It is Bush who desperately needs us

As president Bush of the United States of America arrives in Ghana on Tuesday in his on-going tour of Africa, it is important for the Ghanaian people to be told the pure and simple truth.

Contrary to the propaganda from the Whitehouse, their embassy in Accra and their surrogates in the Osu Castle that President Bush is here as the benevolent father who cares about us and is here to show concern about malaria, HIV/Aids and his Millennium Challenge Account – all these are but a smoke screen. Another interesting angle pushed in President Kufuor’s State of the Nation address last week, was that President Bush’s intention to visit us is manifestation of how well we are doing as a country.

Even the reasons coming from officialdom in the Whitehouse and the Osu Castle are beginning to laughably contradict themselves. If President Bush is coming here to check up malaria and HIV/Aids interventions then how can these same officials tell us in the same breath that President Bush comes here as proof of how well we are doing. Funny isn’t it? But you see, it is my mum who told me when I was a little child that I should never take to lying because when you tell one lie you must tell several lies in order to cover your tracks and that makes you soon get miserably exposed. First of all, we must tell our people that America’s foreign policy is and has always been this – “permanent interest and no permanent friends.” Before President Bush visit to Africa was endorsed by those really in charge of the American system, they would have convinced themselves without a shred of doubt that it is their interest that will be served. President Bush is here for our oil, nothing more nothing less!

At this material moment, President Bush is the singular most unpopular American citizen both in the world and in his own country. Aside the low approval ratings he suffers in America, the current political season in America has emphasized one important point- the farther your policies and philosophies are from Bush, the clearer your chances. This is why even in Bush’s Republican Party the two remaining aspirants distance themselves from Bush. As for the Democratic Party nomination, both aspirants are preaching change and it has been observed that because Barrack Obama represents a more sincere change since he voted against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan that is why he is doing better than Hillary Clinton.

In all Bush’s life, he has represented the American ruling and rich business elite. He only became president because they needed him to get there and guarantee their interest. (Michael Moore has a better substantial evidential proof of this), it is this hegemony Bush seeks to further perpetrate in his new found role as the Father Christmas of Africa. Americans themselves are suffering under Bush. Over two million Americans are about to lose their entire live savings due to the mortgage crisis. The American economy is on the brink of recession. Americans both home and abroad don’t feel safe anymore because of the recklessness of Bush. I recall as a summer visitor to the States, how Bush exploited 9/11 to instill fear in the American people to secure his second term of office.

If President Bush wasn’t President of America he would have been standing trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. The hundreds of women who are raped in Iraq and Afghanistan, the thousands of children and innocent civilians whose lives don’t matter to Bush as they are buried in mass graves in Iraq and Afghanistan and those bodies who cannot be identified because American bombs have tore them into pieces, the young soldiers who are children of ordinary American citizens who continue to die in the senseless war of Iraq that has still not found Bush’s so-called weapons of mass destruction though it has paved the way to establish a US military base that protects Dick Cheney’s oil company and other US business interests as they milk Iraq dry, the revealed torture including ‘water-boarding’ in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay continues– all these under his supervision as Commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

As Bush comes for our oil, he has the added PR advantage with the huge CNN and Fox networks behind him of being portrayed as the Bush who has a human side and cares about victims of malaria and HIV/Aids as he attempts a last minute face saving. The gullible ones may believe this PR stunt but not the majority of people around the world who have now read through the lines of America’s selfish foreign policy and will take to the streets in wild jubilation the day President Bush hands over not only as president of America but also as the tormentor-in-chief of our world.

As for those groups in Ghana who have organized special prayer sessions for an incident free arrival of Bush into Ghana, I will only remind them that Ghanaians are being killed in the Gambia, in Libya and other parts of this world as they travel in search for greener pastures, maybe they too deserve prayers even if to these groups Bush has a special blood running through his veins. For at least throughout the Bible God has rather been sympathetic to the poor, the vulnerable and the wretched of the earth. If Bush couldn’t save his own people, let my folks know, he cannot save Ghanaians. Under the circumstance, it is he who needs us badly. Help will only come from within when we take the right decisions, break off from our present neo-colonial mentality and demand of our leaders not to sell us to the highest bidder.

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa is the author of the book, A State of Coma; he has several other publications to his name. He was NUGS President and is currently a leading member of the CJA. He welcomes your comments.