The Quagmire of Empire

The vacillation and subservient compliance of the Neo-Labour government of the issue of sending UK troops into the maelstrom, raises a number of interesting points. On the one hand given is a war – that what you do – fight. But the media discourse on the issue seems to revolve around the issue of rules of engagement and the differing approaches of the UK/US forces. Again the media refuse to see the larger issue. To me, what this whole issue shows is just how much of a client state we are. We see the evidence for this again and again – the fact that the decision to go to war was taken a long time before the public discourse, that there was never any question of the UK backing the US and now, UK troops are to be used as a political football by the US.

Neo-Labour ministers have been busy tying to say this is not a political deployment and claiming that it will not be noticed in the US: (e.g. Caroline Flint on Question Time 21/10/04, "I don’t think that people in Boston, Milwaukee or Chicago are going to be particularly affected by what is a military decision.") Bullshit. I checked google news to see what US media outlets have picked up on the deployment – and surprise, surprise – its quite a few: Boston Globe, Kansas City Star, Houston Chronicle, Washington Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, CNN, Voice of America, ABC News, Bloomberg, USA Today - to name but a few. Looks like the editors of the US do think this re-deployment is news.

Time for us to wake up and smell the coffee.

PS. Crimethink have a new poster out...