The Glenn and Helen Show: A Foreign Perspective on U.S. Politics

Two weeks after 9/11, here is Little asking Cowan [at minute 29:00]:

"The actions of The United States will have an international import - it's not just about US national interests - and yet the international community doesn't seem to have any eventual checks and balances to impose upon George Bush if he doesn't be measured in his response."

Cowan responds that everything he'd just heard in his meeting with Colin Powell the previous day was "consistent with the prospect that the response be proportionate", and would be in accordance with any nation's right to defend itself, and with UN Security Council Resolution 1368.

Little counters Cowan [at 29:50]:

"But you're speaking in advance of the action taking place. We've gone ahead and given our direct support in terms of over-flights and the use of Irish airports before we even know the shape of military action. We're in danger, aren't we, of pledging our support for something we don't know the nature of."

In defense, an obviously annoyed Cowan will not admit to offering unconditional support for the US, and says that Ireland has offered no "blank check". Mark Little is skeptical.

On October 30, 2001, in a 'Prime Time' show that was addressing the near hysteria in Ireland over the fantasized refugee crisis in Afghanistan - a discussion which wholly failed to explain that Afghan suffering was primarily driven by drought, and by the Taliban, rather than by the USA - Ken O'Shea reported on the US bombing of Afghanistan in relation to Tony Blair's gathering woes at home [at minute 14:00]:

O'Shea characterizes the day's address from Tony Blair [at minute 15:00]:

"Repeating the reasons like a mantra, [Blair] told his increasingly skeptical electorate why Britain and the West were at war ... He also took the opportunity to remind the british public that this could be a long drawn out campaign, a war without end."

Note that we are not informed that it was Ken O'Shea and not Tony Blair who called it "a war without end".

During the US "strategy of retribution" O'Shea notes that "in the absence of hard targets, or obvious military successes, people are bound to start asking questions".

The O'Shea piece is followed by a discussion between Robert Fox, Fintan O'Toole, and an annoyed Richard Perle (in Washington DC) who attempts to answer O'Toole's claims [see minute 23:25] that we "know as a matter of established fact that there is a serious humanitarian catastrophe beginning to unfold which will almost certainly unfold..." and that "the morality of the campaign is absolutely linked to whether or not it's working, and it clearly isn't working ..."

Do not trust these people.

Timothy O'Connor
New York