” But for Bush, America is not anxious to withdraw from Iraq. Far from it. The United States is fighting enemies who want to establish a “totalitarian empire”, he says, a “mortal danger to all humanity” which America will confront. Washington is fighting “as brutal an enemy as we have ever faced”. Come again? What about Hitler’s Nazi Germany? Mussolini’s fascist Italy? The cruel, expansionist Japanese empire which bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941?
“In Australia a couple of weeks ago, I found Muslims in Melbourne and Adelaide regaling me with stories of abuse and obscenities in the street. New laws are about to be introduced by Prime Minister John Howard to counter “terror” which will not only allow detention without trial, but also the extension of “sedition” laws which could be used against those (mainly Muslims, of course) who oppose Australia’s preposterous military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Well, count me in, John. I think you live in a great country with great people, but I’m planning to turn up in Adelaide again in the spring to argue against any Western involvement in those two countries, including yours. I look forward to a sedition charge. And to Lord Blair “doing something” against North Korea. I hope Mr Bush never does discover enemies worse than the Wehrmacht and the SS. And I sincerely trust that the little satraps of the religious neocrocracy that is Iran will grow up in the years to come. Alas. Like Peter Pan, our leaders wish to be forever young, forever childish, and forever ready to play in their bloodless sandpits – at our expense.”