The United States of America has gone mad, by John le Carré
[I remember reading old paperback copies of John le Carré’s novels, and collecting the occassional hardback… The French Lieutenant’s Woman is the one I remember the most. We’re sure making a great impression overseas under Dubya. -Thomas]
The United States of America has gone mad
John le Carré
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is
the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of
Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.
The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped
for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have
made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The
combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once
more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square
is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.
The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he
who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be
trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the
first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its
reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of
unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be
telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN
resolutions.
MORE:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-543296,00.html
