Desmond HenryANYONE WITH a fair sense of logic must be saddened by US President Bush's attempt to railroad opinion behind his indefensible attempts to destroy Iraq. His arguments are so lacking in conviction they remind me of that famous saying, 'Don't confuse me with facts'.
My impression is that the people of the US are beginning to realise that they have a president that is both arrogant and ignorant. Having been given the presidency not on the majority vote of the citizens, but on the majority vote of the Supreme Court, many are now questioning his moral authority to take that country into an armed conflict that will threaten not just his own country, but every country in the world. It is a conflict in which thousands of innocent lives will be lost and which residual chemicals in the atmosphere will mean further threat to many others in the future. It is a war in which the remaining residue could far outweigh the initial hurt. And for what?
Nelson Mandela has gone further than perhaps I would in identifying some of the purely personal reasons for threatening this war. He argues, quite cogently, that it might be a conflict with underlying racial motives. He makes the point that the only time that a bigot wishes to challenge the supreme authority of the United Nations is now when its Secretary-General is a Black man; and rather than wait to hear the possibility of a dissenting vote from the lips of that man, Bush arrogates unto himself the right to precede the UN. Well, the members of his country's Congress are putting him on alert that he might need to come back to them for a vote of authorisation. In which case, he can be even more arrogant and tell them where to jump off.
Truth is that Bush's logic distresses more than it impresses. His personal appearances and presenting tones are so supercilious, they border on being silly. His support around the world is falling apart to the point where Britain is now being regarded as the 51st state of the US. His once-vaunted Coalition of the Willing (COW) is diminishing so noticeably that the 'cow' is now a calf, well on its way to disappearing.
In listening to his Defence Secretary, Ronald Rumsfeld's, routine presentations, I am sharply reminded of a former US Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara's, daily briefing during the Vietnam War. He used to reason, with abundant sincerity, that the US was winning that war, because the daily body counts of dead Vietnamese were successively higher each day. Well we all know what happened to the US and their body counts in Vietnam. Don't be surprised by the same in Iraq. But even beyond that, what happens in Iraq might yet have the single most unintended result of uniting the entire Arab and Islamic world in joint resistance to a common enemy. Was it not in the US that Arabs were referred to as 'the niggers of the Middle East'?
My own view is that Bush and his video games are about to seriously hurt the world in many respects. He will hurt the flow and price of oil. He will do great damage to the power of diplomacy. He will hurt the freedom of travel and the economies of the tourism and airline industries. He will hurt the respect traditionally shown for heads of Governments and the assumption that great countries necessarily produce great leaders. And having applied overwhelming force to overthrow Saddam, what next? Term-oil or turmoil?
THE KIDNEY TREK
Tomorrow morning, Dr. Lawson Douglas and his team of dedicated trotters will walk from Black River to Southfield on the St. Elizabeth coast to raise funds and awareness about the levels of kidney diseases in Jamaica. The groups will leave the Invercauld Hotel at around 4:30 a.m. to cover the 20-mile journey to Parchment Plaza, arriving around 9:30 a.m.
Once there, they will address listeners and answer questions, while suitably attired supporters will roam around collecting pledges and donations. We should give them a good St. Bess reception.
THE BOTTOM LINE: One of the fatal tests of fame is to have a crazy despot pursue it.
Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth.
