The Empire Strikes Back

No. I am not referring to the Star Wars movie. I am referring to the United States of America, the new Empire of the late 20th century and the present century, a worthy successor to the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. Just as Hitler came to power through the will of the people, so it is that the Neo-Facist George W Bush swept back to power through the sheer stupidity of the Americans. I got a friend who from his experience in student exchange said that Americans are stupid. I half believe him then, but now I am a true convert.

Of course, American imperialism did not stem from monkey face's rose to power. It has been there all this while through America's oppression of poorer countries through subsidies of its industries, slapping of tariffs on the goods of poorer countries and their support of numerous dictatorship for their own self-interests. But back then, at least America has been courteous. Still a villian in many ways but at least a gentlemanly villian. It respected international opinions and the international community in some limited ways, but not since monkey face came to power with his monkey brains to match. Now America does not even pretend that it is not a big bully. The illegal war in Iraq was one good example. The war was waged simply on Monkey face's whim, no evidence of WMD, no link to Al Qaeda, no consideration to cost human lives and no listening to what the world has to say. It is simply amazing that in the brief period since America started its annexation of Iraq, 100,000 Iraqis have been killed whereas Saddam Hussein for all his wickedness had taken longer years to reach such a record. So who's worse?

There are many reasons that people give for favouring Monkey face despite his apparent stupidity and blunder while in office. The 3 major ones are 1) He advances free trade 2) He takes the fight against terrorism seriously 3) He is a moral man. The fact is that these 3 statements are either false or they are not really good reasons. Let's tackle them one by one.

1) Some pro-Bush commentators like to talk as if Bush is the only American President to be pro-free trade when truth is "pro-free trade" is one of the function that the American President is supposed to play. And of course when America talks about free trade, it is only "free" in those areas that America has a competitive advantage, for e.g. finance, capital intensive goods. America has long maintained subsidies for its agricultural and steel products which it is not supposed to and it slapped heavy tariffs on the products of LDCs and protested when these countries did the same. So it is blatant double standard

2) It is so true that Bush takes the fight against terrorism seriously, seriously enough to use it also to further his right wing agenda like curtailing the rights of Americans and expatriates through the Patriot Act which he abused time and again to detain people without trial for long periods (ironically somewhat like our dear Saddam). He also use the same excuse to act unilaterally (one of the earlier excuse for invading Iraq was its link with Al Qaeda which was baseless and hence changed to possession of weapons of mass destruction)and do some very bastard things like demanding that other countries grant Americans immunity for been charged in international courts for war crimes. And all that been said, he is the absolute wrong man to head the fight against terrorism. To win the fight against terrorism requires subtlety, at the least, what one should not be doing is to antagonize more people and drive them to join terrorist groups. Bush did such a great job in the latter since Sept 11, that one almost has to think that there is a vast conspiracy between him and Osama to produce MORE terrorists in the world.

3) You would not use the word "moral" to describe someone who has used his office to push for policies that benefit his rich friends and family members, lie to the people and the Congress about his policies and act with a complete disregard of the lives of others. Bush famous tax cuts have the following effects: make the rich richer by cutting their contributions relative to the middle and lower income class, lead Social Security on the road to bankruptcy, lesser money for treatment of those soldiers who came back from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has also deliberately deprived environmental and financial regulatory bodies of funds so that they could not check against the excesses of large corporations and he basically tore the Kyoto Protoccol to pieces by refusing to sign it, saying that there is no evidence of the greenhouse effect. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the many immoral deeds he has done. The fact that the Americans still think of him as a moral person and that he is rather "folksy" proves one of the two things. The amazing stupidity and blindness of the average Americans or their society is just as evil as Bush is.

Despite my misgivings about LKY's hardline stance, I have always respected his views. I was most disappointed when he hailed Bush and Howard's victory some time ago, saying that they knew Singapore's leaders and that Singapore would benefit from the re-election of these 2 Facists into office. LKY seemed to be oblivious of the long term danger especially of Bush's presence in the office. The ascendance of right wing politics on the international stage, greater division at the international level, the undermining of the UN and the ticking time bomb of the budget deficit which has ballooned under Bush's irresponsible and unethical tax cuts. Someone should do the world a favour by assassinating him along with his lackey Dick Cheney. I am reluctant to say this, but the world today with Bush as President is beginning to look a bit like the world just before the Second World War............