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CounterPunch
December
4, 2002
"A
Monster of Obscene & Grotesque Proportions"
The Bush / Blair Gang
by HAROLD PINTER
There's an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After
he had taken the Irish 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."
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. Bush and company 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 Labour 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,
cliche 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
US bullying is pathetic.
Bullying is, of course, a time-honoured
US tradition. Addressing the Greek ambassador to the US in 1965,
Lyndon Johnson said: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution.
The US 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 elephant's trunk, whacked good."
He meant what he said. Shortly afterwards
the colonels, supported by the US, took over in Greece and the
Greek people spent seven years in hell.
As for the US 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 US and the UK has, in the last 12 years, brought
about the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Serbia. All this in pursuit of the US and UK
"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 Labour 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 US 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 despite their
being charged with nothing, holding them captive virtually for
ever.
It is insisting on immunity from the
international criminal court, a stance that beggars belief but
which is now supported by the UK. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Tony Blair's contemptible subservience
to this criminal US regime demeans and dishonours his country.
Harold Pinter
is a playwright, director, actor, poet and political activist.
This text was first delivered as a speech to an anti-war meeting
at the House of Commons
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