BUSH IN, KERRY OUT

If you were an American citizen, who’d you vote in this year’s presidential elections? The incumbent & incompetent Bush or the incoherent & inconsistent Kerry? Tough choice huh….but prolly not as tough as our very own presidential race here in ‘Pinas where we had 5 presidentiables involving one stubborn incumbent & corrupt midget, one ailing & ‘PaiHua’ legislator, one naïve clergyman, one iron-fisted ex-PNP chief, and last but not the least, an uneducated doofus of a moviestar. Presidential races seem to be one heck of a joke nowadays, isn’t it? Where are the more capable leaders? Are they too daunted to come out in the open? Haayyy…what’s the world turning into?

Now looking closely at the 2 American president wannabees, Mr. Bush was quite inspiring in the way he grasped the magnitude of his challenges. His response in Afghanistan was not like the poorly lashing that ex-president Bill Clinton had used after Al-Qaeda destroyed 2 American embassies; it was a resolute effort that achieved quite a deal…the Talibans were removed & Al-Qaeda lost their bases & camps & Afghanistan has held elections that bring a tinge of hope in a country needing stability & prosperity. But the biggest mistake prolly (for me) of Mr. Bush was in attacking & conquering the sovereign nation of Iraq using only as legal basis the latter’s supposedly hidden weapons-of-mass-destruction, to which, there was none found towards the end of the bitter strife. Iraq, a country torn by an unnecessary war, now lay in shadows. True, Saddam’s Hussein regime has ended in Iraq but only to be replaced under Mr. Bush’s regime as he promises to rebuild the nation. Is that what the Iraqi people want? I don’t think so. Before the hypocritical war, Iraqi families were living peacefully, now, what remains with them are cold ashes of their homes and rotting bodies of their loved ones. I believe Mr. Bush needs to learn quickly that civilians are always the major casualties of war….and that these lives are irreparable no matter how much promises you make. Now on the other hand, we have the challenger, Mr. Kerry. The American people will have to make sense of him first before he’ll be of any true challenge. His oscillating position on a variety of topics and issues is deeply unsettling, proving thus that he is a vacillator. On one instant, he claims to seek out & destroy all terrorists and on another, he seemed to just hold back and regard such acts as mere questions of law and order. This oscillation of Mr. Kerry then is a worrying sign, especially when a president is expected to firmly deal with crises here and abroad.

Today, the American people have spoken….Mr. Bush & his campaign team has attained victory over this year’s elections. Is this a proof that the Americans prefer a coherent but incompetent ruler? Well, Mr. Bush will have 4 more years to disprove that. Just one question though Mr. Bush, who’s next on your list of nations to conquer? Oh well, we have 4 more years to witness that…but for the meantime, Mr. Kerry, you’re Out!