Ayoon Wa Azan (A library for an illiterate president)

George W. Bush’s Presidential Library at the Southern Methodist University (read Church) in Dallas reminded me of the funds allocated by his administration, ostensibly for the reconstruction of Iraq. The Bush administration had pledged $18 billion for reconstruction efforts, but according to a report by a congressional auditor, those funds soon disappeared, were stolen, or were spent on projects that never materialized. The misappropriation of public and private funds was repeated with the construction of the $250 million presidential library, perhaps for the purpose of housing comics and a few painting books with crayons so that George W. Bush can do some coloring. I write sarcastically because sarcasm and mockery is all I have left. George W. Bush belongs not at a library, but at a war crimes tribunal. Any fair trial would no doubt sentence him to death along with the senior pillars of his administration and the evil warmongering cabal that surrounded it. Those people killed one million Arabs and Muslims, but instead of being put on trial, they continue to have a voice in American politics. They are even planning to return one day to the White House, perhaps to kill another million Muslims. Now the same gang is trying to whitewash the former president, but all it ends up doing is reminding the world of his and his administration’s crimes. At the opening ceremony of Bush’s library, President Barack Obama said Bush is a “good” and principled man. Well I say that he is a fool that the neocons used as a front to rule through him. Until 1986, Bush was an alcoholic. But after the financial crisis he pushed the United States and the world into, the Americans took to alcohol to forget what he did to them. The library is located in Texas, although Bush is not originally from this southern state. Bush’s family came from the northeastern United States, but he probably could not spell Massachusetts so he moved to Texas. The library will be open to the public on May 1, the tenth anniversary of Bush’s proclamation “mission accomplished,” in reference to the Iraq war, which endured for eight years after that. In 2010, I read Bush’s memoirs titled “Decision Points,” in which he spoke about decisions like giving up alcohol, the war on Iraq in 2003, and how he confronted the financial crisis in 2008. Reading the book made me think that the worst thing about George W. Bush was his memory, as my own memory served me to remember the deliberate lies his administration used to invade Iraq, and ended up losing all its wars along with its reputation around the world. George W. Bush is not even fluent in his own native English. There are many books that recorded his weird statements of which I own three. However, there is now a whole library bearing his name, and this reminds me of a statement he once made, that the most beautiful thing about books is that they sometimes contain nice pictures. I read that 70 percent of Americans do not have a passport, and George W. Bush must have been one of them. Before he was elected, he probably was not aware that a whole world existed outside the United States. Even after he learned that, he still asked the president of Brazil Fernando Cardoso: Do you have blacks (in your country) too? At the inauguration of his library, Bush tried to appear hospitable in front of former US presidents and their wives (including his good father and his mother) and the leaders of the world. So he went to the pianist at the main hall and asked him to play some of Picasso’s works for the guests. Again, all I have is sarcasm and mockery about a man who succeeded in nothing but failure. This is the same man who once said that people and fish can coexist peacefully, and complained that America’s imports came from overseas. For the sake of objectivity, I have to note that he did succeed once: When he was able to dodge Muntazir al-Zaidi’s shoe. Muntazir made a mistake when he cursed Bush loudly as he threw it, in the process alerting Bush who ducked and caused the shoe to miss him. Finally, I heard that Bush signed his memoirs at the library. After that, he tried to buy a copy of the Bible, but when he was given one, he looked at it and returned it, insisting that he wanted a copy that had the author’s autograph. Indeed, the worst misfortune is the one that makes you laugh. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.