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Fwd: [media-squatters] John Le Carre



> Von: Douglas Rushkoff <rushkoff@well.com>
> Datum: Sa, 18. Jan 2003  14:49:40 Europe/Berlin
> An: <media-squatters@yahoogroups.com>
> Betreff: [media-squatters] John Le Carre
> Antwort an: media-squatters@yahoogroups.com
>
> Here's an interesting piece by *another* author. From the Daily Times, 
> UK:
>
> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-1-2003_pg4_7
>
> World Views: The United States 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._ _LT
>
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