Last week, as CARICOM leaders discussed in caucus the importance of sustained good relations with the USA based on principled positions and mutual respect, opinion polls of mainstream American media continued to telegraph discouraging news for George W Bush -ahead of the coming November presidential election.

With John Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his running mate in the bid to replace Bush as President, it is assumed that the expanding Caribbean Diaspora in the USA will also be more intensively wooed by both the Republicans and Democrats for the White House occupancy.

Since the Caribbean region and its Diaspora in the USA treasure, quite sensibly, the best of relations with whatever the governing administration in Washington - Republican or Democrat -do not expect any expressed official preference within CARICOM for the incumbent Bush or his challenger, Kerry.

At present, for all the skills of the `spin doctors' of the Bush administration, the re-election of the current occupant of The White House no longer seems as certain as it was even up to the first anniversary last March of the US-led preemptive war against Iraq.

There was a period, prior to and even after the US military invasion of Grenada in 1983, when American Presidents enjoyed significant popularity among the peoples of the Caribbean region - outside Cuba, of course.

Today, it may be an understatement to say that George W Bush is perhaps the least popular or admired of American Presidents in this region, especially when compared to late Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - all three of whom have made official visits to the Caribbean.

Prevailing anti-Bush sentiment should not, however, be confused with or mistaken for `anti-Americanism'. The general mood could indeed best be summarised as `America yes, `Bushism' no'.

Political maturity in this region is of such a healthy nature, that not even at the height of US subversive, destabilisation politics in Caribbean and Central American states, was "anti-Americanism" a significant factor or characteristic of the peoples of the Caribbean.

The hostility that the Bush presidency has generated in this Western Hemisphere and well beyond the Arab world, with its unilateralist post-9/11 policies and arrogance is cause for deep concerns among the American people themselves, and not just Democrats.

How they eventually translate those concerns in their choice of President - Bush or Kerry - is a matter for them and a right we have no alternative but to respect.

More endangered The US President and his defenders may think it distasteful, but there is a prevailing view, in and out of the Caribbean region, that the world is today a more endangered place as a direct consequence of the policies of the Bush administration. This is related more to the war against Iraq and less to do with the "war on international terrorism".

Ask, for instance, the former US diplomats and other top officials of previous Republican and Democratic administrations who have been collectively speaking against the implications of Bush's policies for America, its traditional allies and for world peace.

Sufficient evidence has been advanced in a series of recently published books, disclosures of documents, statements by high-level intelligence/security personnel to show that the Bush doctrine of preemptive war has greatly contributed to the mess in which America finds itself today in Iraq as well as with the peoples, if not all the governments, of the Arab world.

Major casualties for the war against Iraq, outside of the tremendous loss of lives of yet unknown thousands of Iraqis and more than 800 American military personnel, would be:

*Death of the Bush doctrine of "preemptive war" for regime change and no return to the dangerous policy of sidelining the United Nations Security Council in launching a war against a sovereign state that has nothing to do with self-defence.

*Exposure of the falsehood of the possession of the Saddam Hussein regime of weapons of mass destruction; also the US administration's failure to produce evidence linking the ex-Iraqi dictator with the notorious Al-Qaeda terrorists in the 9/11 strikes against the USA.

Problems for President Bush - who is hardly been helped by top hawks of the likes of Vice President Cheney and Defence Secretary Rumsfeld - have been further complicated by the media exposures of the degradation and torture of Iraqi prisoners at detention centres reminiscent of the crimes committed by the Saddam regime.

The brutalities, the deaths from interrogation, gross violations of human rights of Iraqis by the US military and intelligence personnel in Iraq, have also brought into focus the torture and degradation of political prisoners in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Nation of laws It may have been tragic enough for the Bush administration to be caught with notorious criminal tactics associated with Saddam Hussein's treatment of political prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other detention centres.

But under Bush's watch, the USA, with its stout reputation as "a nation of laws", was to subsequently make a caricature of the judicial process in how Saddam Hussein was brought to trial last week to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Not only was Saddam denied his right of access to his lawyers, 20 of whom have been recruited by his wife, the Arab world's most famous political prisoner is destined to be tried by a tribunal inside Iraq that is basically the creature of the USA which does not want him to face an international court.

Prior to Saddam's brief but defiant court appearance, there was the amusing display of the US concept of "sovereignty" with a "handing over" ceremony in virtual secrecy - except for a brief choreographed media coverage - by America's Paul Bremmer to interim Prime Minister Iyad Alawi, an admitted former CIA collaborator.

In a blend of political agony and fun associated with the Bush presidency in Iraq, where US military power remains fully embedded, there is the intriguing situation of Saddam Hussein having been formally placed in the "legal custody" of a six-month transitional government while physically remaining in the firm control of the American military - somewhere in Iraq.

Even criminals are entitled to a fair trial and due process is a cornerstone of the judicial system of any democratic state.