A different scenario

By Fayza Hassan
As many mourn the gory and needless death of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist murdered by petty terrorists, I find it hard not to wonder at the waste: did George W Bush really have no other way of dealing with the challenge posed by the 11 September attack?
Had the American president not been so eager to emulate and surpass his father, hoping for his own Desert Storm, had he not been plagued from the start by the election scandal, an ailing economy and his own general ineptitude at conducting domestic and foreign affairs, who knows if he would have chosen this course? As it happened, finding a war that would rally the American people around him was a chance he decided to exploit to the full.
In the garb of a staunch warrior and the intrepid defender of his nation, Bush suddenly gained the stature he lacked so sorely. Backed by a huge military arsenal, he could safely strut, roll his eyes and deliver patriotic speeches. His speechwriters tried their hand at resounding slogans; Americans lapped it up and gave their president standing ovations. As Bush globe-trotted in a drive to disseminate his message of good against evil, he did not care how many feathers he ruffled, voluntarily or otherwise, in his international wake: soon the American president's offensive words forced at least the Iranians, Japanese and North Koreans to divest themselves of any trace of goodwill they might have harboured for his cloak-and-dagger expedition. Undaunted, he forged ahead, heaping gaffes upon insults, seemingly oblivious of the less than cordial reception his visits and speeches were now provoking. His was the God- given right of the leader of the most powerful country in the world to say exactly what he pleased.
Even the initial embarrassment at his ignorance and lack of savoir-faire no longer embarrassed his people. Nor did they seem worried that his warmongering produced less than the expected results. America was at war and he was the great protector. Fools like Ross Perot appeared on prime time television not only to condone the president's actions but to offer his own bit of wisdom about keeping the country on permanent alert, transforming America into a glorified boy scouts' camp. What will happen to the American way of life now? People will no longer have time to shop and binge if they have to play vigilante. And isn't the powerful government's sacred mission to defend the blessed people of America?
That Bin Laden is still alive and well, like his evildoing predecessor Saddam Hussein, that they both seem to defy the United States of America and its president: these small hitches are brushed aside as a matter of little consequence by Bush's cronies. Did you think that the US was waging a bloody war just to rid the world of these criminals? Think again. Bush is the avenging angel of good, at war with no less than the forces of Satan, who threaten the American paradise. With enough dead to convince the world of imminent global danger, W is confident that he can cover up the truth for as long as his special forces keep calling the shots. One can only suspect, by reading between the lines of a compliant Western press, that the Afghan war is far from being won, that the Taliban and Al-Qa'eda could well be regrouping in some remote corner to wage a war of attrition on the interim Afghan government and its allies. Meanwhile, rumours of the conflict's expansion according to the American president's whim occupy the public's mind. Will he go after Iran, North Korea, or Iraq first? Will he deploy his military might in the Philippines or will he engage all the members of the axis of evil at once? We are left to guess, while Bush basks in the glory of his unchallenged supremacy.
Poor, misguided John Walker should have given the good president a homegrown hint, as he bullies his way around the world. Maybe the legendary American way of life is not all it is cracked up to be, if a young man, blessed with all its advantages, chose to shed his privileges in the name of what he saw as a worthier cause. Maybe some other young people are beginning to realise that not only have Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein escaped the US forces, but that Daniel Pearl's murderers could neither be captured nor even located accurately before they perpetrated their heinous crime. One wonders how Bush and his war cabinet find each other in the morning. So far, the US has only proved particularly skilful at bombing civilians and depriving prisoners of their basic human rights. The rest has been a PR exercise.
Let us imagine for a while that, instead of launching America into a senseless war against unknown enemies, Bush had reined in his wrath and his war machine and attempted to capture Bin Laden and his group quietly, choking them financially and using a quickly revamped CIA to do the job. Then he might have applied his advisers' talents to solving some of the real problems at the root of terrorism. How many innocent victims could have been spared? Pearl might be alive today, and young Walker on his way to his comfortable home in California, secure in the belief that his country was indeed sponsoring good against evil. But then Bush would not have come down in history as the great president who did battle against the devil, vanquished his forces, and restored his people to their cherished way of life: namely, spending their days in well-stocked supermarkets and malls, forever and ever, Amen.
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