from russia with love

Putin and Bush speeches: What a difference!

Some key words from the State of the Union adress by George Bush on Tuesday evening are 'rage,' 'enemies,' 'battlefield,' and 'hatred'

On one side, a President preaching pragmatism and harmony in international relations, showing a track record on internal policy which is second to none. In the opposite camp, more Bushspeak in the State of the Union address, which has become a masturbatory practice aiming to produce a mass collective orgasm of self-righteousness.

The key elements of President Putin's discourse on Tuesday morning were respect for international law, international relations based on a non-discriminatory basis, honouring the right of the integrity of fellow members of the international community, and an internal policy based on responsibility, pragmatism and competence.

Some key words from the State of the Union adress by George Bush on Tuesday evening are “rage”, “enemies”, “battlefield”, “hatred”, “fear”, five key words which ably summarise the policy of the Bush regime.

One might expect a President of the United States of America to focus his State of the Union speech on...the state of the union. Not so Bush, who took just a few seconds to launch into a misguided discourse about how important the USA's “leadership” in the international community is to defend the nation.

By stating this, George Bush pits his country against, and not with, the international community because this community is based upon the notion of brotherly relations as equals, nobody asked for a bullying Big Brother to “lead” them.

Not surprisingly, practically the first statement in this speech is September 11th, 2001. Despite this outrage against humanity, there is no mention of the thousands of innocent civilians in other countries murdered by the armed forces of which George Bush is Commander-in-Chief, no mention of the targeting of civilian infra-structures with his military hardware, no mention of the widespread practice of torture, the concentration camps, the disrespect for international law.

Instead, what we get from George Bush is absurd, puerile statements such as: “At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half – in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Iran...”

For the information of Mr. Bush “places like” Iran do not set up concentration camps in foreign lands, “places like” North Korea do not invade sovereign nations outside the auspices of international law, “places like” Syria do not use weapons of mass destruction against civilians, “places like” Zimbabwe do not lie at the UNO and “places like” Burma (Myanmar Republic for those who know what they're talking about) do not invade their neighbours, wire up people's testicles with electrodes, sodomise prisoners and set dogs on them.

If this is spreading freedom and democracy to protect the good people of the United States who voted for such practices, then the Bush regime has created a chasm between its people and the rest of the world, and let us describe this policy accurately, for what it is: it is a unilateral policy of aggression which purports to set the United States of America above the rest of the international community in a position where Washington does what it likes, when it likes and as it likes, syphoning off or controlling the resources of the international community for its own benefit.

This is not the discourse of an equal, loved and respected member of any community. It is the discourse of a pariah state, one whose arrogance and self-righteousness long ago clouded its vision and which will eventually be its downfall because it is cloaked in hatred.

A fitting epitaph to the Bush regime is the fact that many Latin Americans are striving to create the awareness in the international community that being “American” is not the same as being from the USA. After sullying the name of his country, after lying to his people and the international community, after disrespecting international law, George W. Bush has managed to make hundreds of millions of people ashamed to call themselves “Americans.”

“Places like” this have a name.