An assessment by Dorian van Braam

"We grow wise not by remembering the past but by being responsible for the future." A statement which has a timeless meaning and quality and is as appropriate today as it was in the past when it was originally penned by the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. It is also significantly applicable to problems within the global political environment of today. Bush & Blair seem set on going to war and like the majority, I find it most disquieting . If things go wrong and too many body bags are produced, my teenage sons could be eventually called up. I don't like that and I am sure Mr. Blair wouldn't like it if his sons had to go out into the deserts of Iraq , armed to the teeth to play an updated version of Cowboys and Indians , a game where the leaders are safe in their bunkers whilst injuries are inflicted on our testosterone activated children in the prime of their youth. War is testosterone and without it this war could not be fought . When one remembers Cheri Blair's tearful emotion over her son leaving for university in the Cherigate Bristol flats affair, its conceivable that if it were the Blair children donning battle gear , Tony Blair might well reconsider his war strategy and think twice about singing in harmony to the tunes from Bush's special "Songs of Praise" hymn book which more appropriately resembles "Songs in praise of war."

Every day we are being fed with more reasons why we should go to war even though the weapon's inspectors haven't found anything incriminating in Saddam Hussein's so called arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction" which must surely exist in the 4th dimension . In Colin Powell's incredible broadcast to the world only one statement was acceptable as being unambiguous and that was his assertion that only the esoteric would understand the tapes, pictures and recorded telephone conversations !! We were actually expected to believe this and accept Powell's American "pie in the sky" interpretation of strange facts more reminiscent of the X files than mature politics !! Rory Bremner puts it all in perfect context in his Sunday programme "Bird and Fortune but then Rory is a performer portraying comical situations created by politicians who believe in their own fantasies.

Blair seems to be developing signs of incipient megalomania albeit a democratic version. The first indication of democratic megalomania is the making of unilateral decisions without putting them to the party he is leading or listening to the people he represents. Ironically, Blair and Bush are acting in a manner similar to that which they are accusing Saddam Hussein of having . Riding roughshod over the wills of the voting public. Both leaders have a vision of themselves and if Bush sees himself as a General, Blair clearly sees himself as a Churchillian figure, at the helm of the good ship destiny, an image difficult to believe in because, as a prime minister he is a political "Pop Idol" leader created by people behind the scenes. Mr. Blair actually represents a mediocrity mirrored by much of today's global political establishment.
Bush is still milking the 11th September for all its worth and manipulating the people with Punch & Judy speeches to make them think he is a President with a big stature. Unfortunately, neither Bush nor Blair are Machiavellian although a large percentage of Americans believe Bush's self appraisal upgrade and the distorted ideas he is promulgating which belong to the mid-twentieth century. It is significant that without September 11th and the present war games, Mr. Bush would have been finished .Instead of making rousing oratorical speeches about terrorism he would be voicing parallel inanities and echoing hollow ideas within a political vacuum of his own making.

Both Bush and Blair are trying to make us believe that our Western civilization is about to fall victim to germ warfare and other branches of terrorism but the truth is nothing has changed. Everything is the same as it has been for years. The difference is that the special forces are now rattling their sabres and some politicians are equating minor anti - social activities with a sophisticated network of world terrorism controlled by Al - Qaeda and the elusive Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen hierarchy . Maybe, maybe not, but it must be said that the special forces have always known what goes on behind the thin veils of our polite society so why the sudden suspicion and flurry of activity ? Was the storming of the Finsbury Mosque a real emergency executed out of genuine urgency to nip things in the bud and avert danger or was it just another piece of counter-terrorism propaganda to whet the British appetite for war, an hors d'oeuvre before the main course of troops, missiles and tanks, which many believe have always been the secret, relentless agenda of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush regardless of what the weapon inspectors might turn up. What I find difficult is understanding exactly where Saddam Hussein fits into the world terrorist organization which the West claims he is an integral part of and the reason why he must be eradicated. The BBC's Radio 4 recently warned us is that terrorists might poison our food only apparently there is no proof , just a possibility and the government's theatrical denouement of plagiarizing a twelve year old thesis written by a PhD student for his American university is really the "piece de resistance" and brings the official war effort and propaganda into the realms of farcical fantasy and perhaps a view into the Bush/Blair terrorism "pantophobia factor." A recent new development in this sphere was that apparently Al- Queda trades in illegal diamonds. That one almost lasted 12 hours . Where will it all end and how will we know when the purported facts reflect the truth as opposed to what the Blair Bush establishment want us to believe for its own convenience of conscience.

What the two leading protagonists in this special performance of Punch and Judy want, is to transform the apathetic British public, currently obsessed with fashionable political correctness, into a blood thirsty public howling for war, so that they can indirectly implement, under the auspices of Western democracy, a war which will effect a regime change in Iraq. Bush and his acolyte Blair don't want Saddam Hussein to retain his powerful potential leverage on world affairs, a leverage created by Iraq's oil reserves, which are the second largest in the world and the real reason why the West is so nervous. Imagine what would happen if the West were to run out of crude oil and Iraq were the owners of the only remaining oil wells . It doesn't bear thinking about, but thank God, Allah ,Buddha or whoever, Saddam Hussein will be long dead before that could happen. It will never come to that, so the pre-emptive strike planned by Bush and Blair has no justification. Why on earth the Allies didn't go to Baghdad at the end of the "Gulf War1" and make a military surgical incision to cut out the political cancer infecting the Middle East, I simply cannot understand. Apparently, Bush senior had moral and ethical reasons but if the reasons for not going into Baghdad were weak , this immanent war has an even weaker argument for its justification .

The recent Moroccan activity in England consisting of London's so called stock piling of germ warfare chemicals and the Manchester stabbing, was heralded by an hysterical press looking for an English version of a potential 11th September. The ricine poison plot to kill large numbers of English residents was super hyped but the truth was that it was probably only an off shoot of the government's lack of a valid coherent immigration philosophy. Illegal immigrants who are wanted for terrorist activities in their own countries will tend to perpetrate similar activities in the country where they find shelter and no amount of political correctness will prevent them from expressing their very different attitudes from the civilized people who grant them "human rights" asylum . Whatever the motivation was, I have my doubts that it was part of a structured world wide Al- Queda terrorist Organisation, if such a thing exists. Mr. Blair is trying to make the British public believe that an all engulfing terrorism is just around the corner and his recent unprecedented televised meeting at no 10 with several ordinary members of the public who wished to discuss the Iraq problem was incredible but would have fooled only the gullible . Blair wants the British to bang the war drums and blow the pipes of ire and he is using every trick in the book to bring this about. The BBC and other media formats are helping him achieve this but thank God the British public are not being fooled en masse. Tony Blair is on an island of unilateralism and he wants the British Public to hold his hand . No thanks Tony !! The people of this Island reject your bellicosity because we don't believe a war is necessary or justified by events. On the 15th February, we the people of England and the rest of the world proved this by holding the first world wide mass anti war rally. Unfortunately the pro-war authorities aren't going to give up because they are not listening . Instead, they dissimulate and refer to activities in numerous countries as being part of the international Al- Qaeda net work. But as soon as the media drops one potential terrorist activity another takes its place on the nation's front pages. The recent problem of missiles which apparently go further than NATO regulations will allow, sounds serious but we are not told how much further they fly or whether the extended range is due to an illegal propulsion factor or a wind component which could alter their range by anything from minus 20 to plus 20 per cent depending on whether it is a tail wind or a head wind . The public simply don't know what to believe with such economies of truth, lies, dissimulations and half truths which create realities that don't actually exist. Politicians playing make believe like children in the playground of global politics, a dangerous game for adults and one not even believed by many politicians, a fact upheld by the massive back bencher rebel "no vote" registered in the Commons against Blair's policy of war on the 26th February 2003.

No one can deny that Mr. Hussein has evil national policies and that he is deadly and ruthless with people who oppose him on the slightest thing . He also denies certain indigenous natives of Iraq their human rights but his activities are hardly the Third Reich under Hitler, which is what the pro-war people are trying to make out . No one would dispute the necessity of the troops moving in if Saddam Hussein were to make an aggressive strike against the West but I doubt that he will. Mr. Hussein is a survivor and knows the ultimate rules of chess, which I imagine, is more than Mr. Bush does. The West cannot justify a war simply because a few rusty shells are found in a dump or some work-related papers are discovered at the home of a physicist who once worked on a nuclear programme. Besides, what's the panic when we are led to believe that American satellites can pin point a man buying a Pizza in the back streets of a provincial Pakistani town and have him picked up within twenty minutes in one of those fancy Black Hawk helicopters they use on film sets!

Today's world peace hangs on a fragile thread with world politicians making decisions based on their egos instead of sincere pragmatic and moral philosophies. Politics controlled by such leaders are a danger to our survival on earth. Politics should be administered by men and woman who are altruistic, not by people who are motivated by their sense of self . Too many are more interested in the fame and celebrity status that a political career enables them to achieve and for these, becoming a politician is the same as learning a language by studying the grammatical construction without bothering with the literature .
The now well established row between America and the NATO / European Union camp is a dangerous development and I doubt that Lord Robertson or Mr. Putin or anyone else has the natural ability to put things right even if they visit the capital city of every member state. These kind of peripatetic dissimulating political activities reflect what happened in GB. Shaw's Back to Methuselah and it is a pity that more people haven't taken in the fact that Shaw's fiction is becoming a virtual reality. Visiting other peoples problems does not produce home solutions a fact highlighted by Palestine / Israel and Northern Ireland. Such globe trotting is reminiscent of the Emperor's new clothes and is a specious political fantasy created by leaders whose final passion is their image in history books or a top job in the European Community.

We are at some strange and dangerous crossroads and I find the emerging political blend of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 very worrying. Like many I have grave misgivings about the direction Mr. Blair is taking us and I have begun to wonder when the title "Brave New World" might be transposed to Brave New Labour World , a political system with similar associations and overtones to those portrayed in the two books.

Copyright Dorian van Braam. Feb 2003

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