Sun in Leo Trine Pluto in Sag

The powerful Sun in Leo is trine equally powerful Pluto in Sagittarius and we are getting a visual of life (the joie de vivre of Leo) intertwined with death (the endings of Pluto). George W. Bush is doing some chest-puffing in the form of threatening to wage yet another war, this time on Iran, because they are choosing to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.

Another war. Another war? Another war! Oh god, another war. With resignation, yes, another war.

Chalmers Johnson spoke of this as one of the sorrows of empire that would be visited upon the world as the United States of American continued on an imperialistic and militaristic path. Here in his book "The Sorrows of Empire" he says

The sorrows of empire are the inescapable consequences of the national policies American elites chose after September 11, 2001. Militarism and imperialism always bring with them sorrows. The ubiquitous symbol of the Christian religion, the cross, is perhaps the world's most famous reminder of the sorrows that accompanied the Roman Empire--it represents the most atrocious death the Roman proconsuls could devise in order to keep subordinate peoples in line. From Cato to Cicero, the slogan of Roman leaders was "Let them hate us so long as they fear us."

Four sorrows, it seems to me, are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787. First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut. Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal "executive branch" of government into a military junta. Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens. All I have space for here is to touch briefly on three of these: endless war, the loss of Constitutional liberties, and financial ruin.

….....If the likelihood of perpetual war hangs over the world, the situation domestically in the United States is no better. Militarism and imperialism threaten democratic government at home just as seriously as they menace the independence and sovereignty of other countries. Whether George Bush and his zealots can ever bring about a "regime change" in Iraq or any other country is an open question, but there is no doubt that they already have done so within the United States. In keeping with the Roman pretensions of his administration, Bush often speaks as if he were a modern Caligula (the Roman emperor who reigned from 37 to 41 AD and who wanted to appoint his horse to the Senate). In the second presidential debate on October 11, 2000, Bush said, "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." A little more than a year later, he replied to a question by the Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, "I'm the commander--see, I don't need to explain--I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."(1)

(George W. Bush has Mercury in Leo, so what a perfectly arrogant Leo communication that is; he also has Venus, Pluto and his Ascendant in Leo. You can possible view that as a tendency towards preening in the spotlight)

Bush and his administration have worked zealously to expand the powers of the presidency at the expense of the other branches of government. Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution says explicitly that "The Congress shall have the power to declare war." It prohibits the president from making that decision. The most influential author of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote in 1793, "In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not the executive department. ... The trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man."(2) Yet, after September 11, 2001, President Bush unilaterally declared that the nation was "at war" against terrorism, and a White House spokesman later noted that the president "considers any opposition to his policies to be no less than an act of treason."

During October 3 to 10, 2002, Congress's "week of shame," both houses voted to give the president open-ended authority to wage war against Iraq. It permitted the president to use any means, including military force and nuclear weapons, in a preventive strike against Iraq as soon and as long as he--and he alone--determined it to be "appropriate." The vote was 296 to 33 in the House and 77 to 23 in the Senate. There was no debate; the members were too politically cowed to address the issue directly. Thus, for example, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) spoke on the hundredth anniversary of the 4-H Club; Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) talked about the Future Farmers of America in his state; and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) gave Congress a brief history of the city of Mountain View, California.3

Equally serious, the Bush administration arrogated to itself the power unilaterally to judge whether an American citizen or a foreigner is part of a terrorist organization and can therefore be stripped of all Constitutional rights or rights under international law. President Bush's government has imprisoned 664 individuals from forty-two countries, including teenage children, at a concentration camp in Guantánmo, Cuba, where they are beyond the reach of the Constitution. It has also designated them "illegal combatants," a concept unknown in international law, to place them beyond the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. None of them has been charged with anything: they are merely captives.

1. (1) Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), pp. 145-46.
2. (2) James Madison, as quoted by Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia), October 3, 2002, speaking in opposition to a resolution granting the president open-ended authority to go to war whenever he chooses to do so. See John C. Bonifaz, "War Powers: The White House Continues to Defy the Constitution," TomPaine.com, February 4, 2003.
3. (3) Winslow T. Wheeler, "The Week of Shame: Congress Wilts as the President Demands an Unclogged Road to War" (Washington: Center for Defense Information, January 2003), p. 17.

Chalmers Johnson is the president of the Japan Policy Research Institute in California and author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. This essay is an excerpt from his forthcoming book The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books; and London: Verso).

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We are at war in Iraq because Cancerian Bush used the office of president to try to destroy the man he said tried to kill his father. Bush has a Leo Ascendant and now the chest-puffing and roaring goes even further....and the U.S. people may find themselves forced to kill not just Iraqis, but Iranians to satisfy Bush's prideful bloodlust and thirst for power. There are sure to be more American deaths. One wishes Johnson were wrong.

On a personal level, this aspect will light up the two houses where you have the transiting Sun in Leo and transiting Pluto in Sagittarius. They will most likely be four houses apart, if you know how to read chart houses. That means the issues of those two houses will be strongly activated today and in the next few days. Before acting or saying anything dramatic, try to THINK first, for something may well be forced to die in order for something else to come into being or grow. Maybe in the long run it is not worth it.

Saturn in Leo is working its way down through Bush's 12th house and onto his Ascendant. Saturn is coming out of the dark and will do its work on Bush (and everyone with a Leo Ascendant or first house Leo planets) in public. There are some hard lessons coming to Bush as 1) he loses face as Saturn sits on his Ascendant, then 2) Saturn conjuncts his Mercury and curtails his arrogant communications, then 3) Saturn conjuncts his Pluto in Leo and smacks him down, taking away some of the power he thought he had and finally 4) he loses even more of the love of the people when Saturn comes to his Venus in Leo. If you have a Leo Ascendant or first house Leo planets, are you preparing yourself for what is to come? Those of you in the Pluto in Leo generation are going to find Saturn in Leo particularly challenging!

It need not be negative. Be sure to purchase the Saturn in Leo report so you can gain a better handle on things. Stop or prevent endless wars in your individual life.