The Honest Politician

How can you tell when a politician is lying? According to the very bad old joke, when his lips are moving. Unfortunately, it appears that our current crop of politicians are trying to prove that this is only inaccurate in as far as it doesn't also include when he's writing. Between the exaggerations, half-truths, spins, and out-right lies, even occasional moments of honesty from our leaders would seem to be an increasingly rare occurrence.

A few examples might help. According to many a statement from our ministers, the right-wing media, the American executive, and many other members of the "coalition of the willing" Spain's change in government following the terrorist attacks in Madrid represented, depending on the commentator, weakness, cowardice, appeasement, or being soft on terrorism. Let's leave aside the lack of respect shown for democracy by these self-appointed champions of freedom, and look at these claims. As I discussed last week, there is a vastly different perceived cost to a war fought at the other end of the continent compared to one fought in your own backyard. The outgoing Spanish government signed an unwilling nation up for the former. It is no huge surprise that they paid an electoral price when it turned out they had also signed up for the latter.

Where is the weakness or cowardice in a nation saying that the price for our commitment to this war was higher than we were led to believe, therefore when our current commitment ends, we will make no new ones? While we're at it, who are the Spanish supposed to be appeasing? Hussein? He's already gone. Bin Laden? The new government is every bit as committed to the fight against bin Laden as the previous one. Perhaps even more so, having not fallen for the distraction of Iraq. And who is soft on terrorism? The incoming government that has committed to hunting down everyone involved in the Madrid bombings, which it would currently appear would include much of the al Qaeda hierarchy, or the outgoing government that ignored al Qaeda to attack the softer target of Iraq, and lied to those investigating the bombings in the hope of avoiding electoral defeat?

It is deeply insulting to the Spanish people to describe their entirely reasonable, democratic decision to change government as cowardice or supporting terrorism. It is exactly equivalent to someone claiming shortly after September the 11th that Americans were cowards for not tackling bin Laden sooner. The latter is, to this day, an unthinkable slur, yet the former trips merrily from the tongues of politicians and media in Britain and America. It isn't a great surprise that such sickening views are expressed by a White House that believes that when Bush says "Jump" and government not immediately asking "How high, Mr President?" is effectively siding with al Qaeda. However the British government and their media lapdogs should know better. If nothing else, they should know that the only regime change al Qaeda is interested in for Spain is to fundamentalist Islamic rule.

A similarly sickening example can be seen in the reaction to Israel's assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas. Jack Straw, echoing a more tactfully worded statement from the Prime Minister's office, described the killing as "unlawful", "unjustified" and "unacceptable". Such outrage might carry more weight if it weren't for Straw's own record. Where was the condemnation when America assassinated known terrorists in Yemen? And how exactly does this killing differ from our own actions in Afghanistan and Iraq? Iraq's weapons of mass destruction having been proven to never have existed, the justification for war rests solely on the use of violence to destroy Hussein. Or are we saying that the head of Hamas is somehow a significantly nicer person than Hussein? While I have every sympathy with the plight of the Palestinian people, we are talking about an organisation that turns disadvantages youths into suicide bombers, and sends them against Israeli civilians. If the assassination of a terrorist leader on foreign soil is illegal, how do we justify the invasion of Afghanistan, where we (with notably less success) were attempting to do exactly that?

All of which is not to say that I approve of the killing. While I will not shed a single tear for the victim, it cannot be seen as anything other than the first step in escalating a conflict that has already cost too many lives. Assassinating Yassin would appear to have done nothing to damage Hamas' ability to operate, but has given them additional reasons to do so. Far from Israel defending itself, Sharon's chest-beating machismo has opened his country to a whole new level of threat. Another example of political untruth.

Another case of political double-speak tied to the infamous war on terror is the current investigation in America into September the 11th. Now, if there is some startling revelation of a systematic intelligence failure or individual incompetence that meant that a genuine chance to prevent the hijackings was lost, maybe there is some point to these proceedings. As it is, they currently appear to be a group of politicians keen to find that great American bogey man - the person whose fault it is. As the litigation industry has proved, there are many Americans who can't conceive of anything bad happening without someone being to blame. Unfortunately, beyond the obvious al Qaeda suspects, it is highly unlikely that anyone could have done anything different that would have prevented the September 11th attacks.

Instead, the investigation has become a chance for political point scoring. Bush has been criticised for not taking the al Qaeda threat seriously, yet Clinton made bin Laden public enemy number one, but failed to take any effective action. However seriously Bush took the threat, it wouldn't have made any practical difference. It would be easy to write the investigation off as a Democrat spin tool to attack Bush on matters outside his control, if it weren't for the fact that Bush is playing the same game. He has already started campaigning for re-election on the grounds that September the 11th proves America needs his apparently safe pair of hands. This seems an odd spin to put on a presidency that has seen America's largest ever terrorist attack, then bungled the hunt for the perpetrators, and finally been distracted for two years by Iraq.

It isn't exactly a startling revelation that politicians lie. Yet too many people base too much of their politics on which politicians they find more believable. It does all good to sit back and think logically about the claims all sides are making. And, unfortunately, we often find that all sides are being equally dishonest.

Graham Robinson. 24th March 2004.

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