George Bush has placed this nation on the road to ruin and disaster!

He has recklessly led this nation into a series of wars with no "end game" in sight and whose aftermath was not planned. He claimed not to know the cost of these misadventures and conducted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "off budget" while irresponsibly lowering taxes. No nation in the history of nations has waged war and cut taxes simultaneously. Not ancient Greece, the Roman Empire did not accomplish that feat nor will the USA.

Bush, Chaney and Rumsfield have acted with an imperial insolence not seen since the days of the Atlantic slave trade and the heyday of gunboat diplomacy. The Bush war dogs have attacked and insulted this country's European allies undermined the role of the United Nations and the effectiveness of international law through their go-it-alone cowboy adventurism. Now they are reduced to pitifully begging other nations to help bail them out of the military quagmire and financial sinkhole in which they find themselves trapped.

Militarily American arrogance has put 150,000 troops in harms way trying to achieve the impossible dream of subduing and securing a nation of 25 million people, 40% under the age of 14 years of age, and territory as large as the state of California, of 168,000 square miles.

By September of 2003, 290 Americans had died in Iraq and over 1100 were wounded in action. An average of 1 American every 2 days is being killed and almost 10 troops a day are being injured. At this rate we will have suffered over 500 dead and over 4,000 wounded by November 2004! At a cost of $4 billion per month for military operations the cost of military operations in Iraqi will cost $60 billion by November 2004. Bush asked for a $74 billion dollar appropriation in March of this year and just last week asked for $87 billion more! Afghanistan is said to be costing $1 billion a month to wage the "peace" which would add another $15 billion by November 2004. It is reported that the US spent $12 billion in the first Iraqi war and a billion dollars per year for a decade enforcing the Iraqi "no fly zones." None of these figures include the estimated $30 billion a year in reconstruction costs in both countries. All together the cost of the two wars, the Iraqi containment and reconstruction could cost over $240 billion by November of next year!

If you think I am exaggerating how badly the war, of which Bush said "major combat is over, is going. Consider the words of Lt. Ahmed Khalaf Hamid, after a recent terrorist attack, "In my heart, deep inside, we are with them against the occupation," Hamid an officer with a 100-man force trained by the US continued, "This is my country, and I encourage them."

To date the bill has been $166 billion for just waging war so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. What will be the cost of reconstructing the infrastructure of these two nations? The cost of rebuilding Iraq has been forecast as costing as much as $2.4 billion per month and could reach a total of $600 billion. The cost of rebuilding Afghanistan has been estimated as $15 billion over the next 10 years according to a United Nations report! Bush and Chaney's buddies at Halliburton and other corporate pirate gangs stand to receive over $10 billion in business to rebuild the destruction they have wrought.

Little noticed among the focus on Iraqi is the fact that the Taliban has resurfaced in Afghanistan killing 90 government personnel in August alone. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens to spiral into an increasingly dangerous war. The situation in North Korea could become a shooting conflict at any moment. In the midst of all this the Bush gang finds time to periodically threaten Syria and Iran with military action.

With so much of our military deployments comprised of American boys and girls who are part-time warriors, reservists and National Guard troops, the nation's military is overextended by most experts' judgments. The Bushities don't dare mention the dreaded "D" word-draft- 15 months from a national election but it is clear its resurrection will be the only way to sustain the present troops in the field and provide them with timely rotations.

Keep in mind we have not found any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction nor have we captured or killed Saddam Hussain or Osama Bin Laden. All of this makes one wonder did the US win the war or just the first battles?

Domestically the $5.6 trillion surplus, once predicted for the 10 years ending in 2011, is now a $2.3 trillion cumulative deficit under the best-case prediction issued by the Congressional Budget Office. We are in only the second recession in history to rebound without job growth. Fully 30 million Americans -- one in four U.S. workers -- earn $8.70 an hour or less, a rate that works out to $18,100 a year below what is generally accepted as a living wage. Over 40 million of our citizens do not have health care, the cost of gasoline and college tuitions are soaring and unemployment is at its highest level in a decade. Foreign investment in the U.S. is down 85 percent since 2000, from $300 billion to just $46 billion.

Politically the Bush regime has tried to limit affirmative action in the University of Michigan case, lower the threshold for ending debate in the US Senate, re-district for a second time congressional districts after the traditional census process, trashed civil liberties with the Patriot Act and attempted to limit the ability of a strata of workers to receive over time pay.

What's bottom line? The current regime in Washington is hazardous to the health of the planet. Endangered are families, communities, workers and world peace. If you know what is good for you and your children and grandchildren's future you will join me in voting for regime change in 2004. It's just a thought...