How Gordon Brown Won The War

"Dulce et decorum est, eh wot? Carry on!"

British PM Gordon Brown was just off to the Khyber Pass to promise more war goodies for the lads. What a comfort to the homesick squaddie to see his nettled eminence, trussed up in a flak vest, arrive on the scene looking like a misdelivered panda. This way to the mating cage, sir.

Brown was traveling because he is under fire from the UK military brass for not spending enough on equipment. Sound familiar? The same charge was leveled by US liberals many times against Bush. It became a point of pride for the Kerry campaign, later turned to horror when his Swift Boating showed Democrats they can not play at right wing militarism convincingly. However much it is in their mind, they lack that ineffable thing located somewhat lower in the dark, clammier places where guile conjoins with bowel: the motherfucker instinct. It can't be faked. I don't see much motherfucker in that picture of Gordon, do you?* Kerry lacked it in spades, too, even if once he'd shot a few peasants from the safety of his widdle boatie.

"Supporting the troops" is what politicians say over here when campaigning to satisfy the armchair Genghis Khans at home watching FOX for the least sign of disloyalty. But it is only a guarantee against death threats, not one of votes nor of influence. The pro-war liberal politician, for all his murderous good intent, is chiefly an accessory to empire. Empire is the only concern of our system; its maintenance, its expansion; he is a ceremonial functionary, siphoning off grease splatter for the constituents and helping to pile high the plate of lard for the mil-industrial complex. Mostly he is scared by it; witness the number of Democrats voting against Kucinich's recent motion to withdraw immediately from Afghanistan. According to an eyewitness account I heard, a few were spluttering mad over the mere suggestion.

All of which, funnily enough, brings us back to the great irony of asymmetrical warfare in our and Britain's ongoing imperial adventures: the local resistance appears to do well on far less than the invaders. As in Southeast Asia forty years ago so too now in South-Central Asia and beyond. For the amount spent on fuel, grooming and security for crating Gordon Brown off for a day to Afghanistan, you could probably feed a thousand local resistance fighters for a month.

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*However, according to Andrew Rawnsley's new book, Brown is such a motherfucker to his own staff that he had one terrified aide covering up in the back of the limo as he threatened to bash him. Points for style, but not really relevant.