22 November 2010 By Stephen
Lendman The Bush legacy is based on lies,
deceit, crimes of war and against humanity, and
complicity in criminal fraud, a disgusting record
deserving denunciation and prison, not shameless
feting. Yet his new book, "Decision
Points," attempts the impossible, a brazen scheme to
reinvent a war criminal, one of history's greatest,
his legacy marked by: -- neocon hellishness; -- duplicity and public
betrayal; -- a disdain for human rights and
civil liberties; -- lawlessness; -- racist hatemongering; -- usurping unconstitutional
"Unitary Executive" authority, what Chalmers Johnson
called "a ball-faced assertion of presidential
supremacy....dressed up in legalistic mumbo jumbo;" -- imperial wars called
liberating ones; -- mass murder; -- extrajudicially establishing
coup d'etat "continuity of government" authority to
abolish constitutional freedoms unilaterally; -- color revolutions against
democracy; -- reveling in being a "wartime
president;" -- making torture official US
policy; -- establishing a global torture
prison gulag; -- abolishing the 1807
Insurrection Act and 1878 Posse Comitatus protections
against using US military forces for domestic law
enforcement, except as constitutionally authorized or
in cases of internal insurrection; -- militarizing state and local
law enforcement agencies, establishing a martial law
apparatus throughout all levels of government without
congressional approval; -- supporting the worst of
Israeli crimes; -- deposing Haiti's Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, its first democratic leader since liberation
from France in 1803, turning slaves into citizens; -- staging a failed coup to
depose Venezuela's Hugo Chavez; -- failing to establish a
militarized North American Union (NAU) merger of
Canada and Mexico with America, headquartered in
Washington; -- transferring unprecedented
wealth to the rich, exceeded only by his successor; -- unabashedly favoring business
over beneficial social change; -- designating everything for
privatization, including public education as another
commodity; -- waging war on working
Americans; -- unprecedented levels of
secrecy; -- endangering public welfare and
safety by regulatory shredding; -- creating the grimmest economic
conditions since the 1930s; -- destroying civil liberties; -- silencing dissent; -- criminalizing First Amendment
activities advocating for environmental and animal
rights; -- institutionalizing illegal
spying and police state repression; -- turning elections into shams; -- hiring journalist as paid
propagandists; -- failing to privatize Social
Security and end Medicare; -- opposing Net Neutrality; -- waging war on Muslims,
Latinos, and other political targets; persecuting
them; denying them due process and judicial fairness;
incarcerating and/or deporting them; -- fostering social decay; and -- much more, a legacy from hell,
a disgusting betrayal of every norm of civilized
decency, engendering global contempt and outrage. Yet there he was discussing his
record publicly on the hustings, promoting his new
book, 477 pages of ghostwritten rubbish - fiction, not
fact. The writer: Christopher Michel,
aged 28, a fellow Yale graduate, working with Bush
preparing it since January 2009. The Daily Beast's
Bryan Curtis said, in 2003, he was an unpaid intern,
then rose to become deputy assistant to the president
and deputy speechwriting director. Both positions
involved close regular contact, including traveling
the world on Air Force One. Treating his former boss
reverentially, he said Bush was fully in charge, "writ(ing)
a first draft of a lot of things, (then) email(ing it)
to" him. "My role (was) to help put together different
scenes. (He wrote) the scenes, and (I) stitch(ed)
things together." Or so he claimed, wanting Bush to
get full credit, a man who couldn't complete a full
sentence, got through Yale and Harvard Business School
on his pedigree, not intellect, and likely didn't
write his own term papers, let alone a book. Curtis concluded saying "the best
way to read the Bush memoir is as the elusive piece de
resistance of the most loyal Bush scrivener. In (a)
2009 email to friends, Michel wrote, 'I owe more than
I can repay to the 43rd president of the United
States, a man of courage who will fare well in
history.' " Perhaps what's taught in Texas schools or
featured in "managed news." Never by legitimate
chroniclers, exposing one of history's greatest war
criminals, a mass murderer, a contemptible human
being, so far unaccountable. Bombastically back on the world stage, Bush began a whirlwind tour on prime time NBC TV, promoting his book, defending his illegal wars, rationalizing his abandonment of New Orleans post-Katrina, and more, trying to reinvent himself. Soft media hosts, including Matt Lauer, Oprah Winfrey, Rush Limbaugh and three Fox News regulars (Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Greta Van Susteren in that order) provided venues. Print interviews will follow, one announced with AARP The Magazine. More interviews as well on CBS Sunday Morning, prime time CNN, The Tonight Show, and other programs, part of the carefully planned scheme to rewrite history, reinvent the man, and sell books, corporate media hosts always cooperative. New York Times writer Brian Stelter called it part of a well-orchestrated campaign, NBC getting first crack having outbid other network proposals. One reason perhaps is because Bush's daughter, Jena, is a part-time Today show correspondent. In his November 7 article titled, "With Book, Bush Is Back in Spotlight," Stelter said: Late last month, NBC taped the interview "over the course of two days in Texas," calling it "a major coup." But anyone expecting "to see a televised confrontation over issues like the Iraq war may come away disappointed. The tone of the prime-time special (and other scheduled interviews) is conversational, not prosecutorial, and for that reason, 'Lauer/Bush' is not likely to join 'Frost/Nixon' in the public imagination." Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino said tone was an important consideration for the tour, a combination image-building/book-selling effort, already a non-fiction best seller. Without trying to embarrass or pressure Bush, Lauer asked, "Let's talk about waterboarding." He flatly denied it was torture because he legal staff said so. In fact, they followed orders, devising legal opinions to justify lawlessness, what they clearly understood. Yet with no substantiating evidence, Bush claimed it "saved lives" by providing advance warning. In fact, experts know that that torture is both ineffective and counterproductive, accomplishing nothing but vengeance. One of many torture techniques used, waterboarding inflicts severe pain from 40-second applications in two hour sessions, multiple ones daily, forcing water in detainees' mouths and noses for 12 minutes, repeated daily, sometimes for weeks. Merriam Webster online calls it "an interrogation technique in which water is forced into a detainee's mouth and nose so as to induce the sensation of drowning." Wikipedia calls it: "a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the subject on his/her back with the head inclined downwards; water is then poured over the face into breathing passages, thus triggering (a sensation) of drowning. In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates an almost immediate gag reflex (causing) extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to (the) lungs (and) brain....from oxygen deprivation (as well as) other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death." By any standard, it's barbaric torture, omitted from media interviews. They focused mainly on Bush's book, reinvented history, airbrushed truth, the same "managed news" featured daily in corporate media reports, censoring or sanitizing hard topics too sensitive to discuss. Instead, soft-ball hosts doted on Bush calling the world "better off without Saddam Hussein in power, as are 25 million (Iraqis) who now have a chance to live in freedom." The millions dead, suffering, and immiserated perhaps feel otherwise. Their country (like Afghanistan) is occupied, destroyed, corrupted, tryannized, and contaminated, the undiscussed Bush legacy Obama continues seamlessly, his memoirs ahead in a future volume, no less disgusting than "Decision Points."
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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