The Bush effect

It is amazing how some visionary people can predict or see through the cloud of current events. Georges Orwell in his “1984” fiction book described through the story of a couple of lovers how the world would be in 1984. The book was written in 1946, just after WWII and the start of the cold war era.

The deception, the totalitarianism, the despotism, the Big Brother concept, the population surveillance, the spinning of the news, the rewriting of history by governments to suit its politics, justifying the unjustifiable…etc. On all this, Orwell was right on.

And I am not talking here about governments of banana countries, I am thinking about the current administration of the USA, headed by President Bush.

I talked about one of the aspects of news spinning and truth twisting in a post, a couple of days ago. In the same series, I want to share with these blunders made by Bush’s administration.

1) Iraq war spending:
SIGIR, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is a body created by US congress to oversee the spending of over $3 billion of taxpayer’s money on Iraq reconstruction. This team audited hundreds of projects saving around $400M. It investigated 243 cases of abuse or embezzlement that sometimes resulted in arrest and jailing of such wrong doers. It also issued reports criticizing the white house effort of reconstruction.

I guess Bush’s administration did not like seeing these contractors having tough time trying to get the money, so in mid September, he instructed republicans in the congress to slip a small provision in a military bill they are working on, that would close this office by 10/07. They did, it passed and he signed it. A lot of congressman did not know that the just did that until 2 days ago! The new democrat led senate just introduced a bill that would extend the SIGIR mission beyond 2007. The fact that a lot of this

2)Bush Internment camps
In January 2006 Homeland Security awarded a $385 million contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton Co., to build "temporary detention and processing capabilities" aka “internment camps” in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. Actually more clues about the US switching to be a police state can be found on this article “Toward a police state in America”

3) On October 17, 2006 Bush signed the Military Commissions Act (MCA). This law was barely covered in the US and it breaks all the rules of civil and human. Under the MCA the president or the secretary of defense can declare any person US citizen or not an "enemy combatant" who can be jailed, has no right to an attorney and can even be tortured. Jail time in unlimited!!!! Is this constitutional? You understand now how right was Orwell in “1984”.

4)In the same Military bill used in (1), republicans buried deep down the hundreds of acts, sections and titles a small provision that give full power to the president to use the state national guards, which in the US is normally equivalent to a state martial laws, since that’s the only time where state soldiers report to the president instead of their governor. Some call this a mini coup. This information was not mentioned in any newspaper and it came to light through blog rumors. A journalist took the time to check and confirm it. I did the same exercise by checking the congress site, and found it here, look for Title V, Subtitle B, section 531 :-). So now soldiers can be used on the US soil at any time, peace or war, whenever the president or the secretary of state requires it.

" To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. " George Orwell.

" Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. " George Orwell.