George W. Bush NEVER disappoints!

By Joseph Walther

In case you haven’t heard, about forty-percent of this year’s flu shots have not worked. We’ve simply failed to revamp the vaccines to keep pace with the ever-changing, never-ceasing onslaught of flu strains. Anyway, I received a flu shot and I now have the flu. So this week’s article will be brief.

Life goes on whether we get sick or not. And, when a country has George W. Bush as its President, there is absolutely no way that we can permit trivialities, such as severe flu symptoms with their accompanying feelings of impending death, to interfere with writing about the man.

Over the past couple of weeks, he’s done two things that have to make people wonder if his advisors have any impact on his words and actions at all. The first dealt with whether we’re going into a recession or not. The second, just yesterday, dealt with a hot-button torture technique called water boarding.

Three months ago, about fifteen-percent of the nation’s economists believed that we were going into a recession. As recently as 30-days ago, that number had jumped to sixty-percent. Even Warren Buffett and Bill Gates weighed in on the topic; acknowledging that the country’s on the verge of a recession that will probably be severe.

Many of these experts have PhDs in Economics. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates don’t, but their successes speak volumes on their behalf. George W. Bush, with his, um… limited knowledge, stood before the nation’s cameras three-weeks ago and stated that he didn’t think we’re going into a recession.

As recently as this past Thursday, he still refused to use the “R” word, simply stating that he now believed that our economy was “slowing down.”

You know, if I were one of his advisers and I really cared about him, I’d have to call him aside and say, “Mr. President, you have to stop saying this silly shit! It makes you sound excruciatingly stupid, sir.”

Then, yesterday, March 8, 2008, he vetoed anti-water boarding legislation passed by the Congress of the United States. But, before I go into that detail, I’m going to give you a bit of my background regarding the use of torture.

I’m old enough to remember two combat duty-tours in Viet Nam. They were for twelve-months each. The fighting was jungle warfare at its finest, inevitably hand-to-hand before it was over.

The Americans knew that the Viet Cong NEVER took wounded prisoners, no matter how slight their wounds, unless they believed them to be officers. They did torture them, though… to death.

The Cong would mutilate and set afire those who were severely wounded. The less severely wounded suffered the same fate, but it took longer to die while increasing the enemy’s “entertainment” value.

No matter what, the American troops made sure that whatever information they gave, under torture, was bogus. We also assumed that, even if we tortured in return, the information would be unreliable.

I cannot recall the name of a single General or Admiral who ever put a premium on information derived from torture. This has not changed. Not one General advised George W. Bush to endorsed water boarding.

I want to make this point abundantly clear. I don’t take a moral stand on torture during war time. When your way of life is ultimately on the line, you do whatever you need to do to win. Otherwise, there is NO tomorrow to worry about.

My problem with this matter is the conflicted stand that this White House Administration has taken. It has consistently claimed the moral high ground while just as consistently doing the exact opposite.

This White House gang, in particular, does not seem to understand that if you’re going to claim the moral high ground and actually follow it, you don’t torture you enemies, EVEN if they torture YOU!

If we’re going to advocate torture as a means of securing information, then let’s repudiate the Geneva Conventions altogether and get on with it. Of course, this would mean that we, as a nation, are no better than the world-class thugs we routinely condemn.

It has finally happened. Even though I voted for George W. Bush twice, I can no longer stand the sound of his voice or the sight of his smirk-laden face. He has come to represent everything that a nation does NOT want its president to be.

OK, that’s it for this week. I really am sick. I have to lie down or I’m going to fall down. With any luck at all, I’ll die in my sleep, preferably right after the climatic point of an intense wet dream!

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.