The presidential 'sacred' text has yet to be published. Furious allusions to the content have spewed into the media during the RNC in New York City, but journalists find the Bush administration doesn’t answer questions. Reviewing current available comment on the Doctrine and the field of applied psychoanalysis may help explain what the Bush Doctrine is really all about.

Although the term ‘doctrine’ is derived from the Latin doctrina which means teachings, the definition from Mirriam-Webster is; “a principle or position or the body of principles in a branch of knowledge or system of belief”.

Having established that a doctrine is really a written record of the positions in a belief system, Bush policy is therefore seeming led by some group of beliefs. This is an important philosophical point. Having a belief does not a policy make. Perhaps they were thinking of the word Dogma, however is seems we have not (mis)underestimated this set of beliefs as a guiding principal of policy within the Bush Whitehouse.

The roots of the Bush Doctrine are shrouded in the usual magical and mystic groupspeak of the neoconservative movement. Originally touted as a policy formulation stated by Bush post 9/11. Bush voiced immediately that the U.S. would "…make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". When this was heard, some were concerned that they really didn’t know what that meant, so on Sep 20th of 2001, at a televised statement to a joint session of Congress, Bush made it perfectly clear what his doctrine was all about;

“Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Bush and his team have continued to add to and refine the formulation of their new political religion. At an address to the West Point graduating class on June 1, 2002, much more was included as part of the belief.

1. Preemption.
A policy of pre-emptive war should the US or her allies be threatened by a rogue state or terrorists that are engaged in the production of WMD. (Although it seems the application of this policy had some considerable wiggle-room, by replacing ‘engaged in the production of WMD’ to anything containing scary words, true or not.)

2. Unilateralism.
The right for the US to pursue military action alone when every other Nation in the world thinks the Doctrine is wrong.

3. Strength Beyond Challenge.
This is really another doctrine from the right, termed the Hearst doctrine. This is simply put where the US has and intends to keep military strengths beyond challenge, solidifying the US position as the sole military superpower.

4. Extending Democracy, Liberty, and Security to All Regions
A policy of actively promoting democracy and freedom in all regions of the world. As Bush stated at West Point, "America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish. We wish for others only what we wish for ourselves -- safety from violence, the rewards of liberty, and the hope for a better life."
The new policy was fully delineated in a National Security Council text entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States issued on September 17, 2002.

But all of this doesn’t really explain where the beliefs came from? But to no philosopher’s surprise the first full illumination of the Bush Doctrine was penned by none other than Paul Wolfowitz in 1992, in his role as Under Secretary for Defense Policy in Bush 41’s 1992 Whitehouse. When it leaked then, controversy raged and Bush 41 ordered it re-written removing any mention of preemption or unilateralism.

After 9/11, there were discussions in the Bush 43 Whitehouse as to their doctrinal response. Powell was the main proponent of essentially the policy of containment, devised and formulated in the long years of the Cold War.

The policy required the formation of a multilateral consensus in how to deal with the situation. The opposing view was that of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle. Bush sided with his doctrinal cohorts.

Why would President George. W. Bush subscribe to this largely discounted and censored by his Dad doctrine, not politically but as a man?

Dr. Justin Frank, a DC psychoanalyst for over 30 years, and director of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical School has sought to provide a profile of Bush 43, by examination of his writings, policy decisions and speeches. In fact, a positive cornucopia of observable traits. Dr. Frank did not make assertions about Bush’s mindset based on individual displays, but rather in terms of the endless and repeating patterns of his behavior. I like to think of it as Presidential Profiling. It is written about in his new book “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President”.

In interviews with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby and others, Dr. Frank has said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.

"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."

Frank points out that President Bush has not attended a single funeral, other than that of President Reagan. He explores some possible reasons for that in his book, whether or not the behavior is "presidential". He says “I am less interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us. He has spent a lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought.” Perhaps the reason why none of us can see the cargo planes returning with the bodies of our brave military people slaughtered by his doctrinal attitude of the world.

With no funeral for George W’s sister and no mourning, it seems to have set in place “…a life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior.” Frank notes this is a common feature in ADHD.

He also points out that Bush 41’s emotional and physical absence in his youth triggered “…feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W.” Further that he suffers from “character pathology” including “grandiosity” and “megalomania”, viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable. Something many journalists have felt but not defined.

“I think that the Bush who proudly shows off Saddam's handgun to visitors is the same Bush who proudly pranced aboard the aircraft carrier last year declaring that the war in Iraq was over. His behavior is similar to that of an eight-year-old boy playing superman and believing that he won a war all by himself, that he captured Saddam by himself. The behavior is "disconnected" not only from current events, but from a fundamental understanding of self.”

He also hints at a sadistic trait; “There were several articles about Bush's childhood in which his friends were interviewed describing his having blown up frogs. This was after rainy periods in the otherwise dry Midland world. He also used beebee guns to shoot them, one friend reported. A group of them did.

As a fraternity man at Yale he branded pledges on the buttocks with a hot coat-hanger. This was written up in the NYTimes in 1967 and he was interviewed then about it.

His smirk as an adult, his mimicry of patients on death row while he was Governor are all part of a similar pattern.

Everyone has sadistic bits in his personality. The job of a mature person is to recognize those elements and control them or channel them in some way other than inflicting harm on others.”

Chillingly, Dr. Franks says “Bush's behavior strongly suggests an unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his own (nonexistent) wartime service record to shame.”

Perhaps ‘belief’ in Bush, which now seems to be the message, is simply that. If you ‘believe’ in him, vote for him.

An angry and sad personality, trapped in development at 7 years old, his ‘beliefs’ becoming too concrete too early, amplified by a cruel lack of facts, discussion or humanity have helped make this man what he has become. His cry of “young and irresponsible” proudly touted until he was 40, as his daughters trumpeted the same at the RNC.

It’s clear that the Bush Whitehouse cannot allow their campaign for re-election to be clouded with issues or facts or policy. So, the angry little boy will continue to scream lies and have his peer-group trash his opponents by calling them cowards or liars or fat or four-eyes or queer. It really doesn’t matter, because Bush can’t claim “my Dad is bigger than your Dad” because he has turned is back on his father too. America needs to understand that it can serve as George W. Bush’s mommy, and put an end to this fight in the playground, which he has taken to the world. It’s time to take Bush’s ball away if he can’t play with the other children. It’s time for George W. Bush to go to his room, forever.

[article.email.prefix]: steve@xisys.net

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