People's Democracy

Mr Bush, All The Perfumes Of Arabia Will Not Sweeten You!

G Mamatha

President Bush,

I never thought that I would write to you. Brought up in a family that insisted on keeping good company, that indeed I am writing to you, is all the more surprising. My sincere apologies to my family for this ignominy.

I was in fact collecting material to write an epitaph on your presidency after January 20, 2009, but I did not know that I would be using it a month too soon. I always believed that journalists use their pen to ensure justice to the people. I know now you do disagree with me. As you sow, so you reap!

I was just thinking, when some student of history in the future turns back the pages of history of the world's first democracy and comes to the section on your presidency, what would/should she read? The weirdest things experienced by you during your presidency? Your experiments with lies? Your clash with ancient civilisations? Or your 'crusades' for democracy? I visualise you in the future, sitting in your Texas ranch, overseeing somebody writing something for you to clear this confusion. Whoever they be, they would be spoilt with choices.

I never ever dreamt even in my wildest of wild dreams that you will ever be such a most sought out person in the You Tube. That too, when the entire media is agog with reports about your historically low popularity rates among your fellow Americans. How correct my prime minster was when he said that many people love you! A new game is put up on the web that gives the people all over the world the satisfaction of 'yes we can' in honouring you! If you hadn't played that game, here is the address (http://www.kroma.no/2008/bushgame/). But please don't forget to let me know the number along with whether you could or not!

Mr President, don't ever feel depressed that the world would forget you once you remit your office. Alas, history doesn't just remember its heroes and their heroics! Did the world forget Hitler, to forget you? No sir. Your achievements are no mean to be forgotten so easily. On your orders was destroyed one of the world�s oldest civilisation. You have sent more than 1,297,997 Iraqis, the descendants of that great Mesopotamian civilisation to graves. Naturally, those widows, children, orphans and all those who have lost their beloveds would have something to 'gift' you in gratitude.

I don't understand why people accuse you of being a liar. After all you are following what history has taught you (though you might not believe in the theory of evolution and the evolution of societies, you still went through some history classes isn't it?). Did the British ever say that they came to your country to plunder your resources or exterminate the natives? Or for that matter, did they say that when they came to our country or went to any other country? They always went on a 'civilisational' mission. So how can people expect you to state that you had gone to Iraq for oil?

As a good student and as a 'messiah', naturally you too had stated that you went there to protect all of us from the weapons of mass destruction. Pouring life into the statue of liberty, you flew it across the Atlantic, to Iraq and told the people that you had come there to light up their lives with its flame. Light up, you did. How many houses were burnt in that flame! I pity that you believed our prime minister when he said that he was indebted to the British for teaching governance. So, you naturally expected the Iraqis too to sing the same eulogies and receive you and your army with flowers and bouquets. You were surprised when they didn't. Majority of the people across the globe are unfortunately not like our prime minster, sir.

Alas! Mr Bush, it seems you did not study even the history of your country thoroughly and completely. People, neither then nor today or tomorrow, will readily welcome outsiders into their country, specially, when they make tall selfless claims of 'civilisational and democratisation' missions. In your vocabulary, you might not have known the word 'occupier', but that is what people usually call them. That is why people never welcomed you with flowers, neither then, nor now on your latest surprise visit. Of course, I know that you will not easily forget whatever little things they had gifted you!

Mr President, comparing your latest experience and reflecting on your eight years of presidency, you might have now realised that it is easy to duck from things thrown at you but not from truth. More so, when there are some deserters from your noble mission. They, who are not so skillful as you are in ducking, were either unable to duck from their consciousness or blurted out truth inadvertently. So, they give statements like these - �US foreign policy has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of other peoples........the real purpose of the American military is to make the world safe for our business exploitation and our cultural assault....it is not about freedom or democracy�. General Smedly Butler does not understand that statements like these damage your reputation.

Lets take another sample. �America is an empire...the largest and most successful the world has known...we called ourselves economic hitmen...our job was to undermine economies and render them subjugated to our business chamber of commerce demands...we offer them deals in which they must open themselves to our assaults...if they refused we resorted to blackmail, torture, kidnappings, assassinations, if they refused, we fomented revolutions to topple them and their institutions and then blame them for mismanagement...that's what we did in Central America...if still they refused...that's when we send in the army..that's what you're seeing in Iraq right now�. This John Perkins, smitten by his conscience, had given in all your secrets. Thank God, you don't have one!

Sorry, Mr President, this is not to hurt you. But tell me really, would it be possible to do all those things that you had done with a conscience - forget about it being noble or not? If that was the case, you too would be waking up in your sleep, as Lady Macbeth and walking around saying �my hands are full of blood�. Of course, if you had one, you would not have had the courage to state that you do not regret the war on Iraq or for that matter in Afghanistan.

But unfortunately President, people who are in majority have a supreme sense of self-respect and are extremely conscious. They don't duck at things thrown at them. However sweetly you try to camouflage, they see through them. They refuse to cow down and keep on resisting and fighting. They know that they can. They have seen Napoleon defeated. Hitler defeated. And your own party man, Mc Cain knows the taste of defeat in the hands of people. Of course, he had tasted it twice - once in Vietnam and the other just recently in the hands of your own fellow American. Mr Bush, you should have understood where you do stand in the hearts of the people, when he did not invite you to campaign for him even once and moreover fought unsuccessfully to disown your legacy.

Recent events are nothing but a reiteration of your place in the hearts of people. You burn them. Never mind. Retreat to Camp David. Ponder, but don't ever again try to surprise people and get surprised.