I blame the scapegoats (32 page)

Of course, the key difference with this
particular quiz show is that the longer the lawyers can string out the
questions, the closer they get to earning themselves another million. On
Wednesday the video of the entire show in question was played in court. When
Chris Tarrant said, 'What is butterscotch?' the judge was jumping up and down
saying, 'Ooh, I know this one - it's D: brittle toffee. It's definitely D!' and
the lawyers felt obliged to applaud His Honour's impressive display of general
knowledge. Then came the next question: 'For two thousand pounds: In
Coronation
Street,
who is Audrey's daughter?' and with all the
jury nodding to each other about the correct answer, the judge lost patience
and said, 'Look, do we really have to watch this all the way through . . .'

The
allegation is that this contestant won his million with the assistance of
someone in the audience coughing at key moments to signal which choice was the
correct answer. More worryingly, it appears that this covert method of
prompting the right response is spreading beyond mere entertainment shows. Over
recent weeks our own Prime Minister has repeatedly been in the hot seat and
forced to answer some very difficult questions on the subject of the impending
war with Iraq. Allegations have now been made that at each stage the PM was
being assisted by a man called George W. Bush who was sitting in the audience
coughing emphatically at crucial moments. Now the transcript of
Who
Wants To Be A Military Blair?
is published here for
the first time.

'Prime Minister, would you support a war
against Iraq that did not have the backing of the United Nations?'

'Hmmm
. . . I'm tempted to say that we must have UN support.' Silence. Blair then
appears unsure about this answer. 'But then again, maybe we have a duty to
support the Americans with or without the UN . . .' A distinctive cough is
heard from Mr Bush sitting in the third row. 'Yes, yes, I think that's the
right answer . . .' Another loud cough. 'Definitely, I'm sure of it now. I'm
going to plump for support the Americans whatever.'

As is traditional, the questioning gets
harder. 'Okay, now remember this question is worth billions of pounds in
defence and reconstruction contracts for British companies. So, for ten
billion pounds: Would you begin the bombing of Iraq before there has even been
a second UN resolution or a vote in the House of Commons?'

'Hmmm . . . not sure,' says Blair, seeming
deliberately to consider his choices out loud. 'Should we start bombing Iraq
now?' Suddenly Mr Bush can be clearly heard coughing like a heavy smoker with
bronchitis. One or two of the splutters even sound like a thinly disguised
'Yes!' 'Actually, I think I do know this one,' says the British PM. (There's no
point in Tony asking the audience because he did that right at the beginning;
they all voted against the war and he chose to disregard them.) 'Yes,
definitely! In fact, the bombing has already started.' It's confirmed that this
is true and Tony leaps up and punches the air.

'Congratulations! And here's your prize - an
enormous blank cheque made out from you to the Americans . . . Oh, but before
you leave, there are some gentlemen in the wings. They want to talk to you
about breaking international law . . .'

28
March 2003

The
auditions to be Saddam Hussein's lookalike must be rather nervous affairs. All
of Iraq's finest impressionists are summoned to the Imperial Palace, along with
make-up artists, prosthetics experts and the proprietor of Moustaches 'R' Us.
And then the Iraqi equivalents of Rory Bremner or Robin Williams have to stand
before the brutal, vain and famously short-tempered dictator and do their very
best parody of him.

'Why are you twitching like that? I don't
twitch!' barks Saddam as the Republican Guards try to suppress their laughter
at the brilliance of the caricature.

'We will defeat the American criminals . . .'
continues the impressionist, twitching satirically as the soldiers collapse
into uncontrollable laughter which they have to pretend are tears of love for
their glorious leader.

'And you are nowhere near handsome enough -
why have you got a great big bulbous nose, I don't have a bulbous nose. We
should get Richard Gere to be my lookalike.'

With
an atmosphere like this, it's no wonder that Saddam's broadcasts end up being
such dull and unwatchable affairs. The format is wooden and old fashioned, with
none of the intimacy or clever camera tricks that Western broadcasters have
learned. For example, Saddam

would surely benefit
from having a co-presenter; someone like Judy Finnegan with whom he could flirt
on the
Breakfast Time
sofa
before they glanced through next week's newspaper headlines.

'So, Judy, what is next Wednesday's
Baghdad
Times
saying?' he could ask with a little wink.

'Well, Saddam, they've got you leading the
victory parade over the vanquished Americans - and very handsome you look too!'
and they'd share an affectionate giggle as they cut to their resident zany
weatherman predicting a light south-easterly breeze giving way to huge clouds of
oily smoke all over the country.

So apart from losing the military battle,
Saddam is also currently losing the propaganda war. These days military
spending is wasted if you don't have the media back-up to show the war from
your viewpoint. Alfred Hitchcock maintained that in a thriller the audience's
sympathies had more to do with where you placed the camera than they did with
accepted notions of morality. Take an everyday burglary, for example. Film it
from the victim's point of view, following him as he walks nervously down the
stairs because he's heard an intruder, and you are obviously on the homeowner's
side. But if the camera had followed that burglar through the window and then
suddenly he'd heard someone coming down the stairs, you'd think, 'Oh no, quick,
get out!' And in this war it's the intruders who have got the most cameras. The
Americans understand the Hitchcock Principle all too well, which is why they
built an enormous media centre in the middle of the desert almost before they
did anything else.

More problematic Hollywood rules also apply,
of course. The attention span of the modern audience is nowhere near as long as
it used to be. In centuries gone by not only were the plays and epic poems much
longer, but the wars were too. But there's no way that a modern scheduler could
tolerate a six-year war today, not with all the competition from the movie
channels and reality TV shows. That's why these days we only go to war against
really easy opponents, to make sure it's all over before we start reaching for
the remote control. Otherwise they'd have to come up with new ways to keep us
all interested - introducing
Fame Academy-style
phone
votes to let the viewers decide who wins the mother of all battles. 'If you
want George Bush to win the war, phone or text the number on your screen now!
If you want Saddam Hussein to win, phone this second number and hold for a
visit from the CIA . . .'

As it is, the new concept of twenty-four-hour
slaughtertainment that's hit the airwaves is still compulsive television. The
Oscars have had their lowest audience for years, because viewers want to catch
the ending of the action adventure movie happening over on CNN. Perhaps this
branch of showbiz should have its own awards ceremony. Best Supporting Actor:
Tony Blair. Best Special Effects: the American Air Force. Best Editing: award
to be shared between all the American news channels. George W. Bush would go up
to the podium to collect his special award: 'I would like to thank my dad,
without whom this war would not have been possible.' And then there would be a
little bit of controversy and the microphone would disappear into the lectern
because one or two speakers used the occasion to criticize Hollywood films
they'd seen that didn't quite work for them.

Except that they probably know it was
Hollywood that taught them all the rules. America's point of view is dictated
by the 'p.o.v.' in the movie director's meaning of the phrase. More westerners
would have cried at the close-up human fiction in
Saving
Private Ryan
than shed tears to see real-life
explosions lighting up a distant Baghdad. No wonder the US military were so
keen to destroy Baghdad's main television station this week. Mao said that
power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Now it comes out of the end of whichever
gun has the cameras right behind it.

4
April 2003

The following article is reprinted from the
journal of the Washington Freedom Association, which has been hugely
influential in shaping George
W.
Bush's foreign policy due to its uncompromising far-right Republican outlook in
easy-to-read large print.

The
war is now two weeks old and it seems incredible to many of us on Capitol Hill
that Saddam Hussein has not yet surrendered. Has his translator not explained
to him exactly what George Bush said: that 'Baghdad will endure
bombardmentalization'? That 'the Iraqi people must be freed from this
tyrannosaurus regime'? What bit of 'non-conditional capitulization' does Saddam
not understand?

The
Washington Freedom Association is of the opinion that American foreign policy
and the principles of free enterprise must go hand in hand. Yet we are
permitting this war to be pursued by Federal Government instead of outsourcing
the operation to American private companies. War pursued by central government
necessitates higher levels of federal taxation and is thus incompatible with
the very freedom for which American service personnel are risking their lives.
'Free enterprise warfare' would not only result in an army unfettered by
federal bureaucracy, but by fielding an army employed by a limited company
rather than a nation state, troops would not be impeded by

excessive
petty international regulations such as the Geneva Convention. In addition, the
boost to share prices of the companies conducting the conflict would have a
regenerative effect on the US economy as a whole. Already a number of private
companies have put in tenders to the State Department to take over the running
of the Iraq war. Our finest supermarkets already have large supplies of guns
and ammunition on their shelves; Exxon have extensive experience in laying
waste to large areas of countryside; Enron is looking for new spheres of
influence; and there are many more companies that so enthusiastically share the
President's vision of freedom that they contributed to his election campaign.

The
idea is already a reality. To pilot the idea of 'free market forces' a small
squadron of privatized vehicle immobilizers from the Bronx was recently
despatched to secure strategic bases in Iraq. Admittedly, early reports of this
covert operation have been disappointing. Although a number of key bridges,
power stations, etc., were successfully neutralized, it seems that despite
their extensive know-how the clampers destroyed major sections of
infrastructure in the wrong country. Reports from Iran indicate significant
levels of hostility were provoked by these private contractors blowing up the
wrong nation. However, the former traffic officers were then able to bring all
their experience to bear, refusing to enter into any dialogue or even make
eye-contact with the so-called 'victims', and instead impassively filled out
their paperwork before handing them a pro-forma letter explaining how to
appeal against an allegedly erroneous carpet bombing.

Teething
problems are to be expected, of course, but by outsourcing military operations
the Secretary of Defense will be freed up to concentrate on the more
appropriate diplomatic work of central government, extending full spectrum
dominance across the globe. It is not sufficient that the United Nations has
been sidelined while there remain countless international organizations
operating independently of American interests and security. It has come to our
attention, for example, that every four years there takes place an event known
as the Soccer World Cup, in which America has repeatedly been denied the
freedom to field a team reflecting superior US economic and military strength.
Instead FIFA has unilaterally decided that the US may only field just eleven
players, the same number permitted to Third World countries such as Brazil and
France. Like the UN, FIFA cannot be permitted to dictate the rules of
engagement where American participants are involved and English President Toby
Blare has promised he will back a rule change permitting a quarter of a million
US soccer players on the field at any one time. Similarly, the organizers of
the Miss World competition will no longer be permitted to allow winners from
non-compliant nation states. France will only be allowed to enter a man.