I'm an American tired of American lies

Woody Harrelson
Thursday October 17, 2002
The Guardian

The man who drives me to and from work is named Woody too. A relief to me,
as it minimises the chance of my forgetting his name. I call him Woodman
and he calls me Wood. He has become my best friend here, even though he's
upset that I have quit drinking beer. He's smart, funny, and there's nothing
he hasn't seen in 33 years behind the wheel of his black cab. He drove me for
a while before I felt confident he liked me; he doesn't like people easily,
especially if they have a rap for busting up black cabs.

Woodman and I agree about a lot of things, but one thing we can never agree
about is Iraq. He thinks the only language Saddam understands is brute force.
I don't believe we should be bombing cities in our quest for one man. We've
killed a million Iraqis since the start of the Gulf war - mostly by blocking
humanitarian aid. Let's stop now. Thankfully, most of the Brits I talk to
about the war are closer to me than to Woodman. Only your prime minister
doesn't seem to have noticed.

I have been here three months doing a play in the West End. I am having the
time of my life. I love England, the people, the parks, the theatre. The play
is great and the audiences have been a dream. Probably I should just relax,
be happy and talk about the weather, but this war is under my skin - it
affects my sleep.

I remember playing basketball with an Iraqi in the late 80s while Iran and
Iraq were at war. I didn't know at the time that the US and Britain were
supplying weapons to both sides. I asked why they were always at war with
each other and he said something that stayed with me: "If it were up to the
people, there would be peace. It's the governments that create war." And now
my government is creating its second war in less than a year. No; war
requires two combatants, so I should say "its second bombing campaign".

I went to the White House when Harvey Weinstein was showing Clinton the
movie Welcome to Sarejevo, which I was in. I got a few moments alone with
Clinton. Saddam throwing out the weapons inspectors was all over the news
and I asked what he was going to do. His answer was very revealing. He said:
"Everybody is telling me to bomb him. All the military are saying, 'You gotta
bomb him.' But if even one innocent person died, I couldn't bear it." And I
looked in his eyes and I believed him. Little did I know he was blocking
humanitarian aid at the time, allowing the deaths of thousands of innocent
people.

I am a father, and no amount of propaganda can convince me that half a
million dead children is acceptable "collateral damage". The fact is that
Saddam Hussein was our boy. The CIA helped him to power, as they did the
Shah of Iran and Noriega and Marcos and the Taliban and countless other
brutal tyrants. The fact is that George Bush Sr continued to supply nerve gas
and technology to Saddam even after he used it on Iran and then the Kurds in
Iraq. While the Amnesty International report listing countless Saddam
atrocities, including gassing and torturing Kurds, was sitting on his desk,
Bush Sr pushed through a $2bn "agricultural" loan and Thatcher gave
hundreds of millions in export credit to Saddam. The elder Bush then had the
audacity to quote the Amnesty reports to garner support for his oil war.

A decade later, Shrub follows the same line: "We have no quarrel with the
Iraqi people." I'm sure half a million Iraqi parents are scratching their
heads over that. I'm an American tired of lies. And with our government, it's
mostly lies.

The history taught in our schools is scandalous. We grew up believing that
Columbus actually discovered America. We still celebrate Columbus Day.
Columbus was after one thing only - gold. As the natives were showering
him with gifts and kindness, he wrote in his diary, "They do not bear arms
... They have no iron ... With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make
them do whatever we want." Columbus is the perfect symbol of US foreign
policy to this day.

This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White
House (you call them "hawks", but I would never disparage such a fine bird)
have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any
non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist.

To the men in Washington, the world is just a giant Monopoly board. Oddly
enough, Americans generally know how the government works. The
politicians do everything they can for the people - the people who put them
in power. The giant industries that are polluting our planet as well as
violating human rights worldwide are the ones nearest and dearest to the
hearts of American politicians.

But in wartime people lose their senses. There are flags and yellow ribbons
and posters and every media outlet is beating the war drum and even
sensible people can hear nothing else. In the US, God forbid you should
suggest the war is unjust or that dropping cluster bombs from 30,000ft on
a city is a cowardly act. When TV satirist Bill Maher made some dissenting
remarks about the bombing of Afghanistan, Disney pulled the plug on him. In
a country that lauds its freedom of speech, a word of dissent can cost you
your job.

I read in a paper here about a woman who held out the part of her taxes that
would go to the war effort. Something like 17%. I like that idea, though in
the US it would have to be more like 50%. If you consider money as a form
of energy, then we see half our taxes and half the US government's energy
focused on war and weapons of mass destruction. Over the past 30 years,
this amounts to more than ten trillion dollars. Imagine that money going to
preserving rainforest or contributing to a sustainable economy (as opposed
to the dinosaur tit we are currently in the process of sucking dry).

I give in to Woodman, and we stop for a few beers. He asks me what I'd do in
Bush's shoes. Easy: I'd honour Kyoto. Join the world court. I'd stop
subsidising earth rapers like Monsanto, Dupont and Exxon. I'd shut down the
nuclear power plants. So I already have $200bn saved from corporate
welfare. I'd save another $100bn by stopping the war on non-corporate
drugs. And I'd cut the defence budget in half so they'd have to get by on a
measly $200bn a year. I've already saved half a trillion bucks by saying no
to polluters and warmongers.

Then I'd give $300bn back to the taxpayers. I'd take the rest and pay the
people teaching our children what they deserve. I'd put $100bn into
alternative fuels and renewable energy. I'd revive the Chemurgy movement,
which made the farmer the root of the economy, and make paper and fuel
from wheat straw, rice straw and hemp. Not only would I attend, I'd sponsor
the next Earth Summit. And, of course, I'd give myself a fat raise.

Woodman drops me at home and I ask if he likes my ideas. He offers a
reluctant "yes". As he pulls away he yells out, "But I'd never vote for a man
who can't handle a few pints at the end of the day!"

· Woody Harrelson appears in On an Average Day at the Comedy Theatre,
Panton Street, London SW1 until November 3.