Posted on 23-5-2003

When Left Is Right
By Alan Marston

Helen Clark's comments about Bush and Gore and Iraq were left... and right.
Not right as in right-wing, right as in true. The comments I believe came
from below an instinct for political power, they came from a place unique
to our species, an instinct for what is noble as opposed to what is
profane. The war for oil in Iraq stinks of greed. The right-wing of New
Zealand who support the Iraq invasion stink of greed.

Helen Clark, acting for a moment from instinct, transcended the base
concerns of a political ego when she criticised Bush. The subsequent
apologies are unseemly, but probably politically unavoidable. Its been
done, there's no going back, the Bush administration dislikes the Clark
government, will have been plotting against it and has now acted overtly, a
US official's attack on the Prime Minister links Helen Clark's personal
criticism of President George W. Bush with no chance of a free-trade deal.

Bollocks. There was never a chance of free-trade with the US, or free
anything for that matter. Nevertheless, the comments signal a return to the
by now familiar political environment vis-a-vis the US-NZ, namely `unfriendly'.

Oh dear, in the US bad books, again. How sad. A US Government spokesman
said personal attacks by Helen Clark on Mr Bush had been "beyond the call".
"You can forgive friends a lot, but in the way the world really operates,
personal attacks are beyond the call, particularly from friends," he said.
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick told the US House of Representatives
agriculture committee on Wednesday that there had been "some things done
recently that would make [a free-trade agreement] harder to carry" to
Congress. Asked what Mr Zoellick had meant, the spokesman said that, while
he could not talk for Mr Zoellick, the way the Iraq issue was handled had
raised eyebrows in Washington. "When you have a long-time friend and you
are in a situation which is a very critical one for your sense of national
security, although you don't always expect your friends to agree with you
all the time ... the way that is handled and the way it's expressed is
important." "When already-hoped-for co-operation isn't there and comments
get increasingly more strident about 'it has to be the UN, it has to be the
UN, it has to be the UN' and then the most responsible person in that
Government all of a sudden comes out and sort of personally attacks the
President, it's that one step beyond."

Its not easy being true to right-livelihood, but it is worth infinitely
more than a cheap and brutal deal to satisfy the right-wing.