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Republicans against Liberty
by Robert Thompson
Anyone listening to the speeches at the
Republican Party Convention could be forgiven for forgetting the origin
of the Statue of Liberty, when the turn-coat Democrat, Senator Miller,
specifically attacked France. We are used to facing attacks
on democracy by neo-fascists of all sorts, and we had the horrible
internal situation during our last Presidential Election when the
neo-fascist candidate faced Mr Jacques Chirac in the second round.
Fortunately, the nation, including those (such as myself) who had not
voted for Mr Chirac in the first round, rallied around him as
representing broad democratic principles in opposition to Mr Jean-Marie
Le Pen, whose Front National is our nearest
equivalent to your neo-cons. We have to hope that the people
of the U.S.A. can make the distinction between democracy and demagogy,
and that they will think back to the gift of the Statue designed by
Auguste Bartholdi, using the construction techniques invented by Gustave
Eiffel.
The baying and howling by those present in
New York can make people of my generation (and above all those who are
even older)think back to the Nazi rallies where the late unlamented Mr
Adolf Hitler ranted on in much the same way as Mr "Dick"
Cheney and Mr Miller. The attacks on the United Nations and
on our country seem to have inspired the assembled Republicans to
paroxysms of hatred directed at us. This is not only
reminiscent of Mr Hitler, who unjustly blamed the Jews, but also reminds
us that, after all the sympathy offered by the whole world in September
2001, Mr Bush decided to slap us all collectively in the face by
saying that those who were not in favour of his particular way of life
were his (and, by implication, your) enemies.
We are in no way your enemies, but, before
the ill-prepared invasion of Iraq, we had the honesty and decency to
point out the dangers of proceeding without proper assessments of the whole situation.
We did not make a great "song and dance" about the powerful
(and highly profitable) support given by leading members of the Bush
team (such as Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld) to Saddam Hussein before the
dimplomatic "misunderstanding" which
led to the invasion of Kuwait. Nor did we, at that time,
stress the close links between the Bush and bin Laden families, and
between the Bush administration and the highly repressive régimes in
such countries as Saudi Arabia (the home of the bin Ladens).
We quite simply advised caution, and we also predicted what would happen
if care were not taken. Mr Bush's backers clearly had no
concern for human lives, as you can now see in the number of members of
the U.S.A.'s armed forces and Iraqis who have died and been hideously
wounded as a result of the lack of preparation on the part of those
in charge in the Pentagon. However, these same backers
could see vast profits for their businesses, best served by
destabilising the whole region of the Near and Middle East so far away
from your shores, and thus provide highly remunerative contracts, which
were only risky for the lowly employees on the spot.
The baying mob at the Republican Convention
proves one thing, namely that we must not forget the lessons of history,
and never again allow demagogues such as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler
and George W. Bush either to sway our thoughts or to have our electoral
support.
Robert Thompson - Robert.Thompson@wanadoo.fr
is a retired French Avocat (Attorney) living in a small village in |
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