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WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT BEING MAN ENOUGH TO DO 'NOTHING'

Blair Watchers know that he had a fear of the pointing finger that says: "You stood by and did nothing". (Probably a scar from his small days.) Because of PARTY TRIBALISM Brown was stuck with Blair's 'cowardly action' and now he has not the guts to face 'PARTY BETRAYAL' in pursuit of a higher good. Thus is a whole nation hoist on the PETARD of PARTY POLITICS.

SPOIL PARTY GAMES.

not surprising they 'had great difficulty deciding what it thinks about the Afghan conflict. '

because its a false narrative. a bogus war.

for 30 years the uk felt no need to 'invade' ireland even when bombs were going off in canary wharf. now gordon thinks military occupation is exactly the plan that should be used. where is the evidence it worked anywhere in the world? The english crown tried to ethnically cleansing Wales for 700 years and the language still survived despite the death penalty for anyone who spoke it..

i remember sitting in certain pubs in cricklewood when men in leather jackets would come in, put 'please release me' on the jukebox and the hat was passed round. No doubt the same sort of 'fundraising' is going on in the uk although its not in the pubs.

If this is not a true war what is it? A distraction? Vanity? Someone else's agenda? A money spinner?

Nulabour must be the worst govt the uk has ever had. Tony and Gordon have broken the UKs back with debt, left it with 2 unwinnable wars and enslaving it to a carbon trading oligarchy.


One might argue the bankers have succeeded where AQ could only dream. and it's still perfectly legal to recklessly bankrupt the uk .

whatever is going on its not the british public that is being put first.

MAGIC OBAMA SEEMS TO HAVE LOST HIS WAND

Any man who can unashamedly buy, and orate, his way to high office is, by virtue of his employment of those tools, manifestly THE WRONG MAN FOR THE JOB.

Oratory does not have any impact on those of another culture and tongue, and money has lost its value, not unlike the Obama rhetoric, used on the way up.

Now we see Obama the lawyer, making the best of the brief he has been handed. He can't win, but he will go for a plea-bargain, and get himself off - hopefully - not on the Wrong Side of History. He has discovered that being great is not about looking great and sounding great - well, not when the chips are down.

One thing is sure: while earth's 6 billion remain childlike, their leaders (failed state or super-state) will be smoke and mirror merchants. Wise leadership is so - like - unimpressive . . .

A THOUGHT ON THE MILITARY BASE SHOOTINGS

It would appear the killer did not pass the 'Cricket Test'.

One of the many echoes of the Vietnam Conflict present in the Afghan war
is the endless "factfinding " trips, Obama's dithering over the decision to either reinforce or scale-back to a anti -terrorist mission (In my opinion, the correct one), reminds me of Lyndon Johnson's conduct of his war, endless debates followed often by the wrong course!.
Indeed Brown and Obama seem to follow the same stratagem, unable to make quick decision's until forced to, then undertaking rushed and ill thought out moves!

OBAMA SAYS NOT TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS

Unless, of course, you are called Neocons, and you want a 'New Pearl Harbour' so that you can attack anyone anywhere, on the basis of 'intelligence' - real or invented - such as '45 minutes'.

I cannot help feeling SOMEONE must have briefed Obama, by now, that the triple tower incident was a long way from the JUMPED-TO CONCLUSION of Dubya and chums (a convenient untruth) - with Tony tagging along for a bit of glory. Poor Barack: somewhere in the next half a decade, he has to 'discover' (surprise!) that it was a false flag attack. I wonder if he will demand the medal back from our Tony?

It puts Brown's reference to 'corrupt governance', swiped at Karzai, into a different perspective does it not? I keep visualising Karzai and his aides, howling with laughter at poor wee Jimmie Brown's posturing.

interestingly last nights newsnight contrived to promote (undoubtedly because that is what government briefings required) the idea of af-pak and the blurring and extension of the afghan war into pakistan.

it is increasingly clear that the extremist neo conservative ideologues in our government and that of the usa are seeking to win hearts and minds in the west, for media to promote the idea that paksitan must be brought under control , the pretext for next years interventions certainly will be a perceived threat to paksitans nuclear facilities, probably through one of the black ops that the usa-uk-raw special forces are already utilising to destabilise pakistan - at least according to the regions better informed analysts.

interestingly pakistans internal problems have increased with the increased presence of Xe (Blackwater) mercenaries employed by the usa in islamabad.

thus far the claim of three quarters of terrorism is linked to pakistan has not been proven or evidenced. in fact 7/7 was created, trained and plotted in leeds. just as 9/11 was plotted in germany, trained in the usa and their weapons were american civil aircraft.

we are there (afghansitan) for oil, gas, (and there is $15 trillion worth in turkmenistan-caspian and we are there for the long term as the usa is spending some many billions on a military infrastructure that at least extends to 2014.

the only wonder is that journos at the bbc choose not to go beyond of the governments remit.

"But when Hitler's forces marched through Europe, everyone understood why Britain needed to fight the Nazi enemy.

Today the threat is hard to see and more complex to understand. It is natural that people should question why we are asking our troops to put themselves in harm's way.

This war is every bit a war of necessity. Afghanistan was a haven for terrorists in the Nineties. The badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border are the breeding ground for terrorist plots against Britain. "

"Pakistan's population is six times greater than that of Afghanistan. It has nuclear weapons. Islamist victory in Afghanistan would spur Pakistani Taliban ambitions for overthrowing what they see as an 'apostate regime' in Islamabad."



looks as if the govt is making its pakistan case.

Hello again
I think the only sensible answer to the dilemma is to bring all the foreign troops home and let the Afghans sort out their own problems. Anyway the USA and its cronies have promoted the Taliban from being a cruel oppressive regime to heroic freedom fighters in nine years.
Resistance against an agressor as powerful as the USA demands an enormous logistical organisation and also the support of most of the people. To put it crudely I think the occupation is pissing against the wind.
Jim

Hello again
A number of commentators talk about terrorists and terrorism as though these concepts are well defined. They are not. The USA steadfastly resists any attempt at an internationally accepted definition. As far as the USA is concerned the only acceptable definition of terrorism is that that resists USA hegemony. Bombing cities, towns, villages and weddings is quite acceptable.
Jim

Instead of waiting for a lead from the US, Gordon Brown should go back to first principles.

The ability to win and war, and the ability to win a peace are two separate issues.

Neither the US nor UK have the ability or track record to "win a peace".

The Afgan situation is little more than civil war with foreign troops being the ham in the bloddy sandwich.

We have no place there ! Bring our troops home.

If we are supposedly there to fight terrorists, again, bring the troops home. They can be used to re-inforce our customs and immigration services thereby protecting our own door step.

'Looking though at the succession of reviews and the tangled logic in the one definitive presidential statement on "Af-Pak strategy" given back at the end of March, it is evident that the administration has had great difficulty deciding what it thinks about the Afghan conflict.

Instead we have witnessed what people in Whitehall describe with increasing frankness as a failure of leadership. '

Perhaps the people in Whitehall should consider whether just letting Afghanistan fester with too little resource is leadership?

The surge may have an impact but there is no reason to think it will win the war.

What is "winning" as to me it is a variable sum that does indeed couple up with what happens in Pakistan.

If Pakistan resolves the problems on its side (encouraged largely by previous CIA incarnations in the Soviet era) then anything where a stable Afghanistan is left is victory.

If Pakistan does not resolve its problems or looks to be going to fail then we should bail out of Afghanistan asap.

The weak leadership has been on Pakistani resolve and coherence with suspected split ISI loyalties and that must make decision making very difficult for Obama.

Looking up and getting a genuine assessment is the road to victory provided they don't start continuously looping on the assessment.