Plundering of the National Treasuries
Living in The Philippines and being somewhat aware of the trial of former Philippine President Joseph Estrada’s trial for plundering the coffers of the government of The Phillipines, and what seems likely to be his imminent conviction, I recall my civic studies from high school in America.
The framers of the Constitution of the United States of America were driven by their acquired wisdom to suppress the drive for dominance and esteem by those held in high office, which could become the downfall of any government. Since someone must be in charge, to make decisions and and tilt the enforcement of laws to the good of all citizens, while at the same time such a person would have the power to tilt the power of the government in their favor, some restraints must be imposed on those in power. To such end John Adams wrote ” The desire for the esteem of others is as real a want of nature as hunger. It is the principal end of government to regulate this passion”.
James Madison was especially active in defining the exclusive provinces of the Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative branches of government, especially when it comes to the near total power given a president, a commader-in-chief, in time of war, which to him was not necessarily motivated by a lust for blood but by a lust for advanced esteem, for only one man holds the reins of the nation at times of war. To wit, he wrote:
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is created, and it is the executive will to direct it. In war the public treaures are to be unlocked and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honours and the emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war finally that laurels are to be gathered, and it is in the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and the most dangerous weakness of the human breast — ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame — are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
I will not delve into the relationships that George W. Bush has with companies that make large profits from war-related production. I only say that the mightiest nation on The Earth was taken to war by a man bent on enriching himself and elevating his own esteem, and that the coffers of America were and are being plundered by a man who began the War in Iraq on the basis that no matter what the outcome of the war, he would be enriched, as would his cohorts, and that America has suffered by this under-handed and immoral plundering of American treasures.
I knew the war in Iraq was coming, because I read the unbeknownst to me propaganda years in advance, and I cheered when America first struck into Iraq. But the intel released as I know now was all slanted, to achieve one goal, the opening of the the American coffers to a president who would enrich himself no matter the outcome of the war.
I am ashamed of President Bush. Perhaps no greater man for war has ever been elected president, but he was elected in a time that did not call for the war we have today. For much less money than has been spent on the War in Iraq, Bush could have bought Saddam Hussien and made him a faithful lapdog. Such it should have been, and peace today we would have in the Middle-East. Shame on you George Bush. Shame on you.