Gordon McLaughlan: Sound of too many hands clapping

We were brought up in this country to regard dissent as something not only to be tolerated in a healthy democracy but to be accepted as the function of a sincere minority.

How would you feel if Helen Clark made a speech in the House of Representatives and every member of Parliament applauded her as she went along? I would feel very, very uncomfortable indeed.

I share few political beliefs with Richard Prebble or Winston Peters but the day I see them punctuating a Labour leader's Speech from the Throne with standing ovations I will consider the end of democracy nigh.

Churchill, for example, had to deal with internal political dissent during World War II when Germans were planning an invasion.

We used to laugh at the Politburo coverage that showed its members standing and cheering their leaders. We laugh and shake our heads at organised, choreographed protests in Iraq and North Korea.

That's why I felt so queasy as the joint Houses of the American Congress punctuated the State of the Nation address by President Bush with unanimous standing ovations - especially when I know from personal experience that a number of the people present, including a senior senator, privately have strong reservations about Bush and his policies.

Someone I mentioned this to asked whether I knew the ovations were unanimous, and I replied that even the lately mellow American press would surely not have missed anyone dissenting by keeping his or her seat in the heat of such artificially created emotion.

Where were the dissenters to the Bush policies on the economy and the war, of whom we know there are millions? Or, rather, where were their representatives in Congress?

That none of them even deferred assent is unhealthy in a democracy. That genuine dissent is not taken seriously on CNN or any other of the mainstream American television channels is alarming.

The New York Times' chief diplomatic correspondent, Steven Weisman, has been quoted: "It's not that the press is uncritical of the people it covers but it's critical the way a sports writer is critical, calling the points and measuring success or failure based on wherever the Administration wants to be ... "

Consistent with this appraisal, almost every commentary on American politics I read at the moment refers to the superbly managed Bush Administration and its secrecy. They write and talk of it not as a tough nut that needs to be cracked but as a fact of life that they observe from afar.

Remember the ferocious attack on the Clinton Administration when the President tried to cover up an act of folly that threatened nothing but America's moral vision of itself?

Had there been dissent in the chamber, had a number of Democrats stuck by their beliefs and sat on their hands, would the approval rating for Bush have soared from 67 to 77 per cent in one fell swoop, or would more Americans have been forced then to think harder for themselves?

We were also brought up in this country to suspect easy rhetoric, the sort of stuff that advertising writers can produce with such facility, designed to persuade and deceive. Every writer must have winced at the confections of Bush's speech.

"If this is not evil then evil has no meaning" follows an attempt to elevate Saddam Hussein from a little-league tyrant to comparison with Hitler and Stalin. It also suggests Bush wants this campaign to be a holy war.

Then note the sideswipe at Iran, a country that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror. Is Iran next on the regime-change agenda?

Did evil have no meaning until recently? We remind ourselves of Pinochet, of the more anonymous torturers and killers of Nicaragua. We think of the disappeared in Argentina under the military junta, of the mass killer of Uganda, Idi Amin (now in asylum in Saudi Arabia, an ally of the US).

We remind ourselves of the other tyrants of Africa who have encouraged the killing of millions. We think (dare I mention it) of the millions of Vietnamese who died in a war fought in the confusion of rhetorical lies. None of these people or events discomfited American administrations either Republican or Democratic; in fact, in many cases, they received US moral and material support.

So let's put this unhealthy congressional unanimity and this tawdry designer language of deception aside: the United States cannot in all honesty claim the right to invade any country no matter how oppressive the regime simply to change it for a better one.

So the argument comes down to weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's ability to threaten other countries with them. Let us again look at the evidence. Let us again give the weapons inspectors more time and double their numbers if need be.

If Bush believes, and I'm sure he does, that the prime enemy of the people of Iraq is their own leadership, he should be breaking his back to find a peaceful way out of this without having to kill a substantial number of those same Iraqis to whom he offers so much compassion.