As a former advisor to Morgan Tsvangirai, I am compelled to offer the following observations on the recent attempt by President George W. Bush to appear less despotic than the reviled president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
In the midst of the sham election rigged to give Robert Mugabe the impression that he is still the most popular leader of his teeming masses, George W. Bush outdid himself in a realm where he deserves a special distinction for excellence: hypocrisy.
As the most unpopular president in US history now in the waning months of his forlorn presidency Bush frets and yearns for his place in history. With his presidency marred by an illegal war, stained by war-crimes, tattooed by torturers and infected with the historical equivalent of the AIDS virus, cancer and clinical insanity, Bush is now seeking a phantasmagoric form of presidential redemption. In recent weeks, Bush made his hand-wringing farewell tour of the globe to pose and plead on the world stage in the vain hope of redeeming his pathetic presidency.
With his hopes fading for an accolade that will redeem him from the dustbin of hated world leaders eligible for war crimes prosecution, Bush is feverishly pressuring nations in the Middle East to come to terms and make peace as hurriedly as possible. Even today, secret negotiations between Israel and Syria are unfolding against a backdrop of fretful presidential pressures designed not so much to make peace as to provide him with a terribly weak alibi for the carnage in the train wreck of his putrid presidency.
In Bush's feverish brain, hope springs eternal even if it recedes with every step he takes to grasp it. Presented with the possibility of chastising Mugabe in order to appear to be a defender of democracy, Bush struts and prates on the world stage making a mockery of himself and the undeniable facts of his shameful history.
Bush clearly believes that the global public has forgotten that he and his agents led by Jeb Bush, James Baker, John Bolton, John Roberts and Katherine Harris stole the presidential election of 2000 in plain sight -- by shutting down the recount in Florida. Bush believes that the global audience has forgotten his second presidential election in 2004 was the legal equivalent of a sham. Bush's preferred methods of stealing elections: suppression and disenfranchisement of racial minorities -- thus, his hypocritical selection of Mugabe for sanctions. Bush's sanctions will not touch Mugabe, but they will make the lives of the suppressed people of Zimbabwe far worse. Has anyone failed to notice that sanctions never work?
Neither is Bush aware of the global suspicions of that dubious US agency with the euphemistically disingenuous name: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In international election after election, NED's agents have helped rig results to put American puppetry in power. In an arc spanning from Eurasia to Africa that leaps over the Atlantic to touch down in Central and South America, NED presents a prolific record of manipulating election results to hand the levers of power to corporate puppets obeisant to their American controllers in Foggy Bottom. In some cases, NED is assisted in financing foreign elections by another euphemistically creative federal acronym called the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). One case springs to mind; in 2006 USAID arranged for two million dollars to bolster the Palestinian Authority in what proved to be a vain attempt to block Hamas from gaining the upper hand in Gaza. Increasingly under Bush, American influence in foreign elections has backfired.
Here are a few of the group of 'democratic leaders' ushered to their seats of power by US interventionists working hand in glove with local lackeys: Silvio Berlusconi of Italy; Carlos Maria Aznar of Spain; Angela Merkel of Germany; Anders Rasmussen of Denmark; Viktor Yushchenko of the Ukraine; Aleksandr Yukashenko of Belarus; Felipe De Jesus Calderon of Mexico and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. This list could certainly be lengthened, but all of these 'democratically elected leaders' received the backing of the Bush government through its back channels as well as through its upfront and out-of-the-closet professional bagmen.
As cover for stolen elections in foreign lands, high-profile American political consultants are frequently dispatched to counsel with the US surrogate candidate for president, but that subterfuge is for window-dressing only to provide a smokescreen for outright manipulation of the ballots in the boxes. A few US consultants tainted by the stench of corrupt international elections are: Rob Allyn, James Carville, Mark Mellman, Dick Morris, Mark Penn and Jeremy Rosner.
International elections manufactured in the name of democracy, freedom and the American way are notorious. This phenomenon is not especially new, but the Bush Era elevated the black ops of American-designed election stealing to new heights.
Readers of Justin Frank's latest book now being serialized in The Huffington Post will be aware that our president is a deeply troubled man. Bush is now so self-deluded that he imagines that nobody in the world sees him for what he really is: a naked tyrant without one shred of democratic legitimacy to his name.