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New Delhi, 08
February 2003
Mohan
Guruswamy was recently in New York and has this to say about
President George Bush.
Lets
not misunderestimate him!
By
Mohan Guruswamy
I
have a somewhat different take on George Bush bin George Bush. I
heard his speech intently and even more intently to the talking
heads that crowded the airwaves with their take on what he had to
say. Bush’s speech was a cleverly crafted Clintonseque statement
of vision, bold and at the same time addressing all major national
concerns and constituencies. True, it is focused mainly upon US
concerns, but then he is just the President of the United States and
not the whole world. He announced a tax plan to stimulate the
flagging US economy. He announced major healthcare and education
reforms. He announced a major funding program to drive us into an
era of marginal dependence on fast depleting fossil fuels by making
the development of hydrogen fuel cell powered cars a national goal.
He announced a USD 15 billion funding program to combat the AIDS
epidemic raging in Africa. And lastly but mostly his speech was
devoted to Saddam Hussein whose laboratories are still apparently
incubating deadly bacillus, devilish nerve toxins and nuclear
weapons, a full cornucopia of weapons of mass destruction. Quite
clearly if Clinton had his Milosevic dragon to slay, Bush has found
one in Saddam Hussein.
It
was a well paced speech that suited his manner of speaking that made
its points with rapier precision and at times it even made politics
seem a higher calling. It’s a tough act to follow Bill Clinton,
unarguably the most gifted politician the US has known in recent
times and a man with a magical way with words and phrases. George
Bush will hate this; he was almost like Clinton at his best, but
without his effusive charm and personal warmth, and zeal to deploy
public policy for the general good. Like Clinton he stole new
political ground while sounding the old bugle toot to the faithful.
And like Clinton, he too will be reviled by the clearly partisan and
implacable. For America is which is extremely divisive and fractious
even at the best of times, gets especially divided and raucous at
the worst of times. And these are bad times here. The economy is in
the pits. The Democrats who were badly beaten in the last
Congressional elections think of George Bush II as an impostor who
stole – a he possibly did – the White House from them. The word
on the street here is that Bush is going into Iraq for the oil. On
the other side there is a part of America that loves a good fight
bringing to mind words from a Pete Seeger song: “we fought in
Germany, we fought in France, and someday I’ll get my chance.”
The
dominant opinion in India is to revile him, poke fun at him and make
him seem like the daddy’s little boys who inherit political,
business and even newspaper empires. One editor less newspaper has
even concocted a witless cartoon strip with Bush as the main
character. But we are making a mistake for this is quite a talented,
clever and above all determined US President. You might make it to
Yale as daddy’s little boy, but getting through the relentless
grind and punishing regime of two years at the Harvard Business
School requires intelligence, application and stamina. It tests you
against the best and pits you against the run of the mill. Ask
P.Chidambaram about it. Or even Rahul Bajaj who will only be too
happy to tell you how wonderfully unique he is! George Bush was
elected governor of Texas and you don’t get to be that if you have
not has successfully transplanted your inherited east coast
tightassedness with a Texan penchant for the hyperbole and Stetson
hat induced low brow. Lets not get fooled by appearances. Even going
by them he is a long way ahead of the longwinded and wobbly-footed
statesman who occupy our political center-stage. This man belongs
there with Putin as a determined and clearheaded leader of a
superpower and he is no Tony Blair yipping and yapping at his
master’s behest. This George Bush is leading a posse and when the
pace picks up Saddam Hussein will have no place to hide. To this
extent he is not his fathers son. You are looking at a two-term
President and lets not, as Bush would say, misunderestimate him.
There
is a certain perversity in our public discourse that elevates a
bloodthirsty and bloody-minded dictator to an iconic status. This is
a man who is obviously afflicted with megalomania and is an
international pyromaniac to boot. We seem to have a problem seeing
him for what he is. When he occupied Kuwait in 1991, our then
Foreign Minister went to the extent of publicly bussing Saddam’s
ample cheeks. Some people put up posters on our streets. We got it
wrong then and we seem to be getting it wrong again. Oil and
terrorism are the only exports from the Middle East. We pay with
enough blood and sweat for tanker loads of one, and we don’t need
the other. And let us also not forget that as surely as the
Saudi’s financed Osama bin Laden and the terrorist gangs who have
plagued us for the last decade, they just as surely financed
Pakistan’s nuclear program. If somebody is willing to do the
cleanup for us, the least we can do is not get in the way. The only
Arabs who deserve our support and sympathies are the long-suffering
Palestinians and we must not confuse their cause with the rest of
the lot.
But
to me the highpoints of Bush’s speech were the announcements to
give the Hydrogen Fuel Cell development programs underway a
financial stimulus. The proton exchange membrane fuel cell
technology has been around for a few years now. Last year
Daimler-Chrysler even introduced the Mercedes Sprinter a commercial
vehicle with the new power pack. Ford Motors has been testing 200
Ford Focus cars with these power packs since mid 2000. The
pioneering work in developing this technology has been done a
Canadian company, Ballard Power Systems based in Vancouver, British
Columbia. In this technology by an electro-chemical process hydrogen
and oxygen are converted into energy with only water as the sole
emission. This technology is now well proven. The challenge now is
to bring down fuel cell costs to a tenth to make them competitive
with the internal combustion engines. When that happens it will soon
be goodbye to the Saudis, Iraqis and the rest of the bunch who have
made life miserable for the poorer countries by their eye gouging
prices and support for terrorism. The USA has pledged 1.2 billion
dollars to speed this up. We should look forward to some good coming
out of this.
The
other big item on Bush’s speech was the pledging of 15 billion
dollars to help sub-Saharan Africa cope up with the AIDS epidemic
that is sweeping across the continent. Out of the 42 million
afflicted by AIDS world over, as many as 30 million are Africans. In
countries like Zambia and Botswana as much as 20% of the adult
population is now afflicted with AIDS. Even in a relatively
prosperous country like South Africa, 10% of all adults are
carriers. Most of sub-Saharan Africa is in economic doldrums and
ecologically devastated. A combination of famine and floods, and
civil war has made most of these countries incapable of even feeding
themselves, let alone combat AIDS. For all his extravagant talk on
the need for a compassionate foreign policy, Bill Clinton never put
his money where his mouth was. He did nothing to help Africa. Bush
has promised big. While we can wait a while to pass judgment on him,
let us also not misunderestimate him!
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