An E-Mail Exchange With Howie, My (Far) Right-Wing Friend in NY: Is There, or Is There Not, a "Bush Doctrine?"

Howie: Basically, the term "Bush Doctrine" was coined by Charles Krauthammer, and I sent you his article that "suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine."

Me: Howie, you're killing me with this. There are so many more important things I ought to be doing with my time than trying to persuade you that a pit-bull is not a pig and that a horse is not a house and that fantasy is not reality. It is, I believe, a powerful testimony of my unfailing love for you that I go to all this trouble. I only wish you had any respect for me -- and for yourself -- and took the world more seriously.

I did a Lexis-Nexis search (it is a subscription database of, among other things, US and world newspapers, newsmagazines, and radio and television news transcripts which I have access to through Roosevelt's library) of the phrase "Bush Doctrine" for all the time between June 2002 and August 15, 2008. In other words, it does NOT search anything AFTER the Palin interview. I got over 1000 results. Please read them carefully. Here's my disclaimer, though: I'm only copying the essential parts of each story, where the term "Bush Doctrine" is used specifically. And, since this is a subscription service, I can't give you any hyperlinks. I urge you to go to a library and get a copy of each if you want to read the whole article.

Here's the very first one, from the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:

• Kill first, ask questions later

BYLINE: Robert Manne. Robert Manne is associate professor of politics at La Trobe University.
SECTION: NEWS AND FEATURES; Opinion; Pg. 13 LENGTH: 966 words
September 30, 2002
Monday Late Edition

The black holes in Bush's logic might suck us all in.TEN days ago, George Bush handed to the Congress a document of fundamental importance, outlining a new military doctrine for the United States.

The new doctrine argues that in the 10 years following the Soviet collapse, the US failed to grasp the nature of the threats posed by the post-Cold War world. With the terrible events of September 11, America awoke.

At first, the US characterised the new enemy it faced as "terrorism". Later, it refined the idea of the new enemy to "terrorism with a global range", a euphemism for the
kind of terrorism with the capacity to inflict harm on the civilian populations in America or the West.

Since the shock of September 11, the new enemy has expanded to include what have been called "rogue states". In the Bush doctrine, a rogue state is a regime which brutalises its own people, seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction and expresses hatred for the US...We arrive here at the heart of the new Bush military doctrine. The US, it is claimed, presently faces the prospect of
attack either from one of the rogue states or from a terrorist group supplied by
them with weapons of mass destruction. Before this kind of threat, Cold War
ideas about deterrence and containment are obsolete. The only rational military strategy is the "pre-emptive strike".

Here's one from the Straits Times (Singapore) from October of 2002 (first two paragraphs):

• Dubya's dangerous and divisive doctrine

October 16, 2002 Wednesday
AMITAV ACHARYA

THE new American strategic doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, enunciated a year after Sept 11, provokes more discord internationally than it catalyses accord domestically.

Past presidential doctrines helped American leaders mobilise domestic support and organise international coalitions. The Bush Doctrine is the most divisive post-war pronouncement.

From the Washington Post, October 2003 (I'm copying the entire article, as it directly references the Bush Doctrine several times, and even quotes Richard Perle -- one of the neo-cons who created it through his work at PNAC -- directly referring to the Bush Doctrine as preemptive first strike):

• The 'Bush Doctrine' Experiences Shining Moments

December 21, 2003 Sunday Final Edition

BYLINE: Dana Milbank, Washington Post Staff Writer

SECTION: A Section; A26LENGTH: 1041 words

It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine.

Beginning with the capture of Saddam Hussein a week ago and ending Friday with an agreement by Libya's Moammar Gaddafi to surrender his unconventional weapons, one after another international problem has eased.

On Tuesday, the leaders of France and Germany set aside their long-standing opposition to the war in Iraq and agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of that country's debt. On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities after European governments applied intense pressure on the U.S. foe. On Friday, Libya agreed to disarm under the watch of international inspectors, just as administration officials were learning that Syria had seized $23.5
million believed to be for al Qaeda.

To foreign policy hard-liners inside and outside the administration, the gestures by Libya, Iran and Syria, and the softening by France and Germany, all have the same cause: a show of American might.

Those who developed the Bush Doctrine -- a policy of taking preemptive, unprovoked action against emerging threats -- predicted that an impressive U.S. victory in Iraq would intimidate allies and foes alike, making them yield to U.S. interests in other areas.

Though that notion floundered with the occupation in Iraq, the capture of Hussein may have served as the decisive blow needed to make others respect U.S. wishes, they say. "It's always been at the heart of the Bush Doctrine that a more robust policy would permit us to elicit greater cooperation from adversaries than we'd had in the past when we acquiesced," said Richard Perle, an influential adviser to the
administration. "With the capture of Saddam, the sense that momentum may be with us is very important."

Perle had provoked much criticism for saying a successful U.S. invasion of Iraq would signal to other foes that "you're next." But he said the actions by Libya and Iran prove that the threat alone was sufficient to produce action. "Gaddafi surely had to take more seriously that we would not allow him to get away with the programs he was embarked," he said.

Perle and the other "neo-conservative" hawks whose views dominate the Bush administration know better than to claim victory. Gaddafi or the Iranians may still cheat despite admitting inspectors. And other potential foes, notably North Korea and China, have shown little susceptibility to the threat implicit in the Bush Doctrine.

Still, Perle allowed, "it's nice to have a good week every once in a while."

Bush's domestic adversaries have had some trouble responding to the administration's diplomatic successes. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a presidential aspirant, portrayed the success with Libya as an exception to the Bush Doctrine. "Ironically, this significant advance represents a complete U-turn in the Bush administration's overall foreign policy," he said in a statement Saturday. "An administration that scorns multilateralism and boasts about a rigid doctrine of military preemption has almost in spite of itself demonstrated the enormous potential for improving our national security through diplomacy."

But Bush's supporters say it is precisely his willingness to go it alone and take preemptive action that has encouraged other countries to seek diplomatic solutions before the United States launches a military attack. The Libya and Iran concessions "show the peripheral benefit of preemption," said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan administration arms control official who now serves on a Pentagon advisory panel. "Most of all it scares the bejesus out of rogue dictators." As for stubborn allies such as Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, "they pay more attention when there's a forceful U.S. policy," Adelman said.

It is unlikely, of course, that France or Germany would acknowledge that they are reacting to U.S. strength. Yet it is noteworthy that they were conciliatory on the issue of Iraqi debt forgiveness after Hussein was captured -- even though they were complaining bitterly just a week before about a Bush plan to exclude them from U.S.-funded Iraq reconstruction projects.

And it is inarguable that Germany and France have taken a more active role in winning Iranian compliance with weapons inspections since the United States invaded Iraq. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain visited Iran in
October, overcoming Iran's longtime resistance to signing a monitoring agreement.
"The Europeans never would have taken these steps [in Iran] without Bush taking the steps he took in Iraq," said Gary Schmitt, who directs the hard-line Project for the New American Century. "The Europeans don't want us to do another Iraq there, so they're rushing in to get a deal. Bush gets an immense amount of credit for laying out what the agenda is and making others step up to the plate."

Bush still has some inconsistencies to work out with his doctrine. Earlier this month, he drew rebukes from conservatives for undermining democratic Taiwan to win favor with totalitarian China. And, as Bush's domestic opponents point out, he has been contradictory in his views of international organizations. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said the administration's support for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Libya and Iran "is difficult to reconcile with the administration's previous ridicule of IAEA inspectors in Iraq."

But such complaints, at least for now, have been overshadowed by the results achieved with Iran and Libya. That was the clear message Bush delivered in his unusual appearance late Friday in the White House briefing room. Mentioning the fate of Hussein, Bush said, "These actions by the United States and our allies have sent an unmistakable message to regimes that seek or possess weapons of mass destruction."

If Bush was oblique, a senior aide who briefed reporters after the president's statement, was quicker to take credit. "The outcome today is a response [to] the policies that we have pursued," he said. The official said the secret discussions with Libya began in March -- when the invasion of Iraq started. "I can't imagine that Iraq went unnoticed by the Libyan leadership," the aide said.

And -- WOW!!! -- I actually found a reference to the phrase "Bush Doctrine" that links it directly to the White House and the Bush administration, and dates it as far back as October 2001.

• 'Bush Doctrine' sets up rules of engagement

USA TODAY
October 9, 2001, Tuesday, FIRST EDITION
BYLINE: Laurence McQuillanSECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8A LENGTH: 526 words DATELINE: WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON -- White House officials gave a name Monday to the rules of engagement driving the U.S. war on terrorism -- the "Bush Doctrine." The policy makes any nation or group that tolerates terrorists a potential target.

From the Toronto (Canada) Globe and Mail:

• Monroe, Truman and Bush?; U.S. leader aims to become only the third; chief to lay a foreign-policy cornerstone

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 20, 2001 Saturday
BYLINE: JOHN IBBITSON SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS; The War on Terror: THE BATTLE OF IDEAS; Pg. A10 LENGTH: 751 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

There was the Monroe Doctrine. There was the Truman Doctrine. Now, there is the Bush Doctrine.

In his Sept. 20 speech to Congress, U.S. President George W. Bush declared that all nations must either join the United States in combatting terrorism, or be its enemy. He said the government would act against any individual, organization or state "of global reach" that supports terrorism.

In the weeks since, Mr. Bush has referred to "the doctrine I spelled out to the American people." Vice-President Dick Cheney invoked "the Bush Doctrine" in a rousing call to arms Thursday evening.

Coalition forces are attacking Afghanistan in the air and now on the ground in the name of the Bush Doctrine. A growing chorus of politicians demands that the United States attack Iraq in the name of the Bush Doctrine.

From the Boston Globe and the Australian Financial Review on the global political implications of the Bush Doctrine, from October and December of 2001, respectively:

• A DOUBLE STANDARD IN WAR ON TERRORISM?

The Boston Globe
October 24, 2001, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION
BYLINE: By Scot Lehigh, Globe Staff SECTION: OP-ED; Pg. D7 LENGTH: 699 words

IF YOU WISH to converse with me, Voltaire said, define your terms.

In speaking to the world, President Bush needs to do just that, for his zero-tolerance antiterrorism doctrine is one that both friends and rivals clearly hope to appropriate for their own purposes.

Consider our newfound comrade Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Noting that the Kremlin considers the Chechen separatists to be terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden, he has declared that the United States and Russia share a common foe.

Or Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, who called Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Israel's Osama bin Laden. Why, with America drawing a line in the sand against terrorism, should Israel be pressured to negotiate with a man who has sponsored and encouraged terrorists, he asked?

A bit less vocal was India, which faces attacks by Islamic militants hoping to pry all of disputed Kashmir away. "If the US can strike Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks ... why can't we take similar action against terrorists harbored by Pakistan?" wondered Farooq Abdullah, Kashmir's chief minister. Orwellian China would just as clearly like the world to view Tibet through the lens of the Bush doctrine, while Malaysia has used it to justify a suppression of peaceful dissent. And that's just for starters.

• Bush Doctrine suddenly crystallises

The Australian Financial Review
December 10, 2001 Monday
BYLINE: Peter Hartcher SECTION: Pg. 1/11. LENGTH: 99 words

The US President, George W Bush, has won huge support for his stand against terrorism. Bush has established a doctrine that holds all countries that harbourterrorists as being accountable to the US. Bush has declared that for every country that support terrorists there will be a "day of reckoning". Governments around the world have received a warning from what has happened in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan having almost reached a conclusion, the US Government must decide in which country its forces will seek terrorists next. An attack on Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq appears imminent.

Howie (and all my other right wing friends out there), I know you. I don't expect any of this to change your (for lack of a better word) "mind." But you are wrong about this, you are being deceived by post-game spin, and nothing you say or do or believe can EVER change history. There is a Bush Doctrine, it was promulgated by the White House, it has been debated and discussed in terms of its implications for foreign policy and for global politics, and neither Sarah Palin nor you seems ever to have heard of it.

The GOP and right-wing spinmeisters might indeed be successful persuading those American people who choose ignorance over information, and who choose to be led around on a leash by the right-wing media that there are "several Bush Doctrines," but history has already recognized one.

And that's really all there is to it. A century from now people will be studying the Bush Doctrine, and what they'll be studying is this dangerous principle of the preemptive first strike.

There's nothing you can do to change that.

A Surge of Folly

Last week, George Bush informed General David Petraeus, commanding general in Iraq, that he will “have all the time he needs” to achieve success in Iraq.” Success in Iraq was recently defined by Petraeus as the achievement of “sustainable security” in that country. In order to accomplish this goal, Petraeus maintained that it would be necessary to keep nearly 140,000 American troops fighting there for the foreseeable future.

Despite the fact that there was no legitimate reason for invading Iraq in the first place or that over one-million Iraqis and 4000 American soldiers have died as a result of this war, I would grant that many Americans might actually begin to support the Iraq War, if in fact it could be demonstrated that our efforts would lead to “sustainable security” in that country and the possibility of establishing some kind of stable democratic government.

No one would like to see stability in Iraq more than I would, but the sad truth is that stability—whether military or political—will be impossible as long as our fighting forces remain in that country. The vast majority of the Iraqi people, after all, view us as an alien occupying power rather than as liberators. As long as the infidel is occupying an Arab country, there will be no peace in Iraq.

The Bush administration has argued that stability can be achieved through a surge of American troops placed “temporarily” in Iraq to secure troubled hotspots in the country. Admittedly, for several months after the initiation of the surge, the amount of violence in places like Baghdad seemed to have been slightly reduced. Now Bush and Patraeus are arguing that significant forces need to remain in place in Iraq in order to consolidate military gains and to give the Iraqis times to achieve some kind of political progress.

Let’s grant that Iraq could become a flower of democracy blooming in the desert of the Middle East if only we could keep those 140,000 American troops stationed there. The problem with this scenario is that right now we don’t have enough U.S. military personnel to maintain order in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the same time meet our military needs in other parts of the world. We could try to bribe or manipulate more low-income adolescents into joining the military to increase manpower, but the black and hispanic youth who have been the targets of the military’s recruitment campaigns seem to have caught on that this war is a losing proposition. Military recruitment levels, subsequently, remain flaccid and show no signs of improving in the foreseeable future.

Given the current economic crisis in the US, it also is doubtful that we can sustain 300-billion-dollars a week to pay for this war indefinitely. Right now the deficit of the United States stands at $9,410,608,896,562.00 and is growing by one million dollars every minute. That $30,974.22 of debt for each American citizen. Very soon we will have to decide whether we want to continue to pump billions of dollars into the sinkhole that is Iraq or put these funds to better use (e.g., improving our failing schools, shoring-up our crumbling national infrastructure, providing universal healthcare for Americans, etc.). As Lyndon Johnson discovered, you can’t have guns and butter at the same time.

But even if we could miraculously find enough troops to meet our military needs in Iraq and elsewhere and could find enough funds to continue to subsidize the war for as long as is necessary to achieve “sustainable security,” we could still never win in Iraq. In the end, no matter what efforts we make to control Iraq, we will eventually be forced to leave the country in defeat. The reason for this is quite evident to anyone who has studied world history: time and again it has been demonstrated that a foreign occupying force can never succeed in subduing a native population intent upon its removal. Just ask the British in India or Ireland, the Russians in Afghanistan, or the Americans in Vietnam. It may take five or ten or fifty years, but eventually homegrown insurgents like those in Iraq and Afghanistan always win. Time is on their side, after all.

Not being students of history, George Bush and the other flunkies in his administration will never understand this fact. The best that Bush can hope for is to prevent disaster in Iraq until he can leave office in January. Then the unsolvable problems of that sad country will be passed on to the next administration. Let’s just hope that President Obama proves to have a better grasp of history than his intellectually challenged predecessor.

Father's Day Reality Check

An Update on the "Worst President in US History"^TM

The two latest polls show President George W. Bush's approval ratings in the gutter. A Quinnipiac University poll (June 7-11) gives the President a pathetic 28% approval, with 65% disapproving of his Presidency. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (June 8-11) indicates about the same, with 29% approving and 66% (a full two-thirds) disapproving. In each poll, a handful of apparently comatose Americans had no opinion.

As regards the war in Iraq, a whopping 68% of Americans disapprove of the President's handling of the war, with barely more than a quarter (26%) approving. 54% believe that, since the surge, things have only gotten worse in Iraq, and 59% believe that the US should begin to reduce its troop levels there.

While Congress continues to get pretty poor approval ratings, Americans by a very wide margin (56%-32%) would like to see greater Democratic control of Congress. This is very likely a reaction to Congress's inability -- or unwillingness -- to push the Bush administation back against the wall and demand an immediate start to the redeployment of US troops from Iraq. A similar trend is evident in a Los Angeles Times poll and article that indicates that while a majority of Americans want to see a Democrat in the White House in 2008, head-to-head matchups of potential candidates show Hillary Clinton lagging behind potential GOP candidates.

And as of the moment of this writing, 3,521 US GIs have died in Iraq, not including 111 who died of self-inflicted wounds.

Happy Father's Day.

Terrorism in Iraq Rises 91% from 2005 to 2006

Of the 14,338 reported terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 45 percent took place in Iraq, and 65 percent of the global fatalities stemming from terrorism occurred in Iraq. In 2005, Iraq accounted for 30 percent of the worldwide terrorist attacks.

Heckuva job, Bushie. Let's give you a medal. And what will 2007 bring?

France Told CIA in January 2000 About Al Qa'ida Plans to Hijack Airliners

An Update on the "So-called War on Terror"^TM

French newspaper Le Monde adds more fuel to the fire by publishing a story saying that they warned the CIA about al Qa'ida intentions to hijack airplanes nine months before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The newspaper says it has obtained 328 pages of classified documents that show foreign agents infiltrated al-Qaeda's network.

It produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001, including the January 2001 document called 'Plan to hijack an aircraft by Islamic radicals'.

That's reminiscent of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Good Lord, how many dots do you have to draw in a straight line before it occurs to George W. Bush's administration to connect them???

Le Monde said the January 2001 report was handed over to a CIA operative in Paris, but that no mention of it was made in the official US September 11 Commission which produced its findings in July 2004.

Why was that? Don't we deserve an explanation?

Le Monde said the documents also show the French believed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still receiving help from family members and senior officials in Saudi Arabia in advance of the 11 September attacks.

Yes. Like Pakistan's dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Saudis are our allies.

God help us.

What a Wonderful World?

Trees of green? Red roses too? For some perhaps, but not me and you. Like everything else in George W. Bush's "wonderful world," the trees of green, the red roses, the skies of blue, the stars of white, bright blessed days and the dark sacred nights are distributed unequally and unfairly.

More than 3,000 Americans are dead, and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians in a war that was absolutely unnecessary. We have accomplished nothing in Iraq other than to create a breeding ground for new terrorists. Meanwhile, we have allowed al Qa'ida to regain strength under the protection of our "ally" in the so-called war on terror, Pervez Musharraf.

Nuclear weapons have proliferated across the globe under Bush's watch. So, naturally, we are going tomanufacture more, newer nukes. You'd almost think that the Bush administration might have turned a blind eye to the spread of nukes, just so we could build new ones. After all, it was our "ally" Pervez Musharraf's man, AQ Khan, who shared nuclear secrets with both North Korea and Iran.

Sweat shop globalization has proceeded unabated under Bush. We have far more evidence of the spread of sweatshops in the last six years than the spread of Democracy. The gap between rich and poor nations, as well as the gap between the richest and poorest within individual nations -- including the United States -- has grown under Bush. For the first time in my lifetime, poverty is on the rise in the United States, both in proportion and number of Americans living below the poverty line.

Our reputation has sunk to unprecedented lows across the world. Our Constitution is in tatters. Our American values have been trampled at home. Politics trumps law. Democratic principles are becoming, like the Geneva Conventions, "quaint" and "obsolete."

Want a wonderful world?

IMPEACH BUSH!!!

Pat Tillman's Mom : "You're Still Lying"

The family of Cpl. Pat Tillman has issued a scathing response to the US Army's investigation into his death by "friendly fire," calling it "shamefully unacceptable" and demanding a Congressional investigation. The report fails to address many of the strange circumstances surrounding the former Arizona Cardinals safety's death (read the entire original SFGate.com story here). There is some evidence -- circumstantial, perhaps, but evidence nonetheless -- that Tillman was targeted. Mary Tillman believes this is possible.

Mary Tillman said she was not excluding the possibility that her son was shot intentionally.

"Pat was used," she said. "Once he was killed, I think they saw this as an opportunity." She noted that April 2004 was the worst month up to that time in the year-old Iraq war, and the shooting occurred right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

The Army found no evidence of criminal negligence. Pat Tillman's family is, to say the least, suspicious of both the Army's findings and its motivations. They met with Army officials the same moment the results of the investigation were being made public. Mary Tillman told reporters afterward:

The meeting was a travesty, I mean we were lied to. They told us we were abusive, and I responded back that, you know, lying is a form of abuse, and we've been lied to for three years.

But what they did is make up a story. That's not a misstep, and that's not an error. They made up a story, it was presented on national television, and we believe they did that to promote the war.

Indeed. Here's what the family's statement said:

“No one who knew Pat doubted his physical or moral courage,” the statement said. "But the award of the Silver Star appears more than anything to be part of a cynical design to conceal the real events from the family — but most especially from the public — while exploiting the death of our beloved Pat as a recruitment poster.”

Wow. Pat Tillman came from a family of heroes.

Iraq War Helping al Qa'ida Regroup

Terrorists "on the march" rather than "on the run"

An Update on the so-called "War on Terror"^TM

In case there was any doubt left, here's more evidence that the war in Iraq is nothing more than a distraction from the actual war on terror.

Terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University told the House Armed Services Subcommittee that al Qaida has had a chance to regroup and strengthen its forces thanks to the American invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. He testified to his belief that President George W. Bush's planned "surge" of nearly 22,000 additional troops is "exactly what al-Qaida wants."

"Iraq, for them, has been an effective means to preoccupy American military forces and distract U.S. attention while al-Qaida has regrouped and reorganized since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001," he said.

Others agree.

Daniel Benjamin of the Brookings Institution agreed that al-Qaida "appears to have recovered" from any damage inflicted during the expulsion from Afghanistan. Al-Qaida now is based in tribal areas of Pakistan along the Afghanistan border, where the Pakistani government "shows little inclination to dislodge it," he said.

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq "gave the jihadists an unmistakable boost," he said. Among "self-starter jihadists," the U.S. invasion and occupation is universally cited as justification for terrorism. The U.S. presence in Iraq has turned the country into "a sanctuary for jihadists better than Afghanistan ever was," he said.

As of this moment, 63% of Americans oppose the surge.