UK: "We Won't Be DUPED Like Dubya's DOPES!"

THE UK MIRROR

November 5, 2004


WE WON'T BE DUPED LIKE DUBYA'S DOPES!

-by Pual Routlege, UK Mirror columnist


HOSTIL' injuns are on the edge of town, threatening yer wives 'n' cattle! And those pesky Democrats want you to shoot the Sheriff! Whaddya say to that?

The answer was "No", as predicted right here seven days ago.

The most important US presidential election for decades was brought down to that naive level by a cunning, cynical George Dubya Bush. And it worked.

This corrupt exercise in mass deception cost a billion dollars in TV advertising and twice that in campaign expenses (some of them genuine).

But it was worth it for the big business interests that dominate American politics. Bush is back, sponsored by good 'ole US oil. If that is democracy, then I am the Count of Monte Cristo. If only bamboozled Yankees were involved, we could all go about our business without a care.

As indeed most will do anyway. Who gives a flying bonk what they think in Des Moines? And vice versa, I'm sure.

But there are perils galore in the re-election of Bush, not least the prospect of Britain being dragged into a third war many thousands of miles from home, in Iran.

Naturally, Tony Blair pooh-poohs any such prospect. As he did before the assault on Afghanistan. And before the invasion of Iraq. We are now bogged down in both countries.

This is, to use Hollywood jargon, a clear and present danger. But a more insidious and even more lethal menace lurks behind the victory of Ole Cross-Eyes. The Republicans mobilised as never before the politics of fear. They convinced a majority of US citizens that their homes and families were under immediate threat from al-Qaeda. They are not.

In fact, the BBC's admirable Power Of Nightmares series showed al-Qaeda does not exist as the world-wide conspiracy presented by US policy-makers, with commanders, cells and "sleepers" in 60 countries.

In that sense, al-Qaeda is a figment of the imagination of Pentagon and CIA war gamers - but it is a mightily useful weapon for war. Not the war against terrorists but the real war against the common sense of voters - the shock and awe campaign against us.

They seek to dupe you and me into a state of permanent panic about the fantasy threat of terror striking on the Tube, or in my backyard in North Yorkshire.

ONLY when we have been so convinced will we vote for the politicians who peddle these monstrous nightmares. That is the true menace of the Bush-Blair axis of evil.

Think back to the days when our country really was threatened, by fascist Germany. Winston Churchill, to whom the posturing Bush obscenely compares himself, appealed to the nation's grit and determination to see off the enemy.

He did not need phantasms. The Luftwaffe was overhead every night. But figures like Private Frazer in Dad's Army, who cried "We're all doomed!", were derided as crackpots.

We are only six months from an election. Mainstream Labour is engaged on a campaign to secure a third term with the slogan Britain is Working. That's fine.

But simultaneously, Blair continues to ape Bush with doomsday threats like "it's only a matter of time!" before terror stalks the streets.

The only answer is a very loud raspberry. We are not so easily fooled as prairie folk. There should be no votes here in the manipulation of terror.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/paulroutledge


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ALSO SEE ROUTLEGE'S *PRE*-ELECTION COLUMN!:


Friday, October 29, 2004


BUSH SETS PRESIDENT FOR KERRY TO FOLLOW

- by Paul Routledge


BY this time next week, there will be a new president
of the United States. My bet is that it will be the
same one as it is today, George Dubya Bush.

America is in the grip of an overwhelming dread of
terrorism, cynically promoted by the Republicans,
their neo-conservative hard men and their dupes in the
media.

Never mind that 15 times as many people were shot,
strangled, poisoned, stabbed and otherwise murdered by
other Americans as died in the 2001 Twin Towers
horror.

Or that a thousand times more US citizens were killed
in road accidents in 2003 than died at the hands of
terrorists worldwide.

What counts is power, and George Bush's Republicans
will exploit for all it is worth the nation's security
fears to sustain their grip on power.

Their task is made easier by the fact that American
voters have been steadily drifting to the right for at
least a decade. Clinton was a blip in that trend, and
even he had to kowtow to the military.

Remember, it was a Democratic president who unleashed
America's military might on Vietnam. And John Kerry,
the Democratic candidate, boasts of his "good war" in
south-east Asia.

That means he killed more Vietnamese than the coward
Bush, who pulled strings to stay at home where he
could milk his father's political connections to
secure the governorship of Texas.

I do not think very much would change even if John
Kerry pulls off the political feat of the century by
beating Bush.

The USA cannot uninvade Iraq. The Pentagon will insist
on keeping huge numbers of troops there to "finish the
job" - ie to make Iraq's oil safe for America.

A Kerry administration would not sign up to the Kyoto
Treaty on the environment because industry will not
allow him to get in the way of profits. Washington
will continue to support the hawks in Israel, making
peace in the Middle East an impossibility.

This sounds like a counsel of despair, but there is
hope. Not across the pond, but over the Channel.
Europe is gradually developing as the sole
counterbalance to America's worldwide dominance.

That's why we must just take the November 2 election
in our stride, and get on with our own destiny.

We don't need America.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/paulroutledge/