Libby, Bush & Iraq

When George W. Bush was a Texas governor, he presided over and allowed 152 executions after a cursory review, commuting only one sentence to life imprisonment. Up to this July, President Bush was equally stingy in handing out pardons or commuting sentences. During that time Bush posed as a champion of law and order and a firm judge of humanity.

Thus Bush’s quick decision to commute the three-year sentence of his convicted crony I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby has the appearance of a cynical and hypocritical maneuver inconsistent with his former behavior. However cynical and hypocritical it may be, however, his commutation is sublimely consistent with Bush’s ideology, his way of life, his style of ruling and that of his entire inside team of world-class criminals. As such, his freeing of Libby throws a spotlight on the character of the entire U.S. imperialist ruling class and on the reality of class and racial oppression in the United States.

To Marxists, the Bush administration is “the executive committee of the ruling class.” The Bush “team”—the word “gang” provides a more accurate description—despite its excessive arrogance and apparent incompetence, fits that Marxist description. Its members come from the imperialist ruling class and reflect its ambitions to dominate the world, its willingness to use military force to achieve its aims and its narrow and provincial view of the rest of humanity, even its imperialist allies. The Bush team is a criminal gang but it is no aberration.

Those men and one woman executed in Texas while Bush was governor were all poor and mostly African Americans or of Mexican origin. They suffered from racist and class oppression. To Bush and his cohorts, they were lesser beings. The imperialist ruling class here considers it better to execute 150 people, even if they might be innocent, than to appear soft and perhaps encourage oppressed people to fight for their liberation.

Libby, on the other hand, is the son of an investment banker. He is one of the Bush team’s cronies. Also, he carried out his part of the bargain: he didn’t let those investigating the administration know who in the Bush gang leaked the information that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative—an act that could be considered treasonous under U.S. law. To allow him to serve his 30-month sentence might result in his talking somewhere in the future.

Remember that this crime Libby was charged with—obstructing the investigation of who leaked Plame’s name—is only a tiny part of the Bush gang’s enormous crime: waging an aggressive, imperialist war against Iraq. The Bush administration plotted the war, starting with the excuse of 9/11 and waged a campaign of lies to justify the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. It did this with the complicity of the U.S. imperialist ruling class, who believed they would be enriched by a quick victory. In a way, it is the Iraqi resistance and the failure of the occupation that put Libby on trial.

Bush’s decision to commute Libby’s sentence is simply a continuation of his gang’s arrogant policy that whatever works for them is OK. This attitude reflects that of the U.S. ruling class internationally, who believe their own power can guarantee their profits.

The Iraqis are showing that the U.S. rulers and their military are not so powerful as they believed. And the Bush administration—and the entire ruling class here—can find out that their arrogant displays of arbitrary power at home can arouse a stronger opposition than they believed.