March 27, 2003
THE BUNYIP is back, and
THE BUNYIP is back, and he's got Melbourne Age columnist Kenneth Davidson pinned down and squirming in a dank and inaccessible section of the billabong. Davidson, he writes, "does confirm a long-standing suspicion that fools seldom differ. In fact, they often use the same words."
Indeed. Here's Davidson on March 20:
Davidson: The blueprint for the creation of a �global Pax America�, to which Bush subscribes and which is driving the invasion of Iraq, was drawn up in September 2000 for Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush (George's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, called Rebuilding America's Defences: strategies, forces and resources for a new century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think tank Project for the New American Century.
And here's Neil Mackay in Scotland's Sunday Herald:
Mackay: The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Hmmm. Those two excerpts seem similar or something. While we're at it, let's review the Bunyip's other Davidson investigations. Here's a line from Kadaverous Kenneth's kolumn of October 7, 2002:
Davidson: The wording of the accord was designed to guarantee rejection. It amounted to a demand for Yugoslavia to surrender unconditionally to US/NATO control.
This is how Noam Chomsky expressed the same thoughts some years earlier:
Chomsky: ... the wording was designed so as to guarantee rejection. Perhaps so. It is hard to imagine that any country would consider such terms, except in the form of unconditional surrender.
The same Davidson column also recalled a 1998 piece by William Blum:
Davidson: In 1997, the US Senate passed the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act. Section 307 stipulates that 'The President may deny a request to inspect any facility in the United States in cases where the President determines that the inspection may pose a threat to the national security interest of the United States'.
Blum: Less than a year ago, the U.S. Senate passed an act to implement the �Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction� (Short title: Chemical Weapons Convention) ... The Senate act, Section 307, stipulates that 'the President may deny a request to inspect any facility in the United States in cases where the President determines that the inspection may pose a threat to the national security interests of the United States.'
Davidson: Section 303 of the act stipulates that 'any objection by the President to an individual serving as an inspector ... shall not be reviewable in any court'.
Blum: Section 303 further states that 'Any objection by the President to an individual serving as an inspector ... shall not be reviewable in any court.'
Davidson's September 23, 2002, column was what you could describe as "dependent" on a July 24 online item by Clinton Fernandes:
Davidson: Iraq was a client state or, in polite terms, an ally. Client states are defined, according to US academic Noam Chomsky, by their obedience, not their values. Saddam was given diplomatic cover for as long as he was obedient to US interests. Now, he is damned as a monster.
Fernandes: As Noam Chomsky has remarked, client states are called 'allies' in polite terms, and they are defined by their obedience, not their values. Saddam Hussein was an 'ally' until he became disobedient. While he was obedient, he was armed and given diplomatic cover. When he became disobedient ...
Davidson: A client oil state was first defined by Lord Curzon, who was the British foreign secretary after World War I. He said it was an 'Arab facade ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff . . . There should be no actual incorporation of the conquered territory in the dominions of the conqueror, but the absorption may be veiled by such constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer state and so on'.
Fernandes: This is what Lord Curzon referred to as an 'Arab facade' - a state 'ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan, and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff'. For the client state, the principle to be followed is that 'there should be no actual incorporation of conquered territory in the dominions of the conqueror, but that the absorption may be veiled by constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer State, and so on.'
And yet more from Davidson's Sept. 23 column, this time compared to a some lines written by Fernandes in April 2002:
Davidson: The official US State Department history (1945, volume 8, page 45) noted: 'These resources constituted a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history ... probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment.'
Fernandes: As the US State Department noted at the time, these reserves constitute 'a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history ... probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment'. Sources: (US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, VIII, 45; cited in Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).
Media Watch might be interested in all of this. As MW executive producer Peter McEvoy once wrote: "We try to be balanced and we're more than happy to come down on some lefty columnists if we catch them stuffing up."
It took a Bunyip to do it. Media Watch's team of state-funded researchers couldn't catch a mutant cold.
Posted by Tim Blair at March 27, 2003 12:18 PM