World - AFP
African press vilifies Bush over Iraq war
Fri Mar 21,11:49 AM ET
NAIROBI (AFP) - Newspapers across Africa poured scorn on US President George Bush on over the war in Iraq.
In the South Africa, the weekly Mail and Guardian called Bush a "whore, who, more than any of his 42 predecessors, has prostituted himself to his country's industrial interests."
"What a senseless war!" Kenya's Daily Nation lamented on its leader page.
The paper warned that Bush "had embarked on a path that could make the world even more unsafe."
"One thing is sure. In many parts of the world, this will not be seen as a war against the Iraqi dictatorship; it will be seen as an assault on a people and a religion.
"That will do nothing for the cause of world peace," the editorial said.
"The recklessness of the attack on Iraq may cause the existing world order to fragment. Iraq itself may break up into two or three ethnic units corresponding to the Ottoman provinces from which it was created," said Uganda's government-run New Vision.
The newspaper lambasted the US for invading Iraq while giving "intransigent support" to Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians, saying this was "ultimately the greatest danger to the long-term security of the United States, not the fictitious threat from a tin-pot dictator."
In Morocco, La Vie Economique wrote that Osama bin Laden "arose from the rubble of the first Gulf war."
"How many more bin Ladens will come out of the ruins of the second, when Mr Bush has finished his little game?" the paper asked.
Aujourd'hui Le Maroc warned that "Bush's messianic crusade" would result in the polarisation of the world into different terrorist camps, while Maroc-Ouest newspaper concentrated on Moroccans' anger at the "intolerable injustice" of the Iraq war.
It warned of "excesses and anarchy" and "fanatical religious movements... which are simply waiting for the right moment to ruin the country."
Islamic newspaper Al Asr wondered if the United States was oblivious to the fact that the war could be seen as justifying "reactions against American interests around the world."
Under the headline "Adventurism," Liberation wrote that the United States, which has "hardly ever" heeded distress calls from people of the developing world, "has this time invited itself in, uninvited and illegally, to deliver so-called freedom to the Iraqi people, in a hail of bombs and missiles."
In Senegal, the Sud-Quotidien denounced "this illegal aggression and the possible end of international law," while Wal-fadjri said: "This war is neither legitimate nor justified, and it defies the international community."
"With this second war against Iraq and the sidelining of the UN, most of the world's nations feel threatened by 'American unilateralism'," Le Soleil newspaper wrote, envisioning a "new geopolitical configuration" after the conflict.
"The United States sees this as laying down the foundations for their enduring world supremacy, starting in a region that is situated at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and Europe, and that contains vast oil reserves," Le Soleil wrote.
All of the daily newspapers in Tunisia ploughed a similar furrow.
Le Temps warned that the war set a precedent for "law of the strongest" dominating international relations.
"Humanity ... would do well to seriously rethink the United Nations because a world without safeguards is inevitably destined for chaos," said the Quotidien.
"It is totally paradoxical that America, which portrays itself as the defender of democracy and human rights, bombs and invades Iraq in the name of these same values," Essabah wrote.
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