|
For a few years, I live most of the time in Britain. I woke up here at 7 a.m. to the Abu Ghraib photos on Sky News, and almost wall-to-wall tv news coverage (along with Falluja). I went for an appointment, and to read while I waited I was presented with a magazine and a tabloid paper with one of the pictures covering the entire frontpage. I was sick, and turned the paper over, ashamed of my American accent. I said nothing.
Back home, I googled and found an email form for Tony Blair at 10 Downing. I emailed Blair, begging him to separate himself from George W. Bush. Surely, I said, he must now realize what he supports when he supports Bush and his right-wing American political faction. I added that, besides Iraq, I had a more selfish reason for my request: that I feared for the survival of my country's democratic system under Bush and his right-wing associates and supporters. I said he must not realize how extreme they are, and that they seek to impose a theocracy on my country, which the framers of our Constitution feared and forbade. I wrote about many of the things we discuss here. I said that I and many other Americans believe Bush became President through extra-democratic means.
I begged him -- for the sake of the world, my country and his own, and, I suspected, the sake of his own conscience, heart and soul -- to separate himself, before the world, from George W. Bush, now.
|