Comment at end
31st May, 2009
When all this expenses furore dies down, and it will, even if Mr Cameron has to sack half his MPs to show his intestinal fortitude, we are likely to find ourselves with the Tories and possibly the Liberal Democrats running the shop after the next general election, miracles notwithstanding.
Then the business of real politics can re-commence.
And that will be the cue for the general masses to look away, which is just as well. REALPOLITIK is going on far away from our small group of islands, and since June 2007 we no longer have the leadership with the nous or breadth of vision to grasp this and consider it OUR business.
We can now lie back and let America protect us in the worst case scenario, while calling America all the nasty names we can conjure up, despite its new “saviour”. Its new savoiur will act as would any US president in time of attack. That will be something for many in Britain and the rest of Europe to ponder on, should they live long enough.
Yes, I’m disappointed in the British voters. It has taken this expenses scandal, which is nothing repeat nothing in the bigger picture, to get them interested in politics. It is NOT about politics but about the mess-up of a system. Some of them may well be guilty of criminal behaviour, but most are not. Still, the revolting British voter revolts on.
How shabby. How small-minded. How … to quote my other half … how ’Eastenders’.
But it looks like Cameron/Clegg will soon have to actually take positions on certain issues. WOW! A position!
For a start, they will both have to come to terms with the fact that we are living in a VERY dangerous world. Surprisingly, perhaps, then aagin perhaps not, we hear very little about this fact from Brown, Cameron or Clegg.
THE AXIS OF EVIL RETURNS
With the nuclear test a few days ago by North Korea our own ‘politicians’ will have to fact the facts: we may be about to feel the fallout from a nuclear bomb, even if not directly aimed at the west.
If the worst happens they can no longer blame, directly or by inference, Tony Blair for this. There is clearly NO link to Britain’s invasion of Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Apart from that, the west is NOT threatening North Korea.
North Korea was part of Bush’s “axis of evil” – Iraq, Iran & North Korea (Wikipedia and 2006 article from Washington Post.) Iraq has been dealt with by the ‘wicked west’. The other two are, as currently constituted, the main threats to world peace. One is nuclear armed, the other likely to be soon. The west has already democratised and westernised Iraq. It is well on its way, and is one of only two REAL democracies in the Middle East, Israel being the other.
Not that ‘the west’ gets any thanks for this.
TALIBAN TARGETS BRITAIN ON ORDER FROM AL QAEDA
(Telegraph: Taliban target Britain on orders from al Qaeda. Hat tip to ‘Bad News from Britain’)
‘A Taliban-trained terrorist was part of a cell sent to bomb Britain as revenge for their presence in Afghanistan, it has emerged.
The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men.
The informant, known as “Ahmed”, told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a “device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control” in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission.
Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year.
It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents.
The information echoed claims made by British security services that a terrorist cell was sent to Manchester from the Taliban heartland in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.
British investigators believe that the cell, which was allegedly planning attacks on the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres over the Easter holidays, had connections with al-Qaeda, and Spanish prosecutors say their cell may also have had links with al-Qaeda.
The terrorist group is believed to have formed a “holy alliance” with the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil.
Instead of relying on British-born men travelling to Pakistan for training, al-Qaeda is now recruiting “ready made” terrorists from among the Taliban, investigators believe.
The 10 men arrested in the north west are fighting deportation on national security grounds after Government lawyers accused them of being members of a “UK-based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning”.’
I WOULDN’T STAND FOR PARLIAMENT TODAY IF THEY PAID ME PROPERLY
Of course we have known for some time that British Muslims were fighting alongside/within the Taliban AND Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But it didn’t entirely fit our “it’s all OUR (Blair’s) fault” narrative, so we put it to the back of our minds.
I would not stand for Parliament in THIS country of narrow-minded, blind-folded, politically ignorant individuals if you actually paid me. I am simply disgusted at their priorities. I am also in despair at the silence on these major international issues of Brown, Cameron and Clegg.
The world will not end over the expenses business, unpleasant as it is. The world MAY end over a nuclear attack from North Korea, or Iran. And yet where are the thoughts of the people of this country? With moats and gates and mortgages.
Right now, today we should be asking our politicians where they stand on dealing with these important global issues. But to the liberal Left, running, writing or commenting in more than half our papers, they don’t matter one iota.
We once had leadership in this country. It ended in June 2007. We were wrongly informed, with malice aforethought in many cases, by the press that we had had our fingers burned by taking bad or wrong decisions. The result is that we are presently unwilling to put our fingers anywhere near the fire again. With one of the best armed forces in the world and a history of fighting despotic regimes second-to-none that is WRONG and irresponsible.
OBAMA IN A BIND
President Obama is still on a learning curve. Lauded, naively, in my humble opinion, as the “Answer to All our Prayers for Peace” he is presently stuggling to come to terms with the relationship between America and Israel and the Palestinian world. He is not finding this easy. No-one thought he would apart from the politically naive.
Meanwhile the hand he extended to Iran has been spat in. And what … just what does he do about North Korea?
He is naturally very wary of being seen as “war-mongering”. He knows that this is the nomenclature bestowed on Bush for trying to prevent all-out world war. Prevention, however, IS still better than cure.
But as the fallout from Iraq and Afhanistan shows the ordinary Joe, fed by the press, is more concerned about deaths of innocents, claims of torture, rendition, ‘lying’ by western politicians, abuse of human rights than he is about preventing Armageddon.
Obama will speak to the Muslim world next Thursday. The BBC’s Justin Webb on Saturday sounded almost balanced on his thoughts on Obama’s visit to Cairo next week. I find this unusual, such was his unquestioning elation at Obama’s election. Perhaps he, as well as Obama, is beginning to see the light.
OBAMA RELATED
2 Israel discovers the real Obama: “Obama’s message signifies a lack of concern for the political fragility of Netanyahu’s government – and he isn’t betting on its longevity. The Israeli Prime Minister will soon have to choose between a domestic political crisis, a crisis with the United States, or more likely, both.” Between Israel and the United-States, the forecast is no longer for endless blue skies, as it was during the George W. Bush era. The insistence with which the new administration reiterates its demands to the Israeli government forecasts tough times ahead.
3 Not everyone approves of Obama’s (present) policy towards Israel: Representative Eliot Engel expects the Obama administration to call him sometime over the next week to enlist his support in a new effort to exert tougher and more public pressure against Israeli settlements. He said they won’t like his answer. “What concerns me, frankly, about both the statements of the secretary of state and the president is that once again Israel is being asked to make unilateral concessions in return for I don’t know what,” said Engel. Engel argued that the Obama administration’s demands risked making a mockery out of the authority of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I don’t know how any Israeli leader, or any leader of any foreign country, can appear to be succumbing to blatant and public U.S. pressure. I don’t know how Netanyahu stays in power if he is perceived as totally crumbling and totally capitulating,” he added. “Say Netanyahu bows to this pressure and says, ‘OK, OK, OK, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that,’ what happens next?”
That is diametrically opposed to the analysis reached by Martin Indyk, who is director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a former United States ambassador to Israel and a well known Israel hawk. Today in The New York Times he is quoted as saying, “This approach is predicated on the assumption that an Israeli prime minister needs a tough American president to justify tough decisions to an Israeli public. People in the American Jewish community and in Israel are sick of settlement activity. The whole zeitgeist has changed.”
Engel did say that people in the American Jewish community who have always been against settlements would now perhaps “be more vocal,” but he didn’t see major changes in attitudes about Israel afoot. Instead he expected condemnation from Republicans and discomfort among Democrats like himself for the remarks coming from the Obama administration.
MORE RELATED
- George W Bush, defiant and in search of a new role
- Real Clear Politics: Warning to Obama – The price of aiming high in the Middle East
- Mr Tony & the architecture of corruption – aka – Unintended Consequences
- Dramatic plane arrest of Iraqi ex-Minister
- SAS take on Taleban after defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq
- Al Qaeda now recruiting ready-made Taliban terrorists from Pakistan to strike Britain
- Iran hangs three over mosque bombing. Wasn’t this the bombing they blamed on America/Israel?
- Israel to attend Americas in bid to counter Iran’s growing influence: JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel’s deputy foreign minister will attend the annual summit of the Organization of American States next week in a bid to counter Iran’s growing influence in Latin America, an official said on Saturday.
Tags: David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Iran, Iraq, Israel, nick clegg, North Korea, nuclear, Obama, Tony Blair
