The world election

[CHIMO]

Welcome to the most important American election in living memory. A world election, in which the world has no vote. Four more years of Bush can confirm millions of Muslims in a self-defeating phobia against the west, Europe in hostility to America, and the US on the path to fiscal ruin. Four more years, and the Beijing Olympics will see ascending China dictating its terms to a divided world.
Don't be fooled by those who say that one lot is as bad as the other, or even, like the New Statesman's John Pilger, that Bush's re-election may be the lesser evil, because "supremacy is the essence of Americanism; only the veil changes or slips". Don't be put off by John Kerry's attempts to out-Bush Bush, as he attacks rather than applauds the president for inadvertently admitting that this "war on terror" cannot be "won" in the way that the second world war was won. Beyond the electoral posturing, Kerry knows that is true. As president, he would act accordingly, and the change would make a vast difference to every one of us.

The American election will have far more consequences for Europe than the last European elections. It's probably more important to Britain than the next British election. Yet there seems so little we can do to affect the outcome. We feel like a punter whose life savings have been invested in a bet on a single boxer in a single bout. All we can do is cheer our lungs out from the ringside. Except that if we shout too loudly for Kerry we may actually help the other man - especially if we shout in French.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1295508,00.html

[Jack Rabbit]

1. A part of Mr. Ash's piece worth reading:

The contemporary analysis is as bad as the history. Again and again, the war on terror - Wot, in Washington shorthand - is compared to the second world war or the cold war. There's only one way to win the war on terror, his key political adviser Karl Rove told an audience of young Republicans in the run-up to the convention. And that is "to chase the enemy to the ends of the earth and utterly destroy him". Like the cowboy hero of a hundred westerns. At the convention, they rally support with a film of US army tanks advancing down a road and warships cutting through the seas. Bush's own re-election website (www.georgewbush.com) has a homepage link entitled "Winning the war on terror". Of course, Republican leaders can make more sophisticated arguments in private conversation, but this whole campaign depends on projecting a grand narrative in which the US is engaged in a conventional war, which it will win mainly by martial valour and force of arms.

But it isn't, and it won't. "Utterly destroy him," cries Karl Rove. But who is he? Osama bin Laden? A Palestinian suicide bomber? An Iranian mullah? The unknown terrorist? The whole point of this new kind of struggle is that there is no single clearly identifiable leader or regime, no Hitler or Soviet Union, who can be thus destroyed. (Obviously, capturing Osama bin Laden, if he's still alive, would certainly help.) And if we accept, as we should, that we face a serious array of new threats, among which Islamist terrorism plays an important part, what is the role of military force in reducing the threat? Much less than in earlier wars. If military force was 80% responsible for the west's victory in the second world war, and perhaps - through the impact on the Soviet Union of the arms race - 30% responsible for the west's victory in the cold war (and even that figure may be too high), it will only be 10% - or perhaps 15% - responsible for winning this one.

[LWolf]

2. This is a great article, and the last line hits the hardest.

From the ringside of the world election, we should shout not for Europe, not for Bush, not even for Kerry, but for America to win. They'll know which America we mean.

I know what America they mean; my America. We want our country back.

The world wants OUR America back.