“Their patients speak with tension in their faces. Not even the pain killer can stop all of the throbbing of their injuries. I am amazed that they want to talk about what happened”, Mike Lee reported to ABC NEWS, on August 8th, 2004 as the Landstuhl Medical Center handles thousands of Trauma cases from Iraq War.

“September the 11th has changed us, so we have changed the world”, Bush pronounced at one of his campaigns near to presidential election 2004. True, he was right. The damage has already been done. But the way in which they have changed the world has put US vulnerability once again in question as Americans decide whether to put Bush out of Office and send him back to Crawford, Texas or not. Skeptics of the Bush administration, including myself, agree that the only way to hold Bush accountable for his policies that have gone off track is to vote him out, as the Vice President Dick Cheney has already summed it up in his speech at the GOP Convention that “the presidency is an entirely different position. A senator can be wrong for 20 years, with out consequences to the nation. But the president always casts the deciding vote”. My fellow Americans, Mr. Bush has failed to perform his duties as a Commander-in-Chief. It’s about time, that he faces the consequences “now” because Iraq is in turmoil, the risk is greater and stakes are high.

“Some call it stubbornness. I call it principled leadership”, Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of the New York City tried to maul Democrats out at the same Republican Convention on Monday, the August 30th, 2004 while making a case for his mentor George W. Bush the 43rd president of United States of America by forwarding his belief, which he calls –the Bush Doctrine, that “whether you are with us or with the terrorists”.

Logically speaking, there is a problem with that belief, a problem of contradiction that can cause a significant marring to the rationality. After all prudence comes well before credence, otherwise, eschewing from this point of view will meet the same consequences as the conservative writer Andrew Sullivan has commented on Bush’s speech that, “empirical evidence does not matter to him, like all religious visionaries, he simply asserts that his own faith will conquer reality, it won’t”. In reality, the Bush administration has picked up the same line once spoken by Osama Bin Laden that whether you are with us in this great effort (Jihad) or with the infidels. Look at that as you want to, but one may really wonder, how bad of a idea is that, at one point they had used the same line from their greatest enemy and on the other hand wasted no time in criticizing Senator John Kerry when he spoke the line once spoken by one of the presidential nominees Howard Dean, that “It’s a wrong war at the wrong place and at the wrong time”.


Sure, which one of these two lines will turn the voters on, Americans will decide on November 2nd, 2004. But if slogans can change the course of elections, then John Kerry has picked up the right line. Now, it’s on him that how he explains that to the American voters.

That’s the first thing. The second and most important issue, as the administration says it, Sen. Kerry has been “flip-flop” on many of the issues. On September 1st, 2004 Sen. Zell Miller and Vice President Dick Cheney accused Sen. John Kerry of a series of charges including his vote against the Gulf War in 1991. They wanted to use that “vote” for political purpose, and they did it.

Respectfully speaking, looking at the past American history in building nations has divulged that the most astringent fulmination to Washington often came with in or after four to six years of US invasion of those countries, when the US allowed the political elites to maneuver the political process, as it happened in Cuba between 1902 to 1909 and Panama in 1963, Haiti in 1934 and South Vietnam in 1973. So, given the previous track record of US nation-building attempts, it’s discernible to understand why an experienced Sen. Kerry voted against that war. What happened after the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War, in which US chose to become a part of the conundrum, carried the same analysis of “miss-calculations” and “wrong judgments”.

On the issue of “I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars before I voted against it”, as President Bush quoted Sen. John Kerry making that statement, Mr. Bush probably forgot to tell to the audience about the role of his running mate Dick Cheney’s Halliburton? Some may call it a principled leadership; but people of rational would call it a politics of deception, and John Kerry stood firm against that.

One may just hope, as the president claims, that “As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region”.

In Iraq, total number of American Military casualties has reached to 1001, since the war started on March 19th, 2003. Almost 6980 American soldiers have been severely wounded so far. Other coalition troops died in Iraq are 127 compared to 1001 American soldiers. Bush’s remarks in this regard that “some” 30 nations—as he was not sure about the exact numbers--- stood beside America in Iraq does not hold any water.

Last but not least, one thing the Bush administration does not seem to understand is that when America talks about “advancing freedom” to either Iraq or Middle East for that matter, America needs to show to the people of the country of target that America stands by them.

Iraq Body Count (IBC), a volunteer group of British and US academics and researchers (All credit goes to them, not the bush administration), compiled statistics on civilian casualties from media reports and estimated that over 10,000 civilians died in the conflict.


Talking about extending freedom should not be an empty slogan. What really needs to be changed is the Bush’s foreign policy not its position. Bush administration has changed its position on many of the issues, from declaring war as a “crusade” to the “war not against Islam” and from “mission accomplished” to the “war miss-calculated”, while keeping the same old rigid policy that has not beard any fruits.

Similarly, the Democracy to the world can only be extended if US exculpate itself from its dual policies of supporting the dictatorship-regimes. Otherwise, one may just wonder that what role Pakistan would have played in the war against terrorism, if the Pakistani establishment had not been provided with $350 million in the annual aid package or had the Pakistani establishment been held accountable in manipulating the referendum in 2002 and putting the government of troika in place in 2004 after dismissing the then Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali who did not agree with the General on his idea of being in the uniform for ever?