Iron curtain

Did the Cornered Rat Syndrome really provoke George W. Bush to suggest bombing a network headquarters in US friendly Qatar? The sad thing is that it’s so easy to believe of this President whose output has been a vast network of sometimes interlocking, sometimes contradictory lies and ferocious cover-ups.

We’ve already had leaked information about how Tony Blair and George Bush collaborated in faking information that was used to trick us into going to war with a country that was no threat and now we have minutes of a face to face meeting between Blair and Bush in the White House in April 2004 in which Bush promoted an air strike to destroy Al Jazeera. Although Blair apparently talked Bush out of this mad and illegal act, Britain has acted to silence the press lest any more revelations come out. David Keogh, a former Cabinet Office official, has been charged under the secrets act with sending the memo on the Blair-Bush conversation to Leo O 'Connor, researcher to the former Labor MP Tony Clarke.

The image of Bush as a revenge-seeking madman is becoming hard to deny. An attack on a friendly country designed to silence the Arab press about atrocities in Fallujah furthers the perception of the US as a rogue nation without concern for truth, justice or human life. The only thing that makes us look worse is the fact that there remains a third of our citizens who still support Bush.

According to the Guardian, the censorship of the press is unprecedented. A move by the House of Commons to force Blair to publish a record of his discussions with Bush was tabled. The fact that no denial was issued guarantees the accuracy of the leaks. One can almost hear the Iron Curtain descending behind the roar of Bushs cries of Freedom.