Thank you, President Bush

March, 11 2003

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.

Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam Hussein represents. Many of us might otherwise have forgotten that he had used chemical weapons against his own people, against the Kurds and against the Iranians. Hussein is a bloodthirsty dictator and one of the clearest expressions of evil in today's world.

But this is not my only reason for thanking you. During the first two months of 2003, you have shown the world a great many other important things and, therefore, deserve my gratitude.

So, remembering a poem I learned as a child, I want to say thank you.

Thank you for showing everyone that the Turkish people and their Parliament are not for sale, not even for 26 billion dollars.

Thank you for revealing to the world the gulf that exists between the decisions made by those in power and the wishes of the people. Thank you for making it clear that neither José María Aznar nor Tony Blair give the slightest weight to or show the slightest respect for the votes they received. Aznar is perfectly capable of ignoring the fact that 90% of Spaniards are against the war, and Blair is unmoved by the largest public demonstration to take place in England in the last thirty years.

Thank you for making it necessary for Tony Blair to go to the British Parliament with a fabricated dossier written by a student ten years ago, and present this as 'damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service'.

Thank you for allowing Colin Powell to make a complete fool of himself by showing the UN Security Council photos which, one week later, were publicly challenged by Hans Blix, the Inspector responsible for disarming Iraq.

Thank you for adopting your current position and thus ensuring that, at the plenary session, the French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin's anti-war speech was greeted with applause - something, as far as I know, that has only happened once before in the history of the UN, following a speech by Nelson Mandela.

Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to promote war, the normally divided Arab nations, at their meeting in Cairo during the last week in February, were, for the first time, unanimous in their condemnation of any invasion.

Thank you for your rhetoric stating that 'the UN now has a chance to demonstrate its relevance', a statement which made even the most reluctant countries take up a position opposing any attack on Iraq.

Thank you for your foreign policy which provoked the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, into declaring that in the 21st century, 'a war can have a moral justification', thus causing him to lose all credibility.

Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is currently struggling for unification; this was a warning that will not go unheeded.

Thank you for having achieved something that very few have so far managed to do in this century: the bringing together of millions of people on all continents to fight for the same idea, even though that idea is opposed to yours.

Thank you for making us feel once more that though our words may not be heard, they are at least spoken - this will make us stronger in the future.

Thank you for ignoring us, for marginalising all those who oppose your decision, because the future of the Earth belongs to the excluded.

Thank you, because, without you, we would not have realised our own ability to mobilise. It may serve no purpose this time, but it will doubtless be useful later on.

Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of war, I would like to say, as an ancient European king said to an invader: 'May your morning be a beautiful one, may the sun shine on your soldiers' armour, for in the afternoon, I will defeat you.'

Thank you for allowing us - an army of anonymous people filling the streets in an attempt to stop a process that is already underway - to know what it feels like to be powerless and to learn to grapple with that feeling and transform it.

So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet bring you.

Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us seriously, but know that we are listening to you and that we will not forget your words.

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.

Thank you very much.

Paulo Coelho

© Translated from the Portuguese (Brazil) by Margaret Jull Costa


*Copyright 2003 by Paulo Coelho
All Rights Reserved

How much did Bush pay the guy for this?

How much did Bush pay the guy for this?

I would say something sarcastic to you right now but you clearly would not get it.

How much did Bush pay the guy for this?

Read it bro. He's against bush. Why would Bush pay him.

bump

Read it bro. He's against bush. Why would Bush pay him.

because bush is honestly stupid enough to read that and still think it was complimentary.

^^^^:yes:

Nice good posting.

terrific

Subtle Pwnage :yes: but effective nonetheless

Weapons of mass destruction: a practical guide
Paulo Coelho
A world-renowned Brazilian author offers an original perspective on the Iraqi weapons crisis. Its solution may not lie in Baghdad, or even under the US president’s bed. Rather, take a Security Council mandate to George Bush’s psychoanalyst.
21 - 01 - 2003

Bearing in mind that the president of the most powerful republic on the planet is, in principle, responsible for his actions and knows what he’s talking about, despite his eyes – have you noticed his eyes? Well, take a good look at them! – I, a Brazilian writer, earning my living from my daily struggle with words, and having no close ties with the secret service, the inspection procedure, with confidential files or privileged information, but capable of reading the newspapers with a reasonable degree of intelligence, have come up with the definitive answer to how to locate the weapons of mass destruction being hidden by Iraq. I will, by the way, require payment for this information.

How to locate the weapons

1. All the weapons inspectors currently in Iraq should pack their bags, settle their hotel bills and head for Baghdad airport.
2. There, they should all buy business class tickets to Washington. I stress business class so that they have time to rest, since the journey will involve a number of stopovers.
3. On reaching Washington, they should catch the first bus to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, also known as the CIA. The address can be found in the telephone directory for Virginia.
4. On reaching CIA headquarters, and armed with the appropriate United Nations (UN) inspection mandate, they should demand to see all the photographs, information and documents currently being supplied to Mr George W. Bush. These are the documents pinpointing the precise location of each arms cache and which allow Mr Bush to assure us that Iraq has an arsenal capable of destroying the planet.
5. Once in possession of these documents, they should return to Iraq (again they should fly business class in order to arrive feeling rested) and go immediately to the places indicated in the photographs. Unable to deny the evidence, Saddam Hussein will have no option but to destroy his arsenal, for fear that the whole world will turn against him.
6. If the CIA do not have said documents, the inspectors should go straight to Mr George W. Bush’s bedroom in the White House, Washington DC. On the way, they should avoid all contact with the thousands of American demonstrators who took part in the huge march on 18 January 2003 in protest against the war in Iraq.
7. If Mr George W. Bush fails to cooperate with the UN inspectors, they should look for the evidence under his bed. If they do not find it there, they should go and see said citizen’s psychoanalyst, having first armed themselves with a mandate from the Security Council and the following question: ‘Does a son necessarily have to complete his father’s work?’ If the answer is affirmative, please advise me at once; my father was a civil engineer and, when he retired, he may well have left unfinished projects for his heir to deal with. If the answer is negative, demand that the psychoanalyst – on behalf of the UN, the United States and the whole world – prescribe the necessary medication to his patient so that he no longer constitutes a threat to his country and to his planet.

Method of payment

Once this, in my view, infallible line of action has been followed, I ask that the billions of dollars that would have been spent on the war be divided up in the following manner:

* 50% to help the poor in Brazil, since the President of Brazil is currently grappling with a huge budget deficit, and because the author of this practical guide to weapons of mass destruction is himself Brazilian;
* 40% to Africa;
* 9% to Europe, who wavered but did not fall – at least not up until now, the day on which I am writing this article;
* 1% to pay for a nice biography of Tony Blair, to be translated into forty languages, hard cover, colour photographs, saying what a great leader he is, how intelligent, important, charismatic, handsome and charming. That should be enough to keep him quiet, safe in the knowledge that his remarkable qualities have been recognised.

Finally

It is important to add the following. When speaking about the war, please do not generalise, saying that ‘the Americans want to attack Iraq’. We have made the same mistake before, saying that ‘the Serbs are all butchers’, ‘the Brazilians are all lazy’, or ‘the Iranians are all fundamentalists’. The people who want to attack Iraq are the politicians surrounding Mr George W. Bush, the Enron orphans. The American people are fully aware of what is going on, and just as they managed to stop the war in Vietnam, they may, when no convincing explanations are forthcoming, manage to persuade Bush’s psychoanalyst to prescribe a sedative and put an end to this nightmare.

©Paulo Coelho, 2003