Bush is back. He dropped into
Texas to cast a vote in the primary. Someone forgot to file for his absentee ballot.
No one is suggesting that the leader of the free world should have bothered himself with the petty details of participatory democracy and filed it himself. After all, he was away - hopping from country to country in a crescent around his 'evil axis' - nation-building with a shuck and a grin as he posed with his cowed posse and
lectured them on the differences between his fascist regime and their own curious authority.
Attention to details of democracy didn't make much sense in this
South Asia tour while visiting the leader of Pakistan whose military coup and ascendance to power made Musharraf a certain ally in Bush's opportunistic terror war. There was a bombing in Karachi right before he was set to arrive. His handlers put on a brave face. Bush was 'under risk'. National Security Adviser Hadley briefed the press:
" . . . this is not a risk-free undertaking. The President has made it very clear, though, in the same way that Musharraf, who is also under risk, has not been deterred from waging the war on terror by the attacks and the terrorists, he and the United States cannot be deterred by the attacks of the terrorists from showing our support to a good ally."
Earlier, Bush had slinked into Afghanistan as Pakistan security forces were attacking what was called a '
militant training camp' near the Afghan border as a token of their adherence to Bush's terror war. "Mopping them up here, boss"
"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Bush had said at his
news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right after he and Hadley gifted India with a promise to give them U.S. nuclear technology and nuclear fuel for their atomic power industry. They cobbled together the agreement less than two hours before Bush and Singh scheduled the joint news conference.
But to Bush, Pakistan was a delinquent stepchild in comparison to the 'good' daughter, India, the region's oldest democracy. If Bush still had Condi to read for him he would have
discovered that India once used plutonium produced in a Canadian-supplied reactor to detonate a bomb it then called a "peaceful nuclear device"
There would be no nuclear aid offered to Pakistan, perhaps because of the country's close relationship with Bush's 'evil axis' member, Iran. Maybe it was because of the oil pipeline deal. "This gas pipeline is our requirement and we will get it," Musharraf
said recently.
Pakistan will have to contend itself with the nuclear fuel they get from China. In a speech to China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Musharraf described the partnership with China as, ". . . deeper than the oceans, higher than the mountains. The past belongs to Europe, he said, the present belongs to the United States, and the future belongs to Asia."
In Islamabad Bush was
asked whether he was turning a blind eye to democracy in Pakistan in exchange for Musharraf's assistance in his terror war. He searched his feeble mind:
"Well, we discussed -- we spent a lot of time talking about democracy in Pakistan," Bush responded, "and I believe democracy is Pakistan's future. And we share a strong commitment to democracy . . . And we spent a lot of time strategizing on that subject today.
I'll let you speak for yourself on the subject, though, Mr. President."
Pakistan's ruler looked comfortable in his reign as Bush fumbled about visions of democracy he had that he hoped would appear one day out of Musharraf's autocratic rule. Musharraf was happy to oblige Bush's invitation to set the terms of their lofty understanding. He boasted that he had "introduced the essence of democracy" in Pakistan. "All these things never existed before," he explained, "What maybe you are talking of is merely the label which probably you are inferring on to my uniform . . ."
Musharraf has been more than happy to participate in and sanction the slaughter of his countryfolk, sitting on his hands as the Bush regime targets and brands men, women, and children who fall victim to their cross-border attacks as insurgents, terrorists, or al-Qaeda sympathizers. Or Musharraf will lash out on his own as he did right after Bush left, sending his security forces to Afghanistan's border to slaughter more countryfolk to put a shine on the
shellacking he had given Afghanistan's Karzai over complaints that Pakistan hadn't done enough to cooperate in the search for bin-Laden.
"We need to strategize," Musharraf recited in front of his hapless U.S. mentor and the press gaggle. "We have strategized. We have strategized how to deal with terrorism, and then strategized also on how to deal with extremism, which is very different from terrorism. So we have strategized both. Then we need to come forward to the implementation part. Now, the implementation has to be strong also, with all the resolve. We are doing that also. So if at all there are
slippages, it is possible in the implementation part. But as long as the intention is clear, the resolve is there, and the strategy is clear, we are moving forward toward to delivering, and we will succeed. That is all.
'Slippages', he says. One or two really big slippages. Karzai may be right when he says Pakistan hasn't done enough to help catch bin-Laden, but it's unseemly for the mayor of Kabul, isolated in his NATO guarded palace compound with the full force of the American military at his disposal, to blame the ruler of Pakistan and his distracted soldiers for failing to find Bush's nemesis. Who let him out of Afghanistan, anyway?
In the classic tale of the ideal vs. the real, Quixote battles windmills that appear to be giants, and sheep that look to him like armies. He believes himself the victor, comes to his senses, only to be trapped by his delusion; forced to play the conquering hero as he visited his subjects. Bush is Quixote, and everyone can see that he wears the lifted armour of real soldiers as he prosecutes his manufactured wars.
from the novel, 'Don Quixote',
"In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest
notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he
fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own
honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a
knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on
horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself
all that he had read of as being the usual practices of
knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself
to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal
renown and fame."And what of bin-Laden? "I am confident he will be brought to justice," Bush said. "We've got U.S. forces on the hunt for not only bin Laden but anybody who plots and plans with bin Laden. There are Afghan forces on the hunt. ... We've got Pakistan forces on the hunt.
"Battling windmills and tilting at sheep. On the hunt.
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