Democracy By George!

The News, Pakistan

March 6, 2006

Out of my head

Khusro Mumtaz

George W H Bush thinks the General is doing a gosh-darn wunnerful job of helping Georgie and the gang (Dickie, Donnie, Condi, etc) wage their ‘war on terror’. He also thinks the General is doing a wunnerful job of promoting democracy in Pakistan. But he would, wouldn’t he? After all, the way ‘democracy’ exists in Pakistan is very much the way Georgie wants democracy to exist in his own country.

Rigged elections? Check. Remember Georgie got elected to the presidency in a highly dubious election in which the final result hung on a few dangling chads in the state of Florida. Guess who was (and still is) the governor of the Sunshine State. None other than Georgie’s younger brother, Jeb. Yup. Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida. It was also recently discovered that the Diebold electronic voting machines used in a number of counties and states (37 of them, to be exact) across the US can be easily (repeat: easily) programmed to give a predetermined result and the audit trail is open to change as well. And guess what? Walden O’Dell, the chief executive of Diebold, is a Republican party member who in 2003 "committed to helping Ohio deliver [repeat: deliver] its electoral votes to the president [i.e. Georgie boy] next year". This is not to say that voting fraud was committed with the connivance of Diebold but it certainly makes you think, doesn’t it?

Corruption and nepotism? Check. See above for example. Pay special attention to the words, Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida. And here are two more: Neil Bush. The president’s other brother, who had no prior banking experience, was put in charge of Colorado’s Silverado Savings And Loan in the ’80s when his father, George Bush Sr was the US vice-president, and proceeded to run it into the ground to the tune of a billion dollars. Of course, there were no criminal charges brought against him. Now it’s been revealed that he and his business associates (with the same amount of required experience that Neil Bush had before taking over Silverado — that is, zero) have been riding the same no-bid Iraq contract gravy train that others like Bechtel and Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s ‘ex’ company, have been on.

There are numerous other examples of various Bush and Cheney cronies being handled plum assignments and jobs for no other reason or experience than that they are Georgie’s and Dickie’s buddies and followers. There was Michael Brown who messed up royally in his duties as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) when Hurricane Katrina struck (though it has recently come out — on video tape, no less — that he did warn Georgie about the danger of levees being breached in New Orleans but Georgie’s mind was wandering and he wasn’t really listening). More recently, while Congress wasn’t in session (therefore no Congressional hearings), Georgie appointed Julie Myers, niece of Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs Of Staff, and wife of John Wood, chief of staff to Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, as the head of US Immigration and Customs. Her previous senior management experience? Zip. Of course, another perk of being Dickie’s friend is that you can look forward to being shot by the vice-president if you get in the way of his hunting quail.

No concern for human or civil rights? Check. No American administration has worked so actively to undermine human and civil rights both internationally and domestically. The Patriot Act gives the American government unparalleled powers to spy and invade the privacy of non-citizens and citizens alike and curtails their rights to legal representation. Look at the torture chambers and affront to human dignity that are Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo. Look at the ‘terror’ suspects being held in undisclosed locations in friendly European countries and God-knows where else.

Disregard for the constitution? Check. Georgie firmly believes in the concept of President-as-Emperor. Especially in times of ‘War’. Remember, Georgie thinks of himself as a ‘war President’ which, he believes, entitles him to unfettered freedom in the pursuit of terrorists and national security. Not for him and his administration the niceties of the law or the constitution. Don’t like a law? We’ll change it or ignore it. Witness the clearly illegal domestic spying programme launched under the orders of Georgie himself.

Restrictions on freedom of speech and the right to protest? Check. We close off Islamabad to all forms of protest while Georgie’s there and place Imran Khan under house arrest so that he can’t lead a demonstration against the leader of the free world. This is right up Georgie’s alley. As Governor of Texas, he banned demonstrations in front of the governor’s mansion, traditionally an area allowed for peaceful protests. When he became president he expanded on that philosophy. Now, if you want to protest against Georgie or his administration’s policies you have to do so in what are known as — with not a hint of irony — ‘Free Speech Zones’. These ‘zones’ are often a mile or so away from Georgie so that he can’t see or hear the protestors. If you don’t abide by this rule then you can be thrown into jail. Of course, if you are pro-Georgie then you can assemble close to where he’s passing through. So if Georgie doesn’t see any protestors, does it mean they don’t exist? And don’t forget that, as revealed by the BBC in an article, the Pentagon has developed a strategy for tackling the dangers of the internet (which, according to the article, it views as "an enemy weapons system"), and controlling how and in what form the world at large receives and processes information.

The use of the far religious right for your political purposes? Check. Our President-General has cleverly manipulated the mullahs, facilitated their rise to power in two provinces, and given them the run of the streets when it suited him so as to present himself as the only viable partner for the US in the ‘war against terror’ and a bulwark against religious extremism (of course, he does need to remember that a genie once let out of the bottle isn’t easy to control). Georgie, on the other hand, has the conservative Christians of his land as his main constituency and to keep them happy, among other things, he appoints just the ‘right sort’ of conservative judges to the Supreme Court. We must also never forget the fact that Georgie boy talks to God: Georgie has admitted it was He who told Georgie to go to war in Iraq.

And the list goes on.

The writer is a banker and freelance writer

Email: khusro_m@yahoo.co.uk