Like most retired U.S. presidents of our time, George W. Bush has now come out with a presidential memoir. It has been named "Decision Points." The 9/11 tragedy happened during his presidency, and it was a seminal moment in American history. One can thus understand his gut feeling for choosing such a title for his book. 

After nearly two years of relative seclusion, in recent days Bush is seen promoting his book. He even broke ground on a library, museum and policy center in Texas that will cost $137 million. During his groundbreaking at the Southern Methodist University, several dozens of protesters waved such signs as 'Impeach Bush' and 'Library or Lie-Bury?' Mr. Gerry Fonseca, a Vietnam veteran, reflecting the views of many such protesters, told the Wall Street Journal reporter that 'We're here to hold up a big mirror to him to show the world that we have not forgotten the wrongs he committed.' 

Mr. Fonseca is not alone in his downbeat assessment of Bush. To most Americans and world citizenry, George W. Bush is a war-criminal and the dumbest of the presidents to ever occupy the White House. But like most sociopaths always willing to whitewash people's negative perception about them, in his self-effacing book Bush W. does not surprise us with his intent. He wants us to think better of him, and not as a failed president who left us with two unfinished wars and a financial disaster that continue to haunt ordinary Americans. 

When Bush left the office, he was tied with President Nixon for the title of the least popular president. It is a political miracle -- thanks to the gutless Democratic leaders and the bipartisan politics in Washington -- that he was not impeached during his two terms in the office for misleading the American people. 

In his shallow and unsophisticated book, Bush is remorseless for his blunders and trillion dollar costly mistakes. He does not have nightmares about the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American soldiers who had to fight his dirty wars, let alone the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans. 

Bush bluntly tries to present himself as a man who was decisive. He says that he had to decide to act forcefully in the aftermath of 9/11 to prevent any further terrorist act inside the country. He does not mention that it was his government's sadistic approval of the war crimes of the Israeli government against the unarmed Palestinian people that could explain the event. Such crimes not only enraged conscientious human beings around the globe who saw 9/11 as a natural outcome of Bush's bad karma but can also explain the recruitment of many young Muslims from the Arab world to the cause of al-Qaeda. After all, the difference between a criminal and one who aids a criminal is trivial. To many such observers, Bush is no better than Sharon and Olmert, and may actually be worse. 

Instead of presenting arguments with supporting evidences as to why his administration had believed that al-Qaeda and OBL were behind the tragedy of 9/11, and taking the case to the World Court, Bush behaved like the plaintiff, police, prosecutor, jury, judge and hangman - all at the same time. It was nothing short of Pharaonic arrogance! He bombed Afghanistan with his latest arsenal minus the nuclear bombs. So ferocious was the bombing campaign that within days of the attack his defense secretary Rumsfeld had to say that his air force had run out of targets inside Afghanistan to hit onto, and yet the campaign to kill and destroy the country went unabated. In that utterly evil and immoral decision of Bush, the ordinary Afghans did not factor in; they simply did not matter. He never asked: what was the fault of ordinary Afghans who had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and Molla Omar's totalitarian regime? Why must they perish for the supposed terrorism of the al-Qaeda? 

Then came the invasion of Iraq in 2003 when Bush toppled the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hossein. In the days following 9/11, Bush and his vice president Cheney tried to implicate the Ba'athist regime of conspiring with some alleged terrorists of al-Qaeda. When such accusations were found to no have merit, new charges were fabricated against Iraq. The final pretext for justifying invasion was that the Iraqi regime had hidden the WMDs. After months of thorough search no WMDs were however found. There was none to begin with. 

The invasion and the subsequent occupation of Iraq saw the orgy of murder, plunder, loot and destruction. Ordinary unarmed civilians were cold-bloodedly murdered by trigger-happy soldiers. Even the foreign journalists did not escape the Bushite arrogance of American power; they were shot at and killed. Through its willful disregard of international laws, the Bush administration encouraged horrendous crimes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Consequently, we saw more than a glimpse of American savagery in prisons like the Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Air Force base. 

Even after all these years, with two raging warfronts, Bush is remorseless that he misled the entire world for his evil decision that was responsible for so much carnage. He is boastful in his claim that the world was spared of the potential threat from a dictator like Saddam Hossein. He thinks that history would judge him favorably. Only a lunatic and sadistic mass murderer like Josef Stalin and Slobdan Milosevic can espouse such misplaced self-esteem. 

Bush approved water-boarding of terrorist suspects. However, he is not apologetic for such decisions that violated international laws. He boastfully claims that he made the 'damn right' decision. 

In the book, Bush acknowledged his errors in slow decision making regarding the Hurricane Katrina. One may recall that during the Hurricane Katrina benefit telethon, Kanye West, the black hip-hop artist, accused that 'George Bush doesn't care about black people.' Bush remains upset about that accusation and calls it the worst moment of his presidency. Bush writes, 'I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low." In an interview with Matt Lauer, Bush told Lauer, "it was one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency.'

Just imagine what kind of egoistical, evil monster Bush is! He is not troubled by people's criticism about bringing about two unending wars which continue to kill and maim so many on all sides, but his ego is bruised with a small comment from a singer who merely echoed what many saw as so obvious. 

Bush is a wretched character who is emotionally and intellectually incapable of truthfully reassessing the past. He is delusional. His memoir miserably fails to shed any new light that would offer its readers a better appreciation of him. 

*****

Dr Habib Siddiqui has authored nine books. His book: "Democracy, Politics and Terrorism - America's Quest for Security in the Age of Insecurity" is available at Amazon.com.