Mayhem in the Middle East..............

The Middle East is falling apart before our very eyes. Where to begin? Jordan is a bit of a surprise as I thought King Abdullah was in complete control. Not quite, as protesters want the PM ousted and, by tradition, the PM is appointed by the King.

Thanks partly to WikiLeaks, we are now aware that the US has fostered and supported Egyptian activists seeking regime change in the form of a parliamentary democracy. One unnamed activist was identified by the US embassy in Cairo and sent to New York as a participant in an 'activist summit' under State Department sponsorship.

This leads me to wonder what our State Department is up to, how many 'activists' it is cultivating, from where, and what type of training do they receive. Is the US exporting revolution? We get precious little information from our government.

O seems to be playing both sides and claims to have sympathy for the protestors on the one hand while praising Mubarak as a staunch Middle Eastern ally on the other. Hillary is mealy mouthed in her statement of 'deep concern' about the use of violence.

Peter Oborne has a misguiding headline in today's DT that reads 'what is happening in Egypt is none of our business'. Well, it is the business of we Westerners and beyond. Peter goes on to explain that what he really means is we have no business supporting dictators simply because they comply with our policies.

My take is that Mubarak will soon be history. Money must be flooding into Egypt and its neighbors in the Maghreb. Some comes from nations like the US seeking proponents of Western policies while the remainder comes from radical Islamic sources. All would be leaders need do is hold out their hand and it will be filled with gold and silver.

I am not so sure that al Qaida will come out a winner, but I fully expect Hezbollah to loom large in whatever Egypt's political future will bring. I doubt that a fully pro Western government will emerge.

I am also concerned about the role of miscreants and prisoners who appear more interested in looting and shooting than in regime change. This element needs to be controlled as does the plethora of tribal and political factions throughout the region.

In the case of Egypt, I fear that only a strong dictatorial leader will be able to keep the competing factions at bay. We really need to learn the lesson that the overthrow of a dictator, as in the case of Saddam Hussein, can induce greater death and destruction than occurred under the dictator. We also need to stop exporting our concept of democracy as the panacea for worldwide political ills.

The lead into the Telemufti could not be ignored so I did some research for background purposes. Amr Khaled seems to be just the ticket and I would endorse his immediate departure for Cairo. I have often been critical of the Islamic world for not having produced moderates that would counterbalance the challenges posed by al Qaida et al.

As it turns out, such moderates exist in abundance, but have not captured the attention of the media and thereby revealed to the likes of me. My research exposed a number of moderate and not so moderate leaders many of whom are Westerners who converted to Islam.

Out of the frying pan into the fire?

Enter the Muslim Billy Graham.

My prediction about the Maghreb domino effect seems to be developing along the lines we suggested. Mubarak looks due for an early bath, Gaddaffi is getting nervous, and the Yemen is revolting. Algeria is seething and Morocco looks dodgy.

 None of this tumult appears to be Islamist in nature.

Its current characteristics combine youth, computer literacy and the internet, social networks like Facebook and a demand not just for the material things in life that young people elsewhere take for granted but also for political freedom and plurality.

If this assessment is anywhere near accurate there is no room for a medieval caliphate. We may be seeing the high-watermark of extreme Islamism.

Or maybe this is wishful thinking.

One certainty is that the turbulence is spreading quickly in Maghreb countries which have one thing in common: nasty dictators who have been propped up by the West for fear that they might be replaced by Islamic extremists, just as they propped up vile regimes around the world which might otherwise have become Communist.

Why the West never progressed from this infantile foreign policy is a mystery. Perhaps it was the policy embodied in the nursery poem ‘Always keep a hold of nurse/for fear of getting something worse’.

On a more uplifting note the Speccie carried a full piece on the Islamic Billy Graham. Step forward the Telemufti Amr Khaled. He is a celebrity who preaches inter-faith dialogue and the need for young Muslims to get along with the West.

I have had a look at him performing on his web-site. He is good-looking, impeccably dressed in a dark business suit, no towel on the head, no robes, no beard, and oozing charm. He is the very model of a televangelist.

He has started a project in Yemen called ‘New Hope’ which is aimed specifically at Al Qaeda. Its object is ‘to pull out the roots of extremism in Yemen’. The project is deploying 100 clerics and 5,000 youth volunteers who will go to every city in Yemen to confront extremism, preaching the ‘true merciful Islam’, and inveighing against nonsense-talk of slaughtering infidels and all the other imagined grievances of disaffected Muslims.

The project started last November and combines old-fashioned preaching from the pulpit at Friday prayers with the latest internet techniques. Khaled seems convinced that before this year is out Al Qaeda will be yesterday.

Khaled is an Egyptian who was forced into exile because Mubarak thought he was getting too influential, and came to England. He is quoted in the Speccie as ‘living a wonderful life in freedom’.

He is using a UK-based foundation to train a new generation of youth leaders for Yemen. He has chosen 100 of the world’s most respected Muslim clerics to preach moderation from the pulpit and via podcast.

His general approach is to attack Osama with mockery and to show him to be ignorant of the Koran. He says ‘Who gave extremists the authority to speak on behalf of Muslims?’

Let’s hope that he succeeds and is not thrown off-course by the current political turbulence in Yemen, especially as he has the support and commitment of the present regime.

The NYT recently said that the unfettered growth of the security apparatus in the US was a far greater long-term threat to US freedom than ‘a few madmen in Yemen’.

We need to be a bit less worried about the limited threat imposed by Al Qaeda and much more worried about the moves by Blair and Broon to turn the UK into a totalitarian state which the new regime has done little to reverse.

Mahgreb muddle...

Lebanon looks to be in bad shape given Hezbollah's victory in forming a paper thin majority. There goes another American ally in the Middle East. We might well take instructions from Hesbollah's political engineering capabilities. Leveraging money and support from Iran and Syria respectively, they targeted the impoverished and neglected Shiites of South Lebanon through development assistance projects aimed at grass roots participation in housing and agriculture.

The next few weeks and months should prove interesting as I understand Lebanon is split roughly down the middle with respect to Islamic rule, Hezbollah, support of Shiites and relations with the West. Pity, Beirut was once the Middle Eastern destination of choice for European tourists.

Dubai has taken over that prize and I simply cannot understand why. What with its morality laws and several highly publicized prosecutions of sex offences, e.g. kissing on the beach, its impossibly and diabolically hot weather, and its lurking and leering Arab youth population, I would prefer to take my chances in Lebanon.

I am led to understand that the recent anti government violence in Tunisia was conducted largely by a population seeking greater material rewards and a greater slice of the economic pie and, most significantly, without reference to conservative or fundamental Islam.

I read further that similar feelings in Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Mauritania prevail, especially among youth populations. The Maghreb looks to be the next hot spot. Indeed the entire coastal area of North Africa is seeking reformation.

Warsi, bigotry and a Thai view...........

This was published in the Bangkok Post today. It is an important insight to bigotry from an Asian standpoint, so I have posted it in full.


‘Recently someone sent me an article titled Xenophobia in Thailand on the Rise. The article, dated March 26, 2007, discusses the strict foreign business law and the growing disdain of foreigners among Thais.

One Thai banking executive was quoted as saying: ''We are getting a lot of weird retirees here. They can't survive in your country so they come here.''

A Thai accountant said: ''I've seen so many old farangs with young Thai women. These old farangs damage the reputation of Thailand; they turn Thailand into a land of prostitutes.''

More than three years have passed since these people were quoted. It's worth asking: Do a lot of Thai people still think that way? Of course we do. Is there racism in Thailand? Absolutely. Just like anywhere else in the world. We're not any more or less special - we're just not.

Does racism go both ways? Just take a glance through the Bangkok Post website's forum and you'll find plenty of foreigners, who hold Thailand and Thais in absolute contempt but refuse to leave (or keep coming back for visits) because the costs of living is cheap and so are the prostitutes, which far outweighs their contempt. That's not to mention the fact that complaining about where you live (and other cultures) is everyone's favourite pastime. Then there are those who simply hate for the sake of hatred.

I won't get into land ownership or foreign business laws; they're boring. Rather, let's scrutinise social attitudes and human nature, focusing on Westerners (retirees or otherwise) and Thais. (Because, face it, we don't have the same problem with Japanese, retirees or otherwise.)

Do we get a lot of ''weird retirees'' in Thailand? Of course we do - both those who can and those who can't survive in their own countries. Firstly, foreign is different. Different is weird. It's the nature of human perception. Secondly, retirees are weird the world over. But they are only ''weird'' because younger people find older people weird. Likewise, younger people are weird to older people. It's the age gap that makes the difference.

The only thing that makes Western retirees weirder than their Thai counterparts is the term ''foreign''.

I work with Westerners who look so old they ought to be retired _ and they are weird. But so am I, and by gad I love them! Even if at times in their senility (or in their rush to get to the pub) they forget to correct grammatical errors or misspellings while subediting my articles.

Does anyone ever look at an old farang and a young Thai woman couple and go, ''Aww, isn't that sweet?'' with hand on heart, head tilted, endearing-like, smile forming at the corners of the lips, mushy-like, eyes beaming in dreamy appreciation? No, of course not _ everyone goes ''Oooooh''. But again, people would have the same nauseous reaction to seeing an old Thai man with a young Thai girl. The only difference is the ''foreign'' bit.

Have old farangs turned Thailand into a land of prostitutes? Absolutely. And so have young farangs. But they have done so to a far lesser degree than old and young Thai men. Or Thai women themselves, who (whether as a lifestyle choice or an economic necessity) prostitute themselves. Or Thai parents, who sell their daughters to pay debts. It is what it is.

On the flip side, as I've mentioned, take a look at the Bangkok Post website's forum and you'll see anti-Thai racism, whether subtle or blatant. It's only natural. ''Thai this and Thai that, blah, blah, blah''.

Foreign residents (legal or otherwise) will always complain about their host country. Any Thai who has lived in the West will tell you that we complained while living there too. Why? Because people complain, it's in our nature - and we complain best when the object of our bitterness is foreign.

Thais living in the West gripe about the decadence, the hedonism, the violent society, the lack of respect for family values, etc. Westerners living in Thailand gripe about the two-face greng jai attitude, the shakedowns and the dual pricing, the corruption and the inef ficiency, etc. That's what people do - we groan with delusions of our self-righteousness; we wail in our inability to embrace the fact that we simply cannot shape and mould the world and all its creations into our hopelessly personal, and grossly biased, ideal vision; we moan because we are self-centred.

But at the end of the day, Thais in the West must deal with the fact that, hey, they chose to live in the liberal West, and must carry all the baggage that comes with it. Likewise, Westerners in Thailand must deal with the fact that chose to live (temporarily or otherwise) in developing Thailand, and take all the baggage that comes with it.

Two-face greng jai? It's just good manners, and it can be positive when done as a social nicety, or negative when done to hide lies and deceit. Shakedowns and dual pricing? The day we get rid of these is the day we get rid of ''expat'' salaries. Fair enough? Corruption and inefficiency? We don't like it either, but you're the one who moved from the first world to third world, silly; so don't look down on us - help us improve the situation.

None of this is meant as an excuse for anything. Racism is wrong, no matter how you look at it. But racism is also human nature and will be with us as long as there are such concepts as ''foreign'' and ''diversity''. So I would urge that it be viewed not through bitter self-righteousness, but rather using the understanding eye of humanity, with a bit of comedy thrown in for good measure.

Thailand is changing rapidly, and it can be overwhelming, especially to the everyday people walking the streets. Twenty years ago, the only Western faces we saw in Thailand were old and wrinkly, generally speaking. Today, Bangkok is a melting pot filled with people from all corners of the world, young and old.

If I went to a club 15 years ago, there were only dark-haired Thais. The only pale faces were those of the Thai-Chinese and those who used very good skin-whitening creams. Now if I go to a club - well, as I did just last night - it's like the United Nations. Whites, blacks, browns, yellows, we have got it all.

When I was a kid, there were four channels on TV and that was it. Now my TV has a French channel. Oui.

Thailand, well, let's say Bangkok (and to a much lesser extent Chiang Mai, Korat, etc) has become a melting pot, and it has come to a boil very fast, in just about 20 years. The Thai culture and psyche colliding with multiculturalism _ it can be daunting, overwhelming _ will take time to adjust too. Below the-high rises, behind the screenings at state-of-the-art movie theatres and in the basements of fancy shopping malls, this is still a very conservative and traditional society that has just met all the rapid changes head on. It can cause seizures at times.

I have witnessed bitter racism from both Thais and Westerners. All I have to say is: chill, calm down, it's not all bad; we are adjusting to each other. Don't be so self-righteous, don't be so negative and don't be so sensitive.

If an old Western man and a young Thai girl are together, it's nobody else's business. Just appreciate that they are happy together.

If a Westerner chooses to live here, there's something I always like to say: ''Dorothy, you're not in Kansas any more.'' Adapt a little. It's a developing world, understand a little.

For the overly sensitive, if someone calls you ''farang'', it's just the term that we use, our language. Don't get offended. There's no negative connotation to it, unless an expletive precedes it - so chill. There may be racism in Thailand, as there is anywhere else, but two things I will say. First, no matter how much we complain (Thais or foreigners), we love it here, otherwise we wouldn't be here - and out of love, we should want to change things for the better, together.

Second, criminals may rob you of your money here, as will happen anywhere else in the world. But unlike in the West, there is no skinhead racist gang stomping you into the ground simply because of the colour of your skin. Appreciate that.

________________________________________

Contact Voranai Vanijaka via email at

voranaiv@bangkokpost.co.th

Cameron cuddles Europe.........

The devious, deceitful, disingenuous, double-dealing Dave continues on his unprincipled course with his coalition co-conspirators, especially in his relations with the EU. He is a good example of my long-held conviction that politicians inhabit a parallel planet, and the longer they are in Parliament the more they lose touch with reality.

They simply cannot see that the EU is not merely disliked in England; it is hated as an unelected, corrupt, self-perpetuating oligarchy. Those who say that we have a shared cultural heritage with Europe could not be more wrong. Our heritage is unique, which to a large extent we have passed on to our cousins in the US, Australia, New Zealand and other places.

Remember that no other member of the EU has an unbroken experience of Parliamentary government going back more than 65 years. Many of the members are as corrupt as third world countries. As an island race, we have a genetic dislike and distrust of Europeans because for most of the last 2000 years they have arrived –or failed to arrive – as invaders.

In particular, I believe that the traditional French foreign policy of neutralising the Brits both economically and politically continues unabated. Why else would they push for hedge funds to be regulated from Brussels when 80% of them are based only in the UK, although over 1000 have moved out of the City to Switzerland as a consequence?

The first broken promise was a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. But there will be a referendum on the alternative voting system which was not sought by the people and which was not in any manifesto. If Dave pulls off this fraud on the electorate, the next step will be fixed-term Parliaments, thus eliminating the ability of the Commons to get rid of a failing government, especially a coalition.

We expected Dave to take a tougher line with the EU than did his predecessors. Instead, he is even more of an integrationist.

Amongst his transgressions, there is his agreement to the new European diplomatic corps, supervision of the City of London, extension of criminal jurisdiction which will make the ECJ the court of last resort instead of the House of Lords, as I will continue to call the absurd ‘Supreme Court’ which cost the taxpayer around £50 million for no good reason, and acceptance of a higher EU budget at a time of cut-backs in the UK.

He opted to join the Irish bail-out although it is obvious that the intention is to save not Ireland but the euro.

Now there is the European Union Bill going through the Lords. This is supposed to defend against further EU encroachment by requiring any extension of powers to be decided by the courts, when the election undertaking was that Parliament would be the final arbiter, another broken promise.

To be fair, Dave is at last tackling some of the civil liberties issues. The ID card is now abolished and the data base dismantled. The 24 day detention without trial powers expire shortly and UK reverts to the previous 14 day period, so it’s not all bad.

An end to cheap fuel in the US>

Pundits here are beginning to acknowledge what quite possibly may be the end of the cheap gasoline era. Predictions are between $4 and $6 dollars a gallon with the prospect of an increase in the federal gasoline tax. One commentator mirrored my take on the subject which is that the US simply must extract itself from our addiction to oil; foreign oil.

Doing so, however, is tantamount to political suicide, but I do think that O has already taken that decision. If this proves to be correct, we will be entering a new era and the prevailing paradigms will be shifting like the desert sands.

Oddly, there remains enough oil and allied fossil fuel products to power world industry for some time to come. This is in spite of rising demand and rising demand is clearly Chinese driven. We in the US have 750 cars on the road per 1,000 people. China has 10. China also has a bourgeoning middle class complete with a lust for luxuries including motor cars.

What with soaring Chinese demand and world oil largely in Arab hands, the problem with fossil fuels is as much political as economic. As one commentator put it, the stone age did not end because it ran out of rocks. Indeed, other vicissitudes intervened to a point where necessity mothered invention.

We are now counting on that process to kick in and if it does not, everyone will be in trouble. The name of the game is alternative energy and I am certain that China will play a commanding role in its research, development and manufacture.

An end to cheap fuel in the US?

Pundits here are beginning to acknowledge what quite possibly may be the end of the cheap gasoline era. Predictions are between $4 and $6 dollars a gallon with the prospect of an increase in the federal gasoline tax. One commentator mirrored my take on the subject which is that the US simply must extract itself from our addiction to oil; foreign oil.

Doing so, however, is tantamount to political suicide, but I do think that O has already taken that decision. If this proves to be correct, we will be entering a new era and the prevailing paradigms will be shifting like the desert sands.

Oddly, there remains enough oil and allied fossil fuel products to power world industry for some time to come. This is in spite of rising demand and rising demand is clearly Chinese driven. We in the US have 750 cars on the road per 1,000 people. China has 10.

China also has a bourgeoning middle class complete with a lust for luxuries including motor cars. What with soaring Chinese demand and world oil largely in Arab hands, the problem with fossil fuels is as much political as economic.

As one commentator put it, the stone age did not end because it ran out of rocks. Indeed, other vicissitudes intervened to a point where necessity mothered invention.

We are now counting on that process to kick in and if it does not, everyone will be in trouble. The name of the game is alternative energy and I am certain that China will play a commanding role in its research, development and manufacture.

Shangri-la and pear-shaped Pakistan..........

And so we go on, in our Thai Shangri-la. We are very lucky to be able to spend virtually the whole winter here. The Cupids is a boutique hotel of only 12 bedrooms, but the owners’ house is pressed into service for some lucky folk if the main building is full. We had a honeymoon couple from the US staying there a few weeks ago; the main bedroom has the lot – Jacuzzi and all. It’s not so much a hotel but a more running family house party.

There are no ‘sirs’ or ‘madams’; it’s all first-names or ‘darling’! There are no receptionists, porters, cooks or cleaners; only ‘the girls’ who multi task. Jan the Manager does all the office work, cooks, gardens (I have a photo of her swinging a pick-axe to install a new garden fence) and as she lent us her welding mask to observe the total eclipse of the sun last year goodness knows what else she does.

The only men on the staff are the handymen and gardeners. The food is terrific, the air-conditioned rooms are all enormous suites with everything including free wi-fi, and the service is five-star. The gardens are beautiful and the birds prolific.

At any given time we know most of the guests because so many return every year from all over; we counted 9 nationalities in our first few days. We have 2 old friends returning next week who let their house while they are away from England which more than pays all their costs here, so reasonable is the tariff.

And to top it all, the winter weather in Northern Thailand is perfection; cool mornings and evenings and warm days with hardly a cloud in the sky. The Cupids is 15 kms from downtown, so it is cooler and far less polluted by traffic in its village location.

It is as near perfection as one will get in this wicked world; if only home commitments allowed us to stay longer than our usual three months!

Trip Advisor ranks the Golden Cupids as 13th out of over 300 hotels and against some pretty stiff competition. It does not take cost into account but when this is factored in, the Cupids comes out at number 2.

To more serious matters.

The situation in Pakistan scares me.

The murder of a moderate and able politician by his bodyguard as the others stood by and did nothing is a step down the road to complete anarchy. The sight of people showering the murderer with rose petals is a clear indication of the moral turpitude of a large part of the population. That the men with beards have gained enormously in strength since Musharaff left is self-evident.

How did it come to this pass? It was not intended to be so; when Ali Jinnah led Pakistan to independence he intended it to be a secular and democratic country where the Muslim religion was obviously dominant but where other faiths would be respected.

The rot started with the ghastly Zia who began to turn Pakistan into a fundamental Islamic state arising, I believe, from a promise to Allah if his son recovered from a life-threatening illness. Then the even more ghastly Sharif introduced the death penalty for blasphemy in between looting the treasury. Then the Afghanistan situation over many years brought the Taliban and the Islamic extremists.

But I believe that the present situation is not only rooted in the rise of aggressive Islam. It is likely that political, social and economic evils are behind the semi-chaos that is today’s Pakistan.

Some years ago, when I was involved in the election that brought Sharif to power, a senior retired Army officer told me that unless the ruling elite changed its ways, the people would rise up and there would be a bloodbath. It’s getting there quickly.

Politics has always been not only hopelessly corrupt but also incompetent in every respect, despite the fact that Pakistan has some very able civil servants. It is said that in reality Pakistan is ‘owned’ by about 400 families – the Qureshi, the Khans, the Bhuttos etc. It seemed to me that life in the rural areas, which I visited extensively in the Punjab and Sindh, was basically feudal. There is, for example, the indenture system; if a man has to borrow a bride-price from his landlord, the deal will that he makes a given number of, say, bricks in return. The borrower is disadvantaged in two possible ways. The first is that the lender might attempt to raise the quantity before the debt is discharged. The second is that the debt can be sold-on.

I have seen worse rural poverty in Pakistan than in all my travels throughout Africa. The peasantry is ground down. The landlord may charge for water taken from ‘his’ river so that children often suffer from skin diseases because they can’t afford to wash.

It is reported that the flooding was as a result of landlords diverting the Indus to the east when previously it was diverted to the west in times of threatened flood, so that their land would be unscathed when the waters started to rise. I have no idea whether the reports are accurate, but I would not be surprised. On BBC World I saw the police in charge of food-aid distribution demanding bribes before they would release any food at all, so the poorest suffer all over again

And so here we are, with chaos looming in a nuclear-armed country. I predict that the Army will soon take over again in the absence of an alternative, but the country might also effectively disintegrate, with parts under the control of the Taliban, especially in the FATA and other areas bordering Afghanistan. I cannot see India standing idly by if Pakistan goes Taliban.

Now we have Tunisia falling apart. Will there be a domino effect? Hillary clearly sees the danger, judging from her recent berating of corrupt Arab autocrats for failing to move with the times.

And what sort of revolution are we seeing? It does not seem Islamist at this time. Its causes are more to do with lack of jobs, repression, poor educational opportunities, and other social and economic ills.

Let us see how it all pans out.

Gun law, American-style.........

Americans are prisoners of the second amendment to the Constitution. The intention of our forefathers remains clear and it is decidedly not to arm the public. At the time of framing the Constitution, each colony maintained its own militia however ragtag and undisciplined. There being no federal army, the states were not only granted, but encouraged to sustain their militias as a first line of defense. Please note the emphasis on 'militia'.

The amendment has been spun by the political right into an unalienable right to not only bear arms but to keep an arsenal of automatic hand guns and rifles along with as much ammunition as one wants to stockpile. The National Rifle Association is a sacred cow that is inviolable as demonstrated by a multitude of unsuccessful but highly aggressive efforts to disenfranchise it, or at least dramatically curtail its powers.

Many, like myself, are content to allow our citizens the right to a hunting weapon or enjoy sport shooting at a gun club. I steadfastly believe, however, that any weapon for any other purpose is a danger to individuals and society and should be outlawed. This includes weapons for self defense.

Unfortunately, this viewpoint is itself unrealistic because so many Americans are so well armed, and so intent on acquiring more weapons and ammunition that it would be virtually impossible to disarm them. In short, we could not disarm America if we tried.

Federal approval is required to purchase a weapon. This takes about 15 minutes for a person without a criminal record and can be accomplished while waiting in front of the weapons counter at Wal Mart or any other store dealing in guns. There is no limit to the number of weapons one owns. Gun fairs and shows buy and sell weapons indiscriminately and often without reference to federal approval.

Guns are constantly bought and sold privately and through newspaper want ads and are likewise traded without reference to federal screening. Guns are frequently exchanged, traded, stolen and gifted especially by criminal elements such as the Mafia, militia groups and street gangs.

I recently visited a gun store to buy a 22 caliber replica version of a Henry or Winchester lever action rifle. I was astounded to see on display a vast array of automatic weapons including machine pistols, M16 rifles, AK47s and even a light machine gun with a tripod mount, scope, night sight and laser sight. These are not big game hunting weapons. Nor are they weapons for self defense. They are assault weapons which are being purchased throughout the US in anticipation of the day when citizens will be called upon to aggressively defend themselves against invasion.

To the casual non-American observer, it may seem unlikely that an enemy force would, or even could, penetrate our military defenses and take hostile action against common urban, suburban and rural dwellers in this vast country of ours. And such observers would be correct. You see, it is not a foreign enemy that so many of our citizens fear, but rather our very own government. In addition, we fear scenarios in which our government fails to curtail criminal and anti-social elements who, given a natural disaster or food crisis for example, might take it upon themselves to 'take over' and to subdue any resistance through brute force during efforts to steal food, fuel or money.

Hollywood has produced numerous films using this and similar scenarios and it is incredible how popular and seriously taken these films are. Young and old alike lie awake at night conjuring up situations in which they heroically defend their community, or country, with little else but a stealthy demeanor and plenty of automatic weaponry.

Every time we have an incident in which a public figure is shot, laws are proposed to curtail the sale and spread of guns. The guts of such laws that have passed into legislation have been removed to the point where their intent has been negated. The image of Charlton Heston, a former Chairman of the NRA, holding a rifle aloft from his podium at an NRA convention and saying "come and take it" remains fixed in our minds. Through popular efforts such as Heston's, anti gun advocates have been effectively emasculated in their endeavors to bring sanity and reason to the issue of bearing arms.

The Tucson massacre: aTexan take.......

The Tucson shooter, Jared Laughner, is not known to the public. My take is that he suffers from psychological maladies that engender insecurity and paranoia and make him feel capable of and justified in righting perceived social ills. In a word, he is insane, although he may not be so judged by a jury of his peers.

Never mind, the guy is a nutter, acting alone and very much influenced by contemporary political and media rhetoric.

It is this rhetoric that has focused public attention. Both the political right and left are accused of employing martial and inflammatory phrases to characterize the personality, intent and disposition of public figures.

Yes, the Tea Party is a prime suspect, especially in the use of terminology in which individuals with whom they disagree should be placed in the cross hairs of public scrutiny and assaulted with the verbal weapons of our most articulate sharpshooters.

This accusation is not limited to the political right, but the new conservative movement including the Tea Party are very much guilty of employing inflammatory rhetoric. This includes Sarah Palen, Rush Limbaugh and a host of others.

I have long believed that their poison words will come to no social good and have long rued the inability of their opposition on the left to not refrain from responding in kind.

Deepwater: 'We are all guilty....'

BP, Halliburton, and Transocean were jointly responsible for the Deepwater blowout, says the official enquiry. No surprise there, then. Who else? The BBC World news reported that the Feds also got a shellacking for complacency but this never appeared in the print media. So nobody comes out with any credit. Two people especially.

I said at the beginning that O’s stance was unpresidential. By slating ‘British Petroleum’, knowing full well that it had ceased to be such when it took over AMOCO, he displayed at the best an appalling piece of duck-shoving. By allocating blame before the inquiry had even been set up, he exposed himself as having unpleasant demagogic tendencies.

The second villain-of-the-piece was the wretched Chairman of BP, Sven the Invisible. It is the Chairman’s job to speak for the company in times of crisis, not that of the CEO. So what does he do? Goes off on a Far East cruise on his yacht with his squeeze. And why was his Director of Communications so silent? Isn’t it his job to spin his masters out of trouble?

The crucifixion of Tony Hayward was despicable; true he did not handle the PR at all well. But he is an oil-man not a PR spiv and he was busy on rectifying the culture of complacency and cost-cutting on safety that was introduced by John Browne, his predecessor.

BP has apparently been voted as one of the American companies most hated. No surprise there, then. Whatever happened to British Petroleum?

Massacre in Tucson.......

What are we to make of the terrible events in Tucson?

The DT editorial has slated the left and by implication Obama for what they describe as political point scoring about the acrimony introduced into the political discourse of the US. In the same issue, Alex Spillius quotes violent statements by the Right, especially the T Party, which if accurate would have resulted in prosecution in UK for incitement or as ‘hate’ crimes.

I feel that it is stretching credulity too far to suggest that this was a political assassination. If it was, why did the gunman kill six innocent people, including 9-year old girl? The more important question is what kind of polity permits a known nutter to buy a machine pistol?

The DT reports brought all the usual worms out of the woodwork. The majority of those that I read were fiercely defending the right to use lethal force against almost anything that they disagreed with, and the Second Amendment gets almost constant reference.

‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’.

The meaning of the Second Amendment seems to me abundantly clear. It is the right to bear arms as a member of a militia’ in the days before the US had a standing army. It is absurd to imagine that the remarkably astute men who drafted the Constitution had any intention of allowing individuals untrammelled right to arm themselves to the teeth without hindrance.

Regrettably, the US courts do not agree with me. I would quote Oliver Cromwell at them – ‘Thinkest thou in the bowels of Christ, gentlemen, that thou mayest be mistaken’

But surely there should be stringent gun control to prevent the purchase of military-type weapons, such as an automatic pistol designed for use by police, special services and the like. Sensible restrictions should apply to both the person and the weapon.

Personal restrictions should include the need to have a firearms licence subject to:

• No record of conviction of an imprisonable offence;

• No record of serious psychiatric condition;

• Age not less than 21 (the same as for alcohol);

• Training in the use of the weapon applied for (I believe this is so in South Africa);

• Proof of permanent residential address and of immigration status if not a US citizen;

• Life ban if convicted of a crime of violence or a firearms offence;

• One handgun and one rifle or shotgun per applicant;

• Annual renewal;

• Instant cancellation if convicted of any misuse of the firearm;

• Substantial penalties for infringement including bans.

Restrictions on weapons should include:

• No automatics – single shot only, which means that only revolvers and bolt action rifles would be permitted.

• Maximum calibre of .32 for handguns and .30 for rifles.

None of these would conflict with the Constitution. But try telling that to the NRA.

Airlines to hate

American Airlines has been voted the most hated carrier in the US. In the UK I would not be at all surprised if that citation went to BA. By coincidence, Wee Willy Walsh was on BBC World whinging about ‘unfair’ competition from the rising airlines in the Gulf.

They smartly reposted that until recently all national flag carriers in Europe were nationalised and received huge subsidies from the state, whereas the Gulf airlines are required to function as commercial entities and receive no privileges like cheap fuel.

I have always had acceptable service from BA, but I heartily dislike them as a company. The main reason is that when they ran regional services, they had a nasty habit of cancelling flights for ‘technical’ reasons, or take you to an alternative destination.

For example, I came back from Malawi via Joburg arriving at Heathrow. I then took a taxi to my connecting airport, Luton. My flight was not even on the departure board. As BA had no enquiry counter at Luton it took me some while to discover that we were all being bussed to Gatwick instead, not nice after a journey that by now was about 24 hours with another four or five to get home.

It is blindingly obvious that the ‘technical’ problem was lack of passengers so they put everyone on a single flight.

A friend living in Thailand bought refundable BA tickets for his son and girl-friend to visit from England. The day before departure the girl friend discovered that she had lost her passport. So my friend claimed a refund. That was two years ago. He has had no reply whatsoever to his numerous approaches to BA and has now given up.

But he is a frequent premium traveller, and has vowed that he will never, ever fly BA again.

I have flown Virgin twice. If my experience is typical they have brought the pleasure back into flying.

It started in the business-class lounge. The waiter welcomed me by asking if I would like a cocktail. As it was only 7 a.m. I had coffee instead. The food was the first I had really enjoyed in 50 years of flying. The service was exceptional. Diagonal single seats were fantastically comfortable. And there is a stand-up bar.

I can never sleep on aircraft. Wrapped in a duvet on my flatbed I had to be wakened on the return journey because we were landing at Gatwick. Even missed my breakfast!

We take eight flights a year by Thai. Their service is good but their long-haul aircraft are clapped. They should have been replaced by the A380 but this is three years behind delivery date. They do not reply to complaints.

With a succession of technical problems QANTAS is now known as Quite A Nice Trip; Any Survivors?

What is your experience?

No news is bad news......

One must search hard for interesting news just now, but that is a good thing, is it not. It affords journalists to report something positive, although I have not seen much along those lines. Lots of speculation, however, such as the origin of the spate of massive bird deaths, why the Catholic church is suddenly interested in publicly exposing its exorcism rites, what nascent form of dishonesty might be lurking at No. 10 Downing street, how the Republics who are now the majority in our House of Representatives intend to reduce spending while not increasing tax revenue, and cetera.

Flavor of the month editorially speaking is the production of scenarios regarding the demise of the USA as the world economic, political and military power. I would be delighted for the USA to leave the limelight as world No. 1 and enjoy the luxury of sitting back to watch another super power contend with world ills. China would be fine with me in this role, as would India, Brazil, Russia and even the EU, although the latter is not bloody likely given the prevailing absence of any form of unity whatsoever.

China could address the opium and Taliban issues in Afghanistan while sending envoys to Israel and Palestine to jump-start peace negotiations. India would be ideal for ensuring human rights, child labor reform, and taking a firm hand in controlling North Korea. Russia might well commit itself to resolving Middle East crises, prison reform, freedom of the press and the evils of alcohol. As for the world's monetary leader, I leave it up to the EU to take over that role along with that of financing faltering national economies.

Spanish practices........

Like Churchill’s pudding, this missive has no theme. There has been nothing happening lately that commands exclusive attention, so it will be ‘a thing of shreds and patches’.

After the Xmas hiatus in the political panto, the world seems to be returning to its customary state of deranged equilibrium. Here, for example, is F&CO advice to travellers:

‘There is a high threat of terrorism in Thailand. Bomb and grenade attacks have been indiscriminate, including in places visited by expatriates and foreign travellers. Sporadic attacks continue in Bangkok and around Chiang Mai. Since the beginning of 2010, there have been 114 reported explosions in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces’.

Who writes this damaging rubbish? Does the F&CO ever weigh its words against their possible impact, particularly on the tourist trade? It’s true that a few grenades were chucked around during the riots last year, but apart from the Muslim south, ‘terrorism’ is virtually unknown. F&CO is confusing terrorism with violent political demonstrations. Surely the two countries most at risk from terrorism, apart from its birthplace, Israel (which invented terrorism as an acceptable political weapon under the British Mandate) are the UK and the US. Does the F&CO describe them as having a ‘major terrorist threat?

More dottiness in Spain.

It has a financial crisis that observers say makes Ireland’s problem look like a walk in the park. So what is the first piece of legislation passed in the New Year? Why, a draconian smoking ban – in a country where the hospitality industry is huge. Spain is Europe’s fourth largest tobacco-grower. It receives large subsidies under the CAP (yes, the EU subsidises tobacco at the same time as spending taxpayers’ money on promoting smoking bans – no surprise there, then). Have they not learnt from the experience in UK and Ireland, where pubs are closing daily because of the loss of custom, or that in Ireland recently published figures show that smoking has gone up since the ban, especially amongst the under-25s?

Back in the UK, people are now getting worried about the dangers from the proliferation of urban foxes, following attacks on children. There was photo in the DT of a monster that was twice the size of a rural fox, nearly as big as a large dog. Apparently this is because of them feeding mightily on the prolific food waste that is a feature of modern Britain. This is all a consequence of the hunting ban, a ludicrous and unenforceable law that occupied something like 700 hours of Parliamentary time whereas the debate on the Iraq war only took up about 17 hours of our masters' consideration.

They, of course, brushed aside the fact that hunting with hounds is the the most humane and environmentally-effective way of controlling population growth. Other measures are cruel and ineffective. Hunting culls the old, the sick and the unhealthy, and death is instantaneous and certain. Other methods don’t discriminate and often leave the animal wounded, to die miserably. The outcome of banning deer-hunting is that they have proliferated to such an extent that they are becoming a major traffic hazard. At least as important is that diseased animals are no longer taken out, with the result that they are spreading infection amongst farm animals.

Needless to say, the townies and bunny huggers won’t listen.

One of the consequences of Wikileaks is that the well-turned apercu is likely to disappear from diplomatic dispatches. When I was working on elections in Pakistan, the British High Commissioner gave me a copy of his note to the F&CO about the conduct of the EU election observer mission. It was hilarious. Concerning the French representative he wrote ‘ The French Government representative arrived with gorgeous pouting Rita Chevrolet, checked in to a five-star hotel, never to be seen again’.

The 'Numpty' Oscars Part 2

Totally incompetent Government Department of the year award.

Fierce competition for this one, but Immigration wins by a short head – hardly surprising since the head suit is a woman who was responsible for the voter fraud in Birmingham a while back, described by the judge at the election court as ‘a disgrace to a banana republic’,left under a cloud and was immediately recruited on a higher salary.

What do you know about immigration into the UK? Nothing. Nought. Zilch. Bugger all. And what does the Government know? The same. You would have thought that in order to meet immigrant demand for housing, social services, health care, education and the rest the authorities would need to have a least some idea as to how many immigrants come to UK. The data does not exist. There is no systematic record of who comes, where they go, and who leaves. Immigration is the largest component of population growth, exceeding the net effect of births and deaths. It wasn’t until 2009 that the Government even acknowledged that there was a problem.

The ‘Malaprop’ award for mangled English.

This one is really tough even though Dubya has a ‘lifetime achievement’ award for such gems as ‘The French don’t even have a word for entrepreneur’, and ‘deja-vu all over again.

Finalists include the Labour Party Chairman Ian McCartney. He is 4ft 11in. Opening a conference he declaimed ‘Comrades, together; we can walk tall’.

But the clear winner must be John Prescott with ‘own homership’, ‘fist time buyers’, and best of all – introducing his ministerial team with the words ‘How can I not lose with a team like that?’

Here are some more gems:

‘The green belt is a great Labour achievement and we intend to build on it.’

‘It's great to be back on terracotta!’

‘I had to live in one of these hostiles’ when he obviously meant to say ‘hostels’.

‘Industrial disputes can be solved through "meditation" ‘.

‘Any definition of homelessness that suggests that people haven't got a home is not good’.

The Whitewash Award for the most egregious cover-up

As I have previously predicted, Dr Kelly refuses to go away, so ‘no contest’ here. Doctors asking for a proper inquest have now submitted a formal request for a High Court direction.

The DT reports that ‘the doctors insisted the Hutton Inquiry failed to address key questions, such as how Dr Kelly obtained a packet of coproxamol painkillers, why his blood and stomach contained only a non-toxic dose of the drug, why he was not spotted by a police helicopter with thermal imaging cameras which flew over the wood where his body was later found, why no fingerprints were found on the knife apparently used to slit his wrist and whether he in fact intended to kill himself’.

Numpty of the Year: the outright winner.

No contest. By acclamation, it’s none other than Gordon Broon, the forgotten man of politics. A review of his book reckons that to give it as a Xmas gift would be a hostile act. He claims to have saved the first crisis of globalisation. What crisis? I don’t remember India, China, or Australia being in crisis. He took credit for the prosperity of the earlier years and was praising bankers as late as 2007. He says that he was fooled by the bankers who didn’t tell him about the risks they were taking. Wasn’t it his job as Chancellor to know? He admits that he was clueless about what was happening in the economy. The review says that by the end of the book the reader is likely to have lost the will to live.

Welcome to the land of eternal earmarks

Welcome to the wonderful world of earmarks; those lovely inventions that enable our esteemed politicians in Washington to pay their political debts at public expense. We cannot do without them and I am sure that ways and means will be quickly discovered to perpetuate this tradition in spite of audible public outcry.

Earmarks are parochial add ons, or riders, to important legislation. Popular bills are favored because they pass quickly. For example, the Patriot Act legislated shortly after 9/11 zipped through both chambers with hardly a flinch. Appended to this Act were a myriad of earmarks, each of which required a comparative pittance of public expenditure. Collectively, they also amounted to little by comparison with the subject bill. Hence, they are not worth Congressional time to fight against. More important, precious few legislators want to fight against earmarks given their raison d'etre, to wit, repay political debts, or at least to expand a legislator's electoral base.

An order of magnitude figure of the number of individual earmarks in a single piece of legislation is in the thousands. Yes, the thousands. This makes sense, because there are a lot of individuals, groups, businesses and who knows what who contribute significantly to a congressional election.

A plank in our Dear Leader's presidential campaign included the elimination of earmarks. That promise lasted until he signed his first bill. In fairness, O's first bill was the TARP legislation which had been formulated at the end of the W era. TARP contained heaps of earmarks, but given its origins, they were grandfathered. Significantly, there was a hue and cry over threats to delete the earmarks and O quickly learned there was no way he would succeed in eliminating them. Major House and Senate figures were adamant that earmarks would remain institutionalized, thank you very much.

Ironically, and tactfully, the Republicans took up the anti-earmark crusade during the mid-term election last November. Key Republican figures are making every effort to persuade other Republicans to join this crusade, but with only limited success. The crusaders are at last aware that the public is disgusted with Congress in general and with the particular way legislators thread earmarks into major bills to suit their state electorates. I believe the crusaders understand that they cannot resist earmarks any longer without incurring public wrath, demonstrations and even violence.

The image of our Senators and Representatives has changed over the years, or at least it has cycled. Their image following the WWII was dominated by one of honor, trust and public service. In suspect this was more the result of public naivete than good character. The character has not changed, but the public has matured and become somewhat more realistic about our Congressional leaders. Adjectives describing them would include imperious, vain, arrogant, fawning, insincere, elitist, superior, self-satisfied and smug. This is not exhaustive, but sufficiently indicative to deliver my message, and more to the point, the public message; clean up your act.

It will not happen. Our representatives in Washington have for too long been sucking the milk and honey that defines America leaving the masses with bread and water. Costs of living have increased far in advance of wages and salaries. Professional services have gone wild in comparison for the lower and middle class capacity to pay for them. This includes medical, legal, dental, accounting, finance, engineering and the money we pay to our representatives for salaries and allowances. In addition, Civil Service salaries have skyrocketed far beyond what they were relative to the private sector and to what the public is getting from these services.

The ‘Numpty’ Oscars 2010. (trans: A reckless, absent minded or unwise person}

As this is Awards time, I thought I would select a few winners for the Numpty Oscars.

Moron of the Year.

The title must surely go to your Home Security chief, closely followed by the UK equivalent. Scarcely a day passes without hearing of more idiocy in airport security. (Mind you, a close contestant must be the woman who dialled 999 to report that somebody had stolen her snowman).

We have the lady who was forced to remove her breast prosthesis, inserted following cancer mastectomy. We have the bladder cancer-sufferer who urine bag was burst by a rough-handling goon. We have the sexy lady who appeared in her undies only, but still got pulled over for checking (seeing her photo. I guess the guys just couldn’t resist the temptation). We have the lady who was made to strip to the waist, so that the boys could play the video over and over during their rest break. We have the 3-year old who was body-searched.

Now there is a ruckus between the US and European authorities because the Yanks are asking for details of passengers’ bank accounts to be submitted with the passenger lists. Why on earth would they want this? How would they collect the information? Does this mean that we will have to give the airline a copy of our bank statements? Is the real intention to lessen the security burden by ensuring that nobody travels to the US unless it is unavoidable?

I think we should be told!

I have been delving into how the Israelis, the most endangered country on earth by a wide margin, copes with airport security. First, they obviously only put the full monty on those who might be up to no good. If you are a grey haired old lady with a walking stick, your baggage gets x-rayed, you go through the scanner, and that’s it. They have no compunction about racial stereotyping.

So the answer to airport security is simple; outsource it the Israelis.

Best pantomime.

No contest here. The easy winner is the absurd coalition between Call-me Dave and Cleggover. Cutting the defence budget and increasing the overseas aid budget by 37% is beyond parody. I also suspect a con. I predict that the ‘increase’ will largely consist of transfers from other budgets; the substantial cost of running the BBC World Service radio from the Foreign Office; the British Council budget; the £50 million UN emergency fund just announced, to name just a few.

Our political masters couldn’t lay straight in bed. As ever the LibDems operate on the basis of ‘If you don’t like my principles, I have others.

Non-event of the year

The clear winner is Ed Milliband as Leader of the Opposition. Already the vultures are circling, including his brother(see picture) who, after a protracted sulk, is now back in the fray rubbishing Ed. I tell you, this guy is so grey you have difficulty in seeing him on a foggy day.

Best news of the year.

More than three cheers that England failed to host the soccer World Cup. But the thought of royalty and top politicians having to grovel before the gang of pimps, crooks and comic singers who make up the FIFA hierarchy makes one reach for the sick-bag. Unfortunately, there is no way of getting out of the Roman circus of the Olympic Games. The effect on London will be simply awful. The IOC has already booked 40,000 of the best hotel rooms in London – not for competitors but for themselves and their hangers-on. The will be ‘Zil’ lanes on the highways which may only be used by the humungous fleet of IOC limos, stretching as far as Weymouth where the yachting is taking place. No advertising of goods competing against sponsors will be allowed, so if you have a shop displaying a Pepsi advert, expect a visit from the Wooden Tops. The London authority will have to commandeer all advertising hoardings for the duration. And to crown it all, the first language will be French!

More to come............

Don't forget Dewani.............

The Dewani case takes yet more twists and turns back towards my original standpoint that without an apparent motive it was rash to jump to conclusions that this was a hit arranged by the husband.

The Dewani brief seems to be constructing a sound case to deny the extradition application, although why this should be displayed in the meeja before the court gets to hear it is extraordinary. Perhaps the case should be called R vs. Max Clifford to be heard in the Court of Meeja Speculation. It is now said anent the second murder in King William’s Town that in fact it is provable that Dewani had never been to SA before his honeymoon. Now a German of the homosexual persuasion pops up and says that he had had 3 sodomy sessions with D in London and Birmingham when D can conclusively show that he was never in either place at all material times. Nothing to do with brown envelopes, of course.

In addition, ‘General’ Wotsit, the chief of the SAPS, has made some extraordinarily prejudicial comments about the case, including describing D as a monkey who had come to SA to murder his wife. The family of the driver now convicted of murder says that he was paid R1000, not in unadjacent to £100 – for a hit! Not unreasonably, they say that this was for driving and that the video showing D handing over the money was his fare.

The latest reports on the forensic evidence show that she was shot through the hand and the bullet then severed the carotid artery. There was finger-bruising on her thighs which were consistent with a rape attempt, so together this suggests to me that she grabbed the muzzle of the gun during attempted rape and the crime was not a hit but rape gone wrong.

The defence is now saying what I said at the beginning; this may about restoring the image of the SA tourist industry, and the chances of a fair trial are considerably diminished if this is even remotely true.

However, D will probably not escape extradition because SA is one of those few countries that does not have to submit a prima facie case.

Lockerbie lies and claptrap........

The US senators ‘investigating’ the Mehgrabi affair have come up with their report at last. From the accounts published here it seems as if they arrived at their conclusion at the beginning and then came up with a load of spurious claptrap, including a list of powers of the UK Government over the Scottish Parliament that do not exist. Needless to say, Tony Hayward gets a walk-on part. And it was all a piece of grandstanding by Alex Salmond, the Scottish Chief Minister. The Torygraph asserts that the only motivation was compassion.

Pull the other one. To me it stands out like a bulldog’s gonads that it was to avoid Mehgabi’s second appeal which might have revealed the truth. This is what I wrote at the time.

‘Lockerbiegate refuses to lie down. I have been reading an interview with Dr Jim Swire whose daughter was on the flight. He has spent 20 years devilling out the truth, including several interviews with Gaddafi. The initial suspect was a Syrian-Iranian terrorist group. But along came the Gulf war and it was necessary to keep Syria onside and Iran neutral, so suspicion was heaped upon Libya. The prosecution case rested on obfuscation and lies. Evidence of a break-in at Heathrow close to an Iranair office and the shed where the baggage for PanAm 103 was assembled was withheld from the defence. The bomb had a pressure detonator set to go off at a certain altitude and therefore it must have been put on board at Heathrow, not Malta, as the prosecution claimed, which implicated Mehgrabi.

‘Other prosecution evidence was fabricated. The UN observer at the trial said that the only way ‘this incomprehensible verdict’ could have been reached was through ‘deliberate malpractice’ by the Scottish Crown Office. It was not a jury trial. In short, Mehgrabi was fitted up. Because of all this, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found evidence of a potential miscarriage of justice sufficient to grant a second appeal. The prospect of all the dirt coming out in the appeal hearing was enough to get Mehgrabi out of the country as quickly as possible. But it may come out anyway, because apparently Mehgrabi has handed over about 300 pages of evidence to his Scottish lawyer.

‘The case for the prosecution was that Mehgrabi loaded the bomb in Malta. This was technically impossible because it was detonated by a fuse set to go off at a predetermined altitude. The two Maltese witnesses were paid $3 million by the US authorities (a very serious criminal offence).

‘The UN observer at the trial that ‘it was a consistent pattern during the whole trial that, as an apparent result of political interest and considerations, efforts were undertaken to withhold substantial information from the Court.........Virtually all people presented by the prosecution as key witnesses were proven to lack credibility to a very high extent, in certain cases even having openly lied to the court’. So it does look as if Mehgrabi was stitched up like a kipper.

‘It will come of no surprise that there is to be a further police investigation into Lockerbie, but don’t hold your breath. The armchair experts are banging on about the advances in DNA detection in the last 21 years, but the fact that the Scottish local constabulary are handling the investigation when it is clearly one for MI6 does not exactly inspire confidence. It is now obvious that the key prosecution witness was totally unreliable and identified Megrabi only 13 years after the event. One of the investigating officers at the time has now said that they wished to interview 8 other suspects ‘but never had the opportunity’ (eh?)’.

Wikifloods, not leaks.

As I predicted, US lawyers are desperately trying to frame charges against Assange under Espionage Act, as admitted by Joe Biden. But there are a few problems. From my surfing around on this, I reckon that the lawyers will find it difficult to make a charge stick under this venerable piece of legislation because in my interpretation it only applies to agents of a foreign power or to servants of the US Government. In addition, Assange is a journalist and would therefore be able to pray in aid the freedom of speech provisions in the Constitution.

My guess is that they would be able to get an extradition warrant under the odious extradition treaty, because no evidence needs to be filed to support the charge neither need the offence be one recognised in English law.

But there is another snag. Extradition is not permitted if the offence carries the death penalty – which, of course, it does. If extradition is granted, Assnge’s next step will be to appeal through the English courts. If it gets to the House of Lords, there could be months before it is resolved under the English jurisdiction. If he loses, he will take it to the European Court, which, being very politically motivated, may well find in his favour – but not anytime soon. The EC has a backlog of cases stretching years ahead.

Never mind; Sarah the Moose-eater is going after him as an Al Qaeda supporter, so eventually we may expect a drone to be launched from the American air base at the conveniently-situated Mildenhall airbase.

This is not going away.

There have been some interesting revelations amidst much dross.

The leaks about the Arabs hating the Persians so much that they were persistently pressing the Yanks to bomb the s**t out of them show that the Islamic world is not as one in regarding the Americans a serial aggressors against Islam.

The comments from US Generals and diplomats about British soldiers not pulling their weight in Sangrin caused outrage in the UK but if it strengthens the ‘troops out’ movement it may have done some good. When the US forces replaced the Brits they very quickly discovered to their cost why 50% of British deaths since the war began have been in Sangrin. Coincidentally, at the same time as the leaks, General Petreaus went out of his way to praise 3 Para for an extraordinary series of 5 close-up raids on the Talban which terminated them in large numbers without causing any civilian casualties, including one in which they put an anti-tank missile into a fortified compound and reduced all 10 occupants to hamburger

‘Assanje’ – a farce in multiple acts.

Free at last! After three attempts Assanje is out of the slammer and is now comfortably ensconced in rural Suffolk. He is tagged and has to report to the turnip-tops every eight hours. Presumably the village booby will trundle down to the country mansion on his bike three times a day at 8 a.m, 4 p.m, and midnight. He has had to put up humungous bail, and when I read that Ken Loach and Bianca Jagger were amongst other lefty pond-life who had stumped up, I had a vision of him scarpering back to Oz, leaving them bereft of large quantities of drinking vouchers.

There was his brief outside the court, wearing a suit that transgressed the Obscene Publications Act and a tie that looked like the TV test card, complaining that his poor client had been held in conditions that were ‘Dickensian’. Funny; I thought that Newgate and the Bridewell had been closed years ago.

On BBC World News we had a phlegmatic Swede (good on phlegmatic, these Nordics) telling us without even a hint of a smile that the Swedes had nothing to do with the three extradition hearings. It was all down to the intellectually constipated Crown Prosecution Service. The Swedish prosecutor had no locus in the bail hearings. Yeah....right! The CPS went through no less than three bail hearings entirely off its own bat. So that’s all right then.

What he failed to explain was why the Swedes are going to so much trouble to extradite poor Julian on charges that they have not served on him. We don’t know for a fact what they are, except that they are sexual offences. Neither does he, which is an outrage and a denial of natural justice. It is said that the rape charge rests on the allegation that he had sexual intercourse without a condom whilst the woman was asleep. That must have been an exciting lay; he should ask for his money back! But then under the EAW the strength of the case is irrelevant. Welcome to Brave New World.

So the extradition hearings have nothing to do with Wikileaks, either; we must all be relieved to know that.

No wonder the figure of justice is blindfolded!

It seems that the US lawyers are now drafting charges under the Espionage Act 1917, so if A stays in Britain long enough they will get him under the extradition treaty. But since A was the procurer not the publisher we can then await warrants to be served on the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, and all the rest of the meeja which have published the leaks. Could be a long wait.

The main casualty of this affair will be transparency. Politicians and diplomats will be far more circumspect about what they commit to writing. The shredders will be working overtime. Files will be deleted big-time. Security will be tightened up, and there will be a tendency to revert back to the departmental secrecy which does not share information between agencies, the main failure of 9/11 in the first place. The plus-side of all this is the plain fact that, with the internet, blogging, social networking and the rest –facebook, twitter etc – our masters no longer have a stranglehold on information about what they get up to. We are the masters now – or will be.

Religion in US politics

It is sometimes annoying to me to learn what the Economist is saying about American society. Its report about religion in the US is not consistent with my observations. Correct, Yanks are religious, incorrect, they don't care much about a persons religious affiliation. Society in small town America is largely dictated by which church residents attend. Yes, Islam is very disliked, but Jews are not off the hook. There is a considerable amount of anti-Semitism here fostered by a lingering allegiance to the old stereotypes.

The religious preference of high society is arguably Episcopalian which accounts for much of the confession of our wealthy WASPs, (white, Anglo-Saxon, protestants). Here in Central Texas, Lutherans, Catholics and Baptists dominate while the small elite are mainly Episcopalians. Catholics came here from Czechoslovakia about the same time as the German Lutherans. Prior to their arrival, there were the Baptists which can be readily and strictly divided into white and black congregations. Yes, the most segregated time of American life remains Sunday morning. We have a smattering of Methodists and Presbyterians, but they bear little resemblance to those of the UK. Much of the dourness is missing here. It did not travel well I guess.

Jewish families in our area can be counted on one hand and are almost entirely immigrants from outside the US. All are professionals and are subject to mild types of prejudice emanating from locals who think that the word Jew is a verb. Gross ignorance among our relatively isolated and underexposed population is predominant. It accounts for blaming the Jews for economic ills including high oil prices. Most of the locals would not, and do not, recognize a Jewish person when they meet or see one.

As a person's religious affiliation is strongly linked to his or her ethnic heritage, the tendency to intermingle is constrained. It is still difficult, for example, for a WASP Episcopalian to develop strong social ties with an American Catholic of Italian or Irish origin. Catholics and Lutherans get along fine, but Czechs and Germans do not and seldom do they intermarry. Mind you, these observations are anecdotal, but nevertheless representative of the majority opinion.

Politically speaking, the Protestants here are largely Republican while Catholics are inclined to be democrats, as are Jewish people. This tendency may be applicable throughout the US, although political labels are in a state of flux just now and many Americans are shunning them altogether. The right is divided between Republicans and Conservatives while the left is divided between Liberals and Democrats. The number of Independents is growing which gives credence to the tendency to shun labels; being an Independent is often a refuge for those who want to decide allegiances on issues rather than party affiliations. Some believe that Independents are Democrats who don't want to admit it, but I think that is not entirely accurate. As for Libertarians, they have largely gravitated to the Conservative camp.

Assanje’s bail refusal

The Swedes seem to have shot themselves in both feet over the Wikileaks affair. Assanje is in the slammer, on a trumped up charge of a sexual nature that is as transparent as cling-film. If the Swedes had stayed out of it and abided by the decision of the English court, there would have been time to draw up proper charges against him under English law. Espionage has been trailed. We hear that US lawyers are rushing around like blue-arsed flies to find something they can charge him with. In that event they could have applied for extradition without producing any evidence to support the charge or indeed that an offence had been committed that was an offence in English law, under Blair’s odious extradition treaty (which is one-sided per se because the American Constitution would probably forbid extradition on those terms). So off goes A to the pen.

Instead, by refusing to accept the umpire’s decision, they have swung popular opinion back to A.

I firmly believe that the whole of this gang of cyber terrorists have to be rounded-up before someone gets hurt. I read in the Bangkok Post that the latest is the release of communications between the US Ambassador in Zimbabwe and Morgan Tsvangirai suggesting that the PM did not support the continuation of sanctions against the ruling party, contrary to official policy. The barbarians who run ZANU(PF) are yelling treason. Tsvangirai’s life is put at risk yet again.

I knew the whole situation was tainted when the obnoxious Aussie uber-leftie, Guardian-scribbler, Form 3 noisemaker John Pilger, was putting up bail money, along with a gaggle of rich celebs. When A threatened to bring down another major bank, my sympathy for the underdog disappeared with the realisation that the guy is a megalomaniac who wants to recast world order according to his personal beliefs

Is Obama anti-British? The Limey view.

Dan Hannan is a rising star of the right, an MEP who wreaks havoc amongst the Brussels politicos because he is just too smart and articulate for them to keep up with him. He came to wider attention when he slaughtered Broon when that article addressed the European parliament. The video on u-tube registered gazillions of hits. His piece was about O’s attitude to UK, not about the so-called ‘special relationship’. This exists at the ‘people’ level, not the political. Lord Palmerston summed it up:

Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.

Kissinger pinched it as ‘America has no friends only interests’; not quite so eloquent.

I very much doubt whether O’s dad was either in the Mau Mau or detained by the beastly Brits. My recollection (and it was a long time ago) is that Mau Mau was exclusive to the Kikuyu. Only 32 whites were killed by the Mau Mau, the huge number of others being Africans, including Kikuyu. The hard core was ex-soldiers from the Kings African Rifles who had served in Burma and were therefore highly experienced in jungle warfare.

But as we both know, come independence and everyone was suddenly an ex-freedom fighter.

If O returned the bust of Winnie because of his role in suppressing the Mau Mau, this shows that O doesn’t know his history. The uprising was from 1952 to 1960. Winnie resigned in 1953. The villain of the piece was an idiot Colonial Secretary called, if I remember rightly, James Griffiths. He enraged the indigenous populations by giving the minority Asians, who then as now were heartily disliked by Africans, far more seats on the Legislative Council, than to African politicians. In doing so he instantly converted a barbarous Kikuyu terrorist insurgency into a national freedom movement. Perhaps this is where O’s grandpappy came in.

Although nobody cared a toss about O’s humiliation of Broon, we did care about his behaviour to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. And we thought that the presents fiasco was simply demeaning to our American buddies.

Like you I thought that O’s approach on foreign policy was more mature than his predecessor’s, and has been competently handled by Hillary. As for him failing to mention the British presence in Afghanistan, Dubya never once mentioned that more Brits were killed on 9/11 than in any other single terrorist attack, despite 30 years of the IRA.

Although we are joined at hip and thigh by legal tradition, language (after a fashion), multiparty democratic governance, and many other matters, one huge difference is the impact of religion on politics and on society. In England (I speak not for the Celtic fringe) it has no significance whatsoever. We are not necessarily unbelievers as non-worshippers.

A recent survey summarised by the Economist reveals that in American politics religion is of the highest importance, often in a deleterious way. In society it is the glue that holds the nation together. Interestingly, Americans are not bothered about denomination or whether they are Christian or Jew, provided that you are God-fearing. Unsurprisingly, this does not apply to Islam, but Americans also dislike Buddhists. What on earth have the most gentle and peace-loving of people done to get up your noses?

Anti-Americanism is an essential qualification for Guardianistas, especially for those who have never visited the US and know little about it. Of course there are stereotypes, but the essence of stereotypes is that they are broadly true. For example the Yanks and the Aussies believe that Brits are largely unacquainted with the bathtub; get a whiff of bouquet Anglais on an early morning commuter train and you will have physical proof. The Aussies reckon that in England the safest place to keep your money is under the bath soap. The Yanks believe that we have terrible teeth. Mostly very true. The English have always had a reputation for drunkenness, lascivious women, and a love of fighting. Plus ca change.

Otherwise, the Brits visit America in humungous numbers, and the holiday home market in Florida is heavily UK-orientated.

I firmly believe that we Brits regard the ‘special relationship’ as a somewhat dysfunctional family that have their differences but will turn on any third party that meddles. We have distrust of Europeans that is in our DNA because over the last 2,000 years they have arrived on these shores – or tried – as invaders. Contemporary history suggests to me that the French in particular are still bent on wrecking the Anglosphere, for example, by shackling hedge funds through EU restrictions despite the fact that almost all hedge-fund business is in the UK.

Flanders and Swan put it this way:

It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad

It's just that they're foreign that makes them so mad

The English are all that a nation should be

And the pride of the English are Chipper and me

The English the English the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

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