Bush, the hypnotist

AT A WHITE HOUSE press conference a few weeks ago, George Bush was asked by a reporter whether, as US President, he thought he had made any mistakes. Bush seemed flummoxed by the question which was asked in the context of growing concern over the US occupation of Iraq. After thinking for a while, the President said, half apologetically, that he could not recall making any mistakes but perhaps if he gave the matter greater thought he may possibly come up with some errors. Nothing, in our view, illustrates more profoundly the need for the President of the United States to obtain psychiatric treatment. There must be something pathological in the level of  conceit and arrogance and super-power hubris that blinds the US President to the sheer horror of what his monumental blunder in Iraq has created.

He has sown the wind, recklessly, unilaterally, and with deliberate intent, and the US is now reaping the whirlwind in a mounting death toll among American soldiers and civilians. Yet, to the amazement of much of the world’s population, Bush continues to strut about the American stage in John Wayne style, insisting that the invasion of Iraq was the “right thing to do” and promoting his bogus image as a champion of freedom and an unrelenting fighter against terrorism. Apart from the bloody hell-hole he has created in Iraq, Bush has succeeded in provoking more anger, hatred, disaffection, contempt and fear for America in the wider world than any other US president. It would have been a great relief if, in recognising what he has done, Bush had decided not to seek a second term in office and so allow a healing process for the wounds that he and his ruling conservative clique have inflicted on international relations and the world’s body politic. But no, Bush continues to ride tall in the saddle, blissfully refusing to realise and accept the enormous tragedy his reckless adventurism in Iraq has created.

But while we understand the monstrosity that ultra-right ideology and super-power immunity have spawned in the White House, we are now quite puzzled by the popular support, however partisan it may be, that the Bush administration continues to enjoy. Why are the broad masses of Americans not outraged by the intolerable fraud and deception perpetrated by their government in destroying a country which presented no threat whatever to the outside world? However brutal he might have been, Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, never sought to obtain nuclear material from Africa, had no links whatever to the Al Qaeda network and offered no terrorist danger to the US or any other country. Indeed, the everlasting irony of Bush’s ill-conceived attack on Iraq now lies in his claim that the toppling of Saddam was part of America’s wider war on terrorism.

The nightmare that has since ensued in that occupied country and the intensifying of hatred for the US within the Islamic sphere have, in fact, rendered the world a far more dangerous place. But the complacency of Americans is even more puzzling for the fact that, instead of curbing the terrorists, Bush’s colossal  miscalculation in Iraq has presented radical Islamic groups with a convenient and ready made arena for slaughtering American soldiers. Thanks to Bush, Al Qaeda insurgents can now pick off members of the US occupying force at their leisure. But even this mounting death toll does not seem to perturb the American public, although some 700 soldiers have been killed since Bush’s ridiculous declaration about the end of hostilities. How can this be explained? Is Bush a mass hypnotist of super-power proportions or are Americans themselves unable to grasp the enormity of what their President has done?