Imagine if George Bush had an imagination

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The kindest words I have heard about George Bush lately is that he is a light weight, a comic, a joke, a drunk detached from reality, a Caligula impersonator, a blind man following a blind dog, an opportunist, a stooge of the Likudnik lobby, a racist, a bigot, an Israeli doormat, a war criminal lover and a warmonger.  The President of the United States is also adding new words to the Arabic language.  In Cairo’s papers, they write of ‘Busharonism,’ a doctrine of ethnic cleansing. Another new reference is to ‘ZioAmericanism,’ a flavor of globalism unique to the Middle East and dominated by the Israeli Lobby.

A retired affable Scottish educated Agriculture Professor, an aristocratic man in his seventies told me Bush was the first American president he ever hated. ‘He has the darkest intentions for the Arabs, he is planning a catastrophe for us. I have been watching the man since he came into office. He disturbs me to the point where I get no pleasure out of life. I used to ignore the political headlines and go for the sports page, but I can’t even enjoy the World Cup.’ His nephew, who teaches Engineering and has a doctorate from Japan, nods his head in agreement. This conversation takes place at the Egyptian equivalent of a Sunday dinner with a clan of upper class professionals.  These are forward looking people who think the world of Americans but despise the Bush administration.

Egyptians talk politics all day and into the night.  It is not unusual for educated people to read two or three papers a day; A government paper and one or more opposition party papers. In fact, some of the political parties manage to finance their political and social activities with profits from their papers. This is a country where Horatio Alger impersonators hop onto the bus or train hawking the latest headlines and urging you to ‘read all about it.’ 

The bottom line is that Egyptians know whats going on in Argentina and Korea. They pay attention to the G-8 meetings and know George Bush is running a campaign in Florida at the expense of the Palestinians. They know about Enron and they get into the details of every domestic and foreign financial scandal.

If George Bush had the imagination to imagine the adjectives being attached to his name at ‘Friday’ dinner in Maadi, an exclusive Cairo suburb. If George Bush had the imagination to see beyond his brother’s campaign to keep his office as Governor of Florida. Perhaps, George would keep a little distance from the crimes of Ariel Sharon. As of now, only one thing prevents a full blown trial of Ariel Sharon for his crimes at Qibya, Sabra and Shatila, Jenin and Hebron. That one thing, according to a recent Belgian court ruling, is that Sharon is not in Belgium.

At the expense of Palestinian suffering, George Bush is putting together his ‘new Republican majority’, based on the Israeli Lobby, the neo-conservatives and the Christian Zionist movement. That is the way it looks from Cairo. Long after the mid-term election results are in, George Bush will still have to deal with the legacy of all the adjectives attached to his name. Who knows? Maybe in another decade, he will find himself avoiding Belgian airports, to avoid testifying in Sharon’s trial.

People here are still trying to digest the latest Bush speech. They are trying to decipher the full implications of what Bush said. It was obviously another campaign speech, but did he have to be so nasty to the Palestinians and rub salt in their open wounds? Why would he publicly declare himself a Sharon accomplice? Who operates this guy and where is the control switch? The speech was a clear green light for the latest Israeli atrocities in the West Bank and Gaza. No mention was made of the Beirut plan.  Besides, what the hell is a provisional state? Does Bush think that the Israeli occupation is a quality of life issue? What does Sharon have in his files? Why is Bush so accommodating and sheepish in the presence of this serial mass murderer?

Well here is one clue from the BBC on 5/30/2002 (Accounts probe at Cheney firm). “US oil services and engineering firm Halliburton is being investigated for its accounting practices when US Vice President Dick Cheney was at the helm. Halliburton is the latest in a string of companies to come under fire for allegedly shielding their true financial position from investors and analysts.” Is Cheney another Sprio Agnew?. Is that why Cheney is such a ‘hawk’, to save his skin from the mass media tabloids.

Which brings me to another subject that should stretch Bush’s imagination. Today, a Palestinian woman in Gaza was shot by Israeli troops and left to bleed to death for hours while medical assistance was denied by the IDF. In Hebron, a whole building was blown up with fifteen resistance fighters inside.  When Bush issued Sharon his latest open season license to murder Palestinians, did he do it because Sharon’s Yiddish supremacist pals in the mass media promised to keep hush hush about Halliburton and Enron. Or do they have some other dirt on the President? Maybe the Palestinian journalists  can best defend themselves by finding out more about the files that Sharon and the Israeli Lobby use to intimidate the crooks in the White House. Forget about what Bush says. Find out what motivates him to act like a doormat for the Likudniks.

Mr. Ahmed Amr is Editor of NileMedia.com in Seattle and a regular contributor to Media Monitors Network (MMN).