Playing the Freedom Game: Bush & the Freedom Medal

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Former Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, smiles as President George W. Bush presents him with the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom. White House photo by Chris Greenberg

It was the final cast of the dying days of his administration. And at its sunset, the Presidential medal of freedom recipients were announced by George W. Bush. Former Prime Ministers Tony Blair (Britain) and John Howard (Australia), along with Colombian president Álvaro Uribe, were in the East Room of the White House to receive their award. They were greeted by a man chortling in his joy.

Given the cultivation of double-speak that has been a hallmark of all three administrations in such matters as the ‘War on Terror’ or its insidious twin, the ‘War on Drugs’, the award of a freedom medal to these personalities should come as little surprise. ‘Freedom’ is notoriously difficult to define, though it is rarely consistent with illegal wars, control orders and obsessively keen surveillance.

That, of course, remains the instinctive argument of those who violate laws, notably in office. Such acts were done to protect public safety. Both Blair and Howard committed forces to an invasion of Iraq on that premise, staking their reputations on unearthing a miracle. Once the issue of safety (the weapons of mass deception) evaporated in Iraqi dust, a post-facto justification – liberation, came to the fore. The Iraqi incursion was particularly disastrous for Blair, who was criticized for accepting the medal in the first place. He remained mute through the proceedings, much as he had over the policies of rendition and Guantánamo.

Both former leaders, along with Bush, have also been responsible in their respective countries for the passage of draconian laws that have torn holes in the fabric of basic liberties. None are natural lawyers, believing that if a law is on the books, it must be legal.

On Australian radio, Howard spoke of how he was ‘honoured by [the award], more because of the compliment it pays to our country Australia.’ People do get governments that incarnate a certain zeitgeist, and that particular creature was a nasty one. For much of his time in office, Howard had little interest in the affairs of Australian citizens locked up in Camp X-Ray, and, like Blair, never condemned the notion of rendition. Bush, who had affectionately baptized all Australians ‘Texans’, could be trusted to do the right thing by those presumed ‘guilty’ thugs.

To the last, Howard remained ‘a sturdy friend in a time of need’, important enough to take precedence over the President-elect’s family. The Obamas had to settle for the Hay-Adams Hotel instead of the customary Blair House, occupied ever so briefly by John and wife Janette.

Stephen Kenny, the lawyer for long-time Guantánamo inmate and Australian citizen David Hicks could scarce believe the award. ‘I think in view of what’s happened at Guantánamo Bay and John Howard’s involvement in it, I think that it is extremely regrettable and clearly devalues the Medal of Freedom.’

If Kenny would care to see the recipients of that honour over the years, he should not be surprised. One usually mints medals in denial – in this case, the semantic play over the existence (or non-existence) of freedom. Medals, like people’s democracies, often affirm fictions rather than deny them.

Besides, what does a freedom medal actually entail? Robert McNamara, technocrat extraordinaire and architect of the failed war in Vietnam received it for being a ‘brilliant analyst’. And presumably one can engender freedom and combat tyranny through superlative baseball (Joe DiMaggio is there), something which might baffle most world citizens. Freedom, like deities, spring up in the most mysterious ways.

In the final analysis, it is perhaps fitting that Howard and Blair, who, along with Bush, assaulted the English language in a most brutal way while in office, substituting accepted terms for their opposites, should receive such an award. Some of their enraged citizens would have preferred court proceedings rather than a medal ceremony. However unlikely, they may well get their wish.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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