The World According to Bush

LE MONDE SELON BUSH

France, Belgium

Synopsis

Who is Georges W. Bush? This film relates 1000 days of his term in office, from the September 11 attacks to the quagmire of the war in Iraq. It paints a portrait of today's America and attempts to understand how a small group of men, under the influence of the neo-conservative hawks, has taken over control of American foreign policy. For them, September 11 was a "divine surprise", as Stanley Hoffmann has written. Immediately after the attacks, they realized that the terrorists allowed them to promote their ideas at last: redrawing the map of the Near and Middle East in the name of the "crusade" against terrorism while hammering out the same, almost obsessive message: "Sadddam Hussein must be killed because he is responsible for the September 11 attacks and because he possesses weapons of mass destruction."

The film also attempts to describe the troubled links between the USA and Saudi Arabia, the abuses of the Patriot Act in the name of the war against terrorism, the preponderant weight of religion at the very heart of the administration and, above all, that of corruption. For the Bushes, father and son, have not only dined with the devil but have often invited themselves to his table for the bin Ladens and the Bushes have always been business partners.

This film aims to pass through the looking glass to tell the story of the Bush dynasty. The grandfather of the current President, Prescott Bush, made his fortune by managing Nazi companies after Hitler seized power before seeing his companies confiscated for collaboration with the enemy. George Bush Senior, Ronald Reagan’s Vice-President and then President from 1988 to 1992, armed Saddam Hussein and approved the shipping of germ warfare strains to Iraq, thus enabling the country to launch a chemical attack against Iranian troops and its Kurd population.

Never before in the history of the world’s democracies have one man and his team acted with such arrogance and impunity, defying international law and creating an unprecedented grouping of interests: their project blends politics and personal interests in an atmosphere of total cynicism.

The latest war against Iraq and the occupation of the country, with its totally unforeseeable consequences, reveal another danger, that of seeing America launch further "civilizing" operations of a similar type. With, opposite Washington, the rest of the world confined to a mere walk-on part… The new world order is dictated by an even more powerful and hard-line America, puritan and patriotic to the point of schizophrenia, an arrogant America perfectly embodied by George W. Bush. Bush, whom everyone underestimated, is the perfect expression of this new order.

Nominations & Awards

  • European Documentary Award – Prix Arte 2004

Cast & Crew

  • Written by: Eric Laurent
  • Produced by: Jean-Francois Lepetit, Agnès Vicariot
  • Cinematography: Stéphane Saporito
  • Directed by: William Karel
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