Blair in the Bush

Blair in the Bush

Well, maybe you can explain something to me. We have a regime in the USA that was elected by less than half of the populous and yet it acts like it represents the whole of humanity.

It promotes itself as our international guardian, supposedly acting as some sort of world wide philanthropist, a caretaker for the well being of the global population, and yet it pulls out of the Kyoto agreement which would have helped to significantly reduce the earth's pollution levels. Remember, the USA comprises around 5% of the world's population but nevertheless consumes approximately a quarter of its energy. Not only that but anybody who has watched their car advertisements knows that they actually make a virtue of selling multi-litre, gas guzzling monsters whose fuel economy - if economy is even the appropriate word to use here - would make most Europeans blanche. In fact a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency said that in 2002 the average fuel economy of America's cars and trucks dropped to its lowest level in 22 years, largely because of increasing sales of sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans. Okay, so in Bush's 2003 energy bill he allocated $7.2 billion to help research into fuel cells. But then again he has proposed subsidising the nuclear power industry to the tune of $30 billion and authorised oil and gas exploration in previously protected onshore/offshore nature reserves.

So what does the USA do about this abuse of natural resources and the dirtying of the atmosphere that eventually, courtesy of the transatlantic winds, ends up over our shores? Well, they ease up on anti pollution measures, and relax the regulations limiting the amount of rubbish that is allowed to be thrown up into the air and down into the water courses. Don't take my word for it, in just half an hour's web surfing I came across dozens of examples of such 'don't give a damn about our neighbours' activities as these. The sad part for me is that I am - or used to be - pro-American, but these days I have had to modify my view and include a large chunk of anti Bush Administration in my thinking. Though let's not forget that a country should never be judged by its government, only its people; the Americans are just in the unfortunate position at the moment of having a gung ho, right wing, ego centric administration more suited to those 1950s films where America won every war in existence and saved the world from the nasty dictator. Never mind the thousands of allied troops who were also fighting just as hard to preserve democracy.

But they did a half decent job in Iraq didn't they? Well actually they and the Brits did it, getting rid of that nasty Saddam Hussein who was oppressing his people and threatening the world. We were told that Hussein had a mountain of weapons of mass destruction - almost a cliché now - and was a threat to the well being and democratic freedom of the western world. Well as for the cruel dictator part, take a look at Amnesty International's web site, you will find long lists of human rights abuses just as bad and sometimes far worse than anything that Hussein came up with. And as for the weapons of mass destruction, well on the 11th May 2003 the BBC reported that ".The .[American]. 75th Exploitation Task Force is dismantling its operations for a likely departure in June.after the group failed to find any biological and chemical weapons. Members of the team told the. [Washington Post]. that they no longer expected to find such stocks, and that they had consistently found targets identified by Washington to be inaccurate, or to have been looted and burned.". Add to that the promise made by Tony Blair that the USA and Britain would not touch Iraqi oil which turned into the USA and Britain controlling all of Iraq's oil reserves with only a low level administrative role for the United Nations. Link this with their proud declarations of liberating the Iraqi people from the shackles of oppression, whilst at the same time allowing the Israelis to treat the Palestinians like something that you might scrape off the bottom of your shoe, and we reveal a web of deception, double dealing and hypocrisy.

For two nations that propound the concepts of democracy, liberty and justice the American and British administrations are proving that they are no better than the imperialistic dictatorships that they profess to be cleansing from the world. Both Bush and Blair are more concerned with their place in history than with the wishes of their people or the greater well being of the global community. The sooner the United Nations regains its authority - only temporarily misplaced I hope - the sooner we will get humanity, honesty and sanity back into the world.



	Well, maybe you can explain something to me. We have a regime in the USA that was elected by less than half of the populous and yet it acts like it represents the whole of humanity. It promotes itself as our international guardian, supposedly acting as some sort of world wide philanthropist, a caretaker for the well being of the global population, and yet it pulls out of the Kyoto agreement which would have helped to significantly reduce the earth's pollution levels. Remember, the USA comprises around 5% of the world's population but nevertheless consumes approximately a quarter of its energy. Not only that but anybody who has watched their car advertisements knows that they actually make a virtue of selling multi-litre, gas guzzling monsters whose fuel economy - if economy is even the appropriate word to use here - would make most Europeans blanche. In fact a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency said that in 2002 the average fuel economy of America's cars and trucks dropped to its lowest level in 22 years, largely because of increasing sales of sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans. Okay, so in Bush's 2003 energy bill he allocated $7.2 billion to help research into fuel cells. But then again he has proposed subsidising the nuclear power industry to the tune of $30 billion and authorised oil and gas exploration in previously protected onshore/offshore nature reserves. So what does the USA do about this abuse of natural resources and the dirtying of the atmosphere that eventually, courtesy of the transatlantic winds, ends up over our shores? Well, they ease up on anti pollution measures, and relax the regulations limiting the amount of rubbish that is allowed to be thrown up into the air and down into the water courses. Don't take my word for it, in just half an hour's web surfing I came across dozens of examples of such 'don't give a damn about our neighbours' activities as these. The sad part for me is that I am - or used to be - pro-American, but these days I have had to modify my view and include a large chunk of anti Bush Administration in my thinking. Though let's not forget that a country should never be judged by its government, only its people; the Americans are just in the unfortunate position at the moment of having a gung ho, right wing, ego centric administration more suited to those 1950s films where America won every war in existence and saved the world from the nasty dictator. Never mind the thousands of allied troops who were also fighting just as hard to preserve democracy. But they did a half decent job in Iraq didn't they? Well actually they and the Brits did it, getting rid of that nasty Saddam Hussein who was oppressing his people and threatening the world. We were told that Hussein had a mountain of weapons of mass destruction - almost a cliché now - and was a threat to the well being and democratic freedom of the western world. Well as for the cruel dictator part, take a look at Amnesty International's web site, you will find long lists of human rights abuses just as bad and sometimes far worse than anything that Hussein came up with. And as for the weapons of mass destruction, well on the 11th May 2003 the BBC reported that ".The .[American]. 75th Exploitation Task Force is dismantling its operations for a likely departure in June.after the group failed to find any biological and chemical weapons. Members of the team told the. [Washington Post]. that they no longer expected to find such stocks, and that they had consistently found targets identified by Washington to be inaccurate, or to have been looted and burned.". Add to that the promise made by Tony Blair that the USA and Britain would not touch Iraqi oil which turned into the USA and Britain controlling all of Iraq's oil reserves with only a low level administrative role for the United Nations. Link this with their proud declarations of liberating the Iraqi people from the shackles of oppression, whilst at the same time allowing the Israelis to treat the Palestinians like something that you might scrape off the bottom of your shoe, and we reveal a web of deception, double dealing and hypocrisy. For two nations that propound the concepts of democracy, liberty and justice the American and British administrations are proving that they are no better than the imperialistic dictatorships that they profess to be cleansing from the world. Both Bush and Blair are more concerned with their place in history than with the wishes of their people or the greater well being of the global community. The sooner the United Nations regains its authority - only temporarily misplaced I hope - the sooner we will get humanity, honesty and sanity back into the world.