Nobel Laureate (2005)
There's an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After he had taken the town of Drogheda the citizens were brought to the main square. Cromwell announced to his Lieutenants: "Right! Kill all the women and rape all the men." One of his aides said: "Excuse me General. Isn't it the other way around?" A voice from the crowd called out: "Mr. Cromwell knows what he's doing!"
That voice is the voice of Tony Blair. "Mr Bush knows what he's doing!" But the fact is that Mr. Bush and his gang do know what they're doing and Blair, unless he really is the deluded idiot he often appears to be, also knows what they're doing. They are determined, quite simply, to control the world and the world's resources. And they don't give a damn how many people they murder on the way. And Blair goes along with it.
He hasn't the support of the Labor Party, he hasn't the support of the country or of the celebrated "international community." How can he justify taking this country into a war nobody wants? He can't. He can only resort to rhetoric, cliché, and propaganda. Little did we think when we voted Blair into power that we would come to despise him. The idea that he has influence over Bush is laughable. His supine acceptance of American bullying is pathetic.
Bullying is of course a time-honored American tradition. In 1965 Lyndon Johnson said to the Greek Ambassador to the U.S.: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows continue itching the elephant they may just get whacked by the elephants trunk, whacked good."
He meant what he said. Shortly afterwards the Colonels, supported by the United States, took over and the Greek people spent seven years in hell.
As for the American elephant, it has grown to be a monster of grotesque and obscene proportions.
The terrible atrocity in Bali does not alter the facts of the case.
The "special relationship" between the USA and the United Kingdom has, in the last twelve years, brought about the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Serbia. All this in pursuit of the American and British "moral crusade," to bring "peace and stability to the world."
The use of depleted uranium in the Gulf War has been particularly effective. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high. Babies are born with no brain, no eyes, no genitals. Where they do have ears, mouths, or rectums, all that issues from these orifices is blood. Blair and Bush are of course totally indifferent to such facts, not forgetting the charming, grinning, beguiling Bill Clinton, who was apparently given a standing ovation at the Labor Party Conference. For what? Killing Iraqi children? Or Serbian children?
Bush has said: "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders." Quite right. Look in the mirror chum. That's you.
The U.S. is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and is prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has walked away from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to allow any inspection of its own factories.
It is holding hundreds of Afghans prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, allowing them no legal redress, although they are charged with nothing, holding them captive virtually for ever.
It is insisting on immunity from the international criminal court, a stance which beggars belief but which is now supported by Great Britain.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Tony Blair's contemptible subservience to this criminal American regime demeans and dishonors this country.
One of the more nauseating images of the year 2002 is that of our Prime Minister kneeling in the church on Christmas Day praying for peace on earth and good will towards all men while simultaneously preparing to assist in the murder of thousands of totally innocent people in Iraq.
I've been taken to task recently by the American Ambassador to Britain for calling the U.S. Administration a blood thirsty wild animal. All I can say is: take a look at Donald Rumsfeld's face and the case is made.
I believe that not only is this contemplated act criminal, malevolent and barbaric, it also contains within itself a palpable joy in destruction. Power, as has often been remarked, is the great aphrodisiac, and so, it would seem, is the death of others.
The Americans have the ostensible support of the 'international community' through various sure-fire modes of intimidation; bullying, bribery, blackmail and bullshit. The 'international community' becomes a degraded entity bludgeoned into the service of a brutal military force out of control. The most despicable position is that of course of this country which pretends to stand shoulder to shoulder with its great ally while in fact being more of a whipped dog than anyone else. We are demeaned, undermined, and dishonored by our government's contemptible subservience to the United States.
The planned war can only bring about the collapse of what remains of the Iraqi infrastructure, widespread death, mutilation, and disease, an estimated one million refugees and escalation of violence throughout the world, but it will still masquerade as a 'moral crusade,' a 'just war,' a war waged by 'freedom loving democracies,' to bring 'democracy' to Iraq.
The stink of the hypocrisy is suffocating.
This is in reality a simple tale of invasion of sovereign territory, military occupation and control of oil.
We have a clear obligation, which is to resist.
source: 3apr2008
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