www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-12-2004_pg3_2
I can definitely live with Bush as US president or as the worlds sole policeman for eight years or longer, but would ha te to spend even eight days under the Talibans theocracy, Saddams dictat orship or a regime of Ayatollahs. I have a strong feeling that the vast majority of people everywhere feel the same way A fellow columnist and friend thinks that I am soft on Bush. Considering the degree of President George Bushs unpopularity in Pakistan and worldw ide, it would be an understatement to say that most readers will concur with his view. When Bush is the subject, nothing short of outright denun ciation is in order these days. I, therefore, consider it necessary to o ffer an explanation for my perceived softness. Far be it from me being a staunch believer in secularism to approve of Bu shs brand of evangelicalism and his penchant for mixing religion with po litics. Secondly, Bush is not a threat to the world or t o democracy and secularism in America, but Al Qaeda and its many affilia tes who carry out terrorist attacks in the name of Islam are a clear and present danger. And, finally, the US constitution and civil society are capable of putting religious zealots, not to mention bigots, in their p roper place. In any case, those who take the worst possible view of Geor ge Bush may relax in the knowledge that on January 21, 2009, he will hav e passed into oblivion, for the 22nd Amendment to the US constitution (1 951) bars presidents from running for a third term. The widespread revulsion for Bush is based on two factors: his Christian evangelicalism and his war on terror. The First Amendment (1792) prevents any US president from infusing religi on in politics. It states: Congress shall make no law respecting an esta blishment of religion .... These ten words enshrine and guarantee the hi ghly secular nature of the American state. Applying this constitutional bar in 1962, the US Supreme Court (in Engel vs Vitale) outlawed prayers in schools.
Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief t hat a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and t o degrade religion... The Establishment Clause thus stands as an express ion of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that re ligion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its unhallowed p erversion by a civil magistrate. President Reagan failed in his attempt to re-introduce prayer in schools. This also explains why Bush avoids an y direct mention of Christianity in his speeches and press conferences, except in a very general sense and together with other major faiths, inc luding Islam. To overturn this constitutional prohibition would require a constitutiona l amendment, which is not to be taken lightly. There are essentially two ways spelled out in the Constitution for amendments, of which one has n ever been used. The only viable method, therefore, is for a bill to pass both parts of the Congress (House of Representatives and Senate), by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it go es on to the states. The amendment must be approved by three-fourths of states (which means 38 of the 50 states). Furthermore, at no point does the president have a role in the formal amendment process. Small wonder that only 17 amendments have been made since 1792. An episode involving religion during the Bush presidency is worth mention ing. Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court installed a 2 6-tonne, four-foot-high monument inscribed with the biblical Ten Command ments in the court building on July 31, 2001. On October 30, 2001, the A merican Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, filed a suit against him, saying his dis play of the Ten Commandments was an unconstitutional establishment of re ligion in a government building. Roys Rock with the Ten Commandments, as the monument came to be called, p roved feeble before this legal challenge and was gone by November 2003, Bushs evangelicalism notwithstanding. Alabamas nine-member Court of the Judiciary unanimousl y removed Chief Justice Roy Moore from office for defying a federal judg es order to move the Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Co urt building. The ethics panel said Moore put himself above the law by w ilfully and publicly flouting the order to remove it. George Bushs military intervention in Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq ha ve attracted the most condemnation. However, the former has been an asto unding success (above all, from the Afghans point of view), while the la tter is hardly the debacle many commentators represent it to be. In Afgh anistan, an utterly despicable regime has been replaced by an elected pr esident. Schools and roads are being built where the religious police on ce trod. In Iraq, except for the twenty per cent Sunnis who rode roughsh od over the rest of the population under the previous regime, the people are eagerly awaiting the elections due next month. Many people grieve over the unipolar world and hark back nostalgically to the bipolar world of the Soviet era. They need to be reminded that duri ng the heyday of bipolarism and Cold War, the world came close to a nucl ear catastrophe (Cuban Missile Crisis), the Korean and Vietnam wars wrou ght havoc in the Korean peninsula and Indo-China, there were two Arab-Is raeli wars and two wars between India and Pakistan. The Soviet Union inv aded Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, while US meddling led to t he overthrow of an elected government in Chile and caused turmoil in man y Latin American countries. Angola and Mozambique were torn apart by gru esome civil wars with superpower involvement on all sides, China invaded North Vietnam to teach it a lesson, and the Iraq-Iran war led to a mill ion deaths. Taking advantage of the superpower tensions, Morocco occupied Western Sah ara and Indonesia invaded East Timor. The Cold War generated a war betwe en Somalia and Ethiopia. It allowed South Africa to remain in the throes of apartheid and gave Suharto a free hand to kill or incarcerate hundre ds of thousands of alleged communists in Indonesia. The Khmer Rouge, who wiped out a fifth of Cambodias population, were also a by-product of th at era. The world is now a much safer and a much more democratic place. Thanks to the unipolar world with America as the sole superpower, democracy is ad vancing while dictatorships are receding. Dictators who roamed with a sw agger now scurry for cover. Disenfranchised people now feel empowered, f rom Afghanistan to Georgia, and from Iraq to Ukraine. Bushs band of neo- cons is succeeding where his more illustrious predecessors failed; Bush is not a threat to any democratic dispensation anywhere in the world . If he has made the world a trifle unsafe for thugs and dictators, he i s to be commended. Bu t terrorism in the name of Islam, which now stalks the world, is an unpr ecedented development in terms of magnitude, intensity, scope and danger . I can definitely live with Bush as US president or as the worlds sole policeman for eight years or longer, but would hate to spend even eight days under the Talibans theocracy, Saddams dictatorship or a regime of A yatollahs. I have a strong feeling that the vast majority of people ever ywhere feel the same way.
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