Cablegate Boredom

Yet more genius from The Daily Mash:

Meanwhile, Julian Cook, professor of international news stories at Reading University, explained: "Everyone that America has been spying on would have already assumed that America was spying on them and if they didn't then they are even more cretinous than these leaks confirm them to be."

He added: "Nevertheless, the point about Wikileaks undermining the safety of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan would have some validity, if only it wasn't such a humongous vat of liquidised monkey-shit from start to finish.

"Because -and you might want to write this down and keep it somewhere safe - the key thingthat has undermined the safety of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is them firing their big fucking guns at Iraqis and Afghans.

"And of course that is usually on the orders of weasely little inadequates with penis issues who like to keep everything secret in a bid to make their imaginary cocks even bigger."

Can't fault any of that. And I'm not going to comment on "cablegate" or whatever the chuff it is called because, quite frankly, I don't give a fuck. The idea that diplomats might say shitty things behind the backs of other people when they believe it to be on confidence is not a news story in any way, shape or form.

Rating the Post-War PMs

Here is an FT list, via Dale, of how "academics" would rate the post-war PMs:

Well, I'm in academia at the moment, and here's how I'd rate them (and why):

12: Brown: An odious, incapable man who should never have been allowed to become Prime Minister. He wrecked the country's economy, damaged our international standing and left our country in broken pieces for his successor government to try to put back together. I've said it before but I'll say it again - the only way for Cameron to be worse than Brown is if he actually declares war on the British people.

11: Eden: Massively over-hyped before he got into power, he wasn't up to the job and his raging paranoia over would-be aggressive dictators nearly got us into a shooting war with the US and made it very clear that Britain was no longer as great on the world stage as it had been. It also inspired a couple of unusually tedious Dennis Potter dramas.

1o: Callaghan: He may have been a genial chap from all accounts, but as PM he was pretty much useless. He bowed down to the unions and let them run this country pretty much into the ground, before committing a major strategic blunder and delaying an election that he could have won but that he would later lose.

9: Douglas-Home: Difficult to know what to say about Douglas-Home other than he lost an election. He's a non-entity - simultaneously neither a good Prime Minister nor a bad one.

8: Blair: A formidable election winner, Blair's legacy will, however, be constantly undermined by the Iraq War, the fact that his supposed economic success was built on shifting sands and his failure to prevent the clearly unsuitable Brown becoming his replacement.

7: Heath: He had the potential to be a genuinely reforming Prime Minister, but he took us into Europe, failed to win his battle with the unions and ultimately revealed himself to be a repugnant man both in No.10 and afterwards on the Tory back-benches.

6: Wilson: Well, he won more than he lost and he managed, despite the pressure from the US, to keep us out of Vietnam. But he did a lot to break the economy and hand the country over to the Unions, and he also managed to stay on at No.10 for far longer than he should have done.

5: Major: Yep, there was Black Wednesday. But prior to that there was one of the most spectacular electoral upsets in history, and after Black Wednesday Major's government did much to rebuild the economy (inbetween conducting a debilitating intra-party civil war). Crucially, the country he handed over was in better shape than when he got it. Just a shame, really, that he handed it over to Nu Labour...

4: Churchill: Ok, as a post-war PM he was largely inactive. He maintained the status quo and seemed to be slowly counting down the days until he was no longer able to do the job and had to retire. Nonetheless, he is the only one in this list who genuinely managed to become a British icon.

3: Macmillan: A caretaker PM in the best sense of the word - he did little to transform the country, but effectively managed it and rebuilt it and his party after the disaster that was Anthony Eden. Like Major, he left a country in a better state than when he found it.

2: Attlee: An odd choice for No.2 given I'm a Libertarian, Attlee is this high because he believed in a political ideology and actually set out to implement it, rather than just talking about it. Furthermore, his reforms may have created a bloated state, but they also helped to end communism as a potential alternative in this country. I'd doubt I've have voted for him, but Attlee scores highly in part because the vast majority of those who have followed him have been far less capable than him.

1: Thatcher: A socially conservative PM who grew increasingly loopy while in power and ultimately ended up shooting herself in the head politically with the poll tax, Thatcher at least understood the need to reduce the size and the scope of the state, albeit only in some areas. And to date, she is the only Prime Minister who has (a) understood this and (b) tried to do something about it.

And Cameron? He can't really be rated until he has ceased to be PM. At the moment, he would rate quite highly if only because he has yet to spectacularly drop the ball. I don't doubt for a moment that at some point he will, so only time will tell how badly he fares in future polls.

If/when you disagree, please feel free to put your thoughts in the comments section. If said comments aren't jarringly dull, I may even respond...

Nu Labour's real legacy

Harriet Harman, trying to create a legacy for the Labour party that doesn't focus on their abysmal failures over the past 13 years:

Ms Harman said Labour's opponents would attack the party's record in government, but "we will not let them".

"For every child who, instead of being cooped up in a flat, is playing in a brand new children's centre, that is our legacy.

"For every patient who instead of waiting in pain is cared for by doctors and nurses in a brand new hospital, that is our legacy.

"For every villager in Africa whose life has been transformed by cancelling third world debt, that is our legacy."

Ummm, Harriet, the other parties have already been attacking your record in government. That's how you lost the election.

But let's rewrite her speech to make it a little more realistic:

For every child who emerges functionally illiterate from a school system crippled by Nu Labour meddling, that is your legacy.

For every patient who dies because the NHS refuses to give them the drugs that would save their lives, that is your legacy.

For every orphan, crippled person, or corpse who died at the hands of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq or Afghanistan, that is your legacy.

For every troop killed or crippled because your government would not provide the equipment they needed to fight the war you created, that is your legacy.

For a country mired in debt because a idiotic government attempted to nationalise the banking sector, that is your legacy.

For every little loss of freedom that became so synonymous with the Labour government, that is your legacy.

A broken, bankrupt country stepping into the light uncertainly after 13 years of draconian Nu Labour misrule: Harriet Harman, that is your legacy.

Being Afraid of the Government

In modern society, the government is, more often than not, seen as a Good Thing. Sure, it could be run a bit better - a little more efficiently, - but a modern liberal democracy is perceived to be a million miles away from the nightmare dystopias of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al. So when a Libertarian mentions being afraid of the government, a lot of people simply roll their eyes and wonder what you have done with your tinfoil hat.

For what it is worth, I don’t think there is an imminent danger that the UK will slip into an aggressive, murderous dictatorship. Sure, there are some very concerning developments – like ID cards and the attempts to get 42 days detention onto the statute books – but I think that Gordon Brown is so cack-handed and incompetent that he would struggle to create a dictatorship even if he had absolute power.

But that is rather the point. It isn’t the intentions of government that I fear, but rather the incompetence of government. It is the stupid things they do while trying to do the right thing that really worries me. 42 days detention is a good example – the government desperately wants to stop terrorism. However, it doesn’t understand that 42 days detention doesn’t actually stop terrorism, and also has all sorts of potentially dangerous side effects. You can see the same thing happening with the economy. The Labour government swooped in to save the banking sector, like Superman with a fat wallet stuffed with someone else’s cash. As a result of their panicked, knee-jerk and ultimately pointless attempts to head off the recession, the country is nearly bankrupt and the coming recovery is being jeopardised. The government is currently paving our road to hell. With good intentions. Oh, and our money as well.

Then there is the commitment of the modern politician to trite political expediency. We can see this in Gordon Brown’s claim to be securing British jobs for British workers. Fuck knows whether he actually thought what he was saying was actually morally acceptable, but his determination to win the BNP vote led the British Prime Minister to plunge headfirst into the politics of ignorance. Political expediency – or political cowardice, as I’d rather call it – led to Brown jumping on the racist bandwagon. Sure, it is a minor point, relatively speaking, and Brown doesn’t speak for me on this issue or on any other. But it does beg the question of where this political cowardice could lead this ruling elite. I’ve heard some whispers that one of the reasons why we went to war in Iraq was because Blair was afraid of the Tories painting him as weak on security. I don’t know whether this is the truth, but I find the fact that I can consider it as a possible reason for that conflict speaks volumes. I think the desire to win votes now exceeds almost everything else for our politicians. I’m not afraid of them selling their own grandmother for a vote, I’m more afraid of them selling our grandmothers, grandfathers and then us out for an extra couple of votes.

And then we have the problem of the massive bureaucracy that goes hand in hand with “liberal” “democracy” in this country. Of course, with a government this size and with this scope, a large bureaucracy is an inevitability. But the problem with any bureaucracy is that it is fundamentally inhuman and amoral. It does not recognise the human. That is how innocent people can end up with their DNA on a criminal database in perpetuity, and how people can end up dying from cancer despite the drugs that could be used in their treatment being on the market. The bureaucracy, the rules and regulations, further remove people from each other, and do not take into account that basic human compassion that is seen so often when individuals interact with individuals. Most people, if they could help someone with cancer, would do so – however, when it comes to a vast, heavily regulated monolith like say, the NHS, the individuals who make the rules and therefore make the choice are so far detached from the dying person that it becomes a case of “bureaucracy says no”.

Ultimately, I believe humans are capable of great things. They are also capable of being small-minded, self-serving incompetents. I’m in far more danger of being killed by a bad driver than I am by a serial killer; just as I am far more likely to be adversely affected by an incompetent government than I am by a proactively malign one.

Which is why government needs to be – why it must be – limited as much as possible in its scope. It means well, but its actions end up being anything other than positive. And the unintended but still devastating impact of government can only really be minimised by returning as much power and as much responsibility as possible to the people.

(Failing To) Justify the Iraq War

Thomas Byrne writes an interesting blog, in an intelligent way that is somewhat of a rarity for the blogosphere. Of course, that doesn’t mean that he is right on everything. As this blog post on the Iraq War shows. Let’s take a look:

The idea that the UK went into Iraq to help its people is simply untrue – the war was justified in the UK on the grounds of WMD, i.e. on self-serving grounds. Even if the wars were for completely self-serving grounds, the long-term benefits to the Iraqi and Afghanistani people still remain as a valid argument. I don’t really see the hypocricy. Going to war on self-serving grounds and taking care to ensure the long-term stability of the country aren’t mutually exclusive. It doesn’t follow from the fact that the war was on self-serving grounds that the West have no care about the civilian death toll – thats clearly false.

Y’know, I’m not entirely sure why the UK and US went to war in Iraq. There have been so many different reasons and, well, lies, that I lose sight of what exactly happened. However the West may have cared about the civilian death toll, but their failure to do anything to minimise that death toll through decent planning is probably what has convinced some that they didn’t give a fuck about “collateral damage”.

Saddam’s previous atrocities and the likelihood that they would get repeated nullify any moral arguments against the war, in my opinion – they stop me from having any moral issues about regime change that I would have otherwise had.

Morality is not a question of absolutes, particularly when it comes war. The assertion that there were atrocities under Saddam has to be countered with the atrocities committed after the fall of Saddam, by both the West and others. Even when a war can be framed in broad ideas of good and evil – such as World War Two – there are still acts that are at best morally dubious committed by the “good guys.”

Iraq was clearly a threat to stability in the region – Saddam had already shown a willingness to invade a neighbouring state and a willingness to commit genocide. I don’t doubt that the risk of WMD was exaggurated, but it was nonetheless a risk – even if Saddam didn’t have nuclear capacity, he had a record of using chemical weapons on civilians.

Saddam’s regime was a threat to the stability in the region – as is the Iraq War. This is Morton’s Fork – instability in the region caused by Saddam, or instability caused by the West. There is little that has happened since the Iraq invasion to make the area any more stable. In fact, quite the opposite.

Furthermore, chemical weapons are often defined by experts in the field as weapons of mass destruction – something Saddam arguably made clear by his actions. However, the invasion was justified by talk of Saddam’s nuclear capability – which did not exist. So then we come to intention – given a chance, Saddam would have got his hands on nukes. But he didn’t actually have them, and if we are going to invade countries based on wanting to get nuclear capability, then we’d better gear up for attacks on North Korea and Iran as well. But more on that later.

Obviously civilian deaths because of the invasion are regrettable.

And easier to say that from the safety of the West when your family and friends aren’t the ones dying.

But you have to look at the longer-term picture. Noone can quantify how many civilians Saddam was responsible for killing: Kurds were placed into hidden mass-graves, and noone can really quantiy the death-count resulting from Saddam diverting water away from Shiite areas and razing Shiite farmland. I’m happy to take 2million as an estimate: How many more civilians would have died if Saddam stayed in power? How many would have died under the rule of his sons after Saddam?

How many have died as a result of the war? How many others have been affected or radicalised as the result of the war? We don’t know. But this is another example of Morton’s Fork, isn’t it? Death from peace under Saddam or death from war brought from the West.

How many would die early from being unable to eat properly or drink clean water as a result of Iraq being unable to develop under Saddam?

How many people died when the power went down in the relatively civilised parts of Iraq as a result of the Western invasion? How many people have died as a result of the bombings of crucial infrastructure in Iraq since the war and the horrific sectarian since 2003? Life wasn’t rosy under Saddam, for sure. But it has hardly been a barrel of laughs since he’s gone, either.

These questions are completely speculative, but I don’t think its unreasonable to say that it would be more than that died in the Iran-Iraq war alone.

Which, by definition, is pure speculation.

Iraq now has a real chance to develop into a decent country: it has a proper constitution, an elected government and has a decent crack at developing peace between Iraq’s different people’s.

This doesn’t follow. The fact that Saddam is gone doesn’t guarantee peace between the different people of Iraq. Indeed, many people believe the reason why Iraq was at relative peace for so long was because of Saddam’s draconian rule. Fuck me, I’m not going to defend the gassing of the Marsh Arabs, or the continual attacks on the Kurds – or any of the other crimes carried by Saddam. But one of the many problems with the invasion of Iraq is the failure of the Coalition of the Willing to come up with a plan to reconstruct Iraq after the War. And it failed to come up with a good plan to deal with the inevitable ethnic conflict we see in the country to this day.

Obviously Iraq still suffers from violence and sectarianism, but that was to be expected.

Yes it was, so why was there no plan put in place to deal with it?

We shouldn’t ignore the successes: violence is going down, Iraq has a proper constitution and is now making some attempt to balance the interests of the different sects in Iraq.

Evidence please. And violence probably would go down after the troop surge, wouldn’t it? The actual state of the ethnic conflict in Iraq, and the efficacy of the institutions created to deal with it, won’t become clear until the West has left Iraq. There is, at this moment in time, no reason for particular optimism about the state of play in Iraq.

Iraq has come a long way in the last two years – and it will continue to do so.

Yes, it has come a long way in the last two years – and in the eight years since the war. But then the anarchy caused by the invasion means that any sort of stability is a good thing, and relatively easy to achieve. If you put enough boots on the ground there.

In, in 10 years time Iraq will hopefully be reasonably stable; whereas if Saddam was still there who knows what state it would be in?

Again, speculation. Iraq might be great in 10 years time, it might be a complete disaster area. The only way we will be able to tell is in 10 years time. But let’s hold off celebrating the invasion of Iraq until we know that there is actually a stable system in place.

Those who howl about how America and Britain don’t tackle countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are right; do have Human Rights problems. But they have nothing on Saddam – he tortured and erased entire villages (see Dujail massacre), diverted water away from Shiite territory to massage his ego and used chemical weapons on the Kurds.

And what about North Korea? Or Iran? Borderline totalitarian regimes with terrible track records of human rights violations that are given a wide berth by the West because, well, they’d be too much of a problem to take on. Both in the Axis of Evil as well… remember that phrase? It was given as another reason for attacking Iraq. But I digress. The point is that the invasion of Iraq on the grounds of human rights violations sadly doesn’t stand up to close analysis. This world is full of states that violate human rights. We can’t fight them all.

Cooperating with countries who have minor-ish Human Rights issues to remove a bloodthirsty genocidal dictator is an example of the ends justifying the means in my book, or would they rather we achieve nothing at all?

Talking about countries with “minor-ish Human Rights issues” is like talking about someone who has Prostate cancer having “minor-ish cancer issues”. It may be better than lung cancer, but that is purely relative, and of little comfort of you are one of the ones suffering from it. Other countries who might be suffering from “minor-ish” human rights issues are China and Russia – places where an conservative, anti-government blogger like Thomas might have a real problem.

And “would they rather we achieve nothing at all”? Let’s turn the question on its head – what have we achieved? It is not so much that the jury is out on Iraq, but rather that the jury has let to be convened to even begin its deliberations. Yes, few sane people would mourn the demise of Saddam and his terrible regime. But that doesn’t mean that, by default, what has been created in its place is any better than what went before. And even if in ten, or twenty, years’ time Iraq is a stable democracy, then I can guarantee that he poorly planned and poorly executed invasion of Iraq that was based on lies will remain a stain on the reputations of both the UK and US.

Blair: Liar or Moron?

Tony Blair, on Iraq:

Mr Blair said British policy towards Saddam was transformed by the terror attacks on America in September 2001.

He said: "I would fairly describe our policy up to September 11 as doing our best, hoping for the best but with a different calculus of risk assessment."

He added: "The point about those acts in New York is that, had they been able to kill more people than the 3,000, they would have.

"My view was you can't take risks with this issue."

Which, when you think about it, is abject nonsense. Literally. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Why would the policy towards Saddam change after 9/11? He had nothing to do with that attack. In fact, Osama bin Laden (who probably did have a lot to do with 9/11) famously had very little time for Saddam, and even offered to use his resources to fight Saddam in the first Gulf War. So Saddam had fuck all to do with the terrorist attacks in America in 2001. To state that British policy changed towards Iraq changed because of 9/11 is just stupid; it's like saying British policy towards Northern Ireland changed because of 9/11.

And, bearing in mind there is no link whatsoever between Saddam and 9/11, the fact that the 9/11 attackers would have killed more people if they could is utterly irrelevant. Likewise, to talk of being unable to take risks with this "issue" is freeform nonsense, since there is not just one issue. Iraq is a separate issue to 9/11, in exactly the same way that the government's (cack-handed) response to the foot and mouth crisis was a separate issue to 9/11.

One wonders whether Blair actually believes the bullshit he spouts. If he does, then he is a deluded moron. If he doesn't, then he is a malignant little turd still happy to carry out self-serving deception on a massive scale. Neither alternative provides a particularly edifying picture of the man who used to run this country.

Sir John stressed that Mr Blair was not "on trial".

Shame.

The pathetic sight of a man scrabbling for a better place in history

Yep, sick bags on standby - we have the frankly odious sight of Tony Blair desperately trying to justify what will probably be the biggest stain on his already deeply checkered historical repuation - the invasion of Iraq.

There's lot of shit in the article, unsurprisingly. He talks about how difficult regime change can be difficult, but ignores the fact that, as the leader of one of the coalition powers, it was his job to make it as easy as possible. For example, by not stripping the country of the whole political infrastructure. Or by making sure the troops are properly equipped. Or by having some sort of exit strategy that isn't just blind panic in the face of a deeply predictable insurgency. Yet, in amongst all the rest of the horseshit, this bit particularly stands out to me as the very pinnacle of empty rhetoric:

But he went on: "I think people sometimes think my religious faith played a direct part in some of those decisions, it really didn't."

No. No, I don't think Blair's religion played a part in his decision. In fact, had he followed the path set by the central Messianic figure in his religion he might have been less willing to commit his country to war. But that's irrelevant, since - as Blair notes - he wasn't motivated by religion. No, we know why he went to war with Iraq. He was afraid of losing favour with the US administration. He was afraid of appearing soft on security. His decision to commit troops to conflict was based on cowardice and cynical political action. There was nothing moral or Christian about his decision. And that is how he will be remembered. A spineless political charlatan, ready to fight a war for no other end than to further his political career.

The Terrible, Deadly Cynicism of Nu Labour

That Nu Labour has been one of the most sickeningly amoral and calculating regimes in British history should come as a surprise to no-one. Even the quickest of glances over the behaviour of our government over the past 12 years presents a positive plethora of cynical politicking and absolute cowardice as our government has prioritised popularity over anything and everything else. Yet there is no better example of this shallow yet cynical calculations than the rush towards war with the invasion of Iraq.

Now, I understand the case for the Iraq War. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. I understand the notion of preemptively disarming a rogue state with nuclear ambitions, and I understand the rhetoric about spreading democracy across the globe. Now, Labour paid lip service to both of these ideas in its rhetoric as it made the case for taking on Iraq, but it is clear that the real reasons behind Britain joining the Coalition of the Willing had little to do with these lofty yet intrinsically flawed ambitions. No, the rush to war had rather more pragmatic reasons:

The political calculation was therefore straightforward. As far as Blair was concerned, if he had opposed the war he would have destroyed the New Labour coalition and given up vital ground to the Conservatives. Rupert Murdoch's newspapers were a key factor in this respect. Murdoch was a passionate supporter of Bush's foreign policy. Blair knew Murdoch would have switched his newspapers' support to the Conservatives if he had sided with the loathed Chirac and Shroeder in opposition to the war. In its 2005 election endorsement for Labour The Sun backed Blair for a single reason – his support for Bush in Iraq.

So there we have it. Britain committed to invading Iraq - and the deaths of British and Iraqi people - not because it wanted to spread freedom or protect the UK, but because the Prime Minister wanted to keep The Scum onside and wanted to get one over on IDS. The cynicism is breathtaking, and the implications clear. Britain's role in the Iraq War was purely in the interests of the ruling Nu Labour elite. I hope this is remembered when the votes are cast in the next election and when the history books are written. We went to war for reasons that make Suez look like a unassailable diplomatic triumph. Bemoaning the cheap cynicism of this rancid excuse for a government is nothing new; but it is worth repeating since their complete lack of morality must not be forgotten.

An Inquiry into Iraq. Sort Of.

No doubt this will have the opponents of the Iraq War shaking their heads in a mix of disgust and despair:

An independent inquiry into the Iraq war will be held in private, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told MPs.

Some would say that an independent inquiry held in a democracy might benefit from being held in public, and open to the scrutiny of all. Such people are, of course, hopelessly old-fashioned. They probably believe that think that a Prime Minister should be elected and everything!

Still, since this independent inquiry is being held in the dark - sorry, sorry, in private - I reckon I can guess what that outcome will be. Gordon Brown was right. And if he wasn't right, then it wasn't his fault anyway. 

Democratic government in Britain today - an inquiry to be held in private ordered by an unelected Prime Minister into a war years after that war started ages ago that said Prime Minister voted for. I wonder how much the white paint for this whitewash will cost the taxpayer...

George W. Bush - The Verdict

Today is undeniably a historic day. Barack Obama becomes the first black President of the United States of America. But there is another reason to celebrate. Because, after eight long years in power, George W Bush – one of the worst Presidents in US history – leaves office.

It would be nice to write a balanced account of Bush, but there is so little that is positive about this most vilified of presidencies. So this isn’t a historical account of what happened, it is more a political autopsy of what went wrong.

That Stolen Election

It is a cliché, both in America and now across the world, to talk about how Bush and his cronies stole the 2000 election. And as with many a cliché, there is more than an element of truth to the accusation. Bush became President not because the voters elected him, but because the Supreme Court made him President.

Now, there are a lot of different reasons why Bush became President in what was one of the most farcical elections of recent history. The Florida electoral system, the rush to lawyers, the intervention of the Supreme Court, the refusal of Gore to fight on – all of these factors pushed Bush further and further towards the White House. Bush cannot be blamed entirely for the stolen election; but the reality is that he began his first term as a deeply compromised politician.

You can compare and contrast Bush in 2000 after his election “win” with Obama after his real election win last year. Bush was seen by half his country as a winner, and by the other half as a thief. Whereas there was a real surge of goodwill towards Obama. Obama enters office elected by a majority of voters and with a real sense that he should be there. Whereas Bush was “elected” by a minority, and entered office with half of his country resenting him.

Sure, Bush could have recovered his presidency. It was a bad way to start, but he could have turned it around. Yet at every important test he faced, he failed.

September 11th, 2001

9/11 gave Bush perhaps his best moment as President, and his one great display of leadership. Stood on the rubble of Ground Zero, shouting through a megaphone, he managed to unite his country.

Yet the immediate response of Bush to the emerging crisis – blankly staring into space for several minutes after being told of the attacks before going into hiding for the rest of the day, then later referring to the terrorists as “folks” – probably showed the real George W Bush. Cowardly, incompetent and lacking eloquence. You could argue that 9/11 was unprecedented, and no president would be able to respond in a flawless way. And I’d concede that point – to some extent. But the post 9/11 actions of the Bush administration were terrible and damaging – both nationally and internationally.

Bush’s attempts to increase the internal security of the US manifested itself in the utterly draconian Patriot Act. This Act represented the Republicans finally, and utterly, abandoning the small-state ethos of Ronald Reagan, and handing massive powers to the federal government. It will take years to roll back and fully unpick the devastating impact this terrible piece of legislation has had on the Land of the Free.

And internationally, Bush has managed to create not just one Vietnam but two – America is bogged down in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Even when the troops leave and US citizens stop dying in both of those countries (whenever rhetoric turns to action and that actually happens) there will be no stability in either country. Bush’s foreign policy adventures have not make terrorism less likely – in fact, the opposite is true. And he has not brought democracy and stability to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Bush’s global response to 9/11 has wasted the goodwill and sympathy may felt towards the US after 2001 atrocity, and leaves the incoming President Obama with a nation hated by many across the world.

Make no mistake; 9/11 would have tested any President; it certainly tested Bush. But his response to that attack would almost be used as a textbook example of what not to do in the face of a terrorist atrocity.

Hurricane Katrina

But – amazingly – it wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan that broke the Bush Presidency. In fact, many supported him because he was “doing something”. He appeared decisive (you can be both decisive and wrong) and it appears many Americans respected that. Yet when the US faced a disaster caused by nature rather than terror, he was found to be wanting. He did nothing. He sat and waited, whilst New Orleans drowned.

And as New Orleans succumbed to the waters, so did the Bush presidency. I maintain that the Bush response to Katrina – or rather the lack of it – killed his second administration. Once Bush was seen as a ditherer and not taking actions that could have saved American lives, two things happened. The horrific Republican losses in the 2006 mid-term elections became inevitable, and Bush became a lame-duck President.

The polls reflect this; but Bush’s second term had to go on, even after the people turned against him. Which is one of the reasons why the 2008 Presidential Election became one of the longest and most expensive in history – almost as soon as he had been elected, the US was longing for his replacement.

The 2004 Presidential Election

Of course, no-one – not even Bush Junior – could be a total failure. Some point to his programme of aid to Africa as a resounding success. I’d concede this point, but would also point out that it is easy to be generous with money that isn’t your own.

Another apparent triumph for Bush was the 2004 election. Love him or hate, and regardless of whether you think he was the winner or the loser in 2000, you have to concede that he won in 2004. Yet, the extent to which this victory was down to Bush is open to question. The malign genius of Karl Rove was behind that election success, and Rove was aided no end by John Kerry – a compelling yet incompetent contender for President. Bush won; yet his victory was not because of Bush personally.

Perhaps, at the risk of being cynical, Bush’s real triumph was to stay alive during his time in the White House. Because by staying alive he was able to save us from the one person who would have been a worse President – the demon goblin himself, the bald Prince of evil, Dick Cheney.

So against every parameter and in the face of every test, Bush failed. The successes he did have can be attributed to others. And as such there can be only one verdict on the presidency of George W Bush; failure.

The Presidential Chocolate Gold Coin Of Freedom

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of the highest awards that the US can offer anyone. According to Wikipedia, that curious mix of concrete fact and spurious hearsay, it is awarded to those who have made

"…an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

And who is the latest recipient of this mighty honour? Why, Cunto di Tutti Cunti*, of course. And why? According to the BBC:

“The president is honouring these leaders for their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad.”

I don’t know what Bush saw on his last trip to the UK, but Blair really hasn’t done any work to improve the lives of the citizens of this country. In fact, after 10 years of Blair’s leadership, Britain is poorer, less free, more in debt and utterly dysfunctional. It is difficult to know how Blair could have done less to improve the lives of the citizens of the UK, short of going out with a hammer and bashing in the heads of all the first born children in the country.

But one suspects that the latter part of that sentence – the deep fried guff about promoting “democracy, human rights and peace abroad” is the real reason for the award. As this statement shows:

"Their efforts to bring hope and freedom to people around the globe have made their nations, America and the world community a safer and more secure world."

These must be new definitions of hope, of freedom, of peace and of safety and security that I haven’t been made aware of. Because the invasion of Iraq certainly hasn’t brought peace to that particular country. And it certainly hasn’t helped safety and security here in the UK. In fact, if there is one thing that the Iraq has achieved, it is managing to put the Lib Dems on the right side of an issue for once. Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t such a great achievement.

Of course, Bush can’t reveal the real reason for giving Blair and others this medal. The reason is simple, though – they stood shoulder to shoulder with him as he went and kicked Iraqi butt. They supported him in a probably illegal war. It is a retiring President helping out his retired crony. And as such it devalues the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the level of one of those chocolate gold coins that you may have got for Christmas.

If Blair had an ounce of dignity or morality, he wouldn’t accept this medal. This being Tony Blair, though, he is accepting the medal with relish:

The office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives told the Sunday Telegraph this week that Mr Blair was taking a keen interest in the medal's design, before it was specially made by the US Federal Mint.

Imagine that – Blair taking a keen interest in the design of the medal. It is almost as if our former Prime Minister is entirely motivated by a mix of arrogance and vanity…

*This frankly wonderful description of Tony Blair comes from Mr Eugenides.

Shoes Away!

Go watch the footage of the dude throwing his shoes at George W Bush. It is worth seeing in its own right, as it is a great piece of political commentary and an canny review of the eight years of President Bush Junior. But watch it carefully. Watch for the look on Dubya’s face as the shoes sail over his head. Do you see it? Just for a moment, it is there – partially hidden by the blur of the camera movement. But it is there. The smirk. The smirk that so many people have come to know and despise over the past eight years.

See, if someone threw a shoe at me, I wouldn’t smirk. In fact – even if the shoes missed me – I’d be pissed off. I’d probably be using some rather brutal language to express my disgust at their behaviour. But then again, I think I have a very different mindset to George W Bush. That said, I reckon this is what he was thinking as he smirked:

“Hurr, hurr, throwing shoes. Hurr, hurr. Good prank, dude. Gonna do that to Cheney. He’ll love it. Hurr Hurr.”

I just don’t believe that Dubya will take the time to work out why someone elected to throw their shoes at him. It just won’t occur to him that there may have been a reason why someone did this to him. That maybe they might actually have a valid reason for doing this. That maybe Dubya could have learned something about what he has done over the past eight years, and the dreadful impact that some of his actions have had on others.

I don’t doubt for one second that Bush sees life in black and white – a simple, ongoing battle between two clearly defined areas: right and wrong. The Christian, pseudo-democratic beliefs of Dubya and his ilk are RIGHT. And everyone else is WRONG. This insanely simplistic view of the world is bad enough; what really has consigned the Bush administration into being classed as one of the worst in history is his fundamental lack of curiosity. And his inability to change his mind, or look beyond his own (extremely limited) worldview.

It is this inability to change even his most basic beliefs that has so damaged both America and the world. If he had stopped for just one moment to think about why people protest and argue against his actions, then maybe he would have called a halt to some of the disastrous schemes that have so come to define his presidency. Even now, if he stopped to think about why a journalist threw shoes at his face, he could have a positive impact on the world. But we all know he won’t do that. Instead, his measured response to this most idiosyncratic of protests is the same what I’d imagine his response is to every protest – a smirk and a stupid quip.

Which is why Bush will enter the history books as less of a Jed Bartlett and more a presidential version of Beavis and Butthead. He’ll probably go into retirement believing that he is a great President who fought on the side of good. I’d say the vast majority of the rest of the world has more sympathy with the views of the shoe throwing journo rather than with Bush.

Whilst I was walking home tonight, past pub after pub half filled with people indulging in the Great British hobby of getting wrecked on a Thursday evening, laughing and grinning their way through the evening, it occurred to me that the easiest thing to do would be to go in and join them. To stop worrying for a while. To stop thinking for a while. To resign myself to apathy, and bury my head in the sand and not think about the country and world around me. After all, it works for other people, so why not me?

Perhaps I'm retarded in some way - I certainly feel like I have Asperger's Syndrome a lot of the time. But I just can't do it. Don't get me wrong, I go out to the pub, I enjoy myself, I live a life. But I just can't bring myself to ignore the wider world around me. I just have to open a newspaper, go online, turn on the TV and I see something else that riles me. Or something that makes me shake my head. Or something that makes me worried about where this country is going and why the increasingly bovine masses fail to see what is happening.

We live in a country fighting two wars against fundamentalists. People are still dying in far off countries, the body bags are still coming home, but the oh so vocal protests that heralded the war have now faded into oblivion - ironically they disappeared at about the same time as the reason for the Iraq War was shown to be based on a sham. Don't get me wrong, I think that if you join the army you have to entertain the possibility that you will go into conflict, and you may not come back from that. But fuck me, couldn't the vast majority of people in this country actually care when the latest kid gets his face blown off by a car bomb in Iraq or murdered by a militant in Afghanistan? Shouldn't that be slightly more of a news story than Strictly Come Dancing?

And what about the economic situation? The economy is royally fucked, and the government is blundering in every way as it tries to help. Yet Brown's nationalising, his clumsy interventions and his idiotic preening are being hailed as a shining examples of what the state can do to help. Why aren't people questioning more, and actually asking where this crisis came from? Because Gordon fucking Brown has just as much responsibility for the meltdown in the financial services sector as those reckless bankers and those careless people who took 125% mortgages.

We live in a society where the cruel murder of a baby is met with point scoring in the House of Commons. We watch mutely as our civil liberties are eroded, placidly accepting the empty rhetoric of a War on Terror that can never be won as it never existed. We let the government come and take our money, to piss away like there is no tomorrow, and we see nothing in return. Our leaders all look the same, and spout the same crass platitudes. There is no progress, just more of the same.

Sometimes I look at this country, and see a broken and muted populace that is content to muddle through, as long as the beer doesn't get too expensive, the TV still shows free form populist shite and there's a KFC at the end of the road. I despair of where this country is going, but cannot understand why the population is stood in front of the Commons, screaming for real change, and screaming for an end to the murky, incompetent consensus ruling this country but offering nothing more than what has gone before.

This is an incoherent, impotent howl of rage from someone who wonders what will happen next and fears the worst. I would love, I would love for people to wake up and start thinking about what is really happening. And then to start protesting it. I would love for people to stop trusting the state that rapes your wallet, that bickers endlessly as people die, that eats away at your freedom at the same time as sending soldiers away to die in unwinnable wars. But tonight, as I look out at this country, I wonder whether it will ever actually happen.

Maybe it is time to turn off my brain, head to the pub, then bury my head in the sand. You know what? If I could, I would. But I can't.

So whilst this endless sorry farrago of political divas and ideological vacuums rules this country through a deceptively bland but actually deeply destructive consensus, there will be one little voice of dissent shouting away here. It may not be a lot, and it may never end up achieving anything. But I'm not going to shut up, and I'm not - as tempting as it may be right here, right now - to give up. It ain't much, but it is what I have to offer.

Freedom's March

George W Bush is doing his farewell tour of the world, and is currently visiting lil ol' England. The pointless visit is as predictable as the pointless protests - Bush is a world leader on the way out, an unpopular, idiotic lame duck. The protests are a knee jerk reaction, and will achieve nothing more than further disruption to the City of London. The time has come to start getting over Dubya - within months he will have begun his slow decline into obscurity. Hopefully he should become a footnote in the history books, an oddity - an example of what not to do in the White House.

Of course, that won't be the way he wants to be remembered. Indeed, part of this farewell world tour is to start working on that legacy. Look at his interview with Sky news. The rhetoric is already coming through:

"This isn't the American Empire, the British Empire or coalition empire; this is freedom's march. And freedom has had a way of taking hold in some of the places where people have never given freedom a chance.... I'm not surprised that an enemy that can't stand freedom is trying to shake our will."

One of the many ways in which Bush - a man who restricts stem cell research, who believes abortion is evil and should be banned, a man who does not allow gay couple to form a civil union - has failed is in his understanding of freedom. Whenever you see Bush talking about freedom, insert a "my" before the word freedom. Because - and make no mistake about this - it is all about a very narrow vision of freedom. A Christian Fundamentalist, neo-conservative mutant strand of freedom. One that should be alien to anyone who generally believes that people should be free to choose how they live. In some respects, Bush's vision of freedom is not that different from Kim Jong Il's - "you can be *free*, just so long as it is my vision of *freedom*".

But whilst Bush will probably spend a large portion of the next six months painting himself as a freedom fighter, the rest of history will have something different to say. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will rage on, whilst other oppressive regimes that have been prodded by the Bush administration happily go on suppressing. Then there are other countries that abuse human rights and have little freedom that have been glossed over by the Bush regime - Burma, China, Zimbabwe. Even if history does see Bush as a man who brought freedom through war to two nations, it will have to judge him as a man who was very selective about which countries were allowed to join his freedom march.

And people have been questioning it - not just during Bush administration, but throughout the past century - just why does the USA have a right to decide which countries need to be freed, and why does it award itself the ability to free those countries? The Bush years will become synonymous with US arrogance, and of a belief that freedom is best brought to countries in the wake of the US war machine ploughing across the landscape.

On the radio this morning, I heard Bush being compared to Ronald Reagan. It made the point that Reagan was disliked by many during his time in office, but is now seen as someone who brought freedom to many countries. Now, whilst Reagan did help to bring freedom to a good many people in the world, it was part of a team effort. Thatcher also played a role. As did - both intentionally and unintentionally - Gorbachev. And one of the few good things Pope John Paul II managed to achieve - in between condemning homosexuality, continuing to forbid his followers to use contraception or have an abortion, and hiding paedophile priests - was supporting the bid for freedom in Poland. Reagan did play a part in all this, but the more important distinction is between how Reagan's push for freedom was achieved and how Bush has tried to achieve his. Reagan (perhaps because of the ever present threat of nuclear war, perhaps for other reasons) used diplomacy in almost all cases. Bush has unleashed the might of the Military Industrial Complex.

Bush has displayed the judgement and tactics of a schoolyard bully who believes he is right - he doesn't understand the need to persuade, to convince, the win over the other person. No, he would rather go in with his fists and punch anybody who doesn't agree with him into submission. His freedom march is much less free than he realises - he's there to force people and nations to be free.

I love America - I think she has brought a great deal to this world, and will continue to do so. I hope America will become a democratic beacon to the world once more. But I know this can only happen when Bush gains his rightful legacy in this history books - as an aberration, as a zealous ignorant maniac whose perverted vision of freedom damaged the US and the world.

I wish George W Bush the very best when he goes back to his ranch for good. That is his natural place, not as a freedom's hero in the history books.

The Right Decision

Prince Harry shouldn't go to Iraq, and the army is right to prevent him.

Now, the republican in me wants Harry out there. The fact that he is a member of the Royal Family should not prevent him from being treated as a normal soldier - so if his unit is going out to Iraq, then so should Harry. And to his credit, Harry seems to want to accompany his troops into the War Zone. But to insist on Harry going out there to prove a point about equality in the army would not only be obtuse, but also moronic.

The simple fact is that Harry would be the ultimate scalp for the insurgents. They would make every effort to take the Prince, parade him on camera if they captured him, and no doubt execute him on film if their (almost certainly grossly unreasonable) demands were not met. And Harry would not be the only person to suffer. The insurgents have shown their ruthlessness time and time again - so not only would Harry suffer, but so would those around him if he was captured. The risk is simply to great for him and for those he would serve with.

If Harry does want to serve the country that has elevated him to the status of prince by an accident of birth, then there are far more sensible and sane ways for him to do it - both inside the army and in other areas of society.

Paul Gambaccini on Britain and the Eurovision Song Contest:

"Britain's votes plummeted with the invasion of Iraq and have stayed in the basement with the occupation. It may be the strangest reason for ending a war but if you want to win the Eurovision Song Contest again, bring the boys home."

Fuck off, Paul. There may be any number of reasons why we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq, and there may be any number of reasons for bringing the boys (and girls, let's not be sexist) back from Iraq, but the pile of fetid musical arse that is the Eurovision Song Contest is not one of them. And to even hint or joke about it when people have gone out and died for the cause is beyond crass and beyond insensitive.

The Eurovision Song Contest is absolutely worthless. The lives of those who have gone out to fight and fighting in Iraq are not. Regardless of what you think of the politics of the Iraq war, to make flippant comments about it is ignorant and pathetic.

Paul Gambaccini – what an appalling twat.

Watch Out, Bakri's About

Surreal.

'What Hank doesn't know is, we've loaded his Hummer with nailbombs....'

The Nameless One chipped in with, 'You could have a special Western section on the show - “Friendly Fire Frolics”.'

Other programme ideas:
I'm A Sailor, Get Me Out Of Tehran
When Countries Go Bad
Jihadis Do The Funniest Things
Afganistan's dumbest enemy combatants
You've Been Maimed
Candid Caliphate
You've Been Ji(Had)

Begging for Saddam

The headline of this story threw me for a moment – “Hussein's niece pleads for father's life”. A bit late, surely?

Thuraya Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, niece of the late dictator, apparently doesn’t want her family members to be executed. Which, when you think about it, isn’t that surprising. I’d be fairly peeved if the US and Iraqi authorities wanted to execute my uncle. But my uncle has not, to my knowledge anyway, committed crimes against humanity. Unlike Hussein and his cronies…

According to the no doubt lovely and well-adjusted Thuraya, Saddam:

"...had not tortured or punished anyone unjustly. All those who say that my brother was executed or this or that was tortured (should know) there was a reason ... a big reason."

The big reason was, presumably, that he just didn’t like the people he tortured and executed. With omnipotent, brutal dictators justice tends to become a highly subjective term and the fact that there is no-one who can challenge the dictator’s idea of justice means atrocities are committed. There may well have been “a big reason” – that doesn’t mean that reason is just or even valid.

Apparently:

“Hussein had a duty as president to defend the country, she said. He tolerated opposition but not those who "harmed the country".”

Harmed the country? How did the victims of Saddam harm the country? By not agreeing with him? By being Kurdish? And how about the argument that Saddam harmed the country? Aside from killing his own people, he also got his country into a long, brutal war with Iran. He then got his country into a war with America and other Western powers by invading Kuwait. That was before his brinkmanship with the UN led to over a decade of crippling sanctions against his people. And to top it all off he then goaded the US into invading his country. The regime of Saddam Hussein is littered with war and murder. He did far more to harm his country than any of his supposed opponents. So if harming the country warrants execution, then Saddam got what he deserved.

And Thuraya's comment to the victims of Saddam?

"I have nothing to say."

Ah, the arrogance of (fallen) power. It really is an astounding double standard – Saddam is a martyr, executed by a harsh and intolerant regime that is propped up by America. Those executed by Saddam’s (at times American backed) harsh and intolerant regime are not even worth a comment.

Charges Against Saddam...

...have been dropped.

Erm, am I missing something? The guy is dead. He was hanged by the incumbent Iraqi government. It is arguably quite harsh to execute him - to execute him and then put him on trial again is somewhere between extremely harsh and utterly farcical.

Deals with the Devil

I’ve not really commented on the execution of Saddam Hussein – I briefly thought about putting a cheap shot on here about it when I heard that he had gone but I decided against it. Instead I settled on sending the Moai a text commenting that the Iraqi government did not hang about with Saddam.

But Prescott’s comments that the leaking of the video was deplorable (hell, if ever a man would know about being deplorable it would be Two Jags) have roused me from my post New Year’s Eve stupor and into commenting.

Sure, those in the execution chamber did not give Saddam a dignified exit from this world and I agree that they should have conducted themselves with a little more decorum (even if the executions conducted in Saddam’s name were very similar Saddam’s own death). And I agree that there is something really ghoulish and seedy about filming someone’s death on a mobile and then posting it on a website - it is actually because I find it so ghoulish and seedy that I am not going to link to one of the copies of the video. They are out there if you want to find them. But I actually find the circumstances of Saddam’s demise – as unpleasant as they are – quite ironic given both the nature of capital punishment and what the ensuing scandal about the mobile video indicates about the state of Iraq at the moment and how foreign policy works.

I’m not sure how I feel about the death penalty. On the one hand, I think that some people probably do warrant the death penalty (Saddam being a very good example) but I am not sure what the willingness to put its’ citizens to death says anything positive about said state at all. But I would imagine that, when you are stood, like Saddam, on the trapdoor with a comedy sized noose around your neck then your focus lies elsewhere rather than on what the witnesses are doing. Sure, the jeering and lynch mob attitude shown on the mobile phone video are unpleasant and sickening – and very different to the cold and clinical way in which the US puts its’ citizens to death – but scratch away the baying of the mob and you get to the real crime – the actual execution, the actual state sponsored murder. By all means have a debate about the execution of Saddam Hussein, but let’s focus on the key event that happened in that execution chamber – which was, as obvious as it sounds, the execution. Forget the mob atmosphere – that is very secondary to the fact that a man died.

But even if you are most shocked and stunned by the taunts of the crowd, why would you be surprised? This was the death of a hated man, in a hastily arranged execution, in a country that has a legacy of undignified, and often far more brutal, executions. The execution of Saddam Hussein was an act of revenge – regardless of whether you think that revenge is justified or not. And given it was revenge, it could have been a lot worse for Saddam.

And ultimately for me, the real dark side to the death of Saddam is less about the fact that the Iraqi state put him to death (as mentioned above, I would say he is probably deserving of the sentence) but rather what it says about International Relations and foreign policy. One dictator dies for his crimes against humanity. Others - like Pol Pot, Saparmyrat Nyýazow, and Pinochet – die of natural causes, unpunished for their crimes. And others still – like Kim Jong-Il, Muammar al-Gaddafi and Fidel Castro – sit in their palaces, untouched, still persecuting their people. The Coalition of the Willing took on Saddam Hussein (and the Taliban in Afghanistan) because they were (relatively speaking) easy to defeat. Nyýazow and Pinochet were allowed to go on because they offered some sort of support at some point to the West. Castro and Jong-Il are tolerated because they are (or have been) too difficult to take on. The death of Saddam simply indicates the brutal and disheartening compromises inherent in any sort of foreign policy – we attack one dictatorial regime and allow the leader to drop to his death through a trapdoor, but have to leave others to go on as they are, suppressing their people, confounding and compromising the supposed democratic ideals of the West. For me, the undignified and unseemly end to Saddam may be one small piece of human evil leaving this world, but it cannot hide the evil still ruling over so many countries in this world. All this death shows is the awful unethical compromises and the deals with the Devil that make up the reality of foreign policy.