British Prime Minister Tony Blair, of course, condemned such acts committed by some members of his army. He said Britain "will not tolerate abuse of any kind." The Head of the British Army General Sir Mike Jackson also "condemned utterly" such abuses. But these utterances cannot take away or compensate for the disgrace that the Iraqis have suffered in the hands of the occupation forces.

The grave abuses of the Iraqi prisoners by the American army, claimed to have been done by a small number, and horrific prisoner abuses in the Guantanamo Bay (there was no charge against many of those prisoners and many were released and allowed to go back to their native land) make Bush administration certainly accountable to the American people and also to world community as a whole. Already majority of the Americans have now understood that they were misled by the Bush administration and this is why they are now saying clearly that this war was 'not worth fighting'. More than 1350 Americans have been killed and over 10,000 badly injured. The question arose why this unnecessary sacrifice? Indeed, all these were added to the unfortunate 3000 of 9/11, even if you leave aside over 100,000 Iraqis killed in the war. Nobody asked President Bush to invade Iraq, establish democracy there and sacrifice Americans' and others' lives.

Just watch the present developments in Iraq. The killings of both Iraqis and occupation forces have been going on but Alawi, an American henchman, appears determined to have some form of election by hook or by crook and establish himself and the Shia regime in Iraq. This is no democracy. Democracy cannot be established by using military might. Even if some semblance of success is projected through concocted election data, it would not ultimately work. For a real success, full participation of Iraqi people in general is a must. The postponement of election by say six months to have the other factions -- Sunnis and Kurds -- on board as demanded by those groups could have avoided this disaster. But that would probably have made Alawi's position somewhat unsure and hence his bid to complete the election. As it seems, the killings would continue even after the so-called election and the country would stand divided in ethnic and religious terms. This might also open up the possibility of a Shia regime having alignment with Iran. That would then be a good lesson for the Bush administration.

Indeed, in terms of security now the whole world appears upside down -- only terrorism and terrorism all over the world. Unfortunately Bush- Cheney-Rumsfeld axis has changed the security situation of the world. The latest poll shows that out of 21 countries 19 have voted against Bush administration and viewed that 'Bush's reelection to the White House made the world more dangerous.'

There were considerable negative feelings about America in the Western Europe, Latin America and certainly in the Muslim countries. In other words, the whole world has been against Bush's reelection. Then what sort of second term inauguration celebration did he have on January 20? Was it not the celebration on invasion of Iraq, occupation, death of both Americans and Iraqis, dreadful human rights violations in the form of prison abuses including those in Guantanamo Bay etc?

Not only those! The world would remember with utter disgust and shock the horrific killing by American soldiers, just two days before Bush's inauguration, of both man and wife in a car in Iraq leaving six small children at the back seat of the car totally horror-struck. The TV footage by an expert photographer vividly showed the heart breaking scenes. The boy apparently of about three years age along with other crying kids came out of the car and stood before the camera completely thunderstruck and dumbfounded. Can any amount of apology and compensation from Bush administration bring any consolation to six small orphans? Is it the way Bush administration trying to liberate the Iraqi people and 'spread democracy' in the countries around the world?

It is America which produced great people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and many other great leaders and has laudable system of education and research and is the hub of medicine and high technologies. It is now facing an acute challenge to its glorious past because of the misdirected approaches by some of its ambitious leaders who have the support of some Christian fundamentalists having their faith apparently based on distorted version of the Gospel which appears much different from the original Gospel revealed by God to Jesus Christ -- the revealed Book that all people of Faith believe in (reportedly over 40 English versions of the Bible exist today).

What President Bush has achieved for this America in four years of his presidency is 'hate America' by the people around the world. As mentioned above, the Americans who were loved and welcomed by practically all and everywhere are now not only hated, they are indeed not even safe anywhere in the world. What an achievement by a president of a country! And most surprising is that he got reelected for another term!

In the inauguration celebration he avoided talking anything directly about the situation in Iraq. He knows this is his weakest point. He, however, continued to preach liberty, freedom and democracy. He said 'the survival of liberty in America depends on the success of liberty in other lands' Not necessarily so. America's liberty continued despite dictatorship in other lands. Many dictators around the world had been and are still under the protection of American administration.

Indeed, there appears to be too much of individual liberty and freedom in America. Just see the examples of Prisoners abuses committed in Abu Ghraib by the American soldiers and particularly by Linda England and Charles Graner. They enjoyed"liberty" and "freedom". Linda became pregnant during her service period in Iraq. As it appeared from the reports, she was an unmarried woman. This was due to too much of liberty and freedom of individuals without any accountability and virtually in the absence of any effective military supervision or discipline. No civilised society should accept such behaviors under the garb of individual liberty and freedom. Indeed, if such offensive open sex continues unchecked in the name of individual freedom and liberty, any society would fall apart on moral grounds.

So it's no use giving some prison sentences to individual soldiers. The problem is with superpower arrogance leading to invasion, occupation and high handedness of the occupation army and also with overall faulty perception of democracy, liberty, freedom, culture and moral issues of a particular society. The "controversial" leader of a country where a considerable segment of society has this sort of flawed perceptions should not be entitled to preach all these social and moral values to other societies which are by definition and culture and also by traditions quite different. It would be counterproductive and indeed even dangerous if any attempt is made to impose those flawed ideas of democracy, liberty and freedom on other societies and nations.

Muslehuddin Ahmad, a former Secretary, Ambassador, and Founder VC of North South University and Presidency University, is Chairman, Civic Watch-Bangladesh and convener, Movement for Corruption-free Society.