A tragic day for Pakistan and for democracy

In my previous post on my hopes for next year, I omitted two things. One, that steps would be taken to get to grips with the Palestinian problem and second that Pakistan, after the elections on January 8th, would take the first steps back to democratic rule.

The first of those always had little hope of success and the second has today received a massive body blow with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the country's prime opposition leader.






In exile for so many years, she took an enormous risk in deciding to go home and contest the elections and the size of that risk was made apparent only days after her arrival in Pakistan when a suicide bomber exploded a device that killed 140 of her supporters in October.

Al Quaeda was blamed for that attack and now the question is being asked - who is responsible for this successful attack on the woman seen by the west as the best hope for Pakistan's future as a democratic ally.

There is no doubt that she was hated by Islamic extremists and with good reason. She had promised that, if elected, she would allow US led search and destroy teams to comb the mountain areas of Pakistan to find the Al Quaeda elements who take refuge there. There is no doubt that she was a considerable threat to them.

Some people are blaming President Musharraf, even though he has himself been a target of attacks. A cousin of Ms Bhutto said angrily tonight that it was astonishing that the President had always survived such attacks unharmed while Ms Bhutto was killed. He seemed to be suggesting that the Presidential attacks were a convenient smoke screen to draw suspicion from the government.

I would think this is unlikely. Far more likely, and extremely worrying, is the likelihood that within the inner sanctum of Pakistan's government there are those, sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism, who are passing information on.

Whether the elections on January 8th will now go ahead is debatable. What is clear is that a country which was already dangerous and unstable has been plunged into even deeper turbulence with the murder of a very brave woman who must have known the risks she faced in going home. This assassination is a tragic day for Pakistan and for hopes of a democratic future. My hopes for the coming 12 months have got off to the worst possible start

My Christmas hopes

I am writing this on Christmas Day morning and thinking about the state of the world and the news stories which have filled the pages over the last year. I am thinking about my hopes for 2008 and how likely they are to be fulfilled.

The first of these is clearly that something positive comes out of Iraq. Well clearly whatever does happen its not going to be along the lines which Bush and Blair hoped for at the the time of the invasion nearly five years ago. The British have virtually quit the occupation, leaving the south of the country in the hands of the Iraqi security forces..although that is generally accepted to be a bit of a joke. The Islamic fundamentalist groups are simply biding their time. In the north the situation looks different but only because of a gigantic infusion of American troops..who cannot stay forever in a situation where they are clearly performing a holding operation. This may have given the Iraqi factions themselves a chance to grow in strength and stem the tide of Al Qaeda but the killings still go on and I'm pretty sure that when the Americans tire of playing Canute, the country will dissolve into a factional war.

Maybe Iraq will, eventually, cease to exist as one state and revert to the tribal homelands of Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Marsh Arabs it was before the British created it.




My second hope is that there are real, positive moves made on climate change. The two biggest flies in the ointment on getting a concerted world effort going are China and the USA. The US was shamed into signing an agreement it didn't want to sign at the last International Conference in Bali, but when you have an unwilling signatory who just doesn't want to appear to be the party pooper, how confident can one be that the Americans are really going to try to stick to targets..because for the citizens of the USA those targets are going to be very electorally unpopular.

It is one of the world's biggest headaches because it needs all of us acting together to effect any changes in our planet and yet there is not even any uniformity on whether man made emissions are the main source of the problem, thus encouraging countries like the US in its hesitancy to commit to stringent targets.

I hope that whatever political problems lie in the way, every country in 2008 will see the necessity for stringent control of carbon emissions.




In the United Kingdom, I hope Gordon Brown - who began his Premiership so well and finished 2007 so falteringly - will get his act together and get some decent ministers with real intelligence in the key jobs and put the Labour Party back on a firm footing. I think Brown's instincts are better than Blair's - he just needs to ensure he has the troops to carry them through.




And lastly, though there must be so many issues out there, and very parochially, I want to see closure on the issue of Madeleine McCann. I hope the little girl is found, one way or the other, alive or dead - but surely anything is better than a child being spirited off into the night and loved ones never hearing of it or from it again, never knowing its fate. I know many children around the world have disappeared in these circumstances but sometimes it is easier to focus on one as a token of hope for all.






On a lighter note I have just started a fun job as an internet radio DJ and Im enjoying that immensely so I hope that goes from strength to strength in 2008.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

My respect for Brown diminishes by the day

Well the honeymoon is most certainly over for our now not-so-new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who seems to have lost the sure footedness he showed in ten years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and in his first few days as Blair's replacement.

The first signs of indecisive behaviour came with the 'will he, won't he' go to the country in an election two months ago. It was clear from all the sound bytes that such was his intention until he looked at the polls, received a shock....and bottled it. He should never have allowed election fever to gather in the first place.

Then we have the issue of Abrahmas and the donations. Hain and the despicable Harman pocketing the money while no-one told Brown...and no one queried the legitimacy of what they were doing? I don't believe any of it. Peter Watt resigned as Labour General Secretary after admitting he knew what was happening was illegal. Its squalid and shameful. And Brown must ultimately carry the can.

Then there is Iraq. OK we have reduced troop numbers there but we have done so in such a way that no one is happy and everything clearly has been done for political 'arse saving' and not with any constructive military phasing.

Then the police. How on earth could Brown allow a situation to develop where Scotland's police get a complete 2.5% pay raise, backdated to September as recommended by the committee who arbitrated on pay awards, but the police in England and Wales lose virtually four months of that because of the government's refusal to backdate it. It's petty, it's mean and it's a drop in the ocean of our national expenditure. Why piss the police off when their case is supported not only by their command structure from Chief Constable down but by the pay committee which made the award. Brown is here confusing strength with stubborn short sightedness...and it's a weakness that Blair, at the height of their angry disagreements, has referred to as a flaw in Brown's character.

Also this week we have had the signing of the European Union Treaty which replaced the failed Constitution. It binds European states together in a common political purpose without actually creating a unified European state. There are 27 European Union leaders and gathered in Lisbon this week were 26 of them shown at a ceremony signing the new treaty, photographs of the back slapping occasion circulated in all the newspapers throughout Europe.



Only one leader of the 27 nations was missing. Brown. Because he had a 'prior engagement' with some Commons Committee which could have been rescheduled. Instead he flew to Lisbon and signed the treaty alone with not a camera in sight. Why? Because many people in Britain, and especially on the left of the Labour Party and the right of the Conservative Party (oddly) are passionately against the Treaty. But we have agreed to it. Our Government is a signatory. So why cannot our Prime Minister fly out to Lisbon with pride and publicly commit this country to a new direction in Europe rather than skulking off quietly and doing so in private? He clearly did not wish to be seen in celebratory mood lest his critics savage him when he got home.



Instead he has taken the coward's way out...and it's another bum decision. It ranks with the days of Thatcher when we were reluctant members of the EC and seemed to adopt a permanent petulance about any aspect of European policy. The man is showing an incredible lack of control over his cabinet and I am beginning to get a little worried about his hand on the tiller of British politics.

Then again maybe it's my age. I am so sick and tired of the cynicism in politics, the disingenuous half truth at best behind nearly every decision, the cruel and inhuman way we cheerfully assisted in slaughtering 100, 000 souls not so long after our now deceased Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, talked about a new dawn in ethical foreign policy.

Frankly, having been a passionate and dedicated socialist since my teens, and seen the sorry state into which my Labour Party has descended, I really have reached the point that I don't give a stuff who runs the country. They are all opportunists and medicocre attention seekers. A plague on all your houses, say I !

British leave Basra with a whimper not a roar

It has been announced that the British will formally hand over Basra, the most important area of their remit, to the Iraqi forces this coming Sunday despite three car bombs going off in Amarah, a province the British handed over to the Iraqis in April, on Wednesday killing 41 people. Although the bombs did not affect Basra directly it must have been an uncomfortable reminder of the 'success' British policy has had in their previous areas of responsibility.

How different it all seems from the comparatively breezy days when the British Army was giving the US tactful reminders on how to win the hearts and minds of the populace by wearing caps not helmets, making friends with the kiddies and strolling round town almost like tourists. Well that worked for a time but soon the chickens came home to roost and the British army was forced into a siege mentality in Basra from which it never managed to escape.


British tanks hit by shells in Basra


Back in August of this year, a senior US official criticised British policy in Basra, driven by Gordon Brown's political needs, of pulling too many troops out too quickly. Now if we forget for a moment that the whole responsibility for this mess lies with the United States for invading the country in the first place and stick to a purely objective military analysis, the critic does seem to have been proved right.

As I have said in previous articles, and again forgetting the moral rights and wrongs of being there in the first place, we never had enough troops to do the job properly. Thanks, mainly, to Blair's desire to please America and to our blind political refusal to accept that our military commitments with a small standing army are stretched to breaking point. I feel sorry for the guys on the ground and total contempt for the politicians who put them there.

Not for the first time the British army has found itself between a rock and a hard place and is now having to hand over Basra with as much dignity as it can muster - and after the heady enthusiasm of four years ago that can't be much.

It is grim and laughable to see the news headlines now. Under Saddam, whatever kind of monster he may have been to political opponents, women walked the streets of Iraq's cities freely, many in western clothing. Girls were educated in some of the best schools in the middle east. Now, in the wake of Bush's 'invasion to bring democracy', the British leave Basra in the hands of radical Islamic militias, many of whom it seems have infiltrated the very army we are leaving in charge.

Slogans are now painted on the walls of Basra warning women that if they do not wear wear full Islamic dress they will be beaten or even killed. Four women have been murdered in Basra already. The city is factionalised and divided. People live in fear. Is this what we committed the lives of British troops to bring about? Thanks to modern media coverage its not even possible to support a political lie. Now they are saying 'we are leaving a tolerable situation', 'we never promised total success' etc etc. The truth is that the dissidents have won.

At least, in the north of the country, America has succeeded to some extent in halting the advance of Al Queda and other insurgents by the changed policy of literally saturating northern Iraq with American troops, a policy the British could never hope to emulate. And so our troops, who deserve to have been treated better, are leaving Basra with a huge failure sign invisibly hanging over their heads...not because of any shortcomings on their part but simply because the political planning was short sighted and dumb. A similar disaster is waiting to happen in Afghanistan where the Taleban are not standing to fight but disappearing into the mountains to regroup. It's their country and their terrain. They will just wait it out and come again as they have done with every occupier that preceded them.

Is there any good news from Iraq. Well sure there is! Surprise, surprise, oil production is higher than even pre-war levels it was announced today AND the conquerors of Iraq are taking an ever increasing number of millions of barrels pouring money into the coffers of THEIR oil companies of course. Oh and of course those self same conquerors have taken responsibility for Iraq's oil revenues, promising to spend the money wisely, but many questions have been asked about how and where that money has been spent.




Well, Blair and his pathetic little puppy dog act have gone, and Brown is at least getting the British out of a hole even if that upsets our friends and allies across the pond. But they won't be too upset for long. It's been a far costlier war than that bastard Rumsfeld promised when he thought the only casualties would be thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children..and who gave a stuff about them? Instead America has lost nearly 4000 dead since the 'war' began and had nearly 30,000 wounded.

However I'm sure the Bush administration, and especially the supporters of the Project for the New American Century, who were responsible for the initiation of this ghastly crime against humanity will feel its all been worth it. After all they've got their hands on the oil for the first time since Iraq nationalised its oil in 1972....just what they really wanted all along!

United States kidnap law is beyond the pale

At an appeal court hearing in London this week, a lawyer working for the American government made a devastating revelation in such a low key environment that it would hardly have created a ripple had not 'The Times' picked up on it and decided that the story deserved wide circulation..and I emphatically agree.

It was a case involving Stanley Tollman, a director of Chelsea Football Club and his wife, Beatrice, who own the Red Carnation hotel chain and are fighting extradition to the United States where they are wanted for bank fraud and tax evasion. During the hearing Lord Justice Moses (yes honestly!) asked Alun Jones QC, representing the American government, about an attempt to forcibly abduct the Tollman's nephew, Gavin, from Canada, on related charges, in 2005.

It was here that Mr Jones quietly dropped his bombshell. He admitted that US agents felt they had carte blanche to kidnap anyone from another country who was wanted in the United States for a criminal offence. Mr Jones conceded that the United States was 'low key' about this particular activity because governments 'did not see eye to eye' with the US on this matter. The judges asked Mr. Jones for clarification of the American government position and he replied that apparently it was a federal law going back to the bounty hunting days of the 1860s and had never been rescinded.

The judges, clearly startled, asked about the impact of extradition agreements on this behaviour, as, of course, there is an extradition treaty in existence between the US and the UK and it is clearly expected that the proper channels will be pursued.

Mr. Jones replied that extradition was only one channel viewed as legitimate by the US authorities and, although it might be considered that forced abduction to the US without fulfilling such niceties was improper to say the least, the problem lay with the jurisdiction of America's Supreme Court. Once a wanted criminal was on American soil, the Supreme Court had no power to legislate whether consequent prosecution was legal because of the means of getting him there. This left the US Government free to pursue a covert operation across the globe...including the United Kingdom.

It is the first time that a lawyer representing the American government has made it clear that this policy can apply to anyone wanted for criminal offences anywhere in the world. The news came as something of a shock to politicians and to human rights campaigners. Before this announcement it was considered that 'extraordinary rendition' as it is called, applied only to terror suspects whose continued freedom posed a threat to American security.

There has been a hue and cry over those, particularly the rendition flights to Egypt and Turkey which have involved using British facilities en route but at least there was some understanding that the Americans perceived such people to be a danger to their lives. This is clearly not the case with bank fraudsters and tax dodgers and the revelation has created a wave of anger in the UK.

Patrick Mercer, a Conservative Member of Parliament has said, “The very idea of kidnapping is repugnant to us and we must handle these cases with extreme caution and a thorough understanding of the implications in American law.” Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation.”

So far there has been no statement from either the British government or the US Justice Department but it seems to me that this situation is outrageous. It is not right for any one nation, particularly the world's most powerful nation, to go stomping round the globe ignoring protocol, ignoring the rights of anyone who has residence under another country's jurisdiction and dragging them off to the United States.

It's no wonder that the Americans will not participate in any International Court of Justice - because of course they would be in the dock on issues like this. The issue of terrorism is a very serious one and the issue of rendition of suspected terrorists is an issue which should be dealt with separately but when the criminals are clearly those who could be processed through the system without any risk to life and limb, then the Americans should stop this practice.

What is clear to me is that no civilised country does its reputation any favours when it continues to pursue a law coined 150 years ago in order to dodge the time and inconvenience of paper work in pursuit of suspects for 'civil' crime. It's not the way to behave and it's up to every individual country to make its representations to the United States on this matter, but I hope the British government does so forcibly and makes its own view clear that if any such shenanigans take place on British soil there will be rapid and serious consequences for the 'special relationship'.

If it wasn't so tragically sad it would be funny!

Yesterday, to the relief of her family, and everyone in Britain who had been following the story, Mrs Gillian Gibbons, a 54 year old British teacher, arrived home in the UK after a nightmare ordeal in which she was tried and imprisoned in a Sudanese court for allowing the children in her Khartoum infants class to name a teddy bear Muhammad - the name of Islam's most revered prophet and , of course, thus an insult to the religion.




It took a visit by two British Muslim peers who sought, and gained, an audience with the President of Sudan, to gain a pardon and immediate release for Mrs. Gibbons, a woman who was described by her Muslim teaching colleagues as 'an inspiration, a woman who had such a way of communicating with children'. She had, apparently, attempted to get the interest of her young class by getting them to think of names for the bear and so many Islamic boys are named Muhammad (that's OK apparently) that the name was the clear winner. The poor woman found herself in trouble only when one of the boys told his parents, innocently, about the naming of the bear and the parents felt this was such an insult to the faith that they had to inform the security services.

Mrs. Gibbons was arrested, tried and jailed for a short term but that didn't stop the fanatics. The least that was demanded was a public flogging and indeed, Rent-a-mob was out in Khartoum last week demanding that she be re-tried and the death sentence imposed. Fortunately they were just a set-up job by a few extremists but this has caused major diplomatic ructions over something so - on the face of it - stupid.

For once the Muslim Council of Britain, which I have in the past criticised for its equivocation, was clear in its condemnation of Mrs. Gibbons arrest, for which I admire them. They said, as we all believed here, that this was a tragic and well intentioned blunder with no attempt to insult Islam. It seems that much of Sudan thought the same and there did seem to be an inclination to get out of this without losing too much face in appearing to give in to British demands for Mrs. Gibbons' release.

There seems to have been a recognition, in Sudan and in Britain, that there was more to this than met the eye and that Mrs Gibbons was being used as a means of working off two targets of anger. First the UK has refused to supply Sudan with military equipment unless they allow independent observers into Darfur where the situation is now appalling. Second, and perhaps more directly linked, the Unity School at which Mrs Gibbons taught is an independent school which works on a type of British based curriculum and teaches all children - Islamic and Christian children together. Hard line Islamic fundamentalists have long opposed the continuation of this practice and the naming of the bear gave them a perfect opportunity to make a big issue.

All this seems so silly - and I have no wish to single out any one faith for particular criticism - but I do think it highlights how much of a stranglehold religious beliefs of any sort can take on the minds of human beings. I honestly believe that religion is the most destructive force in the world and does far more harm than good - always has. At present Islam is in the firing line for what are perceived to be inhumane practices and attitudes linked to religion but don't forget that the Christian Church has had its fair share of atrocities all in the name of the true faith. More people have been killed in the name of religion than in any other single cause.

I don't believe that God, Jesus or Muhammad - if any of them had the power accredited to them - would have sanctioned much of the stuff that is going on in their name. If only, in my dream world, we could abandon all this deference to some deity and look at how we relate, as human beings, to one another, wouldn't the world be a better place?




Would this have solved the whole problem?