The Lame Excuse For Action In Libya

Announcing the commencement of military action against the Gadaffi regime’s refusal to capitulate to the wishes of the UN our PM, David Cameron, said:

“We should not stand aside while this dictator murders his own people”

It seemed to be a rather strange and weak reasoning for entering into what could well escalate as a long and full blown military occupation, given that successive UK governments have been happy to ignore similar unsavoury behaviour from Robert Mugabe or China or Syria (the list goes on and on) for decades.

Of course, creating an air exclusion zone is a good thing if Gaddafi is using air strikes – but he is not. His followers are still free to launch ground attacks on their opposition or to knock on the doors of rebels and ‘disappear’ them like so many brutal regimes do.

To stop such actions, we would need troops on the ground, and haven’t we been there before?

It seems politicians are slow to learn from historical fact (perhaps we should blame our education system)

The PM finished his address by saying:

“I believe we should all be confident that what we are doing is in a just cause and in our nation’s interest.”

I guess we'll have to wait to hear to whom the cause will be ‘just’ and exactly how it will be of direct interest to our country.

Personally, I shall not be holding my breath!

-

MI6 Blamed For Taliban Hoaxer

You couldn’t make it up if you tried.

The man who claimed to be a senior Taliban leader in Afghanistan and who has been engaged in talks with coalition forces and the Afghan government about reaching a peaceful settlement, has turned out to be a fake and has disappeared without trace.

As if that were not bad enough, he had already been paid thousands of dollars to take part in the talks and unsurprisingly, the money has disappeared too!

Of course, a game of Pass The Blame has started, with the Afghans blaming our MI6 and our government blaming the Afghan security forces, but whoever ends up with the reddest face, it is just one more reminder of how stupid we were to get involved in such a vain war in the first place!

-

Dial 'M' For Mossad, Murder And Miliband

The killing of a Hamas commander in a Dubai hotel last month, is starting to cause an international outcry - officially at least.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is thought to have been in Dubai negotiating a deal for armaments, when his life was ended by what is believed to have been members of an Israeli secret service hit squad.

Dubai's police chief has said he is 99% sure of the involvement of Mossad agents in the killing. He has released details and photographs of the squad and rather predictably, they were all found to have been using stolen identities - some of them of UK passport holders.

The Israeli government, in their normal blunt and forthright way, have responded by saying there is no proof!

Foreign secretary David Miliband has vowed to “get to the bottom” of the incident but I am assuming it is the same “bottom” he got into, when trying to suppress involvement by our own security services, during the US interrogation of suspected terrorists, recently made public in the UK Court of Appeal.

Meanwhile, Interpol has issued red notices for the eleven suspects in the Dubai killing and distributed photos for identification purposes.

I am not sure what is more ridiculous: that they really believe such professional killers are not disguised; or that the international “outrage” at the killing is genuine.

Oh the games governments play.....!

Remembrance Sunday and The Afghanistan/Iraq Conflicts

Today is the day we remember all those who have died in conflict fighting to preserve our freedom.

Since my earliest childhood memory of men and women standing around the Cenotaph in warm black coats, silently laying wreaths of bright red poppies, it has been about those who fought in WW1 and WW2. Now, though, it must include those who have, sadly, been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For me, that brings confusion.

Both of the world wars were just that - they were global. They were about fighting to protect our freedom against those who sought to invade and conquer us.

In Iraq and Afghanistan the conflicts are different in that we have chosen to invade those countries - albeit with the excuse we are ultimately protecting our home country from terrorist attack. Despite what Foreign Secretary David Miliband writes in today's Mail On Sunday, the argument is still not convincing.

Sir Jock Stirrup, Head of the Armed Forces, said on the Andrew Marr show this morning:

"We haven't done a good enough job of explaining to the public what our strategy is".

That is because there cannot be a strategy against a foe that uses the unpredictable tactics of the terrorist and promotes our presence in their homeland as that of the invader. Yes, you can 'take the fight to the terrorists' and kill hundreds in battle, thereby reducing the numbers but you cannot change the mindset, or the radicalisation of future generations.

As I listened to the bugler at my local cenotaph service occasionally missing the notes and stopping during his performance of The Last Post, I acknowledged there are those in this country who would try to claim that speaking out against our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is being unsupportive of our troops. It is not.

To speak out against an unjust and legally dubious conflict is, in reality, being totally supportive of those who do not have a choice!

.

BBC Bans The Word 'Butcher'

I am irritated!

Tonight, while travelling home from work, I was listening to the excellent Eddie Nestor who hosts the drivetime programme on BBC London 94.9FM.

Eddie is one of the few broadcasters who has the rare gift of being able to discuss any subject, however sensitive, in a fair and amiable way, while still being able to express his own opinion without causing offence.

Tonight, he was engaged in a telephone conversation with respected financial expert, David Kuo, about a new London initiative called the Brixton Pound. It is a concept that is aimed at promoting trade in the locality of Brixton and David was explaining why it might not work in reality.

To help his explanation, he was using the examples of a Butcher's shop and a Grocer's shop to demonstrate how the Brixton Pound might be used in practice.

However, half way through his explanation, he was told by Mr Nestor that he could not use the example of a butcher as it could cause offence to those with certain religious beliefs, or non-meat eaters. Nestor had been told to explain this, by his programme producer, while Kuo was talking.

Are you getting irritated yet?

Has the normally excellent BBC finally become a censor for the political correctness movement?

Surely the whole point of a phone-in show is to exploit the values and principles of free speech and to hear the views of the callers by promoting discussion? It is not to publically admonish a guest expert for describing a profession that has been the mainstay of most high streets and food stores for as long as commerce has been in existence.

Sadly and unusually, Mr Nestor did not challenge the instruction he was given by the time I arrived home. I can only hope this is because he was in a state of shock at being given such a pathetic instruction by his producer.

In reality, though, I fear incidents like this will become more common.

If you are one of those whom the BBC assume would be offended by the mention of professions to which you do not approve......tough!!

Last time I checked, the majority of us were still sane.....just!

Iraq - The War of The Vanities!

Today, saw the official ending of our six years of military presence in Iraq.

Only future generations will be able to provide a clear answer as to whether we should ever have been in the country in the first place; many of the official documents recording the decision to take military action are still classified as secret.

Countless lives have been needlessly lost, both of our troops and the Iraqi people. The benefits achieved from the 'liberation' are still not completely obvious.

The reasons given to the UK population for such a drastic show of force, have been proven to be false. Our leaders betrayed our trust and that of the military personnel who were sent into battle on their orders. No-one has been charged with misleading us all.

It seems ironic, that the man who made the ultimate decision to go to war in Iraq, is now prancing around, with his usual air of self-importance, as an envoy for peace in the Middle East.

His successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has said:

"Today Iraq is a success story. We owe much of that to the efforts of British Troops"

Opposition Leader, David Cameron disagrees and has called for an official enquiry into the war. He said:

"There are vital lessons to learn and we need to learn them rapidly and the only justification for delay can, I'm afraid, be a political one."

Whoever is ultimately judged to be right, it will be too late to be of much comfort to the families of those troops and Iraqis, whose lives were sacrificed for what appears to have been nothing more than a war of vanity.

Facebook Terrorists!

The news this week, that the government want to monitor all the details of one-to-one activity on social networking sites like Facebook, must have come as a major relief to prospective terrorists in the UK.

They will now feel safe in the knowledge, that while the security services are drooling over pics of nubile mini-skirted students being sick on pavements across the country, they will be able to meet face-to-face, in public, without fear of being followed.

Another great idea by our ridiculous legislators!!