Insanity emanating from Washington

THE EDITOR: “All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights ... but Americans are more equal and righter than others ...”

This I believe may well be the new preamble to the American Constitution under the Bush regime. My belief is based on the behaviour of the American President since he took office about three years ago under very suspicious and dubious circumstances. On the issue of Iraq, he told the UN and by extension the rest of the world to go to hell. He violated international law, and in a fit of pique and vindictiveness bombed Iraq back to the middle ages and reduced a nation of 25 million to a nation of vagrants. In so doing he has ensured that Americans can enjoy their freedom for generations to come. On the issue of the International Criminal Court he has accepted that citizens and soldiers alike of all other countries should be hauled before the dock for crimes against humanity.

That is all except Americans, that special elect elitist breed, with blue blood in their veins. They stand above the law, and above the ICC. They are the ones who are more equal than others and ‘more righter’ than others. To add insult to injury, the American President has gone beyond threatening countries like ours and have ‘bushlisted’ several, and also withdrawn what is referred to as military aid. America under George Bush has behaved as if it owns planet earth, that the rest of humanity compromising 95 percent of this planet has absolutely no say in the way things are done, and our lot is simply to accept the insanity that emanates from Washington that directly and indirectly affects our lives. The rest of humanity need to let George Bush know that even though by comparison we may be weaker economically and militarily, we live here and we demand to have a say in the way things are done!

There ought to be a saner way to run this planet than the current American way! The Americans like all of us have their weaknesses, moral failings and lots of skeletons in their historical cupboards. But they deserve better than this vindictive, spiteful, reactionary and downright mendacious regime that lacks the magnanimity that is associated with true national greatness. In a way I feel a deep sense of sorrow for them, because the very freedoms for which they make a fetish is being slowly and systematically eroded. It appears that George Bush has beguiled and bewitched the American people. They somehow cannot see and think clearly. They need to remove the cobwebs from their eyes and realise that Bush is bent on creating a state of national hysteria with his over emphasis on terrorism, to distract them from very pressing domestic issues, in order to sneak into office in 2004 as he did in 2000. Historians and social scientists would spend a long time pondering a rationalising of this new phenomenon!

If Saddam Hussein is apprehended where would he be tried for his outrage against humanity? In Iraq? I doubt, now that Bush has dismantled and dismembered the state of Iraq. Where else then but the ICC? That would indeed be a contradiction. Perhaps Bush’s refusal to recognise the ICC is based on the realisation that one day he may be hauled before the dock to answer for the crimes that he has perpetrated on 25 million people who are less equal than Americans. In ordinary parlance he may well be “taking in front before in front take him.”

C J LEWIS
Trincity