It is well documented that like a fluorescent lamp former President Bush’s brain took time to light up and comprehend what he was being told after the 911 attacks. Bush who was reading a story about goats (or was it apes?) to some children at that time explains the delay to the boiling rage that engulfed him and spawned an uncontrollable desire to ‘kick ass’. This ass kicking urge was the conceptual basis for the strategy that put American kids first in Afghanistan and then Iraq where thousands have been killed, maimed and turned into basket mental cases. Of course while ‘kicking ass’ they have had their own ass thoroughly kicked and the process continues. Recently a media report indicated that the Taliban have welcomed the US Department of Defense decision to let all the gays in the military out of the closet ending the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that kept a fig leaf over their activities. The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched ‘Operation White Ass’ as a response to the new US military policy ---this operation as nothing to do with donkeys.
In the heady days when President Bush was strutting around with his kick ass policies he mentioned the ‘axes of evil being Iraq, Iran and North Korea’. As the US headed into Iraq the Iranians and North Koreans developed nuclear weapons as their response to ass kicking-- so much for US commitment to non-proliferation regimes! To further show his disdain for non-proliferation and preference for ass kicking as his major strategic thought Bush signed the India-US Nuclear Agreement against all non-proliferation norms thereby opening the flood gates for trade in nuclear materials. Finally it must be mentioned that at the inception stage of the ass kicking strategy Bush fatally and prophetically mentioned the word ‘crusades’ thereby starting the ‘clash of civilizations’—orthodox and extremist Christianity against orthodox and extremist Islam. Others have joined in to make this a ‘new cold war or great game’.
We now come to the latest US ass kicking venture---the “davis” affair. An unidentified American employed by the US Department of Defense as a ‘security official’ under the code name “Raymond Davis” has run amok in a crowded Lahore street and as a result three Pakistanis died—two shot at point blank range with hollow nose bullets fired from an automatic weapon and one crushed to death by a team of other security consultants who tried to rescue the killer. Did this guy—‘Davis’-- decide to go ass kicking because he was bored? Or was he on a more sinister mission? All sorts of theories abound and instead of cooperating to settle the matter and clear doubts the US is exerting pressure and coercing through threats. Perhaps the time has come to part ways especially after the widow of one of the men killed has committed suicide after demanding justice. Such a parting would be painful for Pakistan but it would be what the majority of Pakistanis want. It is for the US to decide how far it wants to go with the ass kicking strategy and how much ass kicking it can bear in return.
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