Monday, October 30, 2006

Greenhouse control or just hot air?

It has been announced by Britain's Environment Minister, David Miliband, that a raft of legislation may soon be enacted with the urgent aim of reducing the effects of climate change, cutting down the build up of greenhouse gases by pretty swingeing taxes on any contribution to the burning of carbon fossil fuels.

These could include, we are told, proportionate vehicle taxing depending on a combination of fuel consumption and carbon emissions, so its not just big vehicles that would pay the most but big OLD vehicles which pump a high volume of crap into the atmosphere.

They could include a pay as you drive scheme with different rates applied to each mile you drive based on the time of day.

Our holiday air flights could have a carbon emissions levy added making our cheap holiday flights considerably more expensive.

Haulage companies and inefficient industry could find themselves taxed and fined thus bumping up the cost of their goods and services.

I'm sure most people, who do understand the horrific consequences of global warming would be glad to suffer through the pocket to help stop this..IF the sacrifices were also seen to be global.

The worry for many is that, while setting a good example, Britain and the rest of Europe will be making great sacrifices to curb carbon emissions while the big polluters, primarily China and the United States, will continue on their own sweet way making precious little attempt to meet any targets lest it handicap their economic prosperity.

Fine that Mr Miliband has these grandiose ideas but there surely HAS to be global agreement on instituting any such measures. If Europe is on its own , showing good ecological faith, then surely we are just pissing in the breeze!

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Irresponsibility in the BBC

This week has brought one of those tragic news stories of two British children found dead in their holiday bungalow on the Greek island of Corfu. Their father and his girlfriend were found unconscious in the same room but are now recovering.

It has been determined that the cause of the deaths was a faulty heater unit which was pumping carbon monoxide into the bedroom and representatives of the hotel have now been charged with manslaughter.

Before the findings of the pathologist were released the BBC News reporter was happy to tell us all that 'rumours were circulating in the complex that the children had died as part of a bizarre suicide pact'.

At the time she imparted this morsel nothing was known as to the cause of death, and I was astonished that a family which had been subject to a sudden tragic bereavement should have the further slur cast upon them publicly that the children may have been killed deliberately by their father and his girlfriend. Even had it been proved true, to suggest it with absolutely no medical findings available at that stage, was outrageous.

I contacted the BBC and suggested that this was at best a breach of good taste and the spokesman promised to take my views to the news department and provide an answer. I suspect I will be waiting a very long time.



The hotel complex where two children died

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Why is the left so prone to gesture politics?

Why has the British left always been so prey to the inclination to 'gesture' politics, seen to be saying the right thing, giving out the 'appropriate' message, rather than common sense policies which actually work ? This is, of course, particularly true in the area of social and cultural legislation in which our left has walked on egg shells since time immemorial.

We have had left wing city councils declaring 'nuclear free zones', we had my own Labour Council some years back suggesting that the Christmas festivities be scrapped and replaced by a non religious 'Winterval' in case they offended the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and any other religion/ culture they could think of. It took a representative group of those very community leaders from the various non Christian faiths to tell the Council not to be so bloody ridiculous before they backed down.

The same with 'positive discrimination'. There is every good reason to educate management not to fill its vacancies entirely with representatives of the white middle class, but I'm not sure the idea of quotas encourages the result of necessarily achieving the balanced objective. When this was first implemented in Birmingham there were the usual jokes about 'Don't apply unless you are a one armed wheel chair bound, partially sighted, black lesbian feminist' and exaggerated though that was , the policy of lurching to extremes in order to be seen 'doing the right thing' has long been the order of the day.

Now, of course, the Labour bible has long cherished the ideal of multi culturalism. The idea that within a nation state, different cultures be allowed to flourish and grow, preserving their own ways and their own attitudes, their own schools, dress codes and so on.

The idea was to give these cultural communities the confidence to thrive and grow in a new land without feeling oppressed and subordinated by the indigenous population. What was not anticipated, and maybe should have been, is the degree to which many of these communities have so succeeded in this aim that they live completely separate lives from other cultures within the United Kingdom. The result has been racial stress, tension and distrust leading to the current wave of reaction against multi-culturalism. This wave is led by the very politicians who first encouraged it.

Muslim women teachers who felt they were entitled to demonstrate their cultural diversity by wearing the veil in class are now being told that its not acceptable and that they risk suspension. Bradford City Council, home to more Muslims than anywhere in Britain, is to introduce a uniform code of dress for students and teachers in all its schools. The ethnic communities are suddenly shell-shocked by having the proverbial rug pulled from under them by the very politicians who put it there.





The United States, maybe the biggest and most successful nation with regard to the absorption of different cultures from all over the globe in a relatively short space of time has something to teach us. The U.S. applied a philosophy of 'the melting pot', allowing immigrants to adapt to US life at their own pace but always, in the background, was the firm committment to becoming an American and all that entailed.

While I would not necessarily like the UK to display all the overt manifestations of patriotism that marks out the United States, there is no doubt that there has been a lack of any emotional commitment to the nation state within the United Kingdom, no sense of belonging to a national community, precious little for immigrants to aspire to - so they have welded their own strong community rules and are shocked when these are challenged.

Belatedly the United Kingdom has recognised its failings and has started to do something about them but at times does seem to be thrashing round blindly for solutions. The encouraging thing is that many minority community leaders have themselves recognised the dangers of 'ghettoism' and are prepared to work towards greater harmony.

Maybe in ten years time there will be a different story to tell. I can but hope.

Monday, October 23, 2006

"The Hawthorns" Experiment

When I was at college doing a Business Studies Diploma, I learnt about industrial psychology as represented by the classic case of the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Co in Chicago between 1924 and 1927, thus termed 'The Hawthorne Experiment'.

Basically this experiment changed the working conditions of employees and consequently there were improvements in output. More surprisingly, the new improvements were then taken away and STILL there were improvements in output.

Basically the findings were that employees are basically motivated by being noticed rather than by financial rewards.

I'm wondering if this theory applies to my football team who, coincidentally, play at 'The Hawthorns'. At the start of the season West Bromwich Albion spluttered along under then Manager Bryan Robson hardly able to win a game and certainly totally incapable of getting any points away from home.

So the Club fired the manager. From then on,with no new players and just a tweak here and there in playing style - and with a temporary guy at the helm - they haven't looked back. These same players have now won four games in a row - two away from home, and banged in 14 goals in 4 matches , and old codgers like me are consulting their history books for the last time Albion did that!

Maybe it was complacency and boredom despite being paid megabucks. So now the Club has a new permanent Manager and the players continue to perform.

But wait! If my theory holds good that means eventually boredom with the new man will set in, the players will slip back to their old ways, the Club will have to fire the new man, reverse the improvements and bring back......oh God no surely not!

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Happy birthday girl or sad little loser?

Today a little British girl is 3 years old. It is a miracle she has made it this far. Charlotte Wyatt was born 10 weeks premature on Oct 21st 2003 weighing only 458 grams and was 5 inches long. She is severely brain damaged, she can hardly see or hear, developed septicaemia, and suffered multiple cardiac arrests having to be resuscitated several times.

Doctors at her Portsmouth Hospital decreed that this tiny infant was in such pain that her life would be a misery for however much there was of it, and that the child would not live beyond infancy. They therefore decided that if she suffered further cardiac arrest they would not resuscitate a fourth time.

Charlotte's parents, Darren and Debbie Wyatt, fought this decision on the prime basis that Mr Wyatt's profound Christian beliefs told him passionately that such a decision was wrong and 'only God's to make'. He was of course supported by the Pro-Life campaign groups.

Originally the High Court judge supported the hospital doctors and did so again a month later when an appeal was made. On the baby's second birthday, last October, the Judge changed his mind after evidence was given that this plucky little mite was showing distict signs of improvement.

In February of this year, little Charlotte developed an acute viral infection which, in her weakened state, appeared almost certain to kill her. So the doctors went back to court and once more obtained a 'no resuscitation' order. To their surprise this tough little baby fought this seemingly fatal infection, beat it and from then on until this her third birthday, this blind, deaf, brain damaged infant with damaged kidneys and a damaged heart who cannot walk or even crawl has become stronger and stronger until she is now well enough to go home to the parents who made such a stand on principle.

A happy ending of sorts? Well no not really because those same parents have now split up and neither wants the responsibility of looking after her. So passionate it seems is their committment that, having won the 'religious principle' battle, Mrs Wyatt has visited the child only three times in nearly nine months and her husband even less.

Now one cannot pass judgment on a marriage break up and nor would I try, but it seems a strange kind of faith which makes you fight to keep a desperately damaged baby alive and then walk away from the problems your victory has created.

The cost to the National Health Service, and therefore the British taxpayer, of keeping Charlotte in hospital is £6000 a month. It seems heartless to talk of money when a child's life is involved but this is one of those tragic situations where there seems to be no winner - the Hospital Trust could probably use that money on cases where there is likely to be a better chance of survival, the parents seem to have succumbed to so much pressure that it has ended their marriage and for the plucky little girl celebrating - if that is the word - her third birthday, she lies there a pain racked little vegetable with no home to go to and only Portsmouth hospital doctors and nurses to give the kind of love which should be the duty of parents. What kind of life is that?

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Only a little bit of torture!

The BBC World Service survey published today shows that, hearteningly, two thirds of the world's population reject the use of torture as an acceptable instrument of the state even when based on the 'torture one to save hundreds' theory.

This still leaves approximately one third who are in favour of 'some limited amount of torture when the situation demands it'.

As a member of Amnesty and a human rights activist this latter argument always reminds me of a Monty Python sketch, grimly unfunny though the argument is.

"'Ere, you in favour of torturing people then?"

"Er no, not really - well at least not much - and only when they ask for it!"

"NOT MUCH? 'Ow much is not much then? Beatin' their kidneys with a stick?"

"Ooooh no that sounds awful - not as much as that!"

"Ticklin' em under the ribs until they kick their legs in the air?"

"Well a bit more than that!"

"Pulling their finger nails out?"

"Well maybe just on one hand..."

I always feel that arguments about favouring a 'little bit of torture' are like claims that a woman is a little bit pregnant. You either are prepared to endorse torture or you are not!

It is a maybe understandable cop out by those who believe torture works but don't want to be branded as heartless sadists but I believe, regardless of what some perceive as the effectiveness of torture it has to be absolutely and firmly rejected by everybody as a means of interrogation and acquiring information.






I don't believe it is something we should be half hearted about. Torture is an absolute and total violation of human rights and it is no more of an argument, in my view, to justify it by arguing that the victim may well be more violent than his torturers. On that tit for tat basis we would still be killing murderers, painfully castrating child rapists and so on. Unless we absolutely and unequivocally condemn torture as unacceptable and a crime against humanity, what do we have left for those who favour 'a little bit of torture'? Its OK to torture terrorist suspects say some...OK what about torturing little children to give away the hiding place of their parents? Some nations would condone that. It has to stop.





The argument for torture of course is expediency. It helps to get information quicker. Well even if that is true I believe it is NOT acceptable for any state machinery anywhere in the world to include torturing of suspects in its repertoire and we should be doing everything in our power to convince those who still support it that they are misguided and wrong. When we dehumanise others we dehumanise ourselves. The recent shameful events at Abu Ghraib should have reinforced that.

Monday, October 16, 2006

50 years ago and what have we learned?

..and so we invented a pretext and then launched an invasion force of an arab country in defence of western economic interests with the object of securing 'regime change'. While the military did everything that could be asked of them, the whole venture failed because the politicians had not worked out an end game, and it ended in ignominy and disaster.

Ring any bells? No its not Iraq, but this week is the 50th anniversary of the attempt by the British and French to invade the Suez Canal, to remove President Nasser and his regime from office and replace it with an Egyptian Government both sympathetic to British and French economic interests and one which would be more sympathetic to the then new State of Israel.



Following a secret meeting at Sevres, just outside Paris, between France, Britain and Israel, the Israelis, deliberately used as the trigger, invaded the Gaza Strip and headed towards the Suez Canal, 'forcing' Britain and France to invade to keep the two warring sides apart.

The strategy worked wonderfully but the fly in the ointment in terms of a political success for the invaders was - a Republican Administration in the United States under Eisenhower, who threatened to sell US reserves of the British pound in order to cause a collapse of the British economy if Britain refused to withdraw. So after such irresistible pressure, the British and French withdrew, the Canal stayed in Egyptian hands and Nasser remained in power to celebrate his 'victory'.





The invasion was an appalling political misjudgment by Eden, the British Prime Minister, forcing his resignation as a result of the humiliation suffered as a result of his failure to deliver. It would have been a military and political triumph had it not been for the fiscal might of the United States which had firmly opposed the invasion.



It makes one think, fifty years on, what a pity it is that the United States is so economically omnipotent that no fiscal overlord is around to stop THEIR current, and far less able, Republican Administration from disastrous and immoral adventuring into Arab lands, hell bent on regime change.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

In perfect harmony?

The interview this week with Sir Richard Dannatt, the recently appointed head of the British Army, was little short of astonishing. It is not unheard of, of course, for a military commander to express an opinion about the conduct of a campaign, particularly when the lives of his troops are at risk, but it is almost unheard of for the most senior Army commander to take a public stance which appeared to be defiantly at odds with the policy of his political masters....and more than that, his widely publicised remarks created more than a ripple across the Atlantic from where, it appears, White House staffers were calling Blair's office asking anxiously if 'they could be of any help'.

Tony Blair, the next day, hastily gave a news conference saying that he was 'perfectly in agreement' with the General's remarks and that 'he meant when the job was done, as we all do' but it all had rather that air of a man with his back to the ropes.

For Sir Richard did not say 'when the job was done' but that 'the British Army should leave Iraq very soon' that its presence 'exacerbated the security problems there' and, the remarks that possibly made DC most jittery ' that the post invasion planning had been very poor, probably based more on optimism than sound thinking'.

This is undoubtedly straying way beyond the brief of a senior military man and into the realm of political decision making, a military commander almost criticising the competence of the planners of the Iraq campaign.

In days gone by, a senior Army Commander who so publicly spoke out would have been replaced, I have little doubt of that. Why did Sir Richard feel strong enough to risk such a loaded observation?

First I believe, the situation in Afghanistan where Britain currently has 3300 troops as part of the NATO force. Sir Richard is clearly and honestly driven by deep concern that the number of troops to perform the task against an underestimated Taliban, is insufficient and that supplies and back up are not currently up to the job. Another senior army spokesman had earlier said, causing more ruffled feathers, that the utilisation of the Royal Air Force in Afghanistan was 'virtually useless' . He pleaded for more US Chinook helicopters, so far not supplied, as a far more effective tool for the seeking out and destroying of Taliban 'cells'. Sir Richard is clearly aware, and I sense angry, that the British government is hiding the true state of play in Afghanistan with regard to both casualties and inadequate back-up. One senior officer was reported as saying that Afghanistan 'could be a second Gallipoli' if steps were not taken soon.

Strongly though Sir Richard clearly feels, I believe he would have been more temperate in his choice of language had it not been for the weakened position of the Prime Minister. Until he finally quits the scene, I believe Blair is in danger of many minor humiliations like this because he won't want to be seen sacking his military commanders like some demented Roman Emperor, particularly since it is now clear that British involvement and decision making (however paltry that is) towards the end game in Iraq will not be in his hands. In fact Sir Richard's message could have been deliberately aimed at the next Prime Minister - presumably Gordon Brown - to heed his plea, highlighting once more the terribly weak position in which Blair is now placed and that, whatever his merits or otherwise, cannot be good for the country.

What this all boils down to is that as a nation we are 'kippers and curtains'. We try and look like a first world military power, particularly to impress our US allies, and indeed the British forces are some of the finest trained in the world. But we are paying for them out of the poor box, raiding the metaphorical Oxfam shop to keep them supplied with weapons and equipment, sometimes, as in Iraq, begging and borrowing purpose designed footwear from the Americans even to cope with the strain of the desert and the heat. At some point soon, Britain is going to have to take a deep breath, swallow its pride, and pull back on all the committments we make all round the globe. With a standing army of just over 100,000 men we simply do not have the resources to cope or, apparently, the political will to spend much more money to do so. Nor in my opinion should we continue to expand the military budget, as I've said elsewhere.

Our politicians, however, continue to demand 'their cake and eat it', demanding British involvement all over the globe without the means to pay for it, to the growing despair and fury of the Commanders who carry the can for the success or failure of a military operation, like Sir Richard Dannatt.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

My Back Pages

I am a political nomad, wandering in a desert of uncertainty and with no clear vision of my political home, certainly as represented by the mainstream of British politics. I realised this, with growing unease, even while working hard for the Labour Party during the last four years of my membership, until I quit over the Iraq War in 2003.

Is it really just over 20 years since I joined Edgbaston Labour Party,a part of Birmingham which then had a rock solid Conservative majority? I had moved house from Erdington, an area of the city which actually then had a Labour Member of Parliament, a fact which tends to concentrate the minds of Labour members wonderfully. They had been slightly dull, middle of the road, solid working men and women who knew their task was primarily to support the sitting MP and not make waves.

Edgbaston was a different kettle of fish. Without a hope in hell in 1984 of electing a Labour MP, here was a Party membership composed of teachers, social workers and students which could give full rein to its, for the most part, hopelessly impractical idealism. I remember my first ever Branch meeting at which I remained quiet for much of it, being the new boy, until the Branch accounts had been read by the treasurer. He had announced that the Branch possessed some princely sum of about £35. Then the agenda moved on to resolutions and, one after another, members proposed and seconded funds to be sent to left wing resistance groups in South America and Africa totalling at least double what we had in the kitty.

When I found my voice and pointed this out, I still recall, with some fondness, one of the proposers,a guy I later came to like, saying loudly "I don't recall this meeting being thrown open to the bloody Tories!" So there I was branded as a right winger who was concerned only with practical things like..how we paid for our commitments.

In many ways those early Edgbaston meetings were hell. They contained Trotskyite apparatchiks who would know the meeting rule book inside out and manipulate it for their own ends leaving me fuming with anger at the devious manipulation of the political process. But although they made the most noise, they were not the core of the Branch. Most of them, idealistic though they were, simply wanted a Labour Party which had principles and ideals and real beliefs which the Party, when in Government (however many light years away that would be) would stick to.

Many of our Branch attendees, rare in those days, were women. They worked the hardest, did the hard graft uncomplainingly, and supported causes, clearly and unambiguously. They were prepared to get arrested at Greenham Common, demonstrate at Porton Down, while many of the men spent their time working out how they could get elected to the next level of power within the Party hierarchy.

Several of the women, particularly, were passionately committed to the cause of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I was a member too but not with the same degree of passionate involvement. I recall well my sadness and disappointment when a number of women I admired a great deal left the Labour Party over what they considered to be the betrayal of principle by its then leader, Neil Kinnock. Kinnock had declared a year long moratorium on new policy initiatives after a horrendous hammering at the previous General Election. When the period of silence ended Kinnock announced that Labour was now a multi-lateral disarmament Party, replacing its committment to unilateral disarmament once in power, and that he would be staying on as leader, despite he and his wife Glenys being, apparently, ardent supporters of CND.



How could he be so two faced? Was there no honour in politics? Should he not have fallen on his sword if he had any principle at all? Such was the, possibly, naive view, though it didn'tseem that way at the time.

Dammit, idealists or not, I loved some of these people. Not the manipulators, the apparatchiks, the Trotskyite plotters in darkened rooms..but the well intentioned who believed that the Labour Party stood for something good in the world and should not be ashamed to parade it even if the political sophisticates of the media laughed in our faces.

At this point, over a fairly short period of time, my own position in the political spectrum began to change. Kinnock resigned, the ill fated John Smith lasted only a few months as leader and died, then came the advent of Tony Blair. I actually voted for Blair back in 1994 because I saw this wonderful new dawn, after 18 miserable years of Conservative government. A leader who shared my own view that the Labour Party needed to change by, for example, throwing out the clause 4 committments to state ownership of all the means of production, which may have done us proud between the wars and immediately after, but was seen as the heavy hand of state control in 90s Britain.



My first signs of unease, however, were back in 1995, before Blair won his first election victory, when as then Political Officer for my Constituency, I went to a Political Education briefing in Manchester organised by the now famous/notorious Peter Mandelson. I had been to these many times before under previous leaders and they were an ideas dump, a two way feed top down and bottom up, so that the leadership sounded out the views of the Constituencies as well as imparting its own stances.


This one was different. Delegates were ushered from reception into the hall so there was none of the sloppy rolling in late so typical of Labour meetings and during the sessions, stewards walked up and down the aisles, walkie talkies strapped to the hip, motioning sharply to anyone who tried to stand up and make a point or ask a question during any speaker's address. We broke up for the first scheduled 'workshop' and I produced the copious notes I had written on my Constituency's behalf which I was expecting to impart at some point during the meeting.

I asked the workshop co-ordinator when delegates would be given their chance to speak and she looked at me with some amazement. "Oh you won't," she said "Your purpose here is to take back what you learn today on how to win elections and make sure that your Constituency stays on message!"

And that, essentially, has been the formula ever since, epitomised by the Prime Minister himself. He has tried to answer the accusation, not too successfully, that he has contempt for the Labour Party, its institutions and its traditions of open democratic debate. Certainly my experience at that meeting was a precursor to the manner in which 'New Labour' (God how I hate that term!) has stage managed its conferences and the personal views of its members. I can see some sense in bringing stability to a televised conference that used to be dominated by extremist, minority rabble rousers who often destroyed the Party's electoral credibility but things have gone way, way too far.

Anyway the evangelism worked and Blair won a resounding electoral victory in 1997..and with it my Edgbaston Constituency achieved a sensational result by gaining its first ever Labour MP. It was a wonderful result and we were all cock a hoop but, when the gloss of the twin victories had worn off a little it was obvious that the Party had changed, not just nationally but locally too.

Only thirteen years before I had been a staid middle of the road Labour pragmatist trying to knock down some of the walls of extreme left wing silliness. Now in 1997, I hadn't changed one iota, but the Party had picked up its tents and moved sharply to the right. I was even the subject of one comment from one fairly senior local official that 'although that Brian Fargher has some good ideas, he's a bit too left wing for my tastes' which, if it hadn't been so sad, would have been hysterically funny.

So my disenchantment with Blair and his private financing of hospitals, his opt out of schools from local government control, his obsessive pandering to wealthy sponsors grew and grew until finally the decision to support the invasion of Iraq created such bitterness in my Party and in my soul that I could no longer bear to be a part of going along with any of it ..and so I quit.

Which brings me back to the beginning. Now I am wandering in this political desert picking up scraps of comfort ..like joining Compass the pressure group of the Democratic Left. I went to their AGM last month which was splendid..except it doesn't substitute for a political party and I soon realised that what we all had in common was a profound dislike of what we have now but no unanimous view about replacing it.

So I feel as if my once idealistic and slightly quirky home, for all its faults, has been replaced by a huge modern apartment with no atmosphere and no soul, just a desire to get re-elected and re-elected and re-elected.

Where I once felt to be among comrades in a left of centre party that believed that Britain should start accepting its limitations and remodel itself on socially improving lines rather than trying to keep up the front of being a 'world player' by spending wasteful billions on, particularly, defence, my former Party has moved sharply to the right and now allocates social welfare based on some budgeted funds of a local trust.

Am I wrong to be angry that Alzheimer patients have just been denied a drug that would ease their condition because the NHS Trust says its 'not cost effective' Am I wrong to be annoyed that health care is a lottery in this country depending where you live? That Britain has one of the highest infant mortality rates in Europe? That all these things could be rectified if we stopped trying to be a first rate military power and spent the money where it could really do some good? Am I really naive to want that?

Truly, as I feel left behind by the rush to pragmatic, mustn't upset the tax payer, election winning solutions, I sense that 'I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.'

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Not just a failed war but a failed philosophy

What do the following Americans have in common?- Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Richard Armitage, Paula Dobriansky, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz. First Answer; They are all, or have been in the recent past, key members of the Bush Administration.

Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Secretary of Defense, Libby WAS Cheney's Chief of Staff until he resigned in 2005, Armitage was Colin Powell's deputy Secretary of State, Dobriansky is Under Secretary for Global Affairs, Bolton is US Ambassador to the United Nations, Perle was a key member of the Defense Policy Board, and Wolfowitz, currently head of the World Bank, was Rumsfeld's Deputy at Defense for four years until 2005.

Most of these people are at the sharp end, the world shapers, the big guns of American politics who between them play, or have played, a significant role in shaping US policy and particularly foreign policy. Most had significant roles to play during the planning stages of the Iraq invasion which has proved to be such a disastrous piece of political misjudgment on just about every level....maybe.

Second Answer; What links these people in a more significant way than simply the responsibilities of high office is that all of them are members of the right wing think tank called the Project for the New American Century. It is the views of this organisation which shaped the early years of George W Bush's administration and it is the tenets that this group holds so dear which dominated the thinking of Cheney and Rumsfeld and which, indirectly, has led to the situation in Iraq and a sharp decline in the perception of the United States world wide as a force for good in the world.




PNAC's website states that its beliefs are:-

1. "American leadership is good both for America and for the world"
2 "Such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle"
3 "too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership."

It states its aims to be:-

A significant increase of US military spending.

Strengthening ties with US allies and challenging regimes hostile to US interests and values.

Promoting the cause of political and economic freedom outside the US.

Preserving and extending an international order friendly to US security, prosperity and principles.


In September 2000, two months before George W Bush won the Presidential Election, PNAC released a 90 page document which stated clearly that America should seek to preserve and extend its global leadership by maintaining the pre-eminence of American forces. It argues that diplomacy and sanctions should have a limited life span and that if enemy states do not concur within an American time frame, the US should not shrink from taking military action.

Although Republicans have traditionally favoured a strong military there is little doubt that what was being proposed here was a significant advance on that, to an America which was prepared to aggressively do more than just flex a few muscles whenever its interests are threatened. It's no longer simply saying that the US should be interventionist when necessary but that the US should aggressively use its military strength to shape a new world order with America its moral guide and mentor.

When Bush won the election in November, he and Cheney filled many of the key positions in the American government with PNAC members and they immediately began to work on the blueprint they had proselytised from their inception.

What would have happened without the tragedy of 9/11 is anybody's guess but for the architects of the new blueprint it was heaven on a plate - a real live threat to America's security on which this new aggressive American military strategy could be unleashed. First Afghanistan, for which there was some considerable world sympathy at the time, then the showpiece war where Donald Rumsfeld's 'shock and awe' tactics would see Iraq on its knees in days. Well we all know whats happened since.

However for those who favoured the PNAC doctrine is it all bad news? Probably not, for despite over 3000 US and allied forces killed and God knows how many Iraqis, America has got its hands on Iraq's sumptuous oil supplies, which, if not the prime reason for the war, was certainly a high priority for those US troops who trampled unwittingly over sites of tremendous historical value causing untold and irredeemable damage, their goal only to secure the oil installations and related buildings.

Back in the days when the Republican Party had some decency, Dwight D Eisenhower preached against the evils of what he termed 'the Military-Industrial complex' where there is a close and unhealthy relationship between the nation's military, its arms suppliers and other commercial interests which would benefit from conflict. President Eisenhower's warnings fell on deaf ears and have come home to roost under the current Administration whose Vice President was once Head of Halliburton Energy Services, the Company which has probably been one of the biggest profiteers from the invasion of Iraq. Cheney has ostensibly no current links with Halliburton, having received a multi million dollar severance package when there became a 'conflict of interests' but excuse me if my cynicism starts to show.



Another Company high on the profits list from America's aggressive new military policy is Carlyle Industries which owns defence contracting and military supply companies, and has had as serving directors or consultants both the George Bushes and Donald Rumsfeld.



It doesn't take rocket science to see a clearly dangerous link between political decision making and US company profiteering and there is no doubt that the war in Iraq, though disastrous in its execution and political aftermath has made a lot of Americans at the top of that politico-military- industrial complex very rich indeed.

And now we have North Korea and Iran, both having developed a nuclear capability with some considerable haste since the invasion of Iraq - which many American pundits,as well as my friend Ira in a comment, have pointed out. The US invaded the one country in Bush's 'axis of evil' which actually had no nuclear capability and was not developing one,thus alerting the other two to become nuclear capable pretty damn quick.

Bush has, since the Iraq War, replaced many of his PNAC people with 'non believers' but the eminences-grises of the philosophy, Cheney and Rumsfeld, remain in high office with a great deal of influence. Whatever were the high moral intentions of the PNAC philosophy contained in their: 'Such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle' has withered and died as far as Iraq is concerned with an illegal invasion, followed by the shame of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other abuses of decency and human rights that have followed this war around. Now Bush has enacted a law which enables non citizens to be treated outside the rules of the Geneva Convention...in other words, tortured.

America has, quite clearly, become mired in not just a failed war, but a failed political philosophy too, for one of its clear priorities is 'regime change' right across the globe, interfering in every state in which it feels American interests are not being served. This is arrogant, misjudged and highly dangerous for people are not going to lie down to have the American way of life imposed on them. This is apparent from the powerful insurgency in Iraq and from the increased militancy of Islamic groups all round the world to which America was always a hate figure but now Bush has given them a powerful focus.

I can only hope that, before 2008, the United States can find a Democrat strong enough to carry a broad swathe of public opinion and who has principles which can restore the country to the level of respect throughout the world which it used to earn, and who can put these hideous Bush years behind it. The United States needs to return to a policy of measured interventionism, and, more practically, start finding positive solutions to problems like the Palestinian issue which Bush has neglected shamefully. This commitment to changing governments by force if they don't fit the criteria of United States interests has to be abandoned in favour of something more far sighted, and maybe, hopefully, the US will regain some world respect and cease to be the pariah it has become during this failed Administration.

Cameron: - The souffle politician ?

The United States once had a Democratic Senator named Gary Hart, seen by many as the architect of new Democratic Party thinking, and who, in the Democratic Primaries preceding the 1984 US elections was clearly the front runner, the new kid on the block, young and sexy, the new 'super cool'. Then his campaign was stopped dead in its tracks by traditionalist, 'boring', Walter Mondale who asked one simple question, "Where's the beef?" which effectively, maybe cruelly, painted Hart as the King with no clothes, bereft of solid workable policies, and his campaign crumbled from there on in.

Watching the new leader of the Conservative Party at the party conference last week I was tempted to ask the same question. Never in its history has this once proud 'born-to-rule' Party of traditional right wing values ever embraced so many 'cool' causes, for Cameron is determined to do a Blair - but from the other side of the spectrum - and drag a complaining, traditional party slap bang into the centre ground of British politics.

Now I agree that with a British General Election possibly three years away its not sensible for any Opposition leader to spell out in detail all his policy intentions and how he will pay for them, for this only gives ammunition to the enemy. However there should be a sense of practicality behind the purpose - a feeling that the Shadow Ministers really do know which direction they are headed, but I didn't get that feeling watching them that this is the case.

Cameron was quite clearly creating apoplexy amid some of the elder Tory faithful by his support for gay marriage in particular - but he is prepared to risk that. He wants the votes of all those who stepped into the New Labour camp back in 1997 and who are now disillusioned. It might work. He also refused to countenance privatising the National Health Service, promised a 'Greener' Britain, and was adamant about the need for strong measures to deal with climate change. He promised a fairer 'social agenda' without being specific, yet promised to be tough on rising crime. Never has there been such a 'centre' Tory certainly since Heath back in the early 70s

To me,though, when you are the fifth leader of the Conservative Party since 1997 and the first one on whom Tory hopes are desperately placed - they can't afford another failure - its pretty easy to make these kinds of populist commitments when you don't have the messy job of having to cost them. Cameron is on kind of a roll at the moment although he must be disappointed that his lead in the opinion polls -2 or 3% - is so low when one looks at the mess the Government is in on so many fronts right now and with Blair somehow hovering in Papal 'limbo' between staying and going.

Cameron's problem is going to come when the hard choices have to be made and when his environmentally and socially friendly policies are put under the microscope. He may have another 6 months of honeymoon before that happens but should this current evangelical Tory bandwagon show any signs of the wheels coming off, I suspect Cameron could be destroyed from within, like three of his four predecessors. The Conservative Party in the country wants lower taxes and more individual freedom to determine where its money goes. That's what the great and the good who fund it have always wanted. Cameron, I suspect, can have his fancy liberal values which appeal to the chattering classes..unless and until they cost too much taxpayers money. Then he will be forced to cut and compromise. If that happens after all his commitments I think the Labour Party will eat him alive.

Maybe I am being unfair. Maybe with three years to go, Cameron is doing the right thing in telling the nation where he stands and what he believes, but I think he is dishing up a souffle rather than anything the British electorate can get its teeth into..and if I'm right, the only thing that will stop Labour getting a record 4th term is the Labour Party itself.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Abaya or not abaya - that is the question.

Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secretary, has raised temperatures in the UK this week by suggesting that the full veil or 'niqab' , revealing only the eyes, worn with the abaya, the ceremonial long flowing robe worn by Muslim women, is an obstacle to harmonious community relations in the United Kingdom and should be abandoned. He has pointed to the fact that there is no absolute requirement for such concealment specified in the Koran and this is simply a cultural choice. Straw, whose constituency is 30% Muslim, added that he always politely asks the Islamic women who attend his advice surgeries to remove the veil before he will talk to them, and that so far none has refused.

There was a surprising lack of unanimity from the Muslim community when this hit the headlines and while of course there was a degree of outrage, many Muslim women agreed with Straw.

The point is though..why has he chosen to raise this now when it might seem prudent to 'go easy' on Muslim issues here for a while. I think Straw is playing a much bigger game and that is the whole future of the policy of multi culturalism in the UK. The niqab is a very clear and easily identifiable target for the kind of 'separatism' that Straw feels is dangerous to the future of the UK but its merely a symbol, of course.

I reckon Straw is playing some pretty high stake political cards here in terms of the attitude Britain adopts towards its ethnic minorities now that Blair is on the way out, a leadership election will not be delayed much after May 2007 and Straw is tilting his cap at the deputy leader's job. It is just the right moment to do some 'attitudes dumping' within Westminster to see which way the current political wind is blowing with regard to our citizenry. Do we continue to allow every different culture to set up its own institutions within the UK and appear to live separate lives in a little rented plot of GB Inc. or do we attempt some form of uniformity as the French have done?

Its not an easy issue for although there is a pressing need for the different communities in the UK to communicate much better than they currently do, the risks of the French policy were evident in the Paris riots earlier in the year. Now that the lid is off this particular issue, I would like the Islamic community to discuss this issue and maybe, over a period of time, some compromise solution about schools and public places can be reached in the interests of everyone.

Forcing through new laws , however, would in my view be a terrible mistake and only exacerbate existing tensions.


Pyongyang Song

An auspicious day for the first post to my political blog with North Korea announcing the success of its first nuclear bomb test. Needless to say this announcement has thrown the western world into chaos for we have a dark, secretive nation about which little is known and which has a constitution which demands absolute loyalty to its dictatorship.

Into this mix you can add an unpredictable and aggressive political leadership which will play a key role in the coming weeks in how this dangerous situation develops...so what WILL the United States do as a result of this development? George Bush and the British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett both said 'North Korea has acted against the will of the international community' and nary a blush between them!

So far the George Bush technique of describing North Korea as 'an outpost of tyranny' and 'part of the axis of evil' doesn't seem to have had the desired effect of making these little yellow skinned guys roll over in fear. In fact quite the reverse and now they have got pop guns as good as the big guy..or they will before long.

So what needs to be done. A great deal of careful diplomacy, that's what... with none of the sabre rattling that has so marked the relationship between the two powers ever since the Korean War. I seriously doubt if the current Republican administration can, or is prepared to, revise the bellicose stance it has shown to all its 'enemies' since taking office and I just hope Bush can cool it enough that we don't have a far eastern conflagration to add to his many other successes. I feel that a new leader in the White House, be it Democrat or Republican, will be necessary before a real change of direction in American policy towards North Korea is anything near likely...and that won't be before 2008.

I just hope the world can survive that long.