He is the most dangerous man in the world.

A warmonger. A crackpot fundamentalist. A fanatic and a fool who has only the barest grasp of the killing power of the forces under his command.

His name is George W Bush and his main battle plan is to set the world on fire.

September 11 was a crime against humanity but from Afghanistan to Iraq, and now in Israel, Bush has blazed a purposeless trail of destruction and multiplied the dangers of terrorism a thousand-fold.

The War Against Terror has turned into a war of terror in Iraq as American troops butcher their way through the civilian population in pursuit of an enemy that grows stronger daily with each dead Iraqi civilian.

And in Israel Bush has overnight primed the entire region for a new cycle of slaughter by backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's illegal land-grab of Palestinian territory and offering the Arabs nothing in return only despair.

Bush seems determined to unite the entire Arab world against the West. Already the mass murderer Osama bin Laden has gleefully vowed to avenge the Israeli assassination of Palestinian Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin.

After September 11 Bush promised to fight terror. But the only promise Bush has kept is the promise of more terror, more terrorist atrocities, like the Madrid bombings, to come.

As the American President Bush is supposed to protect democracy and make the world a safer place.

Bush is supposed to be the leader of the free world, a man who directly follows in the footsteps of such great statesmen as John F Kennedy, who saved the world from nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban missile crisis.

But airhead Bush is no Kennedy.

Watching Bush stumble through a live press conference, even when he knows the questions, is like watching a stranded goldfish gasping for air.

Bush is not just out of his depth, he is out of his element.

If it was not so truly frightening you could almost feel sorry for him.

If I was an American I would be ashamed. Ashamed that the greatest nation on earth is so badly led. Ashamed that their commander-in-chief is without purpose squandering the lives of his men, and Iraqi civilians.

And ashamed too of a President who sends men to their death but does not have the courage to attend one single funeral of the 700 US soldiers killed in Iraq.

Iraq and Israel might seem far away but every time you fill up your car you are taking part in the politics of the Middle East. The world economy still runs on petrol and that oil still largely comes from the Arab world.

If anything should ever happen to that flow of oil - civil war in Saudi Arabia or meltdown in Iraq - we would all know about it very quickly by the US$100 a barrel price tag and the three-hour queue down at your local petrol station.

The war against Islamic fundamentalism, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is a battle for the future of the world. It is a war the West cannot afford to lose. And it is a war in which the clueless Bush is blindly leading us all towards disaster.

As if the quagmire in Iraq was not bad enough, Bush has turned his destructive attention to the other regional hot-spot, Israel.

At the White House Bush summarily dismissed 50 years of Palestinian claims for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, all illegal under international law, were the "new realities" that the Palestinians would just have to accept, he said.

A couple of months ago I was standing next to one of those realities, an eight-foot high concrete wall, on the outskirts of Jerusalem in the small Arab village of Abu Dis.

Abu Dis is seven miles from the centre of Jerusalem and straddles the 3000-year-old pilgrim road to Jericho. Jesus Christ himself probably walked along the same road on his way into Jerusalem.

But last summer Ariel Sharon decided Abu Dis was no longer part of East Jerusalem and erected an eight-foot high concrete barrier across the middle of the road, cutting the residents off from their homes, their jobs, and their city.

ON the roof of a local garage the Israeli army erected an observation post and threatened to shoot anyone who climbed the wall.

The Palestinians ignored the soldiers and round the corner climbed the wall anyway.

I was standing on the "Arab" side of the wall chatting to Ahmed Bahar, a street falafel seller, when without warning an Israeli soldier lobbied a tear-gas grenade.

There was no shouting. No mob screaming threats. Ahmed saw the hissing gas canister, which landed about 10 feet away, and took off in the opposite direction. I ran after him but not before getting a choking whiff of the stinging gas in my eyes and lungs.

After 10 minutes the wind blew the gas away and Ahmed went back to his falafel stall. The other Palestinians quietly got back in line to queue for a taxi. And life started up again.

Ahmed said he had been gassed hundreds of times. He was past being angry about it. The real thing that bothered him was the disruption to his trade. He wasn't making enough money to support his family.

Getting tear gassed in Abu Dis for no reason is just one of the new realities that George W Bush wants the Palestinians to live with, along with hundreds of other daily humiliations of Israeli occupation. But is not a sustainable reality. Sooner or later some Palestinian will angrily strike back. There will be more suicide bombings, more killings, more despair.

To save the world from terror you have to have vision, intelligence and the ability to unlock the complex political problems.

But the only ability George Bush has is an unerring capacity to make a grim situation worse.

George W Bush is a clear and present danger to the world.

And we are all under threat until this bumbling oaf is removed from office and confined to a remote Texas cow ranch where he truly belongs.

- Kevin Toolis is an expert on terrorism

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Topplebush.com
Posted: April 21, 2004