Boy, is it getting tougher for Mr. Bush (2/2) [Archives:2004/726/Opinion]

Hassan Al-Haifi
As if international setbacks are not enough to confront the Bush Administration's efforts to hold on to its throne at the helms of the World Superpower, domestically George W. Bush is faced with rising discontent on the political front even within the Republican Party. This is especially in light of the testimony of Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council official who was launching a broadside against President Bush's counterterrorism policies. Clarke shed light on the neglect shown by the Bush Administration in at least holding on to the mechanisms for checking any possible Al-Qaeda attacks against the United States leftover from the Clinton Administration, prior to 9/11.
On top of that, the situation in Iraq is far from what the Bush Administration is projecting in the media and in the press conferences of the various spokesmen and spokeswomen coming out with daily briefs from Baghdad to Washington. Death is an ongoing fact of life in the myriad of violence that is breaking out in the Sunni Triangle and the other areas of Iraq, where resentment of the American occupation is increasing to the point of mob vigilante attacks against anything of association with the occupation, even presumable civil contracts (or disguised intelligence for the “coalition forces”, as some Iraqis like to call it), as manifested by the clear signs of hatred against the occupiers shown in Faluja last week.
Yet, the Bush Administration continues to think that it can sell such difficulties to the American electorate this coming November as simply part of its ongoing war on terror. The facts on the ground clearly show that not one advance has been achieved in the fight against terror. While the Bush Administration attests the absence of terrorist attacks on the United States as proof of its successes in this mysterious battle, there are others who point out that perhaps the 9/11 attack is a one shot deal organized by clandestine elements that sought to establish a new mind set in the United States. The obvious aim of this effort was to justify the orientation of the American public to accept a greater limitation on their freedoms and to lay down the foundations for ultra right wing hegemony of the political scene. The theorists along this line suggest that many of the people in this establishment are shrouded by questionable backgrounds and shady dealings that allude to criminal and narrow minded deviations. Thus, it would not be far fetched that they had tacit approval for such a heinous crime, if not outright approval and participation.
Most observers are willing to bet that the overriding theme that terrorists are banking on to promote their agenda is the Middle East Crisis and suggest that the obvious closed eye attitude of the Bush Administration to all the evil unleashed in the West Bank and Gaza by Ariel Sharon is a fermenting factor for terrorism. Not to be outdone by the rightwing colleagues in the Bush Administration, Sharon's civilian wishy-washy dealings are rising to the surface and being accorded legal action by the relevant concerned Israeli authorities, albeit a long and arduous process. The point to be made here is that disassociation with the Likudniks in Tel Aviv and pursuing efforts to promote a serious peace effort in the Middle East, would really go a long way in leading to a significant loss of momentum for the terrorists among Moslem constituencies and spare the world a lot of needless bloodshed, especially among civilians. However, the Bush Administration insists on hinging its political bets on blind support of the Zionist agenda, notwithstanding the obvious detriment this has on the Arab and Moslem World constituencies and the latters' attitude towards the United States, as horribly portrayed by the Faluja mob scene we saw last week, which could easily spread, not only to the other ensuing battle zones in Iraq, but to the entire Arab World and Moslem World. It goes without saying that resentment towards the United States is already at an all-time high in this part of the world, as well as among the constituencies of Arab and Moslem origin living in the West. This resentment of the coziness of the Bush Administration to the Likudnik thugs in Israel could never be considered as rational foreign policy and surely cannot be considered an indivisible element in the fight against terror, but rather as a cause d''tre of terrorism.
With the Bush Administration continuing to wager on the Zionist lobby support in the United States amidst all this fumbling domestically and internationally, the grounds for a possible Bush victory in the forthcoming elections will be simply doomed, because the overriding aura that makes all this fumbling inescapable is the evil intents that cloud all the Bush Administration's methodology in presumably pursuing serious policies, which really only work to enhance the greed of a small clique of the American constituency, with generous tax breaks and lucrative contracts in places where America has pretty much pursued activities similar to those of the East India Trading Company in the early days of the British Empire.
In this regard, perhaps Mr. Bush and his followers should make it clear to the American people that they are in the quest for a new Anglo-American Empire where the “Sun never sinks” and thus gear their constituencies for a long haul that will last centuries, or as long as American might can hold out. However, one is compelled to remind the Bush administration that, notwithstanding America's monopoly on might for the moment, James Michener's prophecy is bound to become inevitable. James Michener suggested about a decade ago that America is bound to disintegrate as a powerful country, just like all the great empires of the past, because that is an inevitable end faced by all empires and because the signs of social decay are already eating away at the facade of affluence and prosperity to the point that America is no longer viewed as the land of the free and the prosperous masses. Needless to say, this is God's will!
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[archive-e:726-v:13-y:2004-d:2004-04-05-p:opinion]