Tale of two presidents

HERE is a tale of two presidents. The first, Bill Clinton, who served two terms in the White House, was impeached in 1998 for having a sexual liaison with an intern named Monica Lewinsky. Clinton’s adulterous affair hurt nobody but himself and his family. Yet it created one of the most vociferous controversies in the history of the United States. The fact that Clinton first lied about his relationship with Lewinsky and then had to admit it later was the factor which provoked such intense and widespread feeling against him. Still, there were many who felt that his sexual indiscretion and his attempt to cover it up did not reach the severity of wrong doing that would warrant the extreme sanction of impeachment. However, the Congress voted to impeach Clinton but allowed him to serve out his last term in office.

The second is George Bush who launched a deliberate, premeditated and illegal invasion of Iraq which totally destroyed the country, killing thousands of innocent civilians, including women and children, and he continues to enjoy presidential office as if he were some kind of hero. Dismissing the disapproval of members of the United Nations Security Council, ignoring the advice of UN weapons inspectors who asked for more time, contemptuous of world opinion which was strongly against any attack on Iraq, President Bush plunged unheedingly ahead, declaring that it was urgent to disarm Saddam Hussein of his large arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi dictator, he told the world, posed an imminent threat to the security of the United States and other non-Arab countries.

But we now know that while Clinton prevaricated about his sexual escapade in the White House, Bush lied to the American people and the rest of the world about his pretext for sending his armies to destroy Iraq and slaughter its people. It is now quite clear that, several months after the US invasion, Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and posed no threat to any other country. Bush’s reason for this atrocity was a monumental hoax as evidence emerging from intelligence sources in the US and UK now clearly indicate. Colin Powell’s presentation of evidence to the UN Security Council that Hussein had such devastating weapons was a huge farce. One is flabbergasted in fact to hear US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld say, with absolute aplomb, that US intelligence never had any new evidence about Iraq having mass-killing weapons, meaning that the US-UK attack was launched on the basis of old recycled information! The emphasis of the war mongers has now turned to their success in ridding the world of a monstrous dictator and his sons; conveniently avoiding the historical fact that when Hussein was actually massacring the Kurds the US government was in full support of his regime, raising no objection as Saddam was then at war with Iran, their sworn enemy.

The killing of Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay, is now being hailed as a major step in the transformation of Iraq, but it is quite obvious that a large percentage of Iraqis want the US occupying force out of the country, and the death of the two will only serve to escalate the retaliatory guerrilla war being waged by Saddam loyalists against the US troops. But in this tale of two presidents, it seems important to ask, who has committed the greater offence, Clinton or Bush? Who has told the bigger and more destructive lie, Clinton or Bush? Who has provoked the wrath of the American people, Clinton or Bush? Who is responsible for the deaths not only of thousands of innocent Iraqis but also of many US soldiers, Clinton or Bush? The Democrats may play politics with this issue, but where is the voice of the people? Does this great champion of freedom and democracy really care?