was for the future: Bush's repudiation at the polls this time around was not enough to reduce him to
an impotent lame duck with no mandate to wage war. Bush was now a wounded beast who could,and would, lash out.
Bush emerged gravely damaged: Business Week devoted a cover to a photo of Bush and the legend:
"Losing Ground: GOP Losses in Congress, statehouse setbacks, and internal party strife are eroding
George Bush's authority-- and his ability to lead the nation." "A few more good daRepublicans will go the way of Whigs," wrote the magazine. The vote was a "humbling rebuke to ays like that and (^)
barnstorming Bush." [49] In the words of an October 31 headline in the pro-regime Washington
Times, "Bush in 92? 'Dead Meat,' say skeptics." Kevin Phillips noted that economics could prove
fatal for Bush: "Since World War II the GOP's pattern has been for economic downturns during
midterm election years: full-fledged recessions in 1954, 1958, 1970, 1974, afarm-belt and oil-patch slump in 1986. Today's economic thunderclouds, however, are the first innd 1982, and a severe
memory (at least since the post-1929 period) to portend their storms for the third year of a GOP
presidency." And for Bush, the economic bad news was to be found even in the New York Times:
"What Recession? It's a Depression," proclaimed one article. Leonard Silk made the optimistic case
in the same paper: "Why It's Too Soon to Predict Another Great Depression," was his title. [fn 59]
But well before the dust had settled from the election debacle, Bush had resumed his march towards
a holocaust in the Middle East. On the day after the election, Baker, speaking in Moscow, launched
Bush's all-out press for a UN Security Council resolution legitimizing the use of armed force
against Iraq over the Kuwait question. Bush had to push his war through botthe UN permanent five; his estimate was that the world powers would be easier to dragoon, and thath the US Congress and (^)
the assent of the Security Council could then be used to bludgeon the Congress into acquiescence.
[fn 60]
It is important to note that in shifting his policy towards aggressive war, Bush was once againdancing to the tune being piped in from London. On Wednesday, November 7, the racist crone (^)
Thatcher, now on her way out as Prime Minister, issued her most warmongering statement so far on
the Gulf crisis:
Either [Saddam Hussein] gets out of Kuwait soon or whe will go down to defeat with all the consequences. He has been warned. [fn 61] e and our allies will remove him by force and
Yet again, the United States was to be drawn into a useless and genocidal war as the tail on the
British imperial kite.
And so, flaunting his vicious contempt for the democratic process, on Thursday November 8, just
two days after the election, Bush made what any serious, intelligent person must have recognized as
a declaration of preemptive war in the Gulf:
After consultation with King Fahd and our otto increase the size of US forces committed to Desert Shield to ensure that the coalition has anher allies I have today directed the secretary of de fense
adequate offensive military option should that be necessary to achieve our common goals. Towards
this end we will continue to dicuss the possibility of both additional allied force contributions and
appropriate United Nations actions. Iraq's brutality, aggression, and violations of international law
cannot be allowed to succeed. [fn 62]
For those who had ever believed Bush's verbal declarations, here was an entirely new policy,
advanced without the slightest motivation. Bush argued that the current US troop stregnth of
230,000 was enough to defend Saudi Arabia, but that was no longer good enough. Bush's only
argument was that gradual strangulation by sanctions might take too long. Reporters pointed out