by James Glaser
April 23, 2003

George Bush, with no national debate and not a hint of this direction in his Presidential campaign, has decided that the United States can attack any nation that frightens us. If America feels threatened by any country, in any way, according to this new "Bush Doctrine," we as a nation have the right to destroy not only that nations government, but its infrastructure and many of its civilian population.

Today the people of Iraq are the second country to suffer from this new Bush Doctrine. Afghanistan was the first. We could not destroy the Afghan's infrastructure as they had none, but we were able to destroy the little bit of government they did have, along with several thousand innocent civilians.

In Iraq, the United States was able to make the national government totally vanish, while severely damaging their medical, electrical, water, and sewage systems. The whole structure of Iraq's national, regional and local government is in disarray. Total unemployment faces many of the cities in Iraq today.

The loss of jobs, along with the loss of electricity and fresh drinking water has turned many urban areas in Iraq into a state of anarchy. Looting and burning of National Treasures and Educational Facilities like museums and libraries has destroyed much of the peoples ability to learn from their past history and will severely hurt their future.

Because of International pressure, the United States will not be allowed to occupy Iraq for the long term and the people of Iraq will have to form a new government. If the Iraqi people turn to a fundamental Islamic leader for their national direction or if Iraq fragments into regional civil war, Bush's vision of diplomacy will take a real body blow.

Even if as Washington envisions, Iraq adopts a democratic form of government, they may just remove all the American companies installed to run their oil industry and ask America to leave. This unprovoked attack of Iraq could come back to haunt Bush's vision of a New World Order. Iraq may look at this war, as not one of liberation, but one of occupation.

Yes, the people of Iraq hold the votes in this election. The Iraqi people, not the American people will be the ones to vote on the effectiveness of this Bush Doctrine. Those in Afghanistan lost that right to vote, when Washington decided to employ all the old War Lords to run most of that country and bought the election of Harmid Karzi with American tax dollars.

That won't work in Iraq, as the whole world is watching every move we make. Iraq's elections will have to be on the up and up. The sad thing is that it took so much death and destruction, for the Iraqi people to become eligible to vote in this one.

If Iraq dismisses America and the sacrifice of young Americans for George's doctrine proves to be a waste of precious blood, George Bush will have to look for new means to continue on his quest of global domination. As more and more countries develop or buy nuclear weapons in order to deter United State's aggression, President Bush may find that his idea of unprovoked attacks on Third World Countries has hurt our Nation and the safety of the world.