Apologies on Bush's Behalf

On September 22, 2006 I wrote a post on how George W Bush owes the world an apology for everything he has done during his two term presidency. Today I read an article on the independent written by British journalist and political analyst Robert Fisk where he echoed my words but in different context. He started the article with US intelligence reports and gave an example of these report about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia. The point Robert Fisk wanted to make by putting forward such examples was to illustrate the kind of mess Barak Obama inherited from his predecessor. He asks "how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself?"

Fisk wrote that:
Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He's got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the "change" he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America's borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole "war on terror". He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America's massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush's 2004 acceptance of Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.

In this case, Mr Fisk is suggesting that Obama would not only clean up the mess, but also take the responsibility of standing in front of the whole world and apologize on Bush's behalf.

However, Fisk has his doubts:

But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – "our man in the White House", as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.

After reading the article, I felt sorry for Barak Obama, there are high expectations of him to make the real change by the whole world, and not only by the US people - one can check a number of Iraqi bloggers and how they expressed their happiness to the result of the US elections last week. I hope there won't be any regrets by Mr. Obama after some time when he finds out that the burden is bigger than anyone would think or imagine.

By the way, I didn't know that a new US legislation will be issued by the Bush administration soon that would ensure that all British citizens will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance.

full article here.