The Ugliest American

By: Andre Achong

The people have spoken: they want George W. Bush to continue whatever it is he is doing, and they want his fellow Republicans in the House and Senate to keep doing what they are doing. Exactly what that is, I don't know. Osama bin Laden has continued to mock Mr. Bush with taped communiqués via Al-Jazeera; the so-called war in Afghanistan has not made the front-page news in America for weeks (or has it been months?); and the economy resembles a pair of jeans that has lost a battle with battery acid.

So what does Mr. Bush do with his new mandate and 80% approval rating? According to this direct quote from the New York Times: "The Bush administration proposed today [Wednesday 27 November] to give managers of the 155 national forests more discretion to approve logging and commercial activities with less evaluation of potential damage to the environment."

Even without studiously analyzing Bush's proposal, one would still come away thinking that giving forest managers even more discretion to approve logging is a patently bad idea. The whole thing is even more heinous when one considers the billions of dollars the logging industry lobby flings into the troughs of those beady-eyed pigs that roam the halls of the Capitol.

But at least Bush's thinly veiled hostility towards the environment can be understood. He has never portrayed himself as a bastion of the planet's health and wellbeing. Wonderfully viscous petroleum flows through this guy's veins, not the blue blood most people think.

Less easily understood is why Mr. Bush has chosen Henry Kissinger to lead his inquiry of the government's failure to detect and prevent the terrorist attacks of 9-11. How did that happen, you ask? Well, you may be forgiven for wondering. For months, the Bush administration had repeatedly rebuffed all requests to set up a 9-11 inquiry, but the cacophony of voices of the victims' families, prominent Democrats, and members of his own party were simply too loud to dismiss and ignore. Bush saw two options: either conduct a 9-11 inquiry or be made to suffer through an increasing crescendo of voices clamoring for an investigation. But Bush was not to be cowed so easily into setting up an inquiry without getting in a solid right hook and a quick left jab. Mr. Kissinger's selection to head the 9-11 inquiry ensures that the controversy of the choice overshadows any real investigation or analysis of the massive foreign policy and intelligence failures that allowed a group of murderous thugs to effect the most catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil.

Besides, what is there to investigate? We already know that the CIA is more concerned with getting increases in their black budget; the FBI is more concerned with fighting turf wars with the DEA and ATF; and Osama is vacationing with two friends named Stan (Afghanistan and Pakistan). And besides, would Kissinger really dare to dance with the Saudi royal family, whom some consider to be the real facilitators of the 9-11 attacks?

While it is true Mr. Kissinger is still one of the most highly regarded foreign policy thinkers in the world today, he has a lot of baggage that should have disqualified him from even being considered for this significant post. Among Mr. Kissinger's "accomplishments": the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam conflict; his penchant for enigmatic government; his alleged role in the killings of a senior Chilean dissident with his American companion in downtown Washington, DC during September 1976 (Mr. Kissinger is currently being sued in Washington, DC by the family of the Chilean dissident); and his alleged planning of the forced replacement of Chilean president Allende with General Pinochet.

More bizarrely, it is alleged that Mr. Kissinger seeks legal advice before he travels outside the United States. The reason for this could be that while he was in London earlier this year, a judge agreed to hear charges of war crimes against him. Being accused of war crimes by many outside America is certainly no vote of confidence, no matter how powerful and influential the accused may be.

Mr. Kissinger has run a global consulting business (Kissinger Associates) since 1982. The Kissinger Associates client list is supposed to be secret, but people in a position to know have revealed some clients are world governments. It would be presumptuous to assume any Kissinger client was involved in the terrorist attacks on 9-11, but it would also be foolish not to ask the question. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has no intention of asking, and even maintains that Mr. Kissinger is not required to reveal his client list, far less give up his consulting business, for the duration of the inquiry.

Bush's selection of Mr. Kissinger should have surprised no one. They both share a thinly veiled disdain for open government, a penchant for mixing business and politics, and a tin ear for detecting conflicts of interest. It can even be argued that Bush has patterned his presidential style more after Kissinger's close friend Richard Nixon than his own father or Ronald Reagan. You could literally see Bush channeling the ghost of Nixon when he gets in a rage over "evildoers" and the "Axis of Evil" and says things like "dead or alive". You can see the violence ooze out of Bush when he talks about retribution and hitting people back, just like Nixon did thirty years ago. Call it the Lord of the Rings presidency with Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush its most accomplished practitioners.

Kissinger may very well finally put to bed the indictment that Bush is a moron, simpleton, or idiot who happened to stumble into the presidency of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. By picking an inappropriate and controversial figure like Kissinger, Bush is saying: "I didn't want a 9-11 inquiry in the first place. And with good ol' Hanky-Panky Kissinger in charge, y'all still ain't gonna' get one!"

Who knew things would degenerate to this blatant lack of respect for the American people? Well, anyone who was around when Bush selected right-wing "Christian" banner-bearer John Ashcroft as his Attorney General. Since 9-11, Ashcroft has not only mocked the Constitution, he has urinated on it and then set it on fire. Who knew things would degenerate to this? Well, anyone who was around when Bush selected Nixon re-tread Donald Rumsfeld as his War Minister. Or anyone who paid attention to the early November appointment of Admiral John Poindexter as the honcho of the brand new Pentagon intelligence service, with access to the private information of ordinary American citizens. Poindexter was one of the feature players in the Iran-Contra Affair of the late 80's. Among Admiral Poindexter's accomplishments: destroying a document bearing Ronald Reagan's signature authorizing the sale of arms to Iran in return for the release of American hostages.

It all boils down to one thing: arrogance. It is arrogant for Bush to think he can duck a legitimate inquiry into 9-11 by selecting as controversial a figure as Kissinger to lead it. It is equally arrogant of Mr. Kissinger to accept, knowing he is a wanted man outside of the United States for his heavy-handed and often homicidal "hit first and hit hard" foreign policy.

Will anyone in a position of power step up to the plate and say this whole 9-11 thing is an enormous farce being perpetrated on the American people? Will people stop mocking Bush for his malapropisms long enough to see how dangerous his Machiavelli act is becoming?

A disturbing pattern is emerging from this White House. Will anyone figure it out before it is too late?