9/19: Bush’s speech at the UN today sounded like a bomb threat in a velvet glove. The world’s governments were told to get behind thinly
veiled threats on the entire Middle East, and in particular Iran. This is a president whose diplomacy comes off
like a bully on the schoolyard; but what’s at stake is not lunch money, but
quite literally the fate of millions of people around the world.
Four years ago we heard Bush “make his case” (i.e.,
lie through his teeth) for war on Iraq, and demand that the world go
along. Millions of people across the
globe came out in unprecedented protest. Many governments refused to go along
with Bush’s threats and arm twisting (which he calls “coalition building”). The
Bush regime went ahead with their unjust war against Iraq undeterred. 100,000 people are
dead because of this. And Bush had the brazen audacity to say at the U.N., “my
country desires peace”.
To allow the same suffering to be visited upon yet another
country, only this time possibly with nuclear weapons, is completely
unacceptable. The fact that the Bush
regime doesn’t care what we think, and there is no path to stop this through
official political channels, is even more cause for determined resistance, on a
scale even greater than in 2003, to prevent another war and stop this horrible
recurring nightmare.
What is perhaps most outrageous about Bush’s speech is that
he still has the audacity and arrogance to claim to be the “good
guy”. Anyone who listened had to
stomach the notion that the Bush regime is working to spread freedom,
democracy, tolerance, and progressive reform.
The reality of Bush’s “new Middle East”
is brutal occupation, increased poverty and suffering, systematic torture,
massacres of innocent civilians by bombs from the sky and soldiers on the
ground, and constantly living under the gun (including the nuclear trigger). Bush
had the nerve to make lofty-sounding appeals to the people of the Middle East
and tout the fact that “free elections” were held in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Bushspeak, a “free election” can be one
held under the gun of an occupying military empire. Moreover, anyone who’s paid any attention to
the last two US
presidential elections should at minimum be suspicious when Bush talks about
“free elections”.
For all the talk and even the reality of
“extremists” killing innocent people in the Middle East, right now in
the White House religious extremists – Christian fascists – stand at the helm
of the most powerful military in the world and are declaring before the world
their right to use its full arsenal – up to and including nuclear weapons, and against
anyone who stands in their way. Bush
even had the nerve to cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the
principles the world should strive for, while he has spent the last week openly
demanding that Congress ratify the right for the military and CIA to torture
people!
This is truly a moment in which the future is being shaped
one way or another. As Bush’s recent
series of “war on terrorism” speeches have made clear, this regime
has every intention of steamrolling ahead with their endless war for empire,
and NO WHERE in the official political structures, including the upcoming
midterm election, is anyone even saying they will stop this. The diplomacy being conducted in the halls of
the UN is nothing more that than the Bush administration letting the world know
its disastrous plans and demanding everyone and every government either sign on
or submit. As the very right wing, pro-Bush National
Review reported when two of its writers did an interview with Bush
recently, “his language suggests that the thesis that the seemingly
interminable Iran diplomacy
is the necessary run-up to a strike on Iran has something to it. Bush
says, ‘It is very important for the United States to try all diplomatic
means.’ That’s what we did in Iraq”
The question people around the world are asking is when will
the American people stand up and stop this, and at present time Bush’s voice is
speaking louder than the widespread anger and discontent that exists among millions
of people in this country. October 5th
will be a day to change that – to answer the Bush regime’s clear intentions to
commit even bigger crimes with massive protests across the country determined
to bring all this to a halt. This is
what the world demands of us right now.