Sate Hamza, a Syrian doctor and professor now living in Canada, kindly tracked down and translated the September 17 full review of Bush Betrayal in the Syrian newspaper Al-Thawrah from Arabic into English.
He emailed this around 4 a.m. this morning:
I found the original review at the following URL:
http://thawra.alwehda.gov.sy/_archive.asp?FileName=55888278520070916222749
Here is a full English translation of it:
The “World President’s” Treason
Commentary
Monday 09/17/2007
Dr. Khalaf Al-Jarad
Treason is one of the most serious accusations to be leveled at any person, especially if that person was the president of his country and the chief responsible for the lives, security and safety of his citizens.
This severe and grave accusation was leveled by well-known American author James Bovard at the current president of the United States of America, George W. Bush. He published his indictment in a detailed and documented analytical book that bears the clear, powerful and direct title of “The Bush Betrayal”.
Since being published four years ago, the book has aroused and continues to arouse a wide-scale, strong controversy among the US political and intellectual quarters, not because of its bold, shocking, and unusual title, but because the writer succeeded in gathering hundreds of pieces of evidence to prove the soundness of his theory, which is based on accusing the president of the superpower of treason. The President broke his oath to preserve the Constitution and achieve prosperity and peace for the American People. He personally led his country to drown in a horrible quagmire of political, economic and moral conflicts. And he made his country the most hated in the world by directly, violently and insanely crushing the values of freedom, justice and peace, and by his country’s forcible and bloody interference in the affairs of other peoples and societies using unacceptable false or flimsy excuses, at the head of which is the lie of “freeing the world from terrorism and tyranny”.
Bovard documents how President Bush broke his promises that he made during his election campaign and drowned his country in an absurd war and pledged the country to the interests of private corporations and the oil and weapon manufacturing industries.
The author exposes in great detail the bases on which the Bush presidency was established, both before and after being bogged down in the complex quagmire of the Iraq invasion.
He also unveils a number of Bush’s bad and negative traits, including his lying and dishonesty and the great harm he has caused the reputation of the US and the embarrassment he caused his people in front of the entire world.
The author lists tens of examples that emphasize Bush’s clumsiness and the disintegration of his justifications to occupy Iraq, especially the Iraqi WMD fraud (which turned out to be totally false), and his failure to stamp out terrorism in his global “war on terror” (after the events of September 11, 2001), which led him to stumble in an endless series of wars and battles (against potential, more likely illusory, dangers). Bush’s personal criteria (relating to preemptive wars) are much more dangerous than all of his old lies because they enable him to carry out wars on tens of countries that he perceives to be a danger to the national security of the United States.
What is noteworthy is that Bovard draws parallels between what Bush’s army is doing in Iraq of random killing, destruction, terrorizing of civilians and terrifying women and children, and what his Israeli “friends and allies” are doing in the occupied Arab territories. The author quotes US Major General Michael Vane who says that he traveled (in July of 2003) to Israel accompanied by other US officers “to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas,”. The US officers also expressed interest in Israeli software programs that teach soldiers how to act in the West Bank and Gaza (p. 364).
And despite the fact that Bush has declared time and again that his War on Iraq would lead to the establishment of a “free and democratic society that is not a breeding ground for terrorism”, the latter motto and major fabrication is totally refuted by what’s happening in Iraq today.
The results that the author arrives at in every chapter of his exciting, interesting and documented book proves what he set out to show, and that is President Bush the son, committed a tremendous amount of errors, failures and aberrations, and instead of adhering to preserve the Constitution and the values of freedom and justice and the people’s right to self-determination, he destroyed the reputation of his country and caused it a disgrace and an irreparable moral loss that will take a long time to erase.
The author emphasizes at the end of his book that “We have deviated away from the vision and wisdom of our founding forefathers .. and regarding Bush, he is a danger man, and that is due in part to the authorization that he believes God has granted him”!!
He concludes by saying: As long as Americans tolerated more of Bush’s lies and stupidities, the more the harms and dangers they will suffer from, will increase, and the more the perils he will lead them into.
Jim,
Interesting. It sounds like he wants to publish an Arab version of your book. I wonder if Basher Assad has read it?
“As long as Americans tolerated more of Bush’s lies and stupidities, the more the harms and dangers they will suffer from, will increase, and the more the perils he will lead them into.”
I think something was lost in the translation here, not having the book in front of me, but this is certainly true today as it was when originally penned.
Ryan, remember that I was a youthful idealist when I wrote that book.
🙂
Yes, Jim and now you’re an old cynic like I am. There is one thing that takes me back to my youth and that is Ron Paul’s candidancy. He’s doing well and the powers that be are having an increasingly harder time trying to ignore him.
…Indeed it seems they are having a more difficult time of ignoring Dr. Paul…And frankly, that’s what worries me.
My God, Jim! It looks like this book will probably embolden our enemies. It will only inspire them to put out more propaganda against the interests of America. Of course, I am talking about our enemies in the White House.
In keeping with my psychic prediction that Republicans will come to hate Bush Junior more than any other Republican President (after the 2008 elections), I predict that Bush Betrayal will become a best-seller among those who currently worship the dimwit. In fact, I’ll bet this book is being used by the opposition research teams of all of the GOP candidates seeking the nomination right now. Whoever wins the nomination can cite your book as the reason they are distancing themselves from Bush prior to the general election.
Once Bush hits the lecture circuit in 2009, we may even see angry young Republicans being tasered as they clutch Bush Betrayal while shouting questions at the former dictator.
…Bush? On the lecture circuit?? How does a bumbling idiot of a semi-literate deliver a cohesive lecture??
Mace – Trust me, the people who worship Bush now don’t notice that he is an idiot. They may even thing the good Lawd is placing the words in his mouth.
From BBC:
Mr Bush is quoted as saying that – just like his father, ex-President George Bush Sr – he plans on a lecture tour after he leaves office in 2008.
He reveals that his father gets more than $50,000-75,000 per speech and that Bill Clinton is “making a lot of money”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6975916.stm
…I do trust you Tom, implicitly… That’s why I started drinking again
Tom – thanks for the great comment. Folks being tasered while holding Bush Betrayal… Hmmmmm…
As an author, I always hope people get a kick out of my books, but 500 volts…. ??
…Just been doing some protracted research on the History of the Soviet Union; i.e. Lenin, Trotsky, “Uncle Joe” Stalin, The 1936-39 Purge. But moreover the comprehensive level of State imposed Political/Security founded Terror, Murder, Torture, Deportation, Starvation etc. This to the tune of at least 20,000,000 killed—Not to mention the War, famine, cannibalism etc.,that sealed the fates of some 26-7 million more…In short it is staggering…I don’t necessarily believe in God. But, God forbid that this Nation ever remotely approaches the decline in, and abrogation of, those Individual Rights ‘Guaranteed’ us under ‘Law.’ As it is the proven catalyst that eventually leads to that very level of Existential Barbarism that I’ve just had to close the book[s] on…Add to this the amoral and psychological elements of Tyranny, and provided one is sufficiently imaginative. Even its 2nd hand effect, nearly a Century later…can be truly sickening.
Better late than never, I guess .. I was reading the comments on this entry and I read the following that “Ryan” wrote Sep 22, 2007:
““As long as Americans tolerated more of Bush’s lies and stupidities, the more the harms and dangers they will suffer from, will increase, and the more the perils he will lead them into.”
I think something was lost in the translation here”
I apologize. Here is a second try. I think the sentence in the Arabic language review generally means the following:
““The longer Americans tolerated the lies and the stupidities of Bush, the more will be the harms and dangers that they will suffer from, and the more will be the perils that he will lead them into.””