President Obama's First Days

Closing Guantanamo Bay .. Good.

Closing secret CIA prisons around the world .. Good.

Prohibition of torture .. Good.

Tightening up the regulations and monitoring of the financial markets .. Good.

Return to America's true values .. Good.

Not using force just because you can .. Good.

Security but not at the expense of America's basic values .. Good.

Total repudiation of the Bush/Cheney way of doing things .. Brilliant.

It could be a brighter future for all of us; but the whole philosophy could fail. On the other hand it can't be worse than the results of the past eight years. There's nothing to lose by trying.

He's going to be a hard man to say "No" to,  European leaders better get ready, especially when he calls for better back-up in Afghanistan. Britain has been shouldering most of the Europe's burden in Afghanistan whilst other European countries have made lesser contributions in terms of military numbers and the type of operations in which they are prepared to engage.

Apparently Winston Churchill's bust has gone from the Oval Office. I can understand why .. in the 1950s, the latter days of the British Empire in Africa, Churchill sent in the troops to crush the movement for independence in Kenya. And we know Obama's links with Kenya.

Churchill might have been a great war leader, but both before and after World War II his humanitarian credentials were highly suspect in my view. In Britian's earlier involvement in Iraq between the two World Wars he was an enthusiastic proponent for the use of poison gas to put down any rebellion.

No human being is perfect, and I suspect that we shall in due course discover that even President Obama is not so, but I expect in that case the redeeming factor will be that he does actually recognise that.

I wish him, and America, well.

Israel

I fully understand that any democracy has the right to defend itself. My problem with Israel is the way it is currently reacting to the Hamas rocket attacks. It appears to me (and apparently to most of the world) that their response is somewhat disproportionate, to the say the least.

The death and injury toll suffered by Israel pales into insignificance compared with the dead and injured in Gaza - now approaching 1,000 - with children left and ignored by nearby Israeli soldiers to starve amidst the corpses of their parents.

I have no time for Israel so long as they persist in building settlements in illegally occupied territories, and for many years I have tried to avoid purchasing anything made by or originating in Israel. I shall continue my personal boycott for as long as their current policies and practices continue.

Israel's occupation of lands and their vicious military methods are the twin sources of further escalation of terror against them. They themeleves are acting as very efficient recruiting sergeants for any Arab groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

Meanwhile, it is also important to recognise that there is also a kind of proxy war going on here between the USA (via Israel) and Iran (via the Palestinians). It was notable that in the latest Security Council Resolution condemning the current action and calling for an immediate ceasefire, America abstained. Israel can do anything it likes so long as the USA is backing them, and the USA always backs them - it appears to be in their DNA.

From a historical and religious point of view the whole Jew v Arab thing is a farcical tragedy considering they are all descendants of Abraham.

Two Presidents in Denial

You can't help wondering about the state of mind of some of the people who reach the pinnacle of power.

We have George Bush apparently finding it quite amusing to have two shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist, and he wonders "I don't know what his beef is". Then we have Robert Mugabe who denies the existence of cholera in Zimbabwe.

Only an idiot would be amused by an Iraqi throwing his shoes at you, because as most of us know, this counts as an extreme insult in Iraq and some other Middle Eastern countries. "What's his beef?" .. well, I'm guessing the guy did not find his presence in Iraq as something to be welcomed. I'm so glad Bush finds it amusing to be insulted because now he can laugh his smirking head off when I express the view that he's an idiot.

As for Mugabe, clearly this man is deranged. Not only has he ruined what used to be one of the most productive countries on the African continent, but he now comes out with the ludicrous statement that the cholera (which apparently no longer exists) was deliberately visited upon his country by the UK as a form of biological warfare being conducted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. But even as people are dropping like flies around him, as they have nothing else to drink but sewage-contaminated water, and their money is worthless, Mugabe states the cholera epidemic has been dealt with, so there's "no further need for war".

I find it hugely depressing that we have not dealt with this psycopath with the same enthusiasm that we dealt with Saddam Hussein.

Georgia - the Smell of Appeasement

There is a smell of 1930s-type appeasement in the air. The recent Russian incursion into Georgian territory and the reaction of the NATO countries to Russia's outrageous behaviour reminds me of the pathetic attempts to appease Adoph Hitler's Germany before the 2nd World War.

Clearly the Georgian President made an error of judgement in trying to act tough with the ethnic Russians of South Ossetia, but this does not excuse the Russian incursion into the sovereign territory of a neigbouring democratic State.

Georgia wants (or had wanted) to join NATO. The lily-livered response by the European NATO countries to the Russian invasion, and their hesitancy over admitting Georgia for fear of upsetting Russia is disgusting. Russia needs to know that we are prepared to draw boundaries on international behaviour, even if it means we put at risk some of our power supplies for which we are increasingly vulnerable to Russian whims. Russia is becoming rich on their supplies of oil and gas and it is inconceivable that they would be happy to start losing their new-found markets for the stuff.

As it is, Russia knows that democratic Europe is frightened of upsetting it. So what's next? Ukraine? Lithuania? Estonia? Latvia? Russia pretends to be a democracy, and I suppose that compared to the Communist era it has some of the trappings of democracy but that is far as it goes. There is no real freedom of expression and the State has a tight grip on the news media. Vladimir Putin has ceased to be President and is now Prime Minister, but still appears to call the shots and is what one might generously describe as a benevolent dictator (if that's not an oxymoron).

It's about time we in the rest of Europe started to stand up for what is right instead of turning a blind eye to what is wrong in the hope that no more wrong will be done.

Robert Mugabe

"God appointed me President and only God can remove me"

So says the (clearly insane) president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.

To which there can be only one response ..

"Let us pray ..."

GB meets GB

As I write this UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting with US President George W Bush at Camp David.

It has been said that the only thing these two men have in common is their initials!

It is to be hoped that they find something more in common than just this. Whatever one thinks of the US President (and anyone who has met me or has read my garbage knows that I don't think much of him) the relationship between Great Britain and the USA is important. Any British Prime Minister should seek to maintain a good working relationship with whoever is the US President, but it is also important that it is not the kind of relationship enjoyed (if that is the right word) between "Dubya" and erstwhile Prime Minister Tony Blair.

To assert that Blair was Bush's "poodle" would be an understatement, and Blair's anxiety to please and to blend in with the Bush style (including the blue jeans and the cowboy swagger) was positively cringe-making.

I was amused the other day to read one journalist's view that Brown would certainly adopt a different style, including that of dress, in that he only had two Prime Ministerial modes of dress -
1. A suit.
2. A suit without a tie.
He was in mode No.1 in the Camp David golf buggy today, and so, in fact, was George Bush.

My hope is that Brown will pursue a tough line on a constructive Iraq exit policy. An Oxfam report out today states that hunger and disease are spreading in Iraq as violence masks a deepening humanitarian crisis. The charity said 28 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, 15 percent of Iraqis regularly cannot afford enough to eat and 70 percent lack clean drinking water, all sharp increases since 2003.

"The terrible violence in Iraq has masked the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Malnutrition amongst children has dramatically increased and basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs said.
"The fighting and weak Iraqi institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out. Nevertheless more can and should be done to help the Iraqi people," he said.

Two million Iraqis have been forced to flee the country since 2003, and at least as many have been displaced within Iraq. So much for deposing an evil dictator and rebuilding the country.

It ain't happening.

George Bush in Albania

Apparently the Albanians were hugely enthusiastic about George Bush's recent flying visit; they gave him a rapturous reception.

I recall that the Albanians were similarly infatuated with Norman Wisdom.

Iran

I'm baffled by the rumours coming out of the USA regarding the possibility of military action against Iran. OK, so Iran is developing nuclear capabilities. So what?! For forty years of "Cold War" the USSR was the biggest nuclear threat the "West" had ever faced, but that didn't lead us to pre-emptive military action against Moscow. Have we forgotten the meaning of the term "nuclear deterrent"? Don't we still have that capability?

I understand that a raft of senior military men in the USA have stated they would resign if such a mad policy was pursued. No doubt George W Bush could rustle up enough gung-ho cronies to put in their place. The next Presidential election can't come soon enough for me. There is no doubt in my own mind who the most dangerous man in the world is.

Farewell to the Tyrant

It was difficult to know how to react to the news this morning that Saddam Hussein had been executed, and it was even more difficult to absorb the video footage of him being led to the gallows, watching him refuse a blindfold, then having black cloth tied around his neck. There was a brief view of the trapdoor through which he would fall, but the BBC decided to spare us the final footage of the execution itself.

My own view is that the man should have been kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his life because I am - and have always been - an avowed opponent of Capital Punishment. Even the official view of the UK government, and all governments of the European Union, is similarly equivocal, since all of us have long since abandoned the concept of State Executions, and yet in these particular circumstances we find ourselves as official Allies of the USA, a country that still carries out judicial executions at a rate that outstrips (almost) every other country in the world.

It was of course politically wise of the USA and the UK to distance themselves from this particular judicial process so it could be said that Saddam was tried and executed by his own countrymen. I have little doubt about the man's guilt but have been less than impressed by the farce that passed for a trial. I wonder how many murder trials in the US or the UK would have continued uninterrupted under a succession of three different judges, and how many Appeals against conviction would have been dealt with in such short shrift?