NP Rushdie mention

[Doug Millison]

http://www.counterpunch.org/tariqempire1.html

"[...] But whereas Johnson drew on his past, as a senior state-intellectual
within the heart of the American establishment, to warn us of the dangers
inherent in the imperial pursuit of economic and military domination,
former critics of imperialism found themselves trapped by the debris of
September 11. Many have now become its most vociferous loyalists. I am not,
in this instance, referring to the belligerati - Salman Rushdie, Martin
Amis and friends - ever-present in the liberal press on both sides of the
Atlantic. They might well shift again. Rushdie's decision to pose for the
cover of a French magazine draped in the stars and stripes could be a
temporary aberration. His new-found love for the empire might even turn out
to be as short-lived as his conversion to Islam. [...] What they forget is
that empires always act in their own self-interests. The British empire
cleverly exploited the anti-slavery campaigns to colonise Africa, just as
Washington uses the humanitarian handwringing of NGOs and the bien pensants
to fight its new wars today. September 11 has been used by the American
empire to re-map the world. European continental pieties are beginning to
irritate Cheney and Rumsfeld. They laugh in Washington when they hear
European politicians talk of revitalising the UN. There are 189 member
states of the UN. In 100 of these states there is a US military presence.
For UN, read US? [...]