A Reality Check on Bush's Speech to the UN World Summit

As the world's biggest arms exporter, the US has clearly taken the side of violence. On Bush's watch, US arms sales have outpaced the second-largest arms dealer (Russia) two-to-one. More than half of these weapons went to governments known for human rights abuses against civilians, such as Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Colombia.[1] "The terrorists must know that wherever they go, they cannot escape justice." Oh no? While the Bush Administration has been busy killing civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, al Qaeda has regrouped to become a more diffuse network of local units able to strike with greater frequency in multiple countries. Osama bin Laden, meanwhile, cannot be found because-as Bush famously explained-"he is hiding."[2]