Was President Bush’s recent tour of Africa just a convenient and thinly-disguised attempt to whitewash an otherwise dismal foreign policy record? Mohammad Jafar Ahmed of Al-Khaleej of the United Arab Emirates writes, ‘By signing agreements and handing out donations to help combat disease at the end of his second term, Bush’s tour appeared to be an attempt to instill memories other than the American catastrophe in Iraq and the quagmire in Afghanistan.’
By Mohammad Jafar Ahmed
Translated By James Jacobson
February 22, 2008
United Arab Emirates – Al-Khaleej – Original Article (Arabic)
In his last months before leaving the White House, American President George Bush remembered of the “Dark Continent,” setting off on a six-day African tour starting in Benin, and moving on to Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana, and ending today with a stop in Liberia.
Bush’s “farewell” tour, which is the second to Africa of his presidency, was meant to convince the world that he feels the suffering of this forgotten people, presenting himself as an advocate who wants to help them overcome the effects of war, conflict and disease. But perhaps the true purpose was to rescue a legacy tainted with the blood of thousands in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan – the result of his wars and unlimited support of Zionist aggression, in addition to the sanctions he has imposed on a number of countries that have opposed his policies.
The tour was striking in that it didn’t include the real hot spots of conflict on the Dark Continent, notably Sudan, home of the Darfur crisis, as well as Kenya, where the turmoil that has embroiled the nation since the recent elections continues, to say nothing of Chad and Somalia.
Bush’s five-country selection prompts anyone interested Africa’s difficulties to question the meaning and true objectives of his tour and whether it was for political or economic purposes. As Darfur is one of the major preoccupations of the West, particularly in the United States, which kept the crisis on the international agenda until it reached the U.N. Security Council, Sudan can be considered the greatest failure of Bush’s tour; similar to the way Palestine was the great failure after his last Middle East tour, where as result of American cover for “Israeli” crimes, hundreds have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank.
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