Category Archives: Politics 💼 🗳 🪖

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Afghan Conference

05 Monday Dec 2011

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So, ten years after the first conference on the future of Afghanistan, Bonn plays host to the second.

Ten years ago, having ousted the Taliban the international community promised to create stability and a modern state.

Nothing like this has happened.

Instead, by overthrowing the status quo – and thus bringing to an end a period of safety and stability, if at times painful and controversial – they have plunged a country destroyed by the Soviet Union into the abyss.

Afghanistan is the centre for the world’s opium production – something the Taliban had actually stopped –  and the women actually fared better under the students of the madrassas, because they were not attacked.

When The US-led alliance took over Afghanistan they simply put back into power, the very warlords that had tore the country apart after the Soviet Union had left.

The takeover was bloody – remember the siege of the medieval fortress at Qal-i-Jhang – and ill-thought out.

Having left the country to get on with it, America simply moved on to its next target – Iraq, and arguably if that war had gone to plan would have invaded Iran.

There was a period when the international community could have succeeded – by 2005 though it was too late and the insurgency had gained momentum.

The Taliban have never been against rebuilding their country and if Isaf had spent more time and money doing that instead of behaving like a occupying, colonial power, perhaps we would be looking at a healthy stable country.

Instead, the Bonn conference is going to achieve little except rubberstamp Nato’s defeat, especially since the emerging power of the region will not even be there, namely that of Pakistan.

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Nato has “15 days of supplies left” to sustain Afghan war

04 Sunday Dec 2011

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America and her Nato allies have fifteen days of supplies left to sustain her war effort, Pakistan’s former spy chief claimed in an interview broadcast on RussiaToday.

Hamid Gul, who was previously the head of the ISI, said Nato had “shot iself in the foot” after an airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

As a “professional soldier” he knew that the control of the supplyline was key and now was the time for Pakistan to “stand firm”, and offer to help in an orderly withdrawal of the American troops from Afghanistan.

America was “lieing” when it said that it could create an alternative supply line, and if countries such as Tajikistan were to help they would have to deal with the “spill over” of an irregular war.

With the closure of the Shamsi air base for drone strikes, any “secret understanding” between the two countries was no longer there and would mean a huge decrease in the scale of those strikes.

With Pakistan holding the cards, he argued that she would lay down four conditions.

* India does not become the new “proxy power”, something he said that would be a disaster for all the regional powers, “especially China”

*Pakistan should accepted into the nuclear club, in the same way as India.

*To settle the Kashmir issue, according to the wishes of her people

*A scaling down of the highly militarisied American embassy in Kabul.

After that, Pakistan should only open the supply line to ensure a orderly withdrawal.

However, he claimed whilst mosr Americans wanted a withdrawal,  there were too many interests – political, corporate and narcotic – that did not want this to happen.

http://rt.com/news/usa-pakistan-gul-conflict-983/

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Clashes on Kosovo-Serb border

01 Thursday Dec 2011

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For several weeks now, RussiaToday have covered tensions on the border between the Serbs of Kosovo and Nato troops, the Kfor, who are there to ensure that there is not a repeat of previous horrors.

The Serbs want to join the European Union, whilst Kosovo’s declaration of independence has been met with predictable hostility from Belgrade and a lukewarm response from the Islamic world.

That the minority Serbs are treated appalingly in this tiny nation of ethnic Albanians is without a shadow of doubt.

The trouble is those very Serbs still don’t think they have done anything wrong.

When I was in Pristina some fives years after Nato’s intervention in 1999 to prevent ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars, the scars of that time were everywhere.

At the top of the main hill running into the capital, a Serb Orthodox Church had been erected to symbolise the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent. It is still shiny and new even though the grass around it visuably demonstrated that it would not be in use any time soon.

Young Albanians – they are very young and very beautiful – went about their daily lives, even though many carried horrific stories.

One student at the American University told me that the Serbs had come to his village and taken his father away during the conflict.

He still didn’t know what had happened to him.

And it was commonplace to hear the story of Srebrenica, for the Albanians had taken to the hills fearing that fate awaited them as the European nations pondered about what they would do about Kosovo, just as they had done during the Yugoslav wars.

There is a statue in centre of Pristina of a warrior who had given his life for his people and killed many Serbs, as one Albanian told me.

No one seemed to care about this man much, in fact most Albanians give the impression that they just want to get on with life free of any conflicts.

Perhaps it’s time the Serbs started to do the same, they could begin by forgetting about that Battle on the Field of Blackbirds in 1389.

http://rt.com/news/kosovo-standoff-serbia-eu-529/

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The Autumn Audit, 2011

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

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Staring into the abyss.. 

This country will face five more years of cut backs – otherwise known as austerity. It will mean that when the coalition government runs for re-election in 2015, they will do so with the promise that there will two more years of “tough choices” before the deficit will be eliminated.

During this time, the axe will fall on 700, 000 public sector jobs, so taking the number of jobless past the three million mark – already over one million of our young people have little prospect of finding a job in the current challenging climate.

Last night, Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, informed Newsnight that the Lib Dems were right behind the plan for more cuts.

The opposition says the cuts are too fast.

They are right – the social consequences of the planned austerity measures are horrendous, which is something that the young, well heeled George Osbourne does not seemed to factored into his equations.

However, the two Eds need to come up with ideas as to how propel the economy foward – now is not the time for political point scoring or in fighting, hopefully Labour has learned its lesson from the last time there was a prolonged period of Conservative government, then first Tony Benn and then an overconfident Neil Kinnock ensured three terms of Thatcher, which was followed by John Major.

Arguably the cost to our children will be much worse if David Cameron and George Osbourne are allowed to continue.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, opportunities for those born into modest incomes have been on the slide since 1970.

One can imagine what they will like on May 7, 2015.

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Nato Airstrike kills 24 Pakistani Soldiers

28 Monday Nov 2011

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Was the latest incident involving Pakistan and her troubled alliance with the United States of America the result of a Nato emboldened by her success in Libya?

There are many – not just Pakistan’s public – who believe so.

The attack on a border post was, according to Pakistan, unprovoked and she reserves the right to hit back at a time of her choosing.

Nato’s response has not been very convincing for someone who has effectively declared war on her hitherto ally.

She, like America believes the root of her troubles in Afghanistan lie in Islamabad and more precisely with the Pakistan secret service, the ISI.

The Western allies are wrong – the Taliban are fueled by resentment at foreign occupation of their country, how else can they call on people to fight and die for them?

So far, Pakistan’s weak civilian government has cut supply lines to nato – hardly a problem now since most of what they need comes through Uzbekistan -and given the US fifteen days to leave a base used to launch drone strikes.

Unfortunately, this will not be enough – Pakistan’s military know that there is a perception that they have been seen to be weak, and that a clear demonstration may be needed to warn off Nato, and to more importantly appease her very angry public.

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The Euro

17 Thursday Nov 2011

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Elder statesmen in a barren landscape..

With Italy the latest nation to suffer under the burden of being linked to a single currency, very real questions are being asked about the future of the Euro.

TheEconomist says that Europe has not addressed the fundamental changes around her – namely the rise of a younger slimmer  Asia at the cost of this grand once great old man.

Today’s Financial Times outlines a three-trierEurope with France-Germany as the engine, the driver of a system that relegates eastern Europe to the periphery.

Of course, Gordon Brown did warn everyone that France – like Germany – was exposed because of her banks.

So what will become a unit that once touted as a serious economic challenger to the United States of America?

And will things ever be the same again?

The international system created by Europe was never perfect, and frankly the world outside this club of nations was roped into joining it.

Some powers suffered like China, some simply vanished – like the Ottoman Empire, whose loss the Islamic World has been suffering the consequences of to this day, especially in a world order based on power.

The history of the end of the ‘Sick Man of Europe’ can be traced back to the creation of the tiny kingdom of Greece, a cause championed by Shelley and Byron.

The behaviour of the main players at that time towards this once great and now grand old man was racist.

(Ever wonder where Adolf Hitler some of his ideas from?)

Now a century or so on, with the Eurozone crisis sparked by a bankrupt Greece, how will the main players on the international scene deal with their once great and now grand friend.

With America already signalling that she will be looking East, how will China view this potentially barren economic wasteland, which still fights wars against weaker nations, whilst lecturing others about human rights?

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Wall Street Protests

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

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That’s all folks..

For some time now protesters have gathered in New York City to demonstrate against corrupt practices of Wall Street.

At first, they were dismissed as some young and not so young people who had little clue about what they were railing against and how they could initiate something better to replace the current system.

Other commentators have observed that for them to be taken seriously they needed to be there past the Winter and well into the Summer.

Yesterday, much to the delight of countries like Iran and China no doubt, they were asked to leave.

Will this mean an end to it all – probably not.

The demonstrators however need to take on board some of the comments made about them.

With out a viable alternative – which is flexible enough to be taken seriously – these well meaning folks will achieve little.

And as for those of them who complain of fascism, etc, for being removed from the heart of Capitalism, they only have to look at the way that similar gatherings were treated in Iran and China to know that is not true.

Yes there is a crisis in the Global economy, calling for its downfall without little thought of the consequences is not the solution.

You only have to take a look at the decade after the collapse of Communism in Soviet Union to know that.