Michael Carmichael
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archived: 16 - 22 Apr, 2006 Back Next UPDATED: April 18, 2006 NEWS YOU WON’T GET IN AMERICAOver the past week, we have been inundated with stories and comments ranging from Seymour Hersh’s article, The Iran Plans, to growing demands for the resignation of US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. After exposure of the US military planning for the aerial bombardment of Iran set to include a liberal smattering of battlefield “nukes” we have seen the swift repudiation of the nuclear option by President George Bush. However, in Bush’s rejection of the “nuclear option” he was actually confirming that Hersh’s report of very advanced and detailed military planning for the air-strikes against Iran were factually correct. Arising from that sobering realization, mainstream commentators have concluded that America has no Plan B for dealing with Iran. If rattling the nuclear sabers fails to dissuade Iran from going for their own “nuclear option,” we will not know what to do in the shadow of a mushroom cloud arising out of the deserts of Persia. The US handling of the Iranian situation has become farcical, or it would be - if its repercussions were not so serious. The bottom line is that the Bush-Cheney White House prefers a bombing campaign replete with nuclear weapons for the sheer political impact of it which they believe will restore their sagging poll ratings to robust good health. Simon Jenkins wrote a brilliant comment defining George Bush’s Iran policy as one that is clearly designed to goad the Shiite nation into acquiring nuclear weapons. Jenkins did not spare UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he described as driving the policy and diplomatic agenda for a fourth crusade. Blair’s strident and high profile speech of two weeks ago drew Jenkins’ scorn. Accusing Blair of deliberate Islamophobia, he described the Prime Minister’s definition of UK foreign policy as, “gilt-edged, copper-bottomed, swivel-eyed neoconservatism.” While considering the Middle East, it has emerged that the bulk of the atrocities now unfolding daily in Baghdad can been traced directly to America’s allies in the benighted nation. According to the latest tabulations, there are circa 85-100 murders taking place in Baghdad each and every day apparently committed by squads of terrorists who are working hand-in-glove with American forces under the ultimate control of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George Bush. This state of murderous mayhem has driven many to the conclusion that US-Occupied Iraq is both, “ungoverned and ungovernable.” As a form of polite but essentially feckless compensation, US Marine Colonel John Coleman has offered apologies to the Iraqis for the American destruction of major archaeological sites in Babylon. At the same time, Iraqi archaeologists are lamenting the now incalculable archaeological damage to a rapidly expanding plethora of their ancient sites. Given the confusion swirling around both Iraq and Iran, it is not surprising that this week saw a rising tide of demands from respected US Generals for the immediate resignation – or sacking – of Donald Rumsfeld. Today, it emerged that Rumsfeld was actually present during interrogation sessions that used extraordinary stress techniques (read, torture-lite) in Guantanamo. This may be a first for an American Cabinet member for the reports indicate that Rumsfeld was not only present, but he was personally engaged in the direction and intensity of the interrogations. In Australia, George Bush’s neoconservative ally in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard, is the butt of ridicule. Why? While condemning the regime of Saddam Hussein, one of his government’s most liberal corporate sponsors, the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), is undergoing the scrutiny of a judicial commission. In recent years, Howard received twenty-one (21) cables informing him that AWB had become the biggest supplier of bribes to Saddam Hussein, but unfortunately for him, he failed to read any of them. According to the judicial commission, AWB provided Saddam with no less than a staggering £125 (circa $250) million in bribes. Little wonder that Howard has been dubbed, “The Ignorant.” In the red state of Nebraska, the lone and undeniably token Afro-American legislator has introduced a bill that will roll back the clock on integration to the time when schools were, “separate but equal.” The legislator in question, Ernie Chambers, says, “There has always been segregation. There is now, and always will be so rather than go through all this worthless talk that has gone on now for generations about integration, let's talk about getting better schools." What would Dr. King say? In Nebraska, the majority of his fellow white legislators said if it was OK with Ernie, then it is OK with them to segregate their school children along racial lines. Finally, with Easter and Passover currently underway, Polly Toynbee and Simon Jenkins have reminded us of the conflict between the irrational pressures of religion and the sweeping agenda of modernity. Toynbee decries the fact that our government in Britain is handing over money to religious organizations which will be used to contaminate our educational system. The same could well be said for the onslaught of Christian education taking place in America. Simon Jenkins draws some striking parallels between events taking place today in Blair’s Britain and Bush’s America and the mediaeval Florence of Savonarola and Machiavelli. Jenkins sees the church morphing into the state, and the state morphing into the church under the premise of a draconian form of fundamentalism – all with the blessings of our elected governments who enjoy the support of “values” voters, i.e. theocrats. The clamor for theocracy is intensifying on both sides of the Atlantic two thousand and five (2005) years after the birth of a prophet who urged his followers to, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” Jesus never said that the state should be fundamentalist nor even theological, but his contemporary heirs in America and Britain are determined to conflate the powers of Caesar with the teachings of their god, and the doctrines of their god with the laws of Caesar in attempting to render unto Caesar those things which they deem to be exclusively from the mind of their God. Jesus would be shocked. References
No plan B - so could
the US ever learn to live with Iran in the nuclear club?
Army report on al-Qaida
accuses Rumsfeld
The
ignorance of Mr Howard
Nebraska goes back
to dividing schools on racial lines If ever there was a nation not to drive to extremes, it is Iran / The US and Britain are goading Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, while Blair's jihadist rhetoric is inciting a fourth crusade / Simon Jenkinshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1752059,00.html
US allies are behind
the death squads and ethnic cleansing / Iraq's American overlords at
last seem to have grasped the danger posed by their friends' militias.
But it may be too late / Jonathan Steele in Baghdad Ungoverned and
ungovernable
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