Really, Mr Bush

WITH his illegal invasion of Iraq turning into an intractable morass, President George W Bush has seen it fit to pay an official visit to Britain, presenting his country as the world’s leading champion of freedom and democracy. Instead of facing the dreadful reaction to his ill-conceived adventure in Iraq, where US troops are now being killed at a rising rate, the US President continues to brazen out this tragic affair, portraying it as another heroic blow against the forces of terror threatening the peace of the world. That he has now chosen to defend his destructive assault on Iraq while embracing his junior partner Tony Blair and being a guest of the Queen at Buckingham Palace only serves to indicate the extent of his arrogance and lack of good taste.
 
There is nothing in the outcome of his unilateral and unheeding attack on Iraq for Mr Bush to boast about; indeed the travail of that country and its people since the  pulverising bombardment of his army and, indeed, the current guerrilla counter-attack on his own troops, are reasons for him and his government to rue their foolish targetting of Saddam Hussein. But it is clear that Mr Bush and his fascistic regime will never accept the principle that the end does not justify the means, that illegally attacking a country on a fradulent pretext, destroying its infrastructure, killing thousands of its innocent citizens cannot be justified as the means for toppling its ruling dictator, no matter how oppressive his reign may be. Nor will Mr Bush, in his super-power disdain, recognise the irate rejection by a majority of the world’s people of the US claim to speak for the free world and to arrogate to itself a mandate to impose democracy on countries across the globe, including those in the Arab world. In our time, the voices of free nations are expressed in the democratic councils of international organisations, operating on the principles of multilateralism, where decisions are taken in the interest of global progress.

This is where the voice of the free world is heard and it is an act of gross hypocrisy for Mr Bush to praise this international movement when, in pursuing his reckless assault on Iraq, he chose to contemptuously ignore the consensus of the UN Security Council which had advised against it. The fact that he would not be addressing the British parliament for fear of meeting an embarrassing barrage of hecklers from both sides of the House, and the fact that his visit has provoked a massive demonstration of anti-war protesters in London should send Mr Bush a telling message; but we know it is not the kind that the leader of the world’s only super power would be prepared to hear. Indeed, Mr Bush dismissed the huge protest march by joking about the enthusiasm with which freedom of speech is observed in Britain. In his own country, however, he and his government have created such anti-terrorist paranoia among the people and such a pathological compulsion to support his measures that ordinary citizens no longer feel free to express opposing views out of fear that they may be deemed disloyal, treacherous or even unamerican. The provisions of Mr Bush’s Patriot Act and his government’s treatment of persons held in detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba fly in the face of his high sounding rhetoric about freedom and democracy.