Bush Essay -- essays research papers

George Bush is not content with the United States being the top dog. His snarling at one international accord after another besmirches the United States and makes the world a more dangerous place. When Bush nixed at the ABM treaty, the comprehensive test ban treaty, the biological weapons protocol, and the small-arms convention, he sent an unmistakable signal that the United States doesn't care about arms control. This will only encourage other nations to bolster their own arsenals, and the arms race will accelerate on every track. And when Bush led the United States out of the Kyoto accord on global warming, he turned Washington into a laughingstock, with 178 nations on one side and the United States on the other. By not requiring U.S. companies, which produce a huge chunk of the world's carbon dioxide, to curb their emissions, Bush showed a reckless disregard for the environmental health of the planet. Like many know-nothings, Bush believes the United States is better than any other country. They're foreigners; what do they know? So what if 178 nations disagree with us? We've got the Holy Grail. We're so different from all these other nations that our interests can't possibly coincide with theirs. After returning from Europe on his first trip, he bragged to Peggy Noonan, his dad's speechwriter, that he stood down more than twenty leaders (no matter they were our allies) so he could stand up for America. Bush also has Kissinger's phobia: the morbid fear that other countries will drag U.S. soldiers or statesmen to The Hague or elsewhere for prosecution. Belgium is already trying to get its hands on Kissinger, and Bush wants to make sure that Americans elude any court outside our borders. The one job Bush takes seriously is that of chief executive of the corporate class. Boeing, Lockheed, and Philip Morris want to be able ply their wares without interference from any international body, so Bush undercuts those bodies at every opportunity. The World Health Organization, for instance, is trying to get countries to sign on to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which would, among other things, limit advertising, raise cigarette taxes, eliminate subsidies, and consider the possibility of expanding the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice so that tobacco companies could be tried for crimes against humanity. Tobacco killed four million p... ...to boycott the Kyoto protocol could cost U.S. companies business in the area of environmental technology." So even if Bush's ultimate objective is to boost the bottom line of U.S. corporations, he may be going about it the wrong way. Note that I haven't even mentioned the appointment of extremists like John Ashcroft and Theodore Olson, who will be advising Bush about whom to appoint to the federal bench; or Gale Norton, the James Watt protà ©gà ©e now heading the Interior Department, who believes polluters should be trusted to be self-policing; or Andrew Card, the automobile industry's chief lobbyist, now Chief of Staff; or Michael Powell, the new head of the FCC, who has no interest in moderating media mergers. And I haven't said a word about so-called social issues. We should not be surprised by the predatory nature of U.S. foreign policy. Until the U.S. government and until the American people get over their superiority complex, until they understand that United States and most other nations have common interests that transcend borders and jingos, that cooperation not domination is the way of the future, the foreign policy of the United States will have a familiar snarl.