Measuring President Bush By His Own Words


WorldNews

Guest Writer Beverly Darling.

November 28, 2005

On September 12, 2002, President Bush addressed the United Nations General Assembly in a stirring speech entitled ‘A Decade of Deception and Defiance.’ Mr. Bush accused Saddam Hussein of secretly manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and crating a society based on fear, intimidation, and mass killings. If numerous conditions were not met by Saddam Hussein, George Bush warned of imminent actions and grave consequences. Since Mr. Bush aggressively initiated the war with Iraq and is now holding Saddam Hussein accountable to the same standards found in his speech, let’s revisit the same words Mr. Bush spoke and see how HE measures up to his own words, principles, and new world order.

’…the peace of the world must never again be destroyed by the will and wickedness of one man.’ After many months of brutal battles and bloodshed in Iraq, peace and stability are still elusive. Some reputable reports claim over 135,000 Iraqi’s have died with 400,000 suffering wounds. Millions of Iraqis are still without electricity, water, and many children are malnourished and suffering from environmental degradation. The Pentagon recently reported that the insurgency is still gaining strength. Mr. Bush continues his mantra in threatening to spread the war to neighboring Iran and Syria. Even China and Russia, which recently signed a military treaty, is concerned of U.S. expansion and imperialism in south central Asia and has called for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. Who is destroying the peace of the world?

’…our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions.’ With Vice-President Cheney and his tacit support of torture, the Bush administration has suspended the right to a trial and is promoting ’enhanced confessions’ not only for suspected ‘enemy combatants,’ but even U.S. citizens that are being held in secret gulags around the world. It is well known that there are vicious and brutal covert groups operating in the U.S. Defense Department and CIA. The administration has even admitted to the privatization and outsourcing of torture to paramilitary death squads. In despising totalitarianism, a government can in turn become totalitarian in order to destroy the system it condemns. Who is the rogue nation now?

‘…citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape.’ From the thousands at Abu Graib who were tortured, raped, sodomized, and who received electric shock treatment to the 173 mutilated and starving prisoners who were recently released from a secret dungeon, Mr. Bush should be ashamed and embarrassed. As the previous commander at Abu Graib claims she witnessed written memo’s from Mr. Rumsfield concerning the use of torture techniques in dealing with prisoners, U.S. troops are desecrating and burning the bodies of Islamic fighters. The War Party has framed the debate and declared themselves above the law. In opting for only a military and vengeful solution, today’s freedom fighters and defenders of pseudo-democracies are capable of becoming tomorrow’s terrorists. Who are the torturers now?

‘Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder.’ Unfortunately for Fallujah and other insurgent strongholds, the above quote proved to be hollow. Not only did U.S. forces indiscriminately kill civilians, bomb hospitals, destroy thousands of homes and schools, but the illegal and banned chemical weapon ‘white phosphorous’ and use of cluster bombs were implemented. When Aljazeera attempted to air the ’scorched earth’ policies of the U.S. Military, their headquarters in Baghdad and Afghanistan were razed. So far over 70 journalists have been killed in the U.S.-Iraqi War. Video footage of Abu Graib, the war in Iraq, and the return of U.S. wounded soldiers and flag draped coffins have been suppressed and kept out of sight from the American public. How free and open is U.S. society, especially in reference to the Patriot Act?

‘My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council…’ Does anyone remember Hans Blix of the UN, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, pleading with the Bush Administration to allow UN weapon inspectors to have more time in searching for WMD‘s? France and Germany, two of the U.S.’s closest allies along with most of the world refused to participate in criminal invasion of Iraq. Over 83,000 suspected ‘enemy combatants’ are now being held around the world by the U.S., who is denying these prisoners access from UN and Red Cross workers. Did the U.S. skirt UN policies and articles of peace?

‘If we fail to act…the Iraqi regime will remain unstable-the region will remain unstable, with little hope of freedom,…’ Mr. Allawi, the former Interim Prime Minister of Iraq, just yesterday commented that the situation in Iraq under U.S. occupation forces is now just as tumultuous and deadly as it was under the reign of Saddam Hussein. CIA reports now claim that instead of freeing the Iraqi’s, their country is embroiled in a civil war and it has become a magnet and training ground for some terrorist organizations. How stable and free is Iraq?

In coming to the UN to deliver his speech that day, Mr. Bush made two fatal errors. First he arrogantly believed his religion and god was superior to those of other cultures. His second mistake was the perception that his form of government and political views were exemplary and would be welcomed by others and therefore easily exported through military means. Unfortunately, liberty and holiness can never be preserved or spread unless it is first practiced at home. As the trial of Saddam Hussein begins, there is another leader who should be held accountable. This leader has disassociated himself and dissembled his words and principles. However, Mr. Bush was right about one thing in his speech, ‘The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity.’ Not an occupation force or foreign power, but only the people of Iraq, in practicing popular sovereignty and unifying, in seeking forgiveness, justice, and mercy, only they can choose their freedom.