10-12-05, 9:14 am

FOREIGN Office Minister Kim Howells has nailed his colours to the mast of reason best exemplified by religiosity-addled Pat Robertson.

Both men believe in painting an utterly preposterous picture of reality and then building policy on that basis. Mr Robertson hallucinates over reports that Venezuela is contemplating investigation of the possible benefits of civil nuclear energy and raves over the imminent threat of President Hugo Chavez intimidating a defenceless US with nuclear weapons.

Not to be outdone, former Communist Party member and CND supporter Mr Howells suggests that any decision on replacement of Trident could depend on whether Iran develops a nuclear arsenal.

There is as little evidence to link Venezuela and Iran with WMD as there was with Iraq, but it did not stop the killers in the White House and Downing Street from destroying that country.

Iran has a vile record of misogyny, homophobia and suppression of its democratic and progressive opposition, but these cannot be used by imperialism as pretexts for invasion.

The idea that already existing nuclear states are a force for democracy, human rights and the rule of law is so outdated as to be laughable.

Have people who perpetrate this claptrap stopped to think who is behind the torture chambers of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Abu-Ghraib jail in Baghdad, Bagram air base in Afghanistan or those anonymous hell-holes in Egypt and elsewhere to which the imperialists sub out many of their torture contracts?

Do they not see the slightest resemblance between the slaughter and destruction inflicted on innocent people in Fallujah and on their counterparts on London's public transport system? Home Secretary Charles Clarke's attempt to draw a civilised distinction between murderous violence that is delivered by a cruise missile or by carpet bombing and the use of rucksack or car bombs that achieves similar mayhem was pathetic.

Can imperialism's apologists not detect even a minimal connection between the West's invasion, occupation and ongoing humiliation of vast swathes of the world and the small number of terrorist attacks in the US, Britain, Spain and elsewhere?

As far as an increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister is concerned, he is never wrong and he will defend democracy and hard-won rights even if he has to infringe those historical gains to do so.

He feels secure that his MPs will fight shy of challenging him to the extent of parliamentary defeat or loss of leadership, believing that they will keep their heads down to preserve the unity of the Labour Party and the wider movement.

Unless he is stopped dead in his tracks, there may be no chance of winning the next election and no party worth saving.

Mr Blair must not be allowed to choose his own leaving date, while driving through the 'relentlessly new Labour policies' that he has threatened.

The price is not simply the future of the Labour Party but the existence of an array of democratic rights for which the people of this country have fought for generations.

From Morning Star