The Dynamic Duo

George W. Bush and Tony Blair are confident men. Their lightning plan to defeat the “Saddam” regime has failed, the advance on Baghdad is going ahead at a snail’s pace, hundreds of civilians have been murdered by their joint forces and the growing climate of horror at their actions around the world reaches a deafening clamour for them to stop. Blinded by their arrogance, they continue as if nothing was happening.

Bush and Blair present an array of reasons why they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. They will try to say that there is an international coalition numbering thirty-odd countries which backs their illegal attack on a sovereign nation. Pay a prostitute what she wants and she will do everything…and a bit more.

They started by saying that Iraq had flouted the United Nations resolutions by not allowing the weapons inspectors into the country to search for what they claimed were massive amounts of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Iraq promptly allowed the inspectors in and they found nothing. Much of the biological material that Iraq had was of a short life-span and if Iraq had chemical weaponry, the USA, especially, would never have attacked.

After all, here is a country whose number one rule is never engage in military action unless you have massive superiority. The analogy would be a hundred men armed to the teeth fighting a fifteen-year-old shoeless boy armed with a home-made catapult. Rule number two is to get the Limies (British) to fly the low-altitude, high-risk sorties.

The UNMOVIC and IAEA teams were progressing perfectly well with good cooperation by the Iraqis. They found nothing. The coalition has found nothing.

The Iraqi people were supposed to be held down by a tyrant. They were supposed to rise up and welcome their American liberators, who were freeing the people. This is good material for domestic consumption in the USA but democracy is based upon dialogue and discussion and debate. Unfortunately these are concepts which the Bush administration is unable to grasp.

The attitude in the UNO building in New York has long been one of bullying and blackmail. When members of the UN Security Council are invited to a working breakfast, it is not to offer them a coffee or a crit.

The geographical region does not use the western model of democratic government. The Saudi regime, Washington’s friends, was not democratically elected, neither was that in Kuwait, despite the promises of George S. Bush that the USA would work towards democracy in that country (who remembers?)

If Saddam Hussein was the tyrant, the demon he is painted as being, how can Bush and Blair explain the fact that there are not hundreds, but thousands, of Iraqis trying to enter the country to defend their President? How do Bush and Blair explain the fact that the Shi’ite south has not risen up against the regime? The camera does not lie. The people of Iraq are wholeheartedly behind their President.

Bush and Blair blame “Saddam” for this war. The use of the term “Saddam” is derogatory, adding fuel for the psyops attack on a demonised regime whose natural resource it defends against foreign companies. This is the crime that “Saddam” committed. Either one refers to him as His Excellency President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, or one refers to George W. Bush as “George” and the Prime Minister of the UK as “Tone”.

Let’s see how they like it…George and Tone blame His Excellency President Saddam Hussein of Iraq for this war because he could have disarmed. He claims he did not have the weapons and to date, none have been found. George and Tone claim that His Excellency President Saddam Hussein of Iraq could have abandoned the country. The sheer arrogance of this declaration is risible. However, the Bush administration was sufficiently stupid to claim that even if His Excellency President Saddam Hussein of Iraq left the country, they would still invade, therefore shooting their argument in the foot.

Bush and Blair claim that they are going to help the impoverished Iraqi people who suffered so much under the Ba’ath regime. They suffered so much because of the 12 years of sanctions maintained by the UNO caught in Washington’s strangle-hold. Bush and Blair claim they will rebuild Iraq. After they have destroyed it.

Bush and Blair speak of violations of the UNO and war crimes. If CNN and the BBC can show pictures of Iraqi p.o.w.s, why can’t Iraqi State TV show American and British p.o.w.s? If CNN and BBC can show dead Iraqi soldiers, why does Tony Blair almost burst into tears, melodramatically, when he remembers that two of his soldiers, who were killed in action, were shown on Iraqi TV? How Bush and Blair can speak of violations of the UNO when these two misguided men were the ones who committed the most monumental mistake in diplomatic history, destroying the organization as a forum of debate and as the world’s only binding legal organism, defies logic.

War crimes are attacking a sovereign state outside the authority of the ONU and killing hundreds of its civilians, thousands of soldiers and injuring countless thousands of others. War crimes are the wanton destruction of property. War crimes are attacking non-military targets. War crimes are cutting the water and electricity supply to a whole city (Basra in this case). Messrs. Bush and Blair, since when was water a military target?

Bush and Blair miscalculated, they made a monumental mistake, they got it wrong. Arrogantly and defiantly, they continue to claim they are right “It will take as long as it takes” At what cost, Messrs. Bush and Blair?

This dynamic duo has all the attributes of a Batman film. The characters are all there in the Washington administration. Condy as Catwoman, Rumsfeld as the Riddler, we even have Portugal’s José Barroso as the Joker. However, Baghdad is not Gotham City. It is real.

Bush and Blair are not real. They are living in a parallel world, wholly removed from the reality of the planet on which everyone else lives. All that remains to be seen is which of them, in their world, is Batman and which is the Boy Wonder.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru