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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Twilight of the false Gods</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Common Sense</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>John Maxwell
Sunday, November 05, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>We were right all along. All of us who, four years ago, spoke, wrote, and protested against the criminal attack on Iraq were right. At the time, the New York Times called us the world's other super-power - international public opinion - expressed by the millions of us who marched against the war, against the needless sacrifice of human life, human rights, dignity and the arrogant disregard for history, civilisation and all the mechanisms developed to prevent unnecessary conflict; and against the wanton destruction of life and property.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=157 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>John Maxwell</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"No blood for oil" we said. But to George Bush we were simply nuisances. He had a mission to accomplish. Mr Bush told the United Nations that we had better shape up or ship out.
The man from Texas was telling the rest of humanity that we were ignorant weaklings, cowardly namby-pambies who needed some steel in our backbones.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Now, in a desperate effort to regain some credibility, Mr Bush is telling his fellow Americans that they need to pursue a bloody, ruinous, and unwinnable war, an unjust war, to sacrifice even more of their children, their humanity, their liberty, their peace of mind, their safety, and their future welfare for 'Victory' in Iraq.
Strange, when it is remembered that shortly after the war began Mr Bush proclaimed 'Mission Accomplished'.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Then he was all dressed up in a fighter pilot's gear, the hero, the wartime president, the most powerful human being in the history of humanity.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Since they say that those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it (Santayana) I occasionally, on occasions such as this, go back to reread what I said before to learn from my mistakes.
Alas, I can't find too many errors on my side or on the part of those millions on my side.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Before the war two-thirds of Americans were against it, unless they could be convinced that the US was acting in concert with the rest of the world. A simulacrum of consensus was arranged. Against the wishes of their people, so-called leaders like Blair of Britain and Aznar of Spain lent their support and credibility to Mr Bush's magniloquent delinquency. Aznar is gone; Bush is on the way out, an even lamer duck than his handler.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>BUTCH. ally was not the US people, but the US congress and the US press. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The attack on Iraq was we were told inter alia, to prevent Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction against his neighbours and others, to secure for the Iraqi people their rights to their own oil (I know, it sounds fantastic but that was said by Paul Wolfowitz) to destroy a terrorist homeland in he Middle East and a host of other unbelievable nonsenses.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Nelson Mandela said, "If we are to establish a world governed by law and reason, by the application of justice, we cannot divert from principle on grounds of present day convenience."
As I said, a year after 9/11 and six months before the invasion, it was
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Common Sense</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>John Maxwell
Sunday, November 05, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>We were right all along. All of us who, four years ago, spoke, wrote, and protested against the criminal attack on Iraq were right. At the time, the New York Times called us the world's other super-power - international public opinion - expressed by the millions of us who marched against the war, against the needless sacrifice of human life, human rights, dignity and the arrogant disregard for history, civilisation and all the mechanisms developed to prevent unnecessary conflict; and against the wanton destruction of life and property.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=157 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>John Maxwell</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>"No blood for oil" we said. But to George Bush we were simply nuisances. He had a mission to accomplish. Mr Bush told the United Nations that we had better shape up or ship out. The man from Texas was telling the rest of humanity that we were ignorant weaklings, cowardly namby-pambies who needed some steel in our backbones.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Now, in a desperate effort to regain some credibility, Mr Bush is telling his fellow Americans that they need to pursue a bloody, ruinous, and unwinnable war, an unjust war, to sacrifice even more of their children, their humanity, their liberty, their peace of mind, their safety, and their future welfare for 'Victory' in Iraq.
Strange, when it is remembered that shortly after the war began Mr Bush proclaimed 'Mission Accomplished'.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Then he was all dressed up in a fighter pilot's gear, the hero, the wartime president, the most powerful human being in the history of humanity.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Since they say that those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it (Santayana) I occasionally, on occasions such as this, go back to reread what I said before to learn from my mistakes.
Alas, I can't find too many errors on my side or on the part of those millions on my side.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Before the war two-thirds of Americans were against it, unless they could be convinced that the US was acting in concert with the rest of the world. A simulacrum of consensus was arranged. Against the wishes of their people, so-called leaders like Blair of Britain and Aznar of Spain lent their support and credibility to Mr Bush's magniloquent delinquency. Aznar is gone; Bush is on the way out, an even lamer duck than his handler.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=120 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>BUTCH. ally was not the US people, but the US congress and the US press. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The attack on Iraq was we were told inter alia, to prevent Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction against his neighbours and others, to secure for the Iraqi people their rights to their own oil (I know, it sounds fantastic but that was said by Paul Wolfowitz) to destroy a terrorist homeland in he Middle East and a host of other unbelievable nonsenses.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Nelson Mandela said, "If we are to establish a world governed by law and reason, by the application of justice, we cannot divert from principle on grounds of present day convenience." As I said, a year after 9/11 and six months before the invasion, it was
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