An American Idiot

Last week I heard someone singing 'I wanna be an American Idiot'. No, it wasn't Musharraf but actually my five-year old son.

I hadn't heard this song before and after a brief investigation I learnt that 'American Idiot' was a chart-topping hit for a punk group called Green Day earlier this year. The song line actually goes 'Don't wanna be an American idiot', and luckily for me my young lad cannot at his age come close to comprehending the, at times, rather explicit lyrics.

The song begins:

Don't wanna be an American idiot.
Don't want a nation under the new mania.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America.

And another verse goes:

Don't wanna be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It's calling out to idiot America.

All too true!

And, the good news is that 'The' American Idiot, to use his father George H's expression, has finally sunk himself in the deepest of ‘ Doo-Doo'.

The lies behind the invasion of Iraq, the incomprehensible incompetence shown at the time of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the failed attempt at foisting an inept sychophant on the US Supreme Court bench and now the criminal indictment of a senior White House official, have all revealed George W. Bush to be the lying, smirking, incompetent and bullying lightweight that he has always been.

All along the rest of the world recognised Bush for what he was and now finally it's the turn of the 51% majority of 'American Idiots' who voted for his re-election in 2004. Latest polls show that even these people have begun to desert him in droves. According to the latest Wall Street Journal Poll (see the above picture) only 38% of Americans currently approve of Bush's performance in office.

The fact is that 9/11 pushed many Americans into mass hysteria. We all agree that the attack on the World Trade Towers was an appalling criminal act but the reality is that less than 3,000 people died. But you had to be one of the many certifiable American Idiots to dream up a connection between Al-Qaida and Iraq. Needless to add these Idiots did and as a consequence some 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died (so far) - including hundreds of innocent children. In the meantime Osama is still up there in 'them thar hills' taunting their idiocy.

Few can deny that Saddam Sadam Hussain was a murderous villain but the Iraq invasion was illegal and the ensuing anarchy was a direct consequence of the criminal incompetence of US leadership – even now two and a half years later Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have yet to come up with a realistic plan to properly manage the chaos of post-war Iraq - other than, that is, by bombing, shooting, maiming and killing.

People continue to die in Iraq in their thousands and the world's only hyperpower is at a complete loss about what next to do. Now there is talk of withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

Colin Powell warned Bush against invading Iraq with the adage ‘Once you break it, you will own it!’. Well Iraq has been shattered into several warring pieces and many senior US politicians are presently contemplating scuttling their 'ship' and making a cowardly run for it.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, 4th December 2002:
The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defence would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.

Your Blogger (and probably rest of the world included), 10 November, 2005:
The President of the United States, the Vice-President of the United States, and the US Secretary of Defence blatantly concocted and knowingly disseminated fraudulent evidence to support their pre-9/11 plan to invade and occupy Iraq. On their bloody hands lies the guilt of thousands of slain innocent men, women and children of Iraq.

Lord, save us from the arrogance and mendacity of these American Idiots!

bush