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Star Wars II: Bush Keeps Striking Back
// And Tripping Up
The US government's new budget, which allocates record sums for the continuation of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, is neither unexpected nor overly titillating. During George Bush's two terms in office, military expenditures have consumed the lion's share of the American budgetary pie, ever since the moment in the war in Afghanistan when the Pentagon launched its bid for lavish expenditures on the "21st-century weaponry" being developed by the American military-industrial complex. Specialized trade journals published material on every last cunning little device, such as a bomb equipped with a satellite-based laser guidance system and unmanned assassin drones that were supposed to help the American army achieve a quick and bloodless victory in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, thus avoiding the fate of the Soviet troops who passed through the country fifteen years ago. When the Taliban was routed without much bloodshed, the taxpayers were initially convinced by the arguments from the military strategists, leaving the Republican Congress free to approve record budget allocations for military spending.
The Bush administration's budget for 2008 is based on familiar budgetary policies. Like three and five years ago, almost unprecedented military spending is accompanied by lower taxes and cutbacks in funding for social programs (a symbolic 1% growth in expenditures on social needs will be neatly gobbled up by inflation). George Bush has also shown himself to be a devoted pupil of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" and his Strategic Defense Initiative, as well as his slash and burn approach to taxation and social expenditures. Today's federal budget is remarkably reminiscent of the 1980s in President Reagan's America.
However, that is where the similarity between the two presidents ends. President Reagan succeeded adroitly in trimming the claws of those who would criticize his budgetary policy, which was based on astronomical outlays of funds in pursuit of the president's single overarching goal: to wipe communism from the face of the Earth. That was one for the history books, and now the question of what his administration spent the taxpayers' money on is completely moot. But George Bush appears to not be fated to enjoy the same kind of triumph as his political guru: all of his histrionics notwithstanding, he looks unlikely to succeed in wiping out global terrorism.
The Iraq campaign destroyed the myth of the omnipotence of the "weapons of the 21st century" that George Bush, following in Ronald Reagan's footsteps, believed in so devoutly. The problem, it turns out, isn't so much with the weapons, despite the increasing frequency with which American helicopters are plummeting from the sky over Iraq. The discussion of the new budget coincides with new promises from on high that the "zero hour" is at hand in Iraq, when American forces will finally carry out some amazing mission that will cause the earth and heavens to tremble and purge the land of America's enemies. In truth, however, this is all looking more and more like self-hypnosis. President Bush repeats it like a mantra: "Give me money." But victory in Iraq cannot and will not be bought for that or any amount of money in the world.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 06, 2007
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