The State of the Union More Like the State of the Mind [Archives:2002/06/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
By: Hassan Al-Haifi
This observer has always awaited to hear the State of the Union message of the President of the United States until dawn, considering that this is the President of the world’s most powerful nation, and one would expect that what he says has an impact on everyone in the world.
Such was the case when President Bill Clinton made his last State of the Union address, when this observer waited eagerly to hear what this phenomenal President had to say, especially after he has overcome the most difficult problem, which was the Lewisnky Affair triumphantly.
However, to be honest that eagerness somehow faded as the date for Mr. George W. Bush’s first State of the Union speech was to be given. Rather than wait eagerly til dawn to hear the speech, this observer felt that my dreaming could probably come out with something more worthwhile to see and listen to (if we do listen when we dream). It turned out that my expectations were not failing me again. Atop from lacking any major achievements to recount for the American people at the home front, Mr. Bush’s speech was a scary bombshell. This is not to say that the words, which were picked up recorded here and there on the satellite channels, with each channel giving what seemed to interest them the most, were in themselves scary, but rather the kind of language and tone was enough to raise eyebrows and seemed to be out of league with what is expected from a US President in perhaps the most important speech of the year. One would surely expect that Mr. Bush would remember that he was speaking to all the people of the world, rather than a few truck drivers or rednecks, who probably do not have the faintest idea where Pyongyang is and who Ayatollah Khamenaei is. Most likely they might know who Saddam Hussein is, for the simple reason that he has been here a long time and he has been keeping himself in world headlines for over two decades now, that even a first grader would be able to recognize him and remember the gunshot firing trigger happy leader, who seems to add a lot of excitement to a lot of people’s boring lives.
What was troublesome about Mr. Bush’s statement, atop of the poor diplomatic flare in the language, when discussing international affairs (This was even noted by one of America’s most successful Secretary of State, Ms. Madeline Al-Bright, God bless her!). Surely Mr. Bush could have been a little bit more tasteful in his language than to come out with such titles as an ‘Axis of Evil’, among three nations that are as different from each other as night is different from day. As for his successful Middle East efforts, we can only say that, as far as most Arabs are concerned, they have written off any hope of seeing any meaningful strides over the next three years by the Bush Administration in the Middle East (Frankly speaking, we do not expect Mr. Bush to really make it for another term, even though he has successfully managed to placate the Jewish vote and the Zionist lobby behind him).
On the other hand, pinpointing small organizations, such as Hizbullah (which is very big in our hearts of course) and Hamas as part of an international terrorist league seems to be a bit far fetched, when considering the context of their struggle and the challenge they pose to perhaps the world’s most dangerous cancer since the Nazism of Adolph Hitler, namely the Zionism of Ariel Sharon. Of course, Mr. Bush has made it clear that Ariel Sharon seems to him like a God-sent gift amidst hostile barbarians, when the truth of the matter is that Ariel Sharon, is sinking the United States in an ugly swamp of hatred and ethnic conflict, which Mr. Bush should do well to avoid. In fact, Mr. Bush should have learned from his predecessor that a world leader like the United States should seek to end ethnic conflict and dogmatism, as the latter did in the Balkans successfully and convincingly.
Let us look at the track record of Mr. Bush on the international front. The awful tragedy in the City of New York, regretfully, may have been encouraged by Mr. Bush’s lack of concern and proper attention to the Middle East situation, which gave an excuse to so called Moslem fundamentalists to satisfy their quest for sensationalism to ‘hit back’ against the US for seeming to be like a supporting pal to an oppressive Zionist monster that has unleashed its dangerous claws of hatred against an unarmed population seeking justice from a global superpower that has insisted to be the broker of a peaceful settlement of the seemingly unending conflict. This is assuming that, it was Al-Qaeda that sponsored the tragedy that befell peace loving New York on that fateful day, and if we can discount all the more logical thinking that the task was far bigger than what the minds of Bin Laden or Mulla Omer could ever conjure up given their limited culture and their lack of apparent sophistication, not to mention the awesome technical expertise that is needed to undertake such a calamity.
As far as Iran is concerned, Mr. Bush is being railroaded into a bad track by the apparently successful Zionist lobby that has gained a strong foothold in the White House, since Mr. Bush would like to have a more convincing victory in the elections for the next term, which he feels the former can help him achieve. Iran has not been proven by any means to have incited, supported or even applauded any terrorist act. On the contrary, Mr. Bush has forgotten that it was the US that engineered an unsuccessful subversive intelligence attempt to overthrew the Khomeini regime in its early days, which turned out to be one of the biggest CIA flops since the Bay of Pigs assault on Fidel Castro. Mr. Bush forgot the obvious role that the United States played in the First Gulf War, by setting up the atmosphere that led to that tragic war and the tireless effort to keep that war going on as long as possible, in the hope that it will destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran, sometimes by covertly switching support to this side or that, depending on how the battlefield was faring out. Mr. Bush forgot that it was an American rocket that downed an Iranian Civil Airliner killing 200 innocent people needlessly. But Iran’s more vocal and sincere support for their Levantine brother is presenting a headache to Bush’s Zionist pals. Without knowing it perhaps, Mr. Bush has put his stakes on a Zionist lobby that has proven to be more of menace than the few votes that Mr. Bush is counting on towards the next elections could ever prove to be.
We hope that the Bush Administration will have some more worthwhile engineering work in foreign policy and that President Bush would develop more tasteful diplomatic language in his forthcoming State of the Unions. Otherwise, we will have to just resort to that God-sent gift of dreaming. One last word that one would have like to hear is just what happened to Mullah Omer and Bin Laden? Apparently the US has toned down considerably on these two culprits, and for some reason or another they have come out of the most wanted list. For some reason, they are of no concern anymore to the US? About the only benefit of all this mess has been to Ariel Sharon and his demagogue pals, advisors and spokesmen, all of whom have labeled all Moslems as ‘Bin Laden terrorists’, as was done by an Israeli Embassy Spokesmen debating with the charming Hanan Ashrawy on the CNN last week, who refuses to be defeated by such nonsense, as always.

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