The Bush-Cheney gang has committed many a crime. Of this there is no doubt and no question. In some cases, their crimes have been seen by many as nothing short of treason. Making money off a fabricated war in which Americans have been killed, for example, would qualify. Outing a CIA officer, in yet another example, would qualify. There are many crimes, much evidence, and little justice, of this we are all aware. The word treason certainly applies to some of these crimes.
But what word can be used to describe a crime in which the entire planet is put at risk, the entire human race is endangered? What do you call a group of people who are so corrupt that they are willing to risk the entire planet and everything on it for short-term profit? Read the below and tell me what to call this level of criminality:
"Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.
The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
So, instead of using the last 8 years to try to find a way to address this crisis and, if necessary, make emergency plans for the people they took an oath to protect, the Bush administration not only wasted our resources on a fabricated war, but hid the evidence that the planet is in a serious crisis. Moreover, Cheney and his secret energy meetings were focused on Iraq, not on saving Americans from a disaster of horrific magnitude. There is more:
"Even before her warning, scientists were saying that America, the world's scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite programmes run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nasa. A report by the National Academy of Sciences this year warned that the environmental satellite network was at risk of collapse.
In February, a Nasa satellite carrying instruments to produce the first map of the Earth's carbon emissions crashed near Antarctica only three minutes after lift-off.
The satellite would have measured carbon emissions at 100,000 points around the planet every day, providing a wealth of data compared to the 100 or so fixed towers currently in operation in a land-based network."
Plenty of money for faith-based hocus pocus initiatives, but no money to literally save the world? Nice. But it is not just Bush-Cheney and their cabal who are a threat to the world. It is also the energy executives, their lobbyists, and the politicians they own who have been destroying this nation and the world for years. This is beyond treason. There is no word I can think of that would adequately convey the nature of this crime.
What I find incredibly interesting is the nature of extreme greed. While it is unlikely that a massive climate disaster will occur during the life-time of these criminals, their children and grandchildren will not be so lucky. Bush, Cheney, and most of their gang will likely be gone before the planet becomes a wasteland. But what of Jenna, Barbara, Lizzie, etc.? What about Lizzie's little kids? Is grandpa Cheney so greedy that he is willing to leave them to this fate? Apparently.
