [12/30/02]
➢ New EPA rules ignore mercury pollution from chlorine plants [08/27/03]
➢ EPA strikes deal with polluting factory farms [09/25/03]
➢ New EPA mercury rule fails to account for 'lost' emissions [12/19/03]
➢ “Another” senior EPA official resigns in protest to Bush administration policies [12/23/03]
➢ Bush cuts funding for endangered species [02/25/04]
➢ White House stifles global warming data, says NASA top official [10/27/04]
➢ National forest rules rewritten to help timber industry [12/22/04]
➢ Bush oil and gas drilling policy forces taxpayers to pay a heavy cleanup price [12/26/04]
➢ EPA extends storm-water pollution exemption for oil and gas industry [01/19/05
➢ EPA grants amnesty to polluting factory farms [01/21/05]
Bush on the Attack, Afghanistan
Donald Rumsfeld offered his assessment in December 2002, while speaking on CNN’s Larry King. His evaluation was rosy, thorns and all. “They have elected a government. The Taliban are gone. The Al Qaeda are gone. The country is not a perfectly stable place, and it needs a great deal of reconstruction funds. There are people who are throwing hand grenades and shooting off rockets and trying to kill people, but there are people who are trying to kill people in New York or San Francisco. So it’s not going to be a perfectly tidy place.”

On June 17, 2004, while standing in the Rose Garden, President George W. Bush proclaimed, "Three years ago, the Taliban had granted Osama bin Laden and his terrorist Al Qaeda organization a safe refuge. Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world."

Yet, in July 2005, the fighting continues!
➢ July 1, 2005, Soldiers Missing in Afghanistan
Bin Laden may be in Afghan south, Pakistan says
➢ June 22, 2005, Porter Goss suggests that the CIA Chief has “Excellent idea” where Bin Laden is, yet
Aggressive Search' Underway in Afghanistan
➢ Bush continues to tout his success on a war that does not end

Invasion of Iraq, Bush confesses, "Our progress has been uneven."
Before George W. Bush was elected, or even anointed President of the United States in 2001, the Project for the New American Century drafted its plan for Iraq. The proposal was released in September 2000. The intent was clear; America would attack Iraq and secure “regime change!”

The authors of this outline are now known as the Bush Brigade. They are Vice President, Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, Chairman of the World Bank, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, and Chief of Staff for the Vice President, Lewis Libby. The younger brother of George W. and Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush also assisted in the writing. The document is titled, Rebuilding America's Defenses. This draft reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning long before the neoconservatives took office in January 2001.
Equating Saddam Hussein to September 11, 2001 attacks
Intent of attack on Iraq, was the purpose to remove the threat of WMDs, eliminate Saddam, or oil?
➢ Late if ever considering true nation building
➢ Did not wait to find the non-existent weapons of mass destruction
➢ Did not create a broad coalition, become part of an international force, dismissed diplomacy
Unilateral in words and deeds
Funding for the “wars” is not included in the budget
Billions of dollars are considered a “supplemental expense!”
➢ Sent in too few troops to secure the country
➢ Refused to recognize the urgency of training Iraqi security forces
➢ Destroyed the Iraqi army through de-Baathification
➢ Expected Iraqi people to welcome occupation with open arms
➢ Underestimated the likelihood and power of the insurgency
➢ Created a breeding ground for jihadists
➢ Reactive rants, encouraging greater insurgency
➢ No postwar planning, “staying the course” is our curse
➢ “Officially” more than 1,000 people, mostly Iraqis have been killed since the new Iraqi government was formed in April.
➢ The US death toll has pushed past 1,700 since the conflict began in March 2003
➢ Secrecy, stressing suspicion, promoting a climate of fear

Today, July 6, 2005, we celebrate our Commander and Chief. Please bring gifts, share your thoughts, and tell us how his birth has affected your life. On this the date of his birth, please bestow your honors on our President, George W. Bush. May you enjoy this celebration.