Bush and Blair's pronouncements are becoming ever more Orwellian in their resolute defiance of reality
Jonathan Freedland Wednesday April 21, 2004 The Guardian
... Friday's performance at the White House rose garden was a display of the [denial of reality] technique so virtuosic, requiring such intellectual gymnastics, the pair [Bush & Blair] should take their show on tour in a political Cirque du Soleil. They could call themselves the Duo of Doublethink.
Naturally, Bush went first with a rapid-fire series of statements that stand at almost surreal odds with the truth. "Iraq will be free, Iraq will be independent," he promised, just as soon as the "transfer of sovereignty" is complete on June 30. But look at the reality. On July 1 Iraq will still have up to to 130,000 foreign troops on its soil as well as 14 "enduring" US military bases. Every move of the new authority - consisting of individuals handpicked by the American pro-consul Paul Bremer and with no democratic mandate whatsoever - will be subject to the approval of a "US embassy" which will administer some $18.4 bn in reconstruction funds and be the largest such mission in the world. Iraqi infrastructure, from the electricity grid to the courts, will be reshaped and run out of the embassy. Iraqi industry will be on sale to foreign ownership and the Iraqi military will still take its orders from the US commander. So June 30 will not be a handover of "sovereignty" at all, and Iraq will be neither "free" nor "independent", at least not according to any common-sense definition of those terms. Yet Bush and Blair continue to speak of the end of June as if it was Iraqi independence day.
And that's nothing compared with the rest of the Bush-Blair show. Behold the comedy of the president's declaration that "our coalition has no interest in occupation". Or the prime minister's insistence that no "outside" forces will be allowed to determine Iraq's future - as if the US and British armies are not outside forces doing precisely that. These are examples of doublethink to rival Bremer's exquisite remark to an American interviewer earlier this month that the Iraqi resistance is made up of people who "think that power in Iraq should come out of the barrel of a gun. That's intolerable and we will deal with it". (Where does the coalition's power flow from, if not the barrel of a gun?)
Perhaps the problem is one of self-awareness. Maybe Bush, Blair and Bremer do not see that they are heading a US and British occupation of Iraq, and genuinely forget that they are outsiders ruling the country. Or maybe there is a wider error here. For the doublethink spreads far. Witness Blair's assertion that "we have been involving the UN throughout" - when the one thing everyone knows about this war is that it was waged without the involvement or backing of the UN. Or Blair's breezy reassurance that from now on "the UN will have a central role", as if he had not noticed that, one year ago, he stood beside Bush in Belfast and watch him repeatedly promise the UN a "vital role" which never came. Does the prime minister not see reality? Or does he think the rest of us won't notice?
Iraq is not the only Orwellian zone where black is white and day is night. With a straight face, Bush turned to the Israel-Palestine conflict and declared that "we're not going to prejudge the final status discussions" - even though not 48 hours earlier he had stood next to Ariel Sharon and done exactly that. Bush had prejudged two aspects of any future negotiations, explaining that Israel would be allowed to keep key settlement blocs on the West Bank and bar Palestinian refugees from returning to homes in Israel. Both of these steps might indeed be part of an eventual negotiated settlement of the conflict, but Bush made up his mind in advance. "No one's prejudging those" matters declared Blair last Friday - except the man standing right next to him.
On and on they go, announcing that the Earth is flat. "This is not a unilateral attempt to impose a settlement," said Blair of the Bush-Sharon pact, when even he must know that the very reverse is true. But he says it anyway, with steady-eyed certainty. The road map is not dead; Iraq is free; the referendum is now good; and, as Orwell might have added, war is peace. ...
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1197127,00.html>
Carl
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