- "Non-Americans (ie, 95 per
cent of the world) do not understand that Americans are actually proud
of that picture of the US soldier brandishing the belts and shackles and
handcuffs and chains used on prisoners... Americans can be a bloodthirsty
lot, ...they revel in a vicarious, John Waynesque approach of being "tough"
towards their perceived foes. What other national anthem exults in "the
rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air" as the US one does
in its fifth line? Americans weep freely when the likes of Ray Charles
sing 'God Bless America'.
-
- "The US is now a country of
such unchallengeable power that it can and does create its own moral and
humanitarian stances; it does not need to listen to outsiders."
-
-
- WASHINGTON - In an extensive multi-part story about the Bush Administration
in the aftermath of 11 September, this small paragraph buried deep in a
multi-page story in The Washington Post:
-
- "The president said he didn't want
other countries dictating terms or conditions for the war on terrorism.
'At some point,' the president said, 'we may be the only ones left. That's
okay with me. We are America.' "
-
- America is on the war path, the American
cavalry is riding high trumpets blaring, "Manifest Destiny" didn't
end and now extends globally, and as today's FINANCIAL TIMES headlines:
America is "Spreading Alarm Among Friends", not to mention to
the impact it is having on enemies and other great powers, especially China
at this point in history.
-
- Indeed, there are many astute observers
who believe the tremendous Pentagon and CIA build-up now underway is really
a new kind of cold war designed to put down all opposition to American
hegemony and prepare for a possible future conflict with the Chinese.
One thing for sure, the warhawks in the American capital have used the
events of 11 September as their long-sought excuse to pursue the policies
long desired; just as the kingdred cousin Israelis warhawks use "terrorist
events" which they themselves have clearly provoked to further their
own long-held plans to crush the Palestinians and control the region.
-
- Indeed General Ariel Sharon is on his
way for his fourth visit to the American capital since the Bush Presidency
began, this time with the still empowered Palestinian leader under a funny
kind of house and town arrest.
-
- Last time, in the Oval Office, President
Bush put his arm on General Sharon's in an embrace of personal friendship
and understanding. Expect more of the same in public; and behind the
scenes they are no doubt scheming big-time to impliment the new "new
world order" crusade cum campaign.
-
- BUSH AND RUMSFELD BRAZEN IT OUT
-
- Andrew Stephen on how the combined forces
of Robin Cook, Jack Straw, the Mirror and the Bishop of Durham failed to
makeWashington tremble
-
- New Statesman (U.K.) - 28 January 2002:
President George Bush is ashen-faced with concern. Huddled around him,
there are unmistakable tears running down Colin Powell's cheeks. Vice-President
Cheney is clutching his chest as if he might be having a fifth heart attack.
The defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had gone purple with rage, but is
now white and out cold. And the reason for this drama? No less a person
than Robin Cook - that bearded Scotsman whose very face strikes such fear
into the heart of Washington power circles - has criticised US treatment
of prisoners in Guantanamo. But wait! Jack Straw is reported as being
concerned, too. Eeeks! And the Bishop of Durham! What, and now the Mirror
is joining the crusade? Powell is on the floor, weeping hysterically.
-
- Judging from the British media furore
("Stop This Brutality In Our Name, Mister Blair" - Mirror headline),
you would think that Britain is an equal (or even senior) partner of the
US in the so-called war against terror ("Should Blair Intervene?"
- Evening Standard's website); that it has a decisive say (or any kind
of say at all) in what is going on in either Afghanistan or Guantanamo,
and that the Bush administration is terrified of British public opinion.
Let me discount that straightaway. There is a universal tendency, I think,
for people to assume that other governments and societies act like their
own: so, in this case, Britons assume that Americans listen to criticism
from overseas, care about it, and react and adjust accordingly.
-
- But that is not the American way. The
US is now a country of such unchallengeable power that it can and does
create its own moral and humanitarian stances; it does not need to listen
to outsiders. It creates its own myths, and then happily lives by them.
Its political leaders believe that the domestic audience is all that matters.
If America listens to criticism from overseas at all, its collective, reflex
reaction is to point out ways in which that criticism is wrong - and how
a critic can be put to rights. So some foreign nuts think capital punishment
is wrong? They're just a bunch of wimpy, lefty foreigners who are jealous
that they are not Americans and therefore refuse to see things the American
way - which, by its very nature, is the right and just way.
-
- I told Sir Jimmy Young on BBC Radio 2
on 18 January that the way prisoners were being treated in Guantanamo could
signal the first serious rift between the UK and US over the war against
terror. Days later, after much lobby shenanigans involving Jack Straw and
No 10, British newspapers started splashing just this story. But then Tony
Blair did a Thatcher on his ministers, squashing down his own cabinet.
Weeks ago, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was publicly humiliated after
he said that British troops would not hand over Osama Bin Laden (if they
captured him) to the US without an undertaking that Bin Laden would not
be executed; Hoon was then repudiated by No 10, which said in effect that
Britain would hand over Bin Laden unconditionally, thus breaking EU law.
And Jack Straw's concern that Guantanamo prisoners are not being held under
the terms of the Geneva Convention? Phooey, says Blair, putting Straw in
his place and so maintaining his one-man role as unconditional cheerleader
of the US.
-
- I suspect that Blair has not fully understood
what he is getting himself into. The US has always envisioned that the
three Britons, an Australian and even the odd Russian or two so far taken
to Guantanamo will be returned to face trial in their own countries - a
US-imposed policy that brings legal, security and political nightmares
to the governments involved. Britain has no convenient colonially acquired
overseas port like Guantanamo in which to imprison British nationals -
or perhaps the Falkland Islands would do instead? - and there are no obvious
offences that the three men (and others to come, apparently) have committed
under English law. That, indeed, is the point of the prisoners being taken
to Guantanamo: that they are in judicial limbo, at the complete mercy of
US military tribunals, and have no recourse to any courts and particularly
not to what Rumsfeld disingenuously calls America's "just criminal
system".
-
- Not that anybody in America questions
Rumsfeld's assertion that they are "unlawful combatants" and
therefore not subject to the Geneva Convention. Under the US criteria (no
military uniforms or insignias or obvious military structure), members
of the Northern Alliance were equally unlawful combatants when they led
the way for American attacks on Afghanistan. And what of poor Johnny "Mike"
Spann, the CIA man killed in the prison uprising? In a video, he did not
appear to be wearing uniform.
-
- The Bush administration, though, could
not care less about whether US actions would stand up in an international
court. Non-Americans (ie, 95 per cent of the world) do not understand that
Americans are actually proud of that picture of the US soldier brandishing
the belts and shackles and handcuffs and chains used on prisoners; ordinary
domestic criminals, after all, are shackled by their hands and legs, too.
Americans can be a bloodthirsty lot: perhaps because they saw so little
violence from outside before 11 September, they revel in a vicarious, John
Waynesque approach of being "tough" towards their perceived foes.
What other national anthem exults in "the rockets' red glare, the
bombs bursting in air" as the US one does in its fifth line? Americans
weep freely when the likes of Ray Charles sing "God Bless America".
-
- I have been writing about what I described
as Rumsfeld's "callous humour" for months, and it is fascinating
to see his cult status now catching on in Britain. "It's amazing the
insight that parliamentarians can gain from 5,000 miles," he said
last Tuesday. "Parliamentarian", you have to understand, is a
dirty word in Rumsfeld's lexicon: it is a foreign concept and thus un-American.
Just how seriously Americans take overseas concern about Guantanamo could
be seen last week when Mary Robinson, the UN high commissioner for human
rights, appeared on CNN. The caption under her read "British Civil
Rights Worker". Those unreliable Brits again, you see. But rest assured,
nobody in the White House is having a heart attack or crying himself to
sleep at night worrying what the Brits - or anyone else - think of them
or what they're doing. That's what being American means in 2002. And don't
forget it, OK? ___
-
-
- Mid-East Realities
MiddleEast.Org
202 362-5266
815 366-0800 fx
MER@MiddleEast.Org
|
