The Dupe and the President

Two things saved Tony Blair in the British general elections back on May 5th. One was the fact that Britain has a Parliamentary system, and thus voters, when they went to the polls, didn’t vote directly for Prime Minister. Instead, they were voting for their own MP, Member of Parliament, and if they happened to like the job he’d done, they were likely to go ahead and vote for him, regardless of what they thought of the leader of the Party. In the case of the Labour Party, that leader would be Tony Blair, and while most Britons feel that Tony disgraced the country with the catastrophic foray into Iraq, they had to consider the unappealing option of voting for a Tory, a group known to many Brits as “The Nasty Party” because they are kind of a light, friendly version of the American GOP. 

In fact, a symbol of this election was noseplugs, handed out to Labourites with an admonition that went something like ‘Yes, we know he’s a fucking twat. But vote Labour, and we’ll see what we can do to get his silly arse out of 10 Downing Street before the year is out.’ It was that or have the Tories, with their xenophobia and privatization schemes. Voters took the noseplugs, put them on, and voted “Labour-but-not-Tony” 

The second thing to save him was the British sense of fairness, the willingness to give Blair the benefit of the doubt, and assume that instead of being evil and greedy, he was just stupid and misled by a monster. It’s not exactly the first time in British history that’s happened. Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich a hero in September 1938, but within a year it was obvious to one and all that Hitler had duped him, and even then, it was another six months before he finally got kicked out and replaced by Winston Churchill. 

Tony Blair, once seen as a hero, is now seen as a dupe and the patsy of a vicious, warmongering monster. The British voters know his days are numbered, but don’t want the Conservatives in power. So Labour won a diminished majority, and Tony’s clock is ticking.

In the case of both Prime Ministers, the men who duped them and led to their respective downfalls did somewhat better, if for a while. Hitler went on to invade most of Europe and in 1940, was the most popular man in German history. However, by June of 1940 Hitler had jumped the shark, and things went downhill from there, ending with Germany demolished, her cities in ruins, and Hitler’s jawbone in the hands of a grinning Russian secretary. 

For George, the moment he jumped the shark came when he strutted on the USS Lincoln with his codpiece and his silly “mission accomplished” banner. Since then, we’ve seen a growing Resistance in Iraq that has now become a civil war, America has been shamed and disgraced by Abu Ghraib and the widespread use of Gulags in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan (where the American-supported junta just massacred hundreds of unarmed protesters while the Admin maintained a stony silence), and the GOP is wracked by endless financial and sex scandals.

The German people never called Hitler to account for lying to Chamberlain and the world (“This will be my last territorial demand”). Granted, this was in part because for the next year or so, everything seemed to break Hitler’s way. He invaded Poland in days a year after Munich, and the following spring he swept across nearly all of western Europe in mere weeks. Nothing succeeds in politics like success, and detractors, who had already seen Hitler bring the German economy back from ruin and make a stand against liberals, gays, unions and activist judges, found it hard to get footage with the public.

Then too, criticizing Hitler in public would get you sent to the death camps. That tended to put a damper on criticism.

Even with the built-in advantages of a rubber-stamp legislature, a captive judiciary, a controlled media, and a terrorized populace, Hitler came to a bad end. It was in all the papers. Germany demolished, tens of millions dead, Hitler’s jawbone in the hands of a grinning Soviet Russian secretary, all that. 

A lot of Germans wish they could have called Hitler to account along about 1938, and said, “Hey, Dolf, you lied to us about this territorial demand stuff, we don’t like what you’re doing to Jews, trade unions, liberals and socialists in the work camps, and you’re giving far too much control to corporations over their workers lives.” If they had done that, they might have saved themselves more problems further down the line, demolished cities, ruined farmlands, happy liberated Frenchmen, and other troublesome and nettlesome things.

Americans don’t get sent to death camps for calling their leaders to account. At least, not yet. And they can’t say they are dazzled by the successes of the Putsch regime. The economy not only has failed to soar far ahead of where it was six years ago, but it’s fallen considerably behind, including wages and jobs. America hasn’t had glittering battlefield successes. Invading Afghanistan – the equivalent of beating up a five year old kid – has been about it, and Afghanistan has proven to be more than Putsch can handle. The mainstream American media, craven and pathetic though it might be, is still allowed to write things about the administration that are embarrassing. They just choose not to. Because they’re such nice guys and want the administration to like them. Not “like them” the way the administration “liked” Jeff Gannon, none of that sort of stuff, but you know – like them. 

In the waning days of the British general election campaign, a memo came to light that said, “Military action was now seen as inevitable [...] Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. [...] The case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.” The memo was written by Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, the British intelligence agency, and was dated 7/23/02, eight months before Putsch attacked Iraq.

The British people, willing to give the benefit of the doubt, believed that it was possible that Tony may have thought that the bellicose noises were made just to convince Saddam that if he didn’t let the inspectors back in, America would attack. Saddam did let the inspectors back in (most people forget it was America and not Saddam who had removed them to begin with) and America attacked. 

In short, the British people decided that Tony was a gullible moron. But since the Tories didn’t have a Winston Churchill at hand, but instead just the weak offspring of the hated Margaret Thatcher, Tony squeaked by in the general election. 

Three months after the date on that memo, which stated that Putsch was prepared to fabricate evidence and intelligence in order to justify an attack on Iraq, Putsch declared to the nation as a whole, “I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary. Hopefully this can be done peacefully. Hopefully we can do this without any military action.”

He lied. It was a contemptuous, cowardly, vicious lie, told by a contemptuous, cowardly, vicious man.

He lied America into a war. He lied about the WMDs, he lied about Saddam’s intents and capabilities. He lied about what America would do once the invasion was complete.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead. Over 2,400 Americans and allies are dead. And over half a trillion dollars has been wasted, all on account of this lie.

To every parent and spouse and child of every American who died in Iraq: yes, they did die in vain. No matter how noble and courageous and patriotic they were, they died in vain. They died for a stupid, mindless lie, told by a stupid, mindless man.

This isn’t Nazi Germany. Putsch isn’t an invincible force, and you don’t get sent to Guantanamo for calling him out. Not yet.

Americans have no excuse not to call Putsch to account.

Try him for war crimes. Show the world America still has courage and moral values.