Bush Forgets the horrors of his own regime

Stephanie Lord

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I opened today's paper to see that Bush's first speech in four years on Cuba called on the Cuban military to mount a coup against Castro's government. Further to this, he went as far as to say that some of the "horrors" of Castro's "regime" in Cuba remain unknown to the rest of the world.

Is this the same George Bush that has presided over the absolute horror of the Iraq war; the horror of the neglect of and complete disregard of human rights across the world in the name of the "war on terror"; the horror of the torture of prisoners in Abu Gharib and other prisons; the horror of countless violations of the Geneva Convention? Yes, and that's only the beginning.

Mr. Bush seems to have conveniently forgotten the horror inflicted on his own people as a direct result of the policies of his administration. Civil liberties across the states are continually eroded in the name of the PATRIOT Act which have all but removed privacy rights and the legal (and constitutionally enshrined) doctrine of Habeas Corpus. Not only this but Bush in a Milton Friedman-esque escapade has employed a programme of capitalism so extreme that there is only the absolute minimum spent on health, education and social welfare. His tax cuts are directed at the "have-mores" of the US while the "have-nots" languish, simply because they are not his base and he appears to have a perverted distaste for the poor of his nation. Who can forget the horror of thousands of people losing everything in New Orleans in the aftermath of the US government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina? Then the subsequent assertion of artist Kanye West that this was because Bush "doesn't care about black people" -which clearly has more than a grain of truth it.

In 2004, Bush showed that his disregard for human rights was not limited to those who were poor, black, gay or detained in one of the many US-run camps such as Guantanamo Bay – it also extends to those with disabilities. The Washington Post outlined how the Bush administration believed that " disability is neither a human rights issue nor a predicate for international law but strictly a domestic policy matter". The message is simple but clear; human rights do not exist, unless we say so.

That a man such as Bush who has been at the forefront of orchestrating policies that enabled some of the worst human rights abuses on record to happen, can stand in public and call on the Cuban military to embark on a coup is simultaneously laughable and appalling, all at the same time. It is the hypocrisy in his sentiments that make it laughable, but it is the danger of advising Cubans to take up arms against one another that is the most appalling.

In 1963, the US supported a military coup d'etat in Iraq against the Quassim government. It was Saddam Hussein who replaced it. In 1973, the US supported a coup in Chile to rid south America of socialist leader Salvador Allende. Who replaced him? General Augusto Pinochet. The CIA financed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in an effort to quash the Soviets in the region. It was members of the Mujahideen, which were financed and armed to the teeth by the CIA who later formed Al Quaeda.

There are countless other coups which have taken place with the support of and the financial backing of various US administrations. There are countless more coups which were started at the instigation of these administrations. Considering what came after American interference in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chile, not to mention the other countries in South America where willingness to engage in free-marketeering led to the installation of despots and authoritarian tyrants at the expense of the lives of democratically elected leaders and innocent people. American presidents in general –not only Bush- should really have learned their lesson by now. The world knows the "horrors" that they have inflicted and hostile and belligerent calls to military action will only end in tears. In the short-term these will be the tears of the nations that have to suffer the coup. In the long-term it will be the tears of the American people who have to reap the seeds sewn by an antagonistic President Bush who has not got the foresight to realise he is primarily the maker of his personal, and his nation's enemies.