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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spytrdr who wrote (9728)	4/8/2003 4:32:18 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

Exclusive: This Is Not America Hussein Shobokshi Carl Foster is a soft-spoken 50-year-old American banker from Lexington, Kentucky. His silver hair is a testimony to wisdom and years of hard work. I met Carl last week with a group of friends over tea in Cairo, Egypt. Carl sighed and simply said, "I miss Bill Clinton." "What do you mean?" asked Renee Justan, a young Swiss accountant who was with the same business delegation. "Things were simpler, more innocent with Clinton", said Foster and added, "You could talk to the guy at least. The economy was booming, people were happy, even the wars that were fought were good and understood wars. The biggest problem we had with him was Monica. Now with Bush in power, it seems that he is trying to do to the world what Clinton tried to do to Monica." I left that meeting with a sense of helplessness. An annoying question kept echoing in my head: "What happened to America?" When I majored in Political Science in the US, I was in true awe of the ideologies, values and principles of the American Constitution. I was also a great admirer of the freedom of the press. Unfortunately, what I see today in the political arena in America is a sad case of a great political power gone astray. I was all for Jeffersonian democracy, for Lincolnian honesty and Washingtonian leadership. But to end up with Bushism? Now that is a tragedy. Mr. Bush's lone Ranger act has caused nothing but pain and isolation for America. As a leader of the free world one cannot base one's policies on a gung-ho approach to the world. Mr. Bush has done his part to confirm this. For the longest while now, George W. Bush has been steadily jockeying his way through the Western cliché list: "Hunt 'em down," "wanted dead or alive," "smoke 'em out of their caves," etc. All of this tough talking ride-'em-high cowboy attitude has produced an administration that is so odd and foreign to America that people have a very hard time accepting it. You listen to Ashcroft and you'd swear he was the interior minister of the Baath Party. Not forgetting of course Mr. Caffeine himself, Rumsfeld, who is happy to launch a war per week as long as it is "politically convenient." Then there is Wolfowitz, who keeps doing anything he can to help the Likud Party and its henchman, Sharon. It's very interesting that the US has been pushing for political reform in the Middle East (and it's obviously needed), but I wonder if political reform is not also desperately needed in the US. Political values and liberties are eroding. The US is desperately in need of a kinder, gentler administration. Only once that happens will it be in a position to "sell" its values to the world convincingly. Arab News Features 8 April 2003 arabnews.com