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How Bush is killing America
THE great story that has not been told yet is about Mickey Mouse having sued US Vice President Dick Cheney for invasion of privacy. Because of the imagined and real threat from terrorist groups he has become the most protected American citizen — even more than his boss George W. Bush who has to be seen, by his people and the gullible international community, leading the forces of good against "that man Saddam". Every time there is a scare of a terrorist attack "Dickey is promptly sent to where Mickey lives".
So when on Friday, February 21, a gasoline barge exploded with a thunderous blast off Staten Island, New York relived the agony of 9\ 11. Even if there was no fiery column of smoke that could be seen more than 30 miles away, the high security alert would still have made most Americans lose interest in whatever they were doing when the explosion was noticed. Dick Cheney was sent to share his cheese with Mickey as a standard measure of precaution after 9\ 11.The accident claimed two lives. The international television channels cancelled scheduled programmes to cover what had all the makings of yet another terrorist attack. The symbolism was more striking. The World Trade Center represented America's economic muscle while the Pentagon is meant to showcase its military might. But an attack on its oil facilities would have been interpreted as going for the jugular. America's economy and military juggernaut both cannot move an inch without the power of what is rightly called black gold. Staten Island residents
were directed to stay put, but the news of the blast made most of New
York come to a halt. Every bearded non-American began resembling Osama
bin Laden. In the middle of fear and an understandable sense of disquiet
America did not forget to make a quick buck. The news of the fire in a
puny storage facility pushed up the international price of oil by a
dollar a barrel. |
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Since America has turned Osama, Saddam and Mullah Omar into objects of global revulsion and fear, why not grant to them the power of evil that made the devil question the wisdom of God? After having done that let us turn to South Korea that is a close friend and ally of the USA and look for evidence linking Osama and friends to the subway disaster that claimed 120 lives. The death toll may rise because officials said that 387 people were listed as missing. Even the Iranian military plane crash could have been planned by the Al-Qaida network. Over 300 Revolutionary Guards perished in the worst air disaster in Iran, a country that is hated by President Bush and Osama in equal measure. Bush hates Iran because the present dispensation overthrew the American lackey called the Shah of Iran after a bloody struggle in 1979. Osama hates Iran because it is the only Muslim country where the minority Shias are in power and he follows the more orthodox Wahabi brand. The death of the Pakistani air force chief in a plane crash, too, can be viewed through the American glass of pervasive paranoia and suspicion. The shriller the rhetoric for war against Iraq becomes, the more insecure the Americans are becoming in their own country. The entrepreneurs are, of course, making money selling special equipment for coping with the biological demons that Saddam and Osama may unleash on them. Those who can afford the huge costs of renovating their homes have followed Dickey to Mickey's land, that is supposed to be safest place to be in in the event of a war. Ask the Pandavas who went underground to escape being roasted alive in the lakshaygrah fire. Others are seeking loans at interest rates dictated by market forces for building protective shelters to escape the consequences of the war against terror finding its way to American shores. Just how crazy and paranoid America has become because of the sustained hysteria against terror fuelled by White House can be gauged from one of the many stories of American security agencies over-reacting to routine occurrences. An innocent spray of cologne from a Saudi Arabian student caused authorities in Philadelphia to quarantine a hospital emergency room, a doughnut shop and a drug store. The theatre of the absurd opened at the Philadelphia international airport when the 22-year-old Saudi student reached the security check point. He was asked about a container of liquid he was carrying. The young man sprayed some of the harmless contents on himself and two security guards. All hell broke loose. Airport security issued a code-red hazardous materials alert which brought FBI agents, city police teams, chemical experts and fire fighters to deal with the threat the biological warfare substance, the youth had sprayed, could cause. Had it not been a real incident, it would have been a good laugh for us stressed-out folks in every part of the globe. But the paranoia that has gripped most of America is hardly funny. America is dying. On the day of political reckoning, President Bush may have to pay the price, if he stands for re-election next November, for killing America through his destructive policy on Iraq. It has made the average American lose more sleep than those, who are equally concerned about the consequences of war, in other parts of the globe. A mature leadership would have had a different set of priorities. A policy that would have helped Americans get over the trauma of 9\11 and not one that is making them sink deeper in their collective insecurities. Our daughter was in New York the day America's symbol of economic superiority came tumbling down. A few days later when the anthrax scare caused nationwide consternation, we as concerned parents rang her up to ask her to be careful. "You must be joking. I have inhaled so many pollutants living in Delhi that anthrax is just going to bounce off my skin like water off a duck's back". It is indeed true that we Indians wake up to a new disaster almost every day in the shape of a pandal fire that kills over 400 school children, or the consumption of spurious food or water or medicine or liquor causing deaths. So a bit of anthrax is not going to make us stop living. Given a choice I would prefer to follow our daughter's example and live life dangerously as most Indians do rather stop living like America has done after 9\11. |
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The rest of America is not
living any easier. What has come to be called 9\ 11 (in territories that
follow the British system the date can get converted into November 9)
has changed the way the average American goes through the business of
living (yes, most things American are more business than fun — even
fun is business).