[Peace-discuss] Fwd: British thoughts on Bush's war

[Jay Mittenthal]

>Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 15:12:45 -0600
>Subject: Fwd: British thoughts on Bush's war
>From: "Marjorie F. Skeel" <Whitewolf2 at mac.com>
>
>Read this all the way through--I know it's long...
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>>From: LCE95 at aol.com
>>Date: Sun Feb 02, 2003  12:14:47 AM US/Central
>>To: undisclosed-recipients:;
>>Subject: British thoughts on Bush's war
>>
>>
>>Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK
>>
>>The United States of America Has Gone Mad
>>
>>by John le Carré
>>
>>
>>America has entered one of its periods of historical
>>madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, 
>>worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more 
>>disastrous than the Vietnam War.
>>
>>The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden
>>could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the 
>>freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being 
>>systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested 
>>corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that
>>should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier 
>>columns of the East Coast press.
>>The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he 
>>who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be 
>>trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the 
>>first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its 
>>reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of 
>>unilaterally abrogated international treaties.
>>
>>They might also have to be telling us why they support
>>Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.
>>But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies 
>>are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. 
>>The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around 
>>$360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the 
>>pipeline, so we can all breathe easy.
>>Quite WHAT war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a 
>>lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American 
>>lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what cost -- 
>>because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and
>>humane people -- in Iraqi lives?
>>
>>How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin 
>>Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring 
>>tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in 
>>two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the 
>>World Trade Centre. But the American
>>public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a 
>>state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should 
>>carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next
>>election.
>>
>>Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the 
>>enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to 
>>see Saddam's downfall - just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. 
>>And not under the banner of such outrageous
>>hypocrisy.
>>
>>The religious cant that will send American troops into
>>battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. 
>>Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political 
>>opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits 
>>America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's
>>Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) 
>>anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.
>>
>>God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are 
>>equal in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one 
>>President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of 
>>Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.
>>
>>Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, 
>>Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior 
>>executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief 
>>executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000:
>>senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker 
>>after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the 
>>integrity of God's work.
>>
>>In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic 
>>Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried 
>>to kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry:
>>
>>"That man tried to kill my Daddy."
>>
>>But it's still not personal, this war. It's still necessary. It's still 
>>God's work. It's still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed 
>>Iraqi people.
>>
>>To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and 
>>Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and 
>>God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the 
>>truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of 
>>Evil - but oil, money and people's lives.
>>Saddam's misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world.
>>
>>Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. 
>>And who doesn't, won't.
>>
>>If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his 
>>heart's content. Other leaders do it every day - think Saudi Arabia, 
>>think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.
>>
>>Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its
>>neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass 
>>destruction, if he's still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with 
>>the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes' notice.
>>What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the 
>>economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America's need to 
>>demonstrate its military power to all of us - to
>>Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as 
>>the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be 
>>ruled by America abroad.
>>
>>The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is 
>>that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. 
>>Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, 
>>the same tiger has him penned into a corner,and he can't get out.
>>
>>It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has
>>talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders 
>>can lay a glove on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: 
>>as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate 
>>simply shrugs and looks the other way.
>>Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh 
>>hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to 
>>put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the 
>>world's greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to 
>>wave at the boys?
>>
>>Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us 
>>into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been 
>>there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more 
>>democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By 
>>doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the 
>>Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke 
>>unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in 
>>the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.
>>
>>There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN 
>>approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.
>>
>>I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's 
>>sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about 
>>terror are shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he 
>>reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on 
>>Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of 
>>our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, 
>>after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David,Blair has 
>>to show up at the altar.
>>
>>"But will we win, Daddy?"
>>
>>"Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed."
>>
>>"Why?"
>>
>>"Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may 
>>decide not to vote for him."
>>
>>"But will people be killed, Daddy?"
>>
>>"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."
>>
>>"Can I watch it on television?"
>>
>>"Only if Mr Bush says you can."
>>
>>"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything 
>>horrid any more?"
>>
>>"Hush child, and go to sleep."
>>
>>Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket 
>>with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic".
>>
>>It was gone by the time he'd finished shopping.
>>
>>
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