Wednesday, June 22, 2005

In Bush's America, There is No Dissent

Bush Attacks Civil Society, Seeks to Squelch American Dissent

From the Yemen Times, an "outsider's" view of what is going on inside the US, "which to a certain extent has begun an open and systematic pursuit of limiting and restricting the fundamental human and political rights of its own people."

We have read and discovered that many Americans see Guantanamo as being far from the shining example of American democracy, which the Bush Administration purportedly wants to propagate throughout the world. So, it should come as no surprise to the Bush Administration that the harsh treatment meted out to prisoners detained without any legal or constitutional pretext, has become the focus of criticism from a human rights watchdog like Amnesty International.

One, in fact, would have hoped that an awakening may have come to the White House after Amnesty’s criticism over the way the Bush Administration has behaved in Guantanamo. That as a democracy, the administration would give weight to the significance of civil society, and would seek ways to demonstrate that it is indeed an upholder of democratic principles.

But by harshly lashing out at its critics, it is as if to tell the world that the Bushniks and their Likudnik mentors [Likud is Israel’s ruling party] have a God-given hold on infallibility. This only proves that the evil interests they serve, rather than any desire to enhance and uphold the rights and welfare of the world’s people, govern their behavior.

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