Defending the Undefendable

Bush's third State of the Union speech unconvincing and unimaginative
In his third State of the Union speech, George W. Bush appeared more like a schoolboy who had been caught bullying, trying to defend his actions to an irate headmaster, than a president striding towards an election, summing up what was supposed to be a meaningful first period in office and presenting exciting new policies for the second.

Instead, the President of the United States of America could go no further than to make a lame attempt to defend the undefendable in one of the most unconvincing and unimaginative State of the Union addresses in over two hundred years of its history, since Woodrow Wilson in 1913 brought back the custom began by George Washington in 1790.

George Bush's declarations concerning US foreign policy during his term in office are risible for two main reasons - the president's own well-known ignorance of foreign affairs and the sheer failure of policies which are derided in the international community. Trying to justify what George Bush sees as a fight between the USA and the invisible enemy by mentioning the war against Iraq, President Bush proves once again how naive, ignorant and pliable he is, dangerously so for a man in his position.

George Bush himself has declared on more than one occasion that there has never been any link made between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 and it should be remembered that Saddam Hussein himself was the first Arab leader to express his condolences after the event - he himself had had problems with Osama bin Laden - their mutual hatred was no secret.

In his second State of the Union speech, in January 2003, George Bush stated that Saddam Hussein had enough anthrax and botulinium to kill several million people, apart from reiterating the existence of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Shortly after this speech, the Bush administration stated many times that they knew where the WMD was hidden inside Iraq.

Ten months on, after an illegal war which flouted every fibre of diplomatic norms, international law, the UN Charter and the Geneva Convention, in which tens of thousands of people were left dead, destitute or maimed for life, the WMD search teams leave Iraq empty-handed. Where, then, is the causus belli upon which George Bush launched this war and where, then is any possible justification for this act of butchery unprecedented in recent history? Is this the legacy of which the president of the USA should be so proud?

Far from leaving America a safer place, the foreign policies pursued by George Bush have divorced Washington from the international community, resulting in the USA being derided as a pariah by world public opinion. Proof of this is the fact that George Bush dare not step off an airplane in most countries around the world and the fact that he was the only visiting Head of State to have to leave Number 10 Downing Street by the back door due to security preoccupations, and this in the home of his closest ally.

George Bush has gone too far in his foreign policy and must be held accountable for the war crimes which his administration has sanctioned. Regarding domestic policy, he leaves every US taxpayer with a massive bill to pick up after his globe-trotting war-mongering, a bill running into tens of billions of USD per year in the Middle East - and every year, if the situation in Iraq is not stabilized in 2004.

Bearing this in mind, it is up to the US citizen to question how he or she is better off under the administration of George W. Bush. Isolated, alone, mistrusted, with its back turned to the heart of the international community, Washington appears more and more like a bully who has been locked out of the playground and George Bush as the inept and dysfunctional doting parent who tries to justify the unjustifiable, defend the undefendable, being the most unconvincing and unimaginative president the USA has ever had the misfortune to have in its long and rich history.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru