Chintito
59,054,087
Bushmen
pay no
heed
CHINTITO
Post nine-eleven, George W(armonger) was a
man mortified and grossly offended (read 'gussa') by the biggest
attack on American soil since the World War II. The coordinated
terrorist strike on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre
in the financial district of New York City on 11 September
2001 killed more than three thousand civilians.
Publicly Bush and company put the blame squarely
on al-Qaeda led by a former Saudi citizen, who the US gladly
sponsored barely two decades back. Behind the scene they allowed
142 Saudis including 24 members of the bin Laden family to
fly out of the USA after September 13 in six private jets
and two dozen commercial planes. (Ref. documentary US movie
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Academy Award winning filmmaker Michael
Moore, available in CD/DVD)
Eric Lichtblau reported in The New York Times:
Top White House officials personally approved the evacuation
of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama
bin Laden, from the US in the days after the September 11,
2001 attacks when most of the flights were grounded.
Flashback: In 1979 Afghanistan was invaded
by the Soviet Union, then a super power. Saudi Arabian multimillionaire
Osama bin Laden considered unpardonable the Soviet invasion
on a Muslim land. He provided funds, logistics and supplies
to give leadership to a resistance; recruited military volunteers
from Arab nations, and was wholeheartedly supported by the
United States. It was only towards the end of the war in 1988
that bin Laden established al-Qaeda, Arabic for 'the Base'.
By whose open support then was al-Qaeda created?
Having seen the back of the defeated and withdrawing
Soviet forces, American 'hero' Osama returned to Saudi Arabia
the following year. When within a year Saddam Hussein's Iraq
invaded Kuwait, the US responded by jumping with an international
coalition into the Persian Gulf War.
In order to counter Iraq, Saudi Arabia allowed
the US to station troops near Makkah
and Medina, two of Islam's holiest sites into
which even today non-Muslims are not allowed. This military
move made Osama very angry on the Saudi monarchy and in 1992
he left Saudi Arabia for Sudan to continue his remonstration.
Two years later, the Saudi government revoked his citizenship
and froze his assets in Saudi Arabia. So where does this 45-year
old man, elevated to international leadership by selfish US
policy (use him when it suits you, oppose him when not), for
years presumably living in caves, still get his funds from?
Does he sign a cheque book?
Flash more back: Early on the morning of 7
December 1941 the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour was attacked
by Japanese submarines and carrier-based planes, as were nearby
military airfields. Eight American battleships and thirteen
other naval vessels were sunk or badly damaged, almost two
hundred American aircrafts were destroyed, and approximately
three thousand naval and military personnel were killed or
wounded.
In a paradoxical turn of history and growth
in commercial enterprise today there are Japanese troops in
Iraq as part of the US-led coalition forces. The attackers
of Pearl Harbour and those attacked would have been shell-shocked.
Between Pearl Harbour and now, over the past
over sixty years, the Americans have gotten used to the contrary.
They take their war to every other country, much to the hilarity
(not related to Clinton) of 59,054,087 American voters (2004
US presidential elections) so that the shores of US of A are
alive and kicking with children playing in the sandy beaches,
while the grownups either lay back under the shade of umbrellas
or jostle for stocks and other mortal gains in business districts
and thriving localities. Only this half never pauses to ponder
that there are children just as adorable in Afghanistan, as
innocent in Iraq, that the women there are also lovingly addressed
as equivalent of Mom and Momma.
In Y2K George W Bush became the president
of the United States by a margin of only 537 votes in decisive
Florida, where his brother Republican Jeb (not translated
from Hindi/Urdu 'pocket') Bush was the Governor, in an electorate
of around hundred and fifty million; that too after counting,
recounting and recounting until they lost count.
Many believe it was haughty of Bush to consider
that negligible margin a mandate (?) to go and bomb every
country where he believed lived a former-friend-turned-enemy
of the USA. History tells us that list also includes Saddam.
Many major leaders and countries of the world
opposed and washed their hands off Bush's war move without
a UN sanction. But you do not have to listen to any one if
you are the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful armed
forces in the world. The rest of the world prays for humanity
from a US president. That should be the gift of the American
people to the rest of the world.
Bush Jr. has not forgotten the decades old
attack on a US harbour. During his first term, marking the
60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbour attack on 7 December
2001 from the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, the US president
said: 'The attack on Pearl Harbour was plotted in secrecy,
waged without mercy. Out of that surprise attack grew a steadfast
resolve that made America freedom's defender, and that missionour
great callingcontinues to this hour as the brave men and women
of our military fight the forces of terror in Afghanistan
and around the world.'
So the US under Bush would attack.
As apparent eye-shy (read 'chokkhu lajja')
Bush and his parrot Bliar invented WMD as personified by do-moor-er
phool Osama and in the form of Saddam's rusted armaments.
They have WMD, we will find the WMD, it is a matter of time,
maybe the WMD have been hidden, etc. have now fizzled out
to they (B&B) were misinformed by their intelligence.
Not that intelligent then, are they? Are not the lies of an
elected politician a felony that the learned voters in the
West never forgive? That was the West that was; now it is
learned by less than half.
The war in Afghanistan is typical of US invasions,
which are originally justified by the need to crush a dangerous
enemy, (read 'in search of Osama') but in the end result in
more civilian deaths than combatant deaths, serving to repress
and pacify the whole population, says one analyst.
From The Economist: 'SOME 100,000 soulsperhaps
even moremay have perished in Iraq as a result of the American-led
invasion. So, at any rate, says a respected British medical
journal, the Lancet. If only half that figure is the true
one, it is shocking.…'
Victory to humankind, there has been massive
and some of the biggest ever anti-War protests against Bush
and Bliar from London to Johannesburg, from Jakarta to Lagos,
even in America as recent as 7 November 2004 ; pleading for
the lives of the innocent citizens of the bombarded countries.
But more than half of America shut off their ears. For now
their sandy beaches, the jumbo umbrellas, the rise of their
stocks are all that matter. The rest of the world! Where is
that?
As the 2004 US elections drew near, much of
the world were open about their hatred for Bush's foreign
policy that maims and kills innocent and uninvolved men, women
and children in another economically strategic country; they
openly opted for the Democratic alternative.
But half of the Americans who voted thought:
If the rest of the world were against Bush getting re-elected,
this son of a gun must be doing something damn right for us.
Reporting on the 'US election disaster', London's
Daily Mirror front-paged on 4 November a photo of Bush with
the caption, 'How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?'
Many of the accused, self-claimed PhD holder
and MENSA member inclusive, actually claimed (How dumb?) by
writing to the paper that they were not dumb and did the right
thing.
The following are some of the reactions to
that Mirror story from the better half of America:
THANKS for acknowledging that half of American
did not vote for "Dubya" and we are in deep mourning
for the fate of our country. - Marion & Tom Tunney, Cranbury,
New Jersey
YOUR cover says it all. I'm ashamed to bear
the surname of George Bush. - Donnie Bush, Dayton, Ohio
I WAS stunned to see that Ohio, the state
that suffered the most staggering job losses as a result of
Bush, actually went to the Republicans. Please do remind your
readers that not all Americans feel the way that Mr. Bush
does. (Name not given)
I am trying to get an internship in the UK
and as a result of the Bush administration's crazy anti-Europe
stance I fear many Europeans will view all Americans as closed-minded,
war-crazed individuals. Hopefully in the near future America
will get a responsible leader that recognises that we are
not alone in this world and that many problems in this world
do not have an American solution. - Jen, Michigan
WE are saddened in heart and mind and scared
about the damage that Bush can do in the next four years,
above the damage he has already done. - Ilene Coman, Connecticut
IF you are one of the 45 million without health
insurance, a simple ear infection costs upwards of $150 to
treat. I am horrified that over 59 million people voted to
re-elect the moron-in-chief. But don't worry, Britons, those
people won't be visiting your country anytime soon. Nine of
10 of them can't find Britain on a map. - Brooklyn, New York
***
For
the better half of America and many of us, the world will
hopefully be a better place after another four years what
with Bush finally out of the White House; unless of course
he manages to change the constitution to get a third term.
The outcome of the 2004 US elections has convinced me and
half of USA that in the US anything and everything is possible.
Copyright
(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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