Michael Mundia Kamau
P.O. Box 58972
00200 City Square
Nairobi
Kenya

4th November 2004

                    UNCLE SAM

The epic 2004 U.S. elections have ended on an
acrimonious, dramatic and polarised note. Never before
has the outside world taken such an intense, biased
and partisan stand in a U.S. presidential election,
indicative of widespread and troubling desperation
across the globe. The victor in the presidential race,
George W. Bush, was the primary victim of the
animosity, bias and prejudice, for no justifiable
reason whatsoever, and is deserving of high
commendation for standing tall and strong.

There has been no radical departure in American policy
with regard to the presidency of George W. Bush, and
nothing tangible to suggest that this would have been
the case had John Kerry won the presidential race, a
worrying indicator that much of the world outside
America is made up of individuals who do not want to
take any initiative in their lives, and who hinge and
define their goals and dreams on a U.S. presidential
incumbent. Even now, much of this world would
immediately drop whatever they were doing in exchange
for a U.S. visa, but still shamelessly point accusing
fingers at George W. Bush for invading Iraq. George W.
Bush is merely playing his part in growing and
protecting the interests of an empire built by his
forefathers. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, and Nikita
Khrushchev, a Soviet, divided Germany into West and
East Germany at the height of the cold war. Prior to
this, successive U.S. governments, Democratic and
Republican, divided Korea into half with the Soviets.
John F. Kennedy’s attempt to expand the empire by
toppling Fidel Castro through the Bay of Pigs invasion
of April 1961, suffered a humiliating setback.
Successive U.S. governments, led by both Democrats and
Republicans, and spanning from John F. Kennedy to
Gerald Ford, were also humiliated by the Vietnam War
campaign and loss. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, staged
a successful raid on Grenada, and bombed Tripoli and
Benghazi. George Bush Senior, a Republican, walked
into Panama and apprehended it’s leader Gen. Manuel
Noreiga, and presided over the highly successful
Operation Desert Storm. Bill Clinton, a Democrat,
bombed and made successful incursions into Eastern
Europe. Had Democrat Al Gore, won the U.S.
presidential election of 2000 he would have continued
in this tradition up to and including the invasion of
Iraq.

Throughout all these years, several non-Americans,
Kenyans included, have gained from this situation in
diverse ways, ranging from education, training, trade,
and U.S. residency and citizenship. Indeed, one of the
key beneficiaries of this very system has been Barack
Obama, the prolific Kenyan-American Senator-elect from
Illinois. It is the height of folly to celebrate the
election of Democratic Senator-elect Barack Obama, and
at the same time mourn that of Republican
President-elect George W. Bush, because they are
products of the same system. If anything, it is
celebration of a system that rewards character and
initiative, and not race or tribe. Elsewhere in the
world, Senator Barack Obama would certainly have been
the target of persecution and intimidation by counter
productive forces.

It is this counter productivity that is behind strong
anti-Bush sentiment amongst numerous non-Americans,
and it’s just as well that it is on the peripheries of
worthy causes like that of Senator-elect Barack Obama,
aimed at giving renewed meaning and vigour to the
American Dream, indeed, a Global Dream.

The world cannot sit back and rely this heavily on a
U.S. presidential election. It even worryingly emerges
from the 2004 U.S. presidential election, that America
today is a badly polarised nation in need of
revolutionary idealism. President-elect George W. Bush
is not the least cognisant of this troubling
situation, and has made a passionate pledge to reach
out and mend the divides. This is certainly where the
policies of his government will be focused over the
coming four years. The situation would have been
exactly the same had Democrat John Kerry won the 2004
U.S. presidential election. Whichever way one looks at
it therefore, numerous non-Americans had placed empty
hopes and empty optimism on the outcome of the 2004
U.S. presidential election, as America has more than
enough problems of it’s own, a situation that is not
likely to change in the near future.

Many non-Americans are therefore best advised to snap
out of these defeatist attitude, wherever it is that
they are located around the globe, and usefully get on
with their lives. Numerous opportunities around the
world are going to waste owing to an obsession with
the United States of America, and what goes on in it.



Michael Mundia Kamau