Today's Bush administration is one of the scariest (and richest) groups of government officials ever to sit in the White House. Their individual records are so frighteningly filled with illegalities, corruption and ultra-conservative big business ties that it is difficult to see how much of the American public is simply not aware of their histories. In what follows I will try to give a very brief overview of three of the members of Bush's administration, while stating openly that the damning record on almost the entire administration goes much deeper than the few lines I provide below. I encourage everyone who is interested to do their own research outside the dominant television and newspaper media, and you will be amazed at what you uncover about these individuals.
Vice President Dick Cheney: In 1986, as a member of the House of Representatives in Congress, Cheney voted against the resolution demanding that South Africa's apartheid government release freedom fighter Nelson Mandela from prison, and recognize his African National Congress (the current governing party in South Africa) as a legitimate representative of the black majority.
In 1985, 1986 and 1988 Cheney repeatedly opposed bills to implement economic sanctions on the apartheid government of South Africa. By this time, almost the entire world (with the exception of Israel, which was the last country to withdraw its support of the racist regime because it had deals with the all-white government to develop a nuclear weapons program) had joined in the boycott of South African goods, demanding an end to the horrible discrimination against the non-white majority before renewing ties.
Cheney has a net worth of $70 million. As CEO of the Halliburton corporation from 1995 to 2000, he received a $35 million salary. He still holds much stock in the company and still receives a deferred salary from Halliburton. Halliburton, incidentally, has been awarded contracts by the Bush administration wherever possible, from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay to the over $2 billion they've been rewarded in contracts for work in Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld: Rumsfeld is now famous as the principle coordinator of the latest U.S. invasion of Iraq. For all his rhetoric concerning the horrible crimes of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and the necessity to remove him from power, Rumsfeld's own history of ties to Hussein proves rich. In 1983, in the heart of the Iran-Iraq war that lasted throughout the 80s, Rumsfeld was dispatched by then President Reagan as a special envoy to Baghdad. There, he would meet personally with Saddam Hussein, and deliver him a letter expressing the desire of the U.S. to renew contact with Hussein's regime because Rumsfeld and the Reagan administration saw their relationship with Iraq at the time as very useful. At that point, Hussein had already used chemical weapons against the Iranians.
In March of 1984, Rumsfeld made a second visit to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. On the same day as his visit, Iraq used illegal mustard gas on Iranian troops along its border. Immediately after the visit, the U.S. confirmed it had restored full diplomatic ties with Iraq, seemingly proving that Rumsfeld did not give a hoot if Hussein used chemical weapons on his own people or on anyone else, as long as Hussein did our dirty work. As former president FDR once put it, "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." As a result of Rumsfeld's diplomacy, American arms manufacturers could now begin selling the Iraqi dictator the weapons arsenal that the U.S. would later fight against in the first Gulf War.
Rumsfeld is one of the Bush administration's wealthiest members, with millions of dollars invested and saved from deals with nuclear energy companies, oil firms and the RAND corporation.
Colin Powell: Touted as a "moderate" within this Bush administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell is in fact one of the most slippery of the bunch. Powell, who was born in Harlem, has had to sell out his race and class background to make it in a white male dominated world. African-American leaders today agree with the assessment Randall Robinson made of Powell when he visited Duke last year: "Colin Powell is only biologically black."
Powell served in Vietnam in the America Division, and was one of the officers notified about the infamous My Lai massacre of 1968, where American troops raped and then massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. His response to an Army complaint about the massacre went as follows: "There may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs," but, "relations between America soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."
Like many other members of this current Bush administration, Powell also served under the Reagan administration that was at the center of the Iran-Contra fiasco. He used his friends in the Saudi Arabian government to help channel millions of dollars through the Saudis and on to the Nicaraguan "Contras." The Contras, whom Powell and the Reagan administration supported, were an ultra-right group from Nicaragua formed and trained by the CIA in Honduras (under the ambassadorship of John Negroponte, now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) with the goal of having them overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
Powell's personal fortune is estimated at $24 million. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell are just three of the current Bush administration's flock of neo-conservative officials seeking out both personal and ideologically extreme goals while in office. Their records are frightening, but what is even more concerning is the lack of public debate about these individuals' personal histories and conflicting interests as members of the U.S. government.
Yousuf Al-Bulushi is a Trinity senior. His column usually appears every third Tuesday.
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