Madness Rules, NOT OK
Harold Hark
22 March 2004

The deluded and just plain dumb reaction to Spain's change of government by American Republicans is a further example of that country's descent into a madness that is enveloping the world.

One of them, Dennis Hastert, Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, had this to say: ''Here's a country who stood against terrorism and had a huge terrorist act within their country, and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists.''

As Peter Wilson (The Australian, 20-21 March) points out, Hastert is third in command. "If al-Qai'da somehow managed to take out George W. Bush and the news gave Dick Cheney a heart attack, then Hastert would become president of the United States."

These days the American cookbook has nothing but recipes for disaster.

Our own John Howard and Alexander Downer have said much the same thing. Their Mao-emulating attempt to force Mick Keelty into self-criticism for stating the bleeding obvious is a direct copy of Dubya's Stalin-emulating purges in Umeruhca.

I was going to say that the Spanish election has further polarised the world. But it has in fact further polarised the people of the world from the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing.

The problem is, the Coalition is ruled by the Molochs who run the corporations (armaments in particular). Against this global junta, the billions of people who despise them have only the ballot box to fight back with. It was enough for the Spanish, a nation who still remembers Franco, but will it be enough for the apathetic Australians or the wilfully ignorant Americans? The Americans face an even greater threat than Australians: the online ballot boxes there are owned by corporations who want the Republicans returned at all costs. The fiddling with chads in Florida was prehistoric compared to the simple task of fudging the bits and bytes of voters.

Thus, the euphoria we naïve humanitarians experienced after the return to sanity in Spain is slowly giving way to apprehension that things will now only get worse.

The global right wing is pulling out all stops to condemn us as appeasers of terrorism.

"Appeasement" is the spin on the lips of the warmongers for anyone who dares to suggest, as AFP commissioner Mick Keelty did, that the bombings in Spain were payback for Aznar's participation in the Coalition of the Willing and its oil war. Worse, anyone who dares to suggest that troops should be pulled out of Iraq is accused of either leaving the Iraqis to the wolves or being outright barrackers for Osama.

The new Spanish president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, speaks for many when he says that unless the United Nations takes over by July and the catastrophic American grab for profits is broken, then all troops should be removed.

The damage to Iraq is already done. With or without the Americans, civil war is going to break out and the country will eventually become a Sh'ite fundamentalist state. This will be the legacy of George W. Bush's adventure: the humiliation of his country (and its potential retaliation against those basking in its humiliation) and the establishment of a new and potentially dangerous Islamic state. Only the United Nations can prevent this from eventuating, and Dubya will not allow its participation other than in a supporting role.

The simple point the right is wilfully avoiding (or incapable of seeing) is that the war in Iraq was an unprovoked act of aggression which had absolutely nothing to do with the so-called war on terror, which is yet to be truly waged. It was a Bush initiated invasion for reasons of vengeance on his part and for the reconstruction loot to be made by his carpetbagging Neo-con masters. Thus the horror should rest squarely on his and his country's shoulders. Against the opposition of all but a handful of nations, America invaded a sovereign state that posed no threat to anyone. Let the invaders deal with the aftermath, or get out altogether so the United Nations can.

Despite daily evidence to the contrary, Bush and Donald Rumsfeld tell us how wonderful things are in Iraq. How wonderful are things for the survivors of the more than 10,000 unnecessary victims of this heinous adventure?

Is it possible the self-indoctrinated spruikers for the Coalition of the Willing are unaware that they are sounding exactly like Communist dictators of old? Their rhetoric amounts to Big Brother's famous dictum: "War is Peace". It's a wonder we haven't heard one of them actually say it.

When Genghiz John and Poncy Lord Downer state emphatically that they would do it all over again, they, like all right wing males, are telling us that the slaughter of thousands of innocents is meaningless. They will not answer the question: Had there been no invasion, would Saddam have killed as many during the past year?

Human life means nothing to these weaklings. In John Howard's case, the death toll in Iraq is a means to an end, that of consolidating his pitiful rule as Prime Minister. For this he deserves a place in history well below that of Richard Nixon. In fact, Nixon the criminal managed to do the odd good thing, such as opening up China; compared to his Republican successors, he was a bleeding Liberal. Howard, by contrast, has done nothing of of any value. He ranks with the lowest of the low: the manual labourers hired by the Nazis to shoot Jews over open pits for a few extra rations.

We are being led by madmen. And we are letting them get away with it.