Bush: Evil Dictator

An interesting article appeared in Tunisian magazine (I think) the Tunis Hebdo. Watching America (one of the best, most innovative and most interesting websites on the entire Net) translated it. I encourage all Americans to read it, not because I agree with it (although the author, Tahar Selmi makes some valid points), but because it gives you all (and other Westerners for that matter) an understanding of how the media in certain countries report about Bush.

Be forewarned: it’s not good.

Seldom in the history of the United States has a President seen his foreign policy as publicly criticized and contested by Americans as George Walker Bush. And as for as the frontal attack that Nancy Pelosi just assaulted him with, it’s quite simply without precedent. By ignoring the recriminations of the White House, which seeks to strangle Syria by tightening its isolation, the speaker of the House of Representatives broke a secular taboo in the country of Lincoln.

But no one has any illusions about the results of Pelosi’s visit. Even if the landlord of the Capitol is the third most powerful person in the U.S. State, democratically elected and lifted to that station by a hundred million American voters, she will not change the course of events in the region as long as “Number 43″ continues to occupy the Oval Office.

George Walker Bush, who claims to act only in the name of bringing democracy to the (”medieval”) Arabs and Muslims, in his own country fights this same democracy like a gladiator. Despite the repeated surges and great tides of people breaking in American cities, exhorting him to change course – particularly in Iraq – he persists in his stubbornness, sweeping away their demands with the back of his hand and threatening the use of his constitutional veto.

The worst totalitarian dictator couldn’t have done better; especially since the U.S. chief executive also bears, in abundance, such a dark past as a despotic President. Didn’t he trample under foot U.N. resolutions and international conventions, subject Americans to a ghetto of domestic spying in the name of the alleged war against terrorism and create an infinity of secret prisons where thousands of prisoners with no means of defense rot without trial? Definitely, the Bush democracy has more than a whiff of fascism. It resembles death.

Now, one of the things I find interesting about this OP-Ed is that, although it is highly critical of George W. Bush, the author does not imply that all, or even most, Americans agree with what Bush is doing. In other words, Selmi might be anti-Bush, he does not seem to be anti-American as such.

It is also interesting to see how Selmi describes Pelosi(’s visit to the region): the “Iron lady of Congress” who really doesn’t get anything done and the clear opposition to Israel. Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad is just about glorified (”fighting as a lion”), while mr. Selmi doesn’t use one single positive word when referring to Israel which he strikingly describes as “the Hebrew state.” Note: not the zionist state, but the Hebrew state. That does not imply ‘mere’ anti-Zionism, but true anti-Semitism.

I also wonder about this:

The almost certain arrival of a Democrat in the White House in less than two years isn’t necessarily a sign of encouragement for the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still likely to have beautiful days in front of it, despite the Arab offer of peace that was first proposed in Beirut in 2002 and relaunched in Riyadh on March 28th of this year. Unless …

Beautiful days? Unless what?