By Regis T. Sabol
The previous Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that another 93,000 American workers lost their jobs in August. The jobless rate did drop from 6.2 to 6.1 percent, but that’s because more than a million unemployed workers listed themselves as self-employed rather than admit that, after a year of trying, they couldn’t find a decent job. That pushes the number of Americans out of work to roughly 3 million. And the odds of most of those 3 million unemployed finding comparable jobs are slim at best.
Two days earlier, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the number of Americans living in poverty increased by more than 1.3 million last year. The total number of Americans living in poverty increased from 12.1 percent in 2001 to 12.4 percent last year, according to the Bureau. What that means is 34 million Americans now live in poverty. The number of families living in poverty jumped by 300,000 last year to 7 million. We haven’t seen numbers like that since the Great Depression.
It gets worse. The number of children living in poverty rose by more than 600,000 to 12.2 million last year. That’s right. More than 12.2 million American children do not have enough food to eat, clothes to wear, decent shelter, or adequate medical care.
The good news is that Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress dismantled the nation’s welfare system a few years ago. Those 3 million or 4 plus million unemployed, those 34 million poor, and those 12 million poverty-stricken American children ought to just suck it up and find a job. Hey. Check out Wal-Mart. Fill out an application at your local McDonalds. Oops, that’s right. McDonalds’ profits were down last year.
Even more good news: expert economists keep telling us that the recession ended back in November 2001, and the economy is rebounding. Retail sales are up and the Stock Market is bouncing back. The fact that none of this has done anything to help the unemployed and the poor doesn’t seem to matter.
Now Bush wants Congress to give him another $87 million for a war he said we all but won back in May. (You remember that dramatic Top Gun landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier and the stirring speech in front of the banner that proclaimed “Mission Accomplished.”) More than $66 billion will go to the military while $20.3 billion will be used to rebuild and provide security for Iraq. And here’s the worst part. Congress is going to give him the money, every penny of it.
As I sat in front of the television Sunday night watching Bush focus those beady little eyes on the TV monitor, I could not help but marvel at the man’s consistency and his chutzpah. Example: The very first sentence out of his mouth reminded us that this fiasco in Iraq was caused by the attacks of 9/11.
9/11 is the Bush regime’s version of “Remember the Maine.” And just as we went to war against Spain even though that country had nothing to do with the sinking of the Maine in Cuba’s harbor (It turned out that the ship’s overheated boiler room blew up, igniting its munitions.), Bush led us to war against Iraq even though he knew no evidence indicated that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. Maybe that explains why almost 70 percent of the American people still believe the evil Saddam helped the equally evil Osama bin Laden attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The mantra of the Bush White House is that when evidence contradicts policy, cry 9/11.
The Great Leader told us that defeating terrorists in Iraq “will take time, and require sacrifice.” What he didn’t tell us is how much time and who will make the sacrifice. The best he could offer was, “Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom, and to make our own nation more secure.”
He didn’t mention those awful weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to be the pressing causes belli for invading Iraq, nor did he mention Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Whatever happened to them? What happened to “Wanted: Dead or Alive.”
So now, as Paul Krugman of The New York Times, points out, “almost half the Army’s combat strength is bogged down in a country that wasn’t linked to Al Qaeda and apparently didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.” Having defeated Iraq’s conventional army, our conventional army is now mired in a guerilla war with Saddam loyalists and Islamist fundamentalists from the Middle East.
As the French learned in Indochina and Algeria, as the United States learned in Vietnam, and as the former USSR learned in Afghanistan, conventional armies cannot win guerilla wars. It’s like an elephant trying to swat a swarm of malarial mosquitoes.
Even though our own generals in the field have acknowledged that our forces are engaged in a guerilla war, Bush insists on calling the enemy “terrorists” and “killers.” Of course they’re terrorists and killers, George. That’s what guerilla warfare is all about.
To put the matter bluntly, this war on terror could go on ad infinitum. That means Bush can run for reelection as America’s leader in the war on terror. Who would be so unpatriotic as to vote against such a noble leader?
That brings us to sacrifice. After 9/11, Bush urged all Americans to sacrifice by going shopping. Who will make the sacrifices this time? Will it be the 10 percent of America’s taxpayers who benefited enormously from the two Bush tax cuts that have already put the country $50 billion in the hole? No. Bush and his Republican cronies in Congress want to make those tax cuts permanent.
Well, if the rich don’t have to sacrifice, who does? That’s right, folks. The rest of us. According to The New York Times, Rep. William M. Thornberry of Texas, a Republican member of the Budget and Armed Services Committees, said, “the size of the commitment could force Congress to slow down on spending elsewhere, and predicted that some members would now be far more reluctant to approve a prescription drug benefit for Medicare or other big-ticket spending proposals.” So, all you old folks subsisting on Social Security who must choose between purchasing maintenance drugs for those nagging little problems like heart disease and paying the heating bill, take your pick: die warm or freeze.
All 50 states are going bankrupt because, unlike the federal government, they are required to balance their budgets. Consequently, public safety has been put at risk as police and firemen are being laid off and outlays for essential safety equipment have been put on hold; public schools have fewer teachers and larger classes, fewer textbooks and gaping holes in their roofs (The entire budget for the Department of Education is $51.1 billion.); libraries are closing, and communities are losing other essential services; our highways, bridges, and other critical infrastructure are falling apart; and we are the only industrialized nation without an efficient rail system.
Even before the Iraqi War, George Bush told the nation’s governors not to expect any help from the federal government. If it’s any consolation, Bush now intends to pour more than $20 billion into Iraq to improve its schools and infrastructure.
Those making the hugest sacrifice are the very men and women Bush likes to have standing behind him for every speech, for every photo opportunity as he preens before the American public and the world as the Great Warrior. I’m talking about the roughly 140,000 service men and women now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most are members of our all-volunteer armed forces who joined up because their options in civilian life were limited. (Only one member of Congress has a child who is a member of the Armed Services.) Others are members of the Army Reserves and National Guard who were lured into enlisting with the promise of “one weekend a month.” Now they find themselves in the hot, dusty, deserts of Iraq in harm’s way for a year or longer.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq and Afghanistan this past weekend to survey progress of the war on terror and offer his support to the troops. What he did not tell them is that he had already signed an order committing these “weekend warriors” to a full year of duty in a combat zone. Not only that, regular troops face the prospect of returning to Iraq for another full year after their original rotation.
And still, despite all these lies, all this deceit, all this perfidy, despite an economy in shambles, George Bush enjoys an approval rating of 54 percent by the American people, according to the most recent polls. Are we as a nation so blinded by jingoism and hubris that we cannot see the havoc this man and his regime have wrought upon this country? Did 9/11 so blind us to reality?
How many body bags will it take? When George Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, 137 Americans had died in combat; another 150 have been killed since then. Just yesterday, (Tuesday, September 9), one soldier died and seven were wounded in combat.
How many more soldiers will lose their lives or their limbs?
How many more Americans will lose their jobs?
How many more Americans will be thrown into poverty?
Just how many will it take?
Regis T. Sabol is a senior editor of Intervention Magazine. He is also editor of A New Deal: an online magazine of political, social, and cultural thought.
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003
