"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere," President George Bush joked while searching under furniture in the Oval Office, evoking applause from a gathering of journalists in Washington on March 24, 2004.
Bush's buffoonery came in the aftermath of US' invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, which eventually proved to be a lie made up by the United States and the United Kingdom to invade the Middle-Eastern country.
Bush's comedy drew the ire of John Kerry, who was the Democratic Party's 2004 presidential candidate.
"585 American soldiers killed in Iraq last year, 3,354 wounded and there's no end in sight", he fumed at Bush's jocularity.
But neither the US president nor the US presidential candidate, or anyone from the applauding audience, spared a thought for the 300,000 Iraqis, including children and women, who were killed in the unprovoked invasion.
But those were Iraqis, not Ukrainians, "no blue eyes, no fair complexion, not civilised, not like civilised nations".
Charlie D'Agata, a CBS correspondent, on Feb 25 last year quipped that Ukraine wasn't like Iraq or Afghanistan, that Ukraine's relatively civilised, relatively European.
So it's about the blue eyes and fair complexion? Or is it?
Europe was complacent about the ethnic cleansing of blue-eyed, fair-complexioned Bosnian Muslims by Christian Serbs.
The Dutch UN contingent practically oversaw the Srebrenica genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in 1995.
Members of the US Congress and presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, have remained unanimous in opposing the Gaza ceasefire, much like the Labour and Conservative parties in the UK where in November, the Scottish National Party's motion for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was defeated 293 to 125.
The mass slaughter of more than 6,000 Palestinian children (and counting) by Israeli forces has proved unsatisfactorily insufficient for the civilised West to consider a ceasefire.
Maybe it's the religion, or more about the religion than race.
While the term Semite refers to both Jews and Arabs, the West applies anti-Semitism to Jews only.
Criticisms of Israel's mass slaughter, imprisonment, torture and rape of Palestinians and their children, and the worst apartheid conditions imposed on Palestinians, are labelled as anti-Semitic.
However, the genocide of Palestinians, who are also Semitic people, is not seen as anti-Semitic.
So, it's religion.
From liberals to conservatives and from leftists to far-rightists, the West's disdain for Muslim lives appears genetic.
Their justification of the Palestinian genocide raises a real-life possibility of them creating Gaza-like conditions in the West as well.
Islamophobic racism on both sides of the north Atlantic is already on a steady rise with lies like Iraq's WMDs, the 40 beheaded Israeli babies, the music festival attack and Hamas' headquarters underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital.
To avert Gaza-like conditions in the West from becoming a reality, the textbook of wisdom would advise that "Muslims should be active in the West's politics and democratic process".
That sounds wise, but practically difficult to achieve.
The only Palestinian American Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, was formally rebuked in November, where 22 of her fellow Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in censuring her for supporting the Palestinians' right to life and freedom.
Earlier in February this year, the House of Representatives voted to pass a resolution to remove Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for her criticism of Israel.
From US universities to European democracies, protests in support of the Palestinians have been banned.
Francesca Albanese, who is UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has clearly stated that Israel, as the occupier of Gaza, cannot claim the right of "self-defence" under international law.
But, Western governments and media pigheadedly advocate Israel's right to self-defence over the bodies of thousands of Palestinian children.
This sheer contempt for Muslim lives may one day turn the West into another Gaza for Muslims.
On Sept 17, 2015, at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, a man in the audience shouted out to Donald Trump, "We have a problem in this country; it's called Muslims".
To which Trump nodded and said, "right" and "we need this question".
It is as if they are already thinking along the lines of the "final solution" for Muslims.
Maybe democracy in the West isn't for Muslims?
The writer is an innovator in business and socioeconomic change, a freelance journalist and a creative communications professional. He can be reached at [email protected]
