George W. Bush (Bush II) is the current leader of the once free world. Like his father and going back to Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party stopped being liberal (as in libertarian, not like the Democratic Party label), no longer supports personal freedoms, no longer recognizes that people have myriad personal tastes, thinks personal responsibility needs to be shored up with governmental mandates on behaviors that didn't adversely affect others, decides the power of free trade needs more protection for the rich at the expense of workers, and no longer concerns itself with smaller governments using fewer tax dollars.
But they did start supporting the Christian Coalition. Fundamentalism has returned to power in the United States, and it's been ugly ever since. Christian Zionists want Israel to be a flashpoint because they believe it will herald in the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Bush team seems to echo the government-sponsored abuses of Saddam and the Taliban and the terrorist-sponsored abuses of al Qaeda, all using force to inflict their sense of false morality on others.
The religious right touts itself as a Christian organization, but when in power, we see that power corrupts and Jesus is nowhere to be found. Rather than following in the footsteps of Jesus, the United States has been lead down a path in which more criminals are being executed than in any other country besides communist China. The U.S. has the fastest growing prison population, mostly holding non-violent drug offenders, a crime that only exists because someone said it was illegal, not because of any demonstrable harm caused by those who have a taste for a variety of "unapproved" drugs.
Bush II has invaded two countries, neither of which attacked us, ousted the governments there, and occupies them to this date with over a hundred thousand troops. We're spending over $1,000,000,000 every week in Iraq alone, though I'm sure we could find something better to do with our money. People are dying daily in gun, mortar, bomb and rocket attacks, people that include women, children, the elderly as well as many young men. Being a young, male and Iraqi makes you a target because you're "of military age."
Under Bush II, Halliburton, KPMG and other large corporations have been getting rich bilking taxpayers by overcharging for oil, supplies, reconstruction and the like. Did I mention that the Vice President, Dick Cheney, used to run Halliburton and that his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, as well as the president himself, come from big oil? How about the fact that a $2 billion gas pipeline deal between Unocal and the Taliban exploded because of al Qaeda terrorism in Afghanistan, and the Taliban had meetings in Texas? Or that the new head of Afghanistan worked on that very deal on behalf of Unocal? Coincidence?
What was it that Jesus said about rich people and heaven? At least my poverty is good for one thing: I won't see those goofballs in heaven.
Where's that passage where Jesus says to bomb, invade and occupy foreign lands after making up stories about others and then casting that first stone despite being rife with sin?
Everyone agrees that al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and many others, and while they were certainly present in Afghanistan, that country itself did not attack the United States, and al Qaeda is well known to operate in hundreds of countries. Afghanistan, under the ugly Taliban regime, was put in the hard position of having to bow to U.S. pressure to turn over the very people that helped them win their war against the Soviet Union with our military help. After all, al Qaeda not a government entity, nor is it even supported directly by those governments. Sure, the Taliban may have provided some funding or allowed them to operate training camps inside their borders, but this wasn't that unexpected considering that they had helped the Taliban come to power. Unfortunately, so did the United States, including giving al Qaeda weapons back when they were fighting the Soviets who also invaded Afghanistan.
If you don't believe that al Qaeda and the Taliban are quite distinct, watch the death and destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Spain, even though Iraq and Afghanistan have been toppled for over a year and are controlled by the United States? If al Qaeda is operating today while we control those two countries that supposedly sponsored them, we must now be supporting them. And if we're not, then perhaps they weren't either. And if we're hit with another terrorist attack in the U.S., what country will we bomb and occupy next?