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CounterPunch
March 18,
2003
Bush's Patsy
The
Incredible, Shrinking Tony Blair
by TERRY JONES
It's not easy when you find out that your friends
have been using you as a chump.
Tony Blair must have been really sick
this week when Donald Rumsfeld casually let drop that Mr.Bush
and his team couldn't give a toss about Britain sending soldiers
to Iraq. Truth is, they'd probably prefer it if we didn't, but
our participation at least means they can pretend it's an international
force.
But I bet Tony feels terribly slighted
- after all he's gone through to prove his devotion to the ideals
of extremist Republican militarism. He's practically split his
party, put his own leadership in jeopardy and made himself look
thoroughly ill in the process. And what has he got out of it?
A few pats on the back and nice Christmas card from the White
House, I expect.
I mean it's simply not fair. Here he
is - Prime Minister of Great Britain (just) - and he's doing
everything he possibly can including leaning over backwards and
licking his own bottom. He's spending vast amounts of money he
hasn't got on sending men to the Gulf. He's put his entire nation
in the front line for terrorist reprisals. He's upset his other
admirers in Europe, and - to cap it all - he's put his name to
a plan that is not just plain stupid but is actually wicked,
and in return? Zilch.
All the contracts for reconstructing
Iraq are to go to American companies - preferably ones like Haliburton,
which remain such good friends with their old boss vice-president
Dick Cheney. But not a single British company is to benefit from
all the mayhem and destruction that the bombing is going to cause.
Poor old Tony doesn't even get a bone.
I suppose he should have been more careful
about who he was playing with in the first place.
But they took him for a sucker.
He thought he'd be able to cut a decent
figure as the elder statesman, sagely steering his impetuous
American friends away from actions they would later regret. And
for that he was prepared to subscribe to the most hawkish, aggressive
regime that has ever held power in the good ole US of A. A regime
whose planners spelled out their schemes for American military
world domination in a report for the Project for the New American
Century published in September 2000, before the George Bush seized
power. (You can look it up on www.newamericancentury.org).
Their aim, they say in their report,
is "to shape a new century favourable to American principles
and interests". And they make it quite clear that they envisage
achieving those aims not by diplomacy but through military might.
For which reason they need "increase defense spending gradually
to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross national product,
adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually."
At the time they knew there was little
hope of the American public buying into such imperialistic dreams.
What was needed they said in their pre Sept 11th report was:
"some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl
Harbour." Well the dreams came true.
And now it's quite obvious that instead
of Mr Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney listening attentively to Mr Blair's
sage advice, they've simply been using him as a patsy - a convenient
fig-leaf.
Tony Blair has merely been helping to
give Mr. Bush's barbaric planners for World domination credibility
amongst the American public.
The only conceivable hope of stopping
their militaristic global ambitions is for the rest of the world
to oppose them. There might then be some hope that the American
public would wake up to what sort of a government they currently
have. The reawakening of American democracy is the only hope
for a future world that is not ridden by terrorism and global
warfare.
Terry Jones
was a member of the Monty Python's Flying Circus comedy troupe.
Yesterday's
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The
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Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. Opposed 1989 UN Investigation of Saddam
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Josh Ruebner
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The Insulting Insinuations of the Bush Regime
Fareed Marjaee
The Road to Jerusalem Goes Through Baghdad
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The Savagely Soft Underbelly
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