From Watching America:
http://www.watchingamerica.com/tunishebdo000078.shtml
Tunis Hebdo, Tunisia
Corruption, American-Style
"Seeing the Bush Administration hand out key posts to ideologues and lackeys - one gets the impression of a powerful, democratic America being eclipsed by any banana republic on the dark continent [Africa] or Latin America."
By Oumar Diagana
Translated By Elise Nussbaum
September 3 to 9 Edition
Tunisia - Tunis Hebdo - Original Article (French)
Not since the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 has an administration accumulated so many blunders and fiascos, piled up so many failures, but also and especially, experienced such "unpopularity." The least one can say about this phrase is that at the level of the daisy [basically or at its root], it's a nice euphemism for avoiding the phrase "an abyss of ill-repute."
Behind the failure of the brutal war carried out in Iraq - which is a painful thorn in the side of the Republican Party - hides the calamitous management of an uninterrupted string of scandals. Just 17 months from the end of his mandate, the U.S. President is wilted and despised, cruelly vilified, but also in the minority in both Houses of Congress and running out of steam with which to overcome the final tests of the Iraqi mud pit.
And as if Mesopotamia were not enough of a setback, the American people awake every day to discover that God has created corruption and incompetence amongst their elites, and that there are scandals involving the misappropriation of public funds, sprinkled with a shameless politicization that has had a gangrenous effect on many cabinet-level departments.
From the Department of Homeland Security to those of Education, Justice, the Environment, and Health, Housing and Urban Development ... rare is the department remaining untouched by the philosophy of corruption upheld by the blowhard Bush-Rove duo.
Seeing the Bush Administration hand out key posts to its heart's content, to ideologues and lackeys among its inner circle - all of whom are ready to bow down before the slightest order of their Oval Office master - one gets the impression of a powerful, democratic America being eclipsed by any banana republic of the dark continent or Latin America.
In the country of the Tigris and Euphrates, one needs a blind and simplistic faith to believe that life is better now than it was during the time of the dictator - who was sacrificed on the altar of "democracy." Enterprises designated by Bush have mightily sabotaged the reconstruction of a country that has been rendered unrecognizable amidst the ruins. Even the care of wounded GIs back from Iraq at the Walter Reed Military Hospital has been contracted out to a company with very highly-placed connections. Some time ago, this hospital created a general public outrage when a TV news team revealed the ordeal of these wounded veterans, who had been parked like cattle in moldy rooms with medieval care.
But in fact, for some time it has been the embezzlement taking place in the U.S. Army in Iraq that has monopolized most of these discussions. Dozens of investigations are being carried out in regard to American weapons that have vanished - "too much precaution can be dangerous" - into the hands of the insurrection. With a little help from corruption, the U.S. has just shot itself in the foot.
The number of weapons missing is estimated at 190,000, while about 70 criminal investigations are underway for fraud and the diversion of $5 billion under the table. The final straw is that, of the $19.2 billion that Washington had set aside since 2003 for the provision of Iraqi police and army recruits, only $2.8 billion has been used for the task. No one knows into whose accounts the rest of the cash has landed. And that's not all.
Setting aside a Republican Party whose image has been profoundly tarnished - it's the repeated resignations of the "bigwigs" in the presidential camp (Karl Rove and recently Alberto Gonzales) that has left this ship-of state-adrift, a million miles from completing a long list of projects yet to be announced. For example, the questions of security in Iraq, the method of withdrawal, immigration, the environment, energy independence, et cetera.
Given the devastation inflicted by this cowboy and his clique, it's not hard to understand Jimmy Carter, who said, “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.” At 81 years old, this former U.S. President and 2002 Nobel Prize winner knows, no doubt better than anyone, that of which he speaks.
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