David Aaronovitch hits the mark in the Observer:
But our enemy is not America. It isn’t America that gives the most effective support to Sharonic intransigence – it’s Israeli insecurity that does that. It isn’t America that sends ambulances to blow up aid workers or Istanbul synagogues. It is America, above all, that is bearing the cost of helping to create a new Iraq – a new Iraq which, despite the violence, is being born in towns such as Hilla and cities such as Basra. And yet some of our writers and protesters – betraying their own professed ideals – identify with bombers and not teachers, administrators and policemen who are building the country.
Where is the red paint to protest against the blasts at Najaf, of the UN in Baghdad, of the Red Cross, of the synagogues, of the Bali night-club, of the Arab-Jewish restaurant in Haifa? Where are the ‘No Suicide Bombings’ posters in the Muswell Hill windows? Or do you really believe we can save ourselves by constructing a huge wall around these islands, or around America, and painting it with smileys? That maybe then the ills of the world will leave us alone?
Nonsense. So, Mr Bush, not for yourself necessarily, but in your capacity as head of state of a liberal democracy, and as representative of a people that we admire, and whose help we have needed in the past and may need again, I say welcome.
Well worth reading Aaronovitch’s piece in full. If he was a political party I’d vote for him.
Welcome George Bush? Why not? Good luck to progressive Americans in the presidential election, you’ve got your domestic reasons for opposing George Bush and we know them well.
But this week’s visit to London, ill-advised as it might be, is not about Bush’s tax breaks for the rich or his policy on the environment.
As the anti-democrats, the nihilists, the New Stalinists and their idiotic supporters who have the cheek to call themselves ‘left wing’ choose to turn all their hatred against the president of the United States, those of us who know fascism when we see it should not give any sympathy or solidarity to their protests.
For some reason there were some who objected to the term fascism being used to describe a brutal regime in Iraq that was dictatorial, anti-semitic, nationalist, expansionist, racist, anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-trade union, anti-democratic and which gassed to death ethnic minorities.
For next week’s protestors it was ‘demonisation’ to describe that regime as fascist.
Can we try and find a way avoid the word fascism to describe the blowing up of synagogues in Istanbul?
The real enemy is this fascism, not George Bush. In fact, hard as it may be for some to stomach, Bush has been at the forefront of the fight against the fascism of our age.
Those who march against Bush next week should think what message their protests send to those in the frontline of the fight against modern fascism around the world. But they won’t.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves, these protestors who oppose Starbucks but not death squads, don’t care about fascism anymore and they don’t care about international solidarity.
And they have the cheek to accuse the pro-war left of abandoning our principles.
