In decades to come, historians will have plenty of fodder on which to debate whether George Bush was the first tyrant to rule the United States.
"Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent..." - George W. Bush on tyrants and tyranny.
Wikipedia notes that the term began in ancient Greece where, at the time, it wasn't particularly disparaging but its meaning has evolved over the centuries. "The term "tyrant", used literally or metaphorically, now carries connotations of cruel despots who place their own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the "best" interests of the general population which they govern or control."
How does the 43rd president of the United States stand when measured by these tests?
Mr. Bush has indisputably caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis in the course of bringing his grand vision of regime change and implanting democracy in the Middle East. He has certainly ended up alienating decent people around the globe.
George Bush hasn't claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent, if only because he can't risk the backlash. However who needs provocative words when it is enough to act as though the people are weak and decadent?
The sitting president has openly acknowledged that his people rejected the Iraq war in the last election and that he's lost their confidence. He realizes he no longer has the support of America's congress including many senators and representatives of his own party. The views of the weak and decadent are of no moment to George Bush who sweeps their will aside in favour of his own to perpetuate his Iraq war and to take the US to the brink of hostilities with Iran and Syria.
What of the test of a leader who places his own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which he governs or controls? How do you count the ways?
Bush's tax reform which transfers the burden of the federal spending onto wage earners while exempting the affluent, investor class? Tax cuts for the rich, deficits for the poor? Tax cuts for the rich amidst an astonishingly expensive war? Haliburton, Bechtel, Kellog Root and Brown? A wide variety of measures to savage social programmes and to fiscally hobble the federal system with crippling debt far into the future? The rapidly widening gap between rich and poor, the suppression of America's middle class and curbs that reduce opportunities for advancement up the social ladder. Remember the black tie affair during his first term where Bush gazed from the podium upon the well heeled, said how pleased he was to be with "the haves and the have mores" which he described as "my kind of people"? He wasn't joking.
Now quick, name six major benefits that this president has bestowed on working class Americans?
Then there are the imperial trappings. Rejection of basic international law and repudiation of treaties. Stripping the people of constitutional rights and freedoms. Warrantless searches and secret interception of communications. Near total secrecy and outright rejection of accountability. Extra-judicial legal proceedings and indefinite detention without charge or trial. Kidnapping and torture. The unrestrained resort to "signing statements" to declare this presidency above the laws of the country.
What will be the legacy of this president? It will be a war, not of necessity but of whim, thrust on a nation, a people vulnerable to their own shock and fears, and force fed a poisonous diet of exaggeration, distortion and outright deceit.
These are not the acts of a leader who respects democracy. They are the acts of another kind of leader altogether.
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