"The next president must address past abuses and prevent future ones from occurring. He must, somehow, rise above any personal agenda of power and greed to assure that criminals are not excused simply because they hold high government positions. This would be a considerable switch from U.S. business as usual."

The next president of the United States will inherit a mess the likes of which have not been seen for generations. However, the mopping up of that mess will be far different depending on the administration that comes to power. An administration under a President Obama will have its hands full; a McCain administration may be unaware that there is anything wrong.

In order to view the next couple of years from a realistic perspective, it is necessary to consider it from an Obama administration. There is little to say in the event of a McCain administration.

When one is confronted with an overwhelming assignment, it is often helpful to break that assignment into smaller, more manageable tasks. This, we might recommend, may be helpful to the next president, assuming again that it is someone with some concept of the hurdles he faces.

The assignment of righting what has gone so terribly wrong in the U.S. during the last eight years (correcting the obscenities of the last two hundred years is far too daunting a challenge, so it will not be addressed here), can be divided into five separate but closely related areas: 1) foreign policy, most notably the Iraq War; 2) the economy; 3) civil rights; 4) health care and 5) governmental accountability. A look at each provides an idea of the work that the next reasonable president faces.

1) Foreign Policy. The so-called Bush doctrine of pre-emption has only succeeded in slaughtering 1,000,000 Iraqis and over 4,000 U.S. soldiers. It has weakened U.S. ties with long-trusted allies, and caused the U.S. to be the most hated country on the planet. It has, along with other disastrous Bush policies, nearly bankrupted the nation, turning the budget surplus inherited by Mr. Bush into the largest deficit in history.

The next president will need to extricate the U.S. from Iraq. Mr. Obama has a plan for doing so, although Mr. McCain does not, and also does not even seem to see how that would be a good thing. But be that as it may; we are looking at the next few years from a more reasonable perspective, so we will ignore Mr. McCain for the moment.

The departure from Iraq is expected to take nearly a year and a half, but at least the end of that horrific mistake will be in sight.

It will also be necessary for the next president to assure Iran and Cuba that the U.S. respects their sovereignty, and to further assure those and other nations around the world that the unjust invasion of Iraq was an anomaly, the result of the wild rantings of an oil-obsessed administration. Diplomatic overtures to those nations have already been discussed, and should be made as early in a new administration as possible.

If one might be allowed to dream for a moment, let us imagine the new president going before the United Nations Security Council, admitting the grave, unspeakable error made by the U.S., and asking the member nations to take a leadership role in both extricating the U.S. from, and helping to achieve peace in, Iraq. The U.S., long known for its violent arrogance, can hardly be expected to eat crow at the U.N., but such an action would go a long way towards healing the many international wounds it has inflicted.

As soldiers return home, suffering from wounds both seen and unseen, the necessary resources should be made available to help assure their healing. Unfortunately, once the scandal at the Walter Reed Medical Center made headlines for a few days it was quickly forgotten, literally whitewashed as a few coats of paint were slapped over the moldy walls. It is unlikely that any new administration will address this horrific injustice.

2) The Economy. Now that the taxpayer, at a cost of over $2,300.00 for every man, woman and child in the United States, has bailed out Wall Street, it is long past time to look at the real victims of Wall Street corruption. With home foreclosures at record highs and unemployment climbing, the next administration will need to take drastic steps to get U.S. citizens working again and to provide short-term debt relief. Congress and Mr. Bush, showing once again where their real sympathies lie, did not allow a provision in the recent bailout bill that would have mandated judges to grant leniency to families and individual facing foreclosure.

And while they are doing this, it might be helpful to change the way that the unemployment rate is determined. Currently, once a person has been collecting unemployment benefits for six months, those benefits cease and the person is assumed to have either found a job, or simply stopped looking. This is just one example of how out of touch the people who run the government are from the middle class and the working poor. Most of the citizens of the nation are in no position to simply stop looking for work: after six months of unemployment they still must pay rent or mortgage, purchase food, etc.

Some economic stimulus package, hopefully not a repeat of Ronald Reagan’s ‘trickle down theory,’ which said that by providing tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, the effects would eventually ‘trickle down’ to the needy, will have to be enacted. What that will look like remains to be seen.

3) Civil Rights. With the rushed passage of the Patriot Act, and the further encroachment of basic, Constitutional rights via wiretapping and other measures, the U.S.’s reputation for freedom and liberty, never deserved anyway, is in tatters. During the 2004 presidential campaign, an individual wearing a shirt that said ‘Support Civil Rights’ was evicted from a Bush rally for no other reason than wearing that shirt. Protesters have been kept so far away from the people they gathered to protest that such actions were discouraged; there is little point in protesting someone who not only doesn’t care what you have to say, but will be so far away that he won’t know you are saying it.

The most flagrant abuses of basic Constitutional rights happen at the U.S.’s Guantanamo prison in Cuba. There, prisoners as young as 15 are tortured and deprived of all due process. They are kept from families and legal counsel, and undergo unspeakable treatment. Other victims at U.S. sponsored sights around the world experience the same horrors. The next administration must act to correct this appalling abuse. Mr. Obama has said that he will close Guantanamo, but he has not been clear on his position on other so-called ‘rendition’ sights.

4) Health Care. The United States is the last industrialized nation on the planet without some form of universal health care. An estimated 47,000,000 citizens have no health care, and this includes the poorest and youngest segments of the population, many of whom need such care the most. The Republicans have called for competition within and deregulation of the health care industry, the same methods that have proved so successful on Wall Street. Mr. Bush earlier this year vetoed a plan that would have provided basic health care to an estimated 3,000,000 poor children. Mr. McCain proposes a $5,000.00 credit for families to purchase health insurance. Since the average family must now spend $12,000.00 for annual coverage, his proposal will hardly provide coverage for many more families. Any family unable to spend $7,000.00 out of pocket for health care will be shoved through the cracks by Mr. McCain. Fortunately, Mr. Obama has proposed a plan that, while not covering all citizens, will provide health care to millions who are currently without it.

A typical Republican battle cry against health care goes something like this: “If you think socialized medicine is good, ask a Canadian.” This conjures up that old bugaboo, socialism, implying that with universal health care, a Communist takeover is the logical next step. But even more ridiculous is the cry to ‘ask a Canadian.’ This writer has lived in Canada since June of 2005, and has had coverage in Canada since that time. The system is not perfect, but is far superior to what he had in the United States. Additionally, without exception each Canadian he has asked about health care has said basically the same thing: it is a more than adequate system, with some flaws, but they would not trade it for what the U.S. has for anything.

5) Government Accountability. Last, but far from least, the world has watched in horror as the U.S.’s governmental leaders have trampled the Constitution, made clear their imperial designs, and been allowed to do so without so much as a whimper from the governmental bodies sworn to check them. For six years the Republican Party provided a rubber stamp for whatever it was Mr. Bush chose to do. In November of 2006 the Republicans were booted from power in Congress and the Democrats took over. The rubber stamp was in different hands, but was used with the same result.

Mr. Bush has not been investigated for any of the alleged crimes he may have committed. The next president must see that any possible crimes committed by the highest levels of government are investigated, not only those of Mr. Bush, but those of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and that most incompetent and arrogant of Defense Secretaries, Donald Rumsfeld. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has shown her incompetence by saying that, if any crimes had been committed, she would raise the possibility of impeachment. She thereby appointed herself prosecutor and, without any investigation, found no reason for indictment.

The next president must address past abuses and prevent future ones from occurring. He must, somehow, rise above any personal agenda of power and greed to assure that criminals are not excused simply because they hold high government positions. This would be a considerable switch from U.S. business as usual, but must be done if the republic is to survive.

As of this writing, indications are that Mr. Obama will be elected president. This, of course, does not discount the possibility that the Supreme Court will step in and hand the presidency to Mr. McCain. But barring that possibility, an Obama administration will not usher in the Utopian society that some of his most ardent supporters seem to believe. Yet there will be, under an Obama administration, some light at the end of the dark tunnel of war, at least in Iraq, and little chance of additional wars. An economic stimulus package that benefits the middle class and poor first has a greater chance of being enacted, leaving the wealthy and corporations to fend for themselves. Victims of torture at the hands of the U.S. can be expected to have relief from those horrors, although the physical and emotional scars will never heal. U.S. citizens will once again be able to make telephone calls in privacy, without fear that the government is listening in to their private conversations.

While universal health care will remain an elusive dream, millions more citizens will be able to receive medical treatment when necessary. This basic human right, which tens of millions of Americans are deprived of, will, at least, be available to most. Hopefully in time all citizens will enjoy this right, which the party of Mr. Bush seems to feel is not a right, but a privilege afforded to the few.

Lastly, it can be hoped more than expected that Mr. Obama will appoint a prosecutor or prosecutors to investigate the crimes of the Bush administration. Not doing so will leave the world suspicious of the country, and the U.S.’s own citizens resentful of the fact that the rich can literally get away with murder.

How much change there will be can only be speculated at this point; a McCain victory, which could be worse than the Bush years considering Mr. McCain’s judgment in the selection of his running mate, remains a possibility. Yet it is unlikely that the U.S. citizenry, having made such a disastrous mistake in 2004, will repeat it. As long as it doesn’t, some positive changes, including portions of those outline above, may actually be seen. It is hoped that at least these basic improvements will occur. If an Obama presidency accomplishes nothing but these, it will have far surpassed the previous eight years.

Robert Fantina is author of Desertion and the American Soldier: 1776 - 2006.