Bush Speech on Middle East: Ignorance, Arrogance, Imperialism

President George Bush of the United States of America is either an idiot, or a liar. His declarations on the Middle East in his speech on Wednesday in Washington spelt a telling story of a man wholly incompetent to be in his position who is either unable to understand the issues at stake or else manipulates the evidence to suit his discourse. In short, he is either an idiot or a liar.

In a delirious speech, which harped back to the Second World War, George W. Bush compared the current international situation to that of 1945, when the USA rebuilt Germany and Japan in a scenario of sweeping democratic change, stating that a regime change in Iraq would be “a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom” for the world.

This regime change, he believes, will be a “road map to peace” in the Middle East. Washington’s policy to solve the Middle East crisis does not start with Tel Aviv, where the new coalition government includes parties which want to expel the Palestinians from their territories and build new colonies, but with Baghdad. In short, the policy is to remove what Washington refers to as “the greatest obstacle to peace”.

Washington is gearing up towards war. The hype is there, the demonology is there but unfortunately, the cause is not. Last time around, Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait (albeit after this country had systematically violated international law by cross-drilling, stealing the oil from Iraq’s wells).

In the hysterical attempt to create a causus belli where there is so obviously none, George Bush followed the ludicrous and totally unfounded path begun by Britain’s Prime Minister Blair and the US Secretary of State Colin Powell, that Saddam Hussein has contacts with international terrorist regimes, describing Saddam Hussein as “a wealthy patron who offers rewards to the families of suicide bombers”. What he offers is a pension for the families of those who have lost their main breadwinner, an act of social solidarity that the USA would do well to copy, given the millions of its citizens who do not have access to healthcare because the “regime” provides them with nothing.

Sentences such as “The passing of Saddam Hussein’s regime” and “Palestinians that long for democracy will be in a better position to choose new leaders for a state that abandons forever the use of terror” demonstrate a total failure to grasp the basic issues at stake in the region or to understand the fundamental principles of international law.

The United Nations Charter states clearly that any act of war outside the auspices of the organisation must be based on a principle of self-defence, which explains the references to international terrorism levelled against Baghdad by Washington, a puerile and idiotic attempt to indict a regime for a crime which it so obviously did not commit.

The cherry on the cake was the phrase that an Iraq without Saddam Hussein “will contribute greatly to the long-term safety and stability of our world. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq”.

Or rather, the USA’s vision for this region is an occupation of its resources so as to control the world economy. It is a blatant attempt to steal the resources of a sovereign nation, it is an imperialistic policy which is as anachronistic as it is illegal and it is a very sorry comment on the state of development of mankind, that powerful lobbies can be allowed to dictate policy which affects millions of people around the world, directly or indirectly remote-controlling governments which wield awesome power.

Such regimes are authoritarian, fascist, imperialistic, reactionary and totally anachronistic in a world whose engine is its people, in a scenario of multi-lateralism, equal rights, collaboration and friendship between all the nations of the planet.

The USA and its poodle, Blair (not the UK) have managed to ostracise themselves from the mainstay of world public opinion. The rules of diplomacy dictate that when such a position has been reached, the regime faces a certain death.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru