Brown, Blair, and Bush

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's recent two-day visit with President Bush at Camp David should make it clear to Americans that the "special relationship" between the UK and the USA has finally changed — the Brits want out of Iraq, want out of the Texas cowboy's suffocating embrace, and Americans should be grateful for this significant metamorphosis with our closest ally.
While Mr. Bush vainly tried the "Gordon" gambit, just as he tried to give Chancellor Merkel a backrub at the G-8, he quickly learned the Blair lapdog is reverting to form as a Brown bulldog. After Bush's awkward rant about a worldwide WAR on terrorism, Brown riposted brilliantly with his withering comment that "terrorism is not a CAUSE; it is a CRIME" [my emphasis]. Americans must ponder this critical distinction since the way Bush has framed everything since 9/11 involves this nonsensical mantra, "a WAR on terrorism." This war framework includes running amok over Congress and our system of checks and balances, ripping apart rights of American citizens to have their emails and telephone calls remain private and without government spying, and stretches to torturing suspected "enemies" abducted by the CIA from other countries. It also means tossing anyone who opposes the USA into a catchall category of "evil terrorist," but the world is far more complex than this elementary formula admits.
PM Brown also made it clear he doesn't see Iraq — a colossal and stupid Bush error — as the central front in the misnamed war on terror; Brown noted that Afghanistan is the "frontline." The current struggles against criminals who use "Islam" as a ruse to disguise their thuggery and nationalism can no longer be waged this way. The fantasy that we could cram "democracy" down Arab throats can now be seen for what it really is: Mr. Bush trying to create an imperial Presidency which can invade countries it does not like, and cow domestic critics with the "traitor" charge. Even die-hard Republicans can see the lunacy in this. Following George Kennan on the USSR, "containment" makes sense whereas "conquer" scares all of America's friends.
Bush wants a quick fix with his overt attack on a foreign country, but Osama and Al-Qaida are mostly in other places, namely Afghanistan and Pakistan (Waziristan). The wordplay which Bush worked, identifying "Al Qaida in Iraq" as the enemy deliberately simplifies — there are scores of entities against the US invaders in Iraq, and the splinter group "Al Qaida in Iraq" is simply one of them, not to be confused with the larger organization which had never worked with Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. Brown realizes, after a 38 year protracted struggle in Northern Ireland, that these issues are not simple and will not be solved simply by the unleashing of maximum military force. And since our 160,000 troops can't pacify Iraq anyway, this failure emphasizes to the Iranian rogue regime that brute military force isn't to be feared so much. The true struggle is political and economic, NOT religious and military. Brown is well aware of this in his emphases on global poverty, AIDs, and debt.
Cheers to Brown and the Brits for helping the American people, if not their deluded lame duck leader, realize that terrorism is an abstract noun. The Imperial West terrifies parts of the globe, and as long as the American Congress and people allow our imperial President to do whatever he wants more people will turn against us globally. Prime Minister Brown is showing us a way to reorient our struggle against international criminals and bandits, and as a free people we Americans must get Congress to control our rogue leader! Let's begin by supporting Sen. Russ Feingold in his effort to "censure" Mr. Bush.