PlaNet www.pl.net
0800 752638
Planet Communications— delivering socially and environmentally conscious internet and media services since 1992.
PlaNet News & Views
|
|
|
Posted on 23-11-2004
No Appeasement Please
by Alan Marston
Sitting here in Auckland New Zealand it feels like the vast majority of
Americans have put up with and thereby bought into the greed that
systemically permeates US politics and business until the inevitable
happens, society is split into an imperial elite, obsequious
administrators and outsiders.
Being treated by US NeoCons as an outsider is bad, being treated as a
foreign and probably menacing species is pretty galling. If that is akin
to blasphemy then God is dead as far as I'm concerned.
Surely it behoves NZ politicians to defend NZ against the theocracy that
is the US government, its agencies and the corporations that manipulate
it. We appear to be undefended, witness the latest encounter of political
leaders with US President in Chile. Fran O'Sullivan reporting in the NZ
Herald today wrote that the United States President George W. Bush again
hijacked the agenda at this year's Apec summit, using it to mount a new
attack on the "Axis of Evil" nations North Korea and Iran.
The Asia-Pacific leaders acquiesced to by their silence, including Helen
Clark. Not one leader tackled the validity of the United States' Iraq
invasion in their closed meetings - it was not even discussed, said New
Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. Rather, the leaders chose to become an
informal cheer squad to support the efforts of the second-term Bush
Administration to bring the recalcitrant nuclear nations to account. Nor
was there any public questioning around Santiago over Bush's urgings for a
crackdown on the aspirations of the two nations to take their place among
those that could be "entrusted" to use their own nuclear weapons wisely
(read here the US and China).
The hypocrisy of South Korea's own position - where it was smoked out by
the International Atomic Energy Agency for moving towards a nuclear
weapons programme - did not get a mention. Yesterday's Leaders' Statement
was pure vanilla, committing them to renewed efforts to combat terrorism
and ensure regional security.
Chief executives - who got the Bush message first hand when he dropped in
to address them on "Building Peace and Prosperity" at their adjoining
summit - did not punctuate his address with spontaneous applause this time
round. There was a wariness among the captains of Asia-Pacific big
business that Bush's jaw-boning might develop into the real thing if
Washington's hawks get out of line. This was tempered by the reality that
other parties to the Six Nation talks such as Chinese President Hu Jintao,
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh
Moo Hyun, who had face-to-face meetings with Bush, were hopeful the issue
could be resolved peacefully "by dialogue".
Helen Clark's own address to the CEOs' summit - where she spoke of the
need to ensure the US anti-terrorist agenda must also address the
Palestinian question and include a broader coalition - got strong marks,
but surely that is faint praise under the circumstances. Her comment that
it was "not in the interest of our planet to have a proportion of the
Muslim world deeply divided from the West" is worthy criticism, but like
Kerry's opener to his defeat, a little short and a little light in respect
of gravity.
Billions of people cry out for a political leader who can say to hell with
appeasement, so far in vain.
|
