WILL THERE BE A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?
by Michael I. Niman
It's becoming perfectly clear that if all eligible voters are allowed to
vote in the upcoming US presidential election, and if all of those votes
are properly counted, George W. Bush's political career will be over.
Fool Me Once...
Former Bush voters are popping up everywhere, proclaiming their plans to
switch over and oppose the man who duped them. Old school conservatives are
appalled at Bush's neo-liberal trade policies and his assault on civil
liberties and the constitution. Pious evangelicals are speaking out about
all the lies, greed and mistreatment of the poor. The Gipper's son, Ron
Reagan Jr., just issued a strong endorsement for anyone but Bush.
Nascar's son-of-god, Dale Ernhardt Junior, recently admonished a million
Fox Sports viewers to follow in his footsteps and go see Michael Moore's
Bush-bashing film, Fahrenheit 9/11.
Log Cabin Republicans, the Gay and Lesbian wing of the GOP, ain't gonna be
there doing their usual shameless Quisling routine for W like they were
four years ago--not with Bush publicly opposing their rather conservative
yearn for nuclear families. On the other side of the culture-wars stand
conservative American Muslims who supported Bush's Ayatollah-like cultural
agenda and donated heavily to his last election bid. They've since
defected en-mass to the "anyone but Bush" camp. Their beef is obvious,
with Bush's foreign policy appearing to most of the Islamic world as the
"crusade" Bush initially described it as, and with his domestic policy
stripping Muslim-Americans of their basic rights while Muslim non-citizens
face indefinite detention.
The list of rats jumping off the sinking Bush ship is impressive, with
scores of former administration officials, CIA spooks and military brass
among the defectors. Conservative stalwart Pat Buchanan is currently
putting the finishing touches on an anti-Bush book. Twenty six
ex-diplomats and former military commanders, including many who served in
the Reagan and Bush I administrations, recently issued a statement warning
that the current Bush administration has damaged national security and
should be defeated in November. Average Americans who don't often talk
politics are publicly proclaiming their own personal defections to the
anti-Bush camp with an almost religious fervor.
Bush's Invisible New Flock
By contrast, there's not a single Gore voter out there testifying that
they're switching over to Bush for this election. No apathetic non-voters
are rushing to register because they're wooed by Bush's dynamic leadership
and vision. Young first-time voters aren't jumping on the Bush bandwagon
because they're excited about being drafted or having their college
financial aid diverted to Iraq.
Look at this quantum political shift and then do the math. The last
election, by any account, was close. Despite re-count controversies, no
one questions the fact that nationwide, Bush got a half million fewer votes
than Al Gore.
New electronic voting machines manufactured by Bush-connected companies,
with their security holes, secret programming and lack of recount
accountability, may play a role in giving Bush a boost in battleground
states like Ohio or Georgia--but more and more Americans are becoming wise
to these Trojan Horses, with California leading the way and decertifying
them for the upcoming presidential election.
Likewise, the cat is out of the bag on the systematic disenfranchisement of
black voters. The Miami Herald, for example, just published (July 3) an
expose about a recent Florida purge of eligible registered black voters
from the election roles--something they didn't report about until after
the last Florida presidential election. The disenfranchised around the US
are now beginning an uphill battle to regain their rights to vote in
November. Nine members of the US House of Representatives have even
petitioned the UN to send election observers to monitor the November
election in hopes of preventing a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco.
IF We Have Elections
The fear is real. If we have fair elections, Bush is certain to lose. But
there's a big if here. History has shown that regimes that come into power
in the way the Bush junta did seldom relinquish power in a fair electoral
process. Given the current political realities, we can't even take it for
granted that there will be an election.
I started floating this idea a few months ago, but I never put it into
print. It seemed like the kind of thing paranoiacs would discuss over beer.
I added a military coup to the theoretical mix. It made for interesting
conversation, going something like this: Bush, facing a hopeless election,
declares martial law over some Code Red event, canceling the election, with
the military stepping in and removing him from power, probably installing
Kerry, who shows great promise as a lapdog. A subsequent "election"
would rubber-stamp the coup and the military would essentially continue to
run the country as it more or less has since the Kennedy assassination.
Yeah, this is crazy talk and I'd never put this out there as a bona fide
theory--but given what we've seen during the last four years, anything is
possible.
Then came the quiet announcement by DeForest Soaries, the Bush-appointed
chair of a new federal election commission, that the US needs to establish
guidelines for canceling the presidential election in the event of a
devastating terrorist attack. Suddenly the unthinkable is on the table.
According to the Associated Press (June 25), Soaries pointed to the recent
election in Spain, which took place a few days after the March 11 Madrid
attack--as demonstrating the need to deal with terrorists interrupting
elections. Interestingly enough, the Spanish election went off without a
hitch--except the pro-Bush government was voted out of office, leading to
the subsequent withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.
CIA: Osama Sweet on Bush
More alarming is a recent new book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing
the War on Terror. Unlike most anti-Bush whistle-blower tracts, this one is
written by a current CIA agent presently in service to the agency. Hence,
in order for Imperial Hubris to be published, it had to be cleared by top
CIA brass and published with the author's name removed. In short, the CIA
had to approve the book, making it more of an official tract than an
expose.
One of the tenets of Imperial Hubris is that al-Qaeda wants the Bush
administration to remain in power. According to the book, Bush is the ideal
American president for al-Qaeda. All of his foreign policy actions serve to
strengthen the terrorist group which feeds off of the anti-American
sentiment generated by what much of the world views as Bush's war on
Islam. In this vein, the author(s) worry that al-Qaeda might attack the US
with the aim of forestalling regime change in this country--possibly with
a pre-election terror strike such as the one Soaries says could provide
cause for canceling the election.
If there's one thing that the events of the last few years clearly
demonstrate, it's that the Bush administration is a criminal regime hell
bent on solidifying its power--American political traditions be damned.
Given the combination of a regime desperate to stay in power by any means,
a foreign terrorist army seemingly desperate to keep them in power, and a
US military and intelligence community apparently anxious as hell to be
rid of them, this election season promises to be anything but dull. Or
maybe Soaries is just a worrier and the CIA is full of shit--in which case
we should start preparing to deal with four years of John Kerry and a
kinder gentler corporate scheme for world domination.
Michael I. Niman's previous columns are online.
-------------
Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, July 10, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution
WW3Report.com
Current Issue