What’s the point of these justifications for the ongoing war in Afghanistan?
There was a jaw-dropping editorial in the Times yesterday, haunted by spectre of democratic accountability looming over our Afghanistan mission, that could’ve been churned out at any point in the last hundred years.
The Taleban hope that each new killing of a Nato soldier will be the straw that breaks the back of the resolve of America, Britain and their Isaf partners to linger in Afghanistan a minute longer than the 2014 deadline they have already set. Who knows? – the Taleban wonder – it may even spur them to pick up their skirts and run away even sooner if pressed to do so by restive electorates at home.
Imagine, restive electorates, possibly pressing their governments over an eleven-year long war!
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What the outraged coverage of Pakistani sex gangs is really about
Why the media focus on race in the “child grooming” trial?, Sunny want to know.
Well, indeed. You didn’t see a lot of focus on race in this case from 2009, nor in this one from 2010, neither of which is any less horrifying than the one that ended in Bradford.
Evidence as presented by Ceops suggests that this kind of crime is more prevalent among Asian men, but you seldom hear angry demands that, say, alcohol-related violence be referred to as a white man’s pastime. Up here in Scotland, I’d be surprised if ethnic minorities account for even one percent of violent and/or sexual offences.
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Workfare – it works if you want to drive more people to crime
You have to admire the grand strategy on the Tories. If I was committed to producing an economy that can’t even come close to employing everyone who needs work, I’d encourage young people to take up careers in crime too.
Put simply, firing everyone you possibly can and forcing them to compete for scarce jobs while cracking down on unemployment benefits is a masterstroke, if your aim is to crush all hope out of your opponents’ electoral base and empower your own.
So their new workfare wheeze is a devastating victory.
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This outrage over Syria only highlights our own impotence
The Independent’s John Rentoul wants to investigate the possibility of a no-fly zone in Syria; bomb-happy French interventionist Bernard Kouchner wants to arm the Syrian opposition.
We appear to have now reached the stage where many of these internet moralists are issuing denunciations for opposing a military intervention that no serious political figure is even suggesting.
A stench of unreality and grandstanding hangs over this entire scenario.
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How Chris Hitchens saved the Americans from the wrath of Michael Moore
Picture the scene: It’s early June 2004, and I’m on holiday in Massachusetts, the heartland of Democratic America. The skies are blue and flags are flying. Even in this bluest-of-blue states, you’d never know that the United States is currently embroiled in its largest, most violent war since Vietnam.
The news channels are talking about Ronald Reagan 24/7, in preparation for the old fraud’s funeral. Over and over. I have no idea what’s happening on the screen or why.
In an internet cafe, the BBC News webpage describes car bombs and death in Iraq and how Attorney General John Ashcroft has denied government involvement in military torture programmes. The BBC correspondent Frank Gardner has just been shot and crippled in Saudi Arabia, and his cameraman Simon Cumber killed.
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Democracy in every colour, as long as it’s black
Well, well. I’m hardly the first to note the irony that a vague and nebulous concept – “markets” – has unseated the Italian Prime Minister, a feat that innumerable opposition politicians, crusading journalists, police and prosecutors couldn’t achieve after years of hard work.
Funny, that a general air of international unease and an outbreak of unlovely, nasty thoughts about interrupted cashflows have brought Berlusconi crashing down out of the sky, while his epic reign of misrule, corruption and venality was like a big, fat baggie of high-grade fairy dust for world finance.
What lessons can we draw from this, do we think?
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A plan to attack Iran? Really?
Forced by circumstances to invade and occupy Afghanistan; driven beyond their will to invade and occupy Iraq by the urgent threat of imminent destruction; compelled by humanitarian necessity to destroy large tracts of Libya; pressured into hammering holy hell out of Pakistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen…
…it’s time to make plans for a massive assault on Iran just in case, you know, they back us into a corner. If, like, we’re forced to do it, with sorrow in our hearts and a tear in our collective eye.
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Shock as Tony Blair’s ‘offer’ to Palestinians is soundly rejected
Tony Blair’s reputation for scrupulous impartiality has been rather compromised after he presented Palestinian leaders with his most generous proposal – namely that, in exchange for dropping their bid for statehood and recognising Israel’s right to do whatever the fuck it likes, they would earn the right to re-enter the same negotiations that have been so very productive these last few years.
After all, Benny Netanyahu may have built his career upon the solid bedrock of opposition to a Palestinian state, but who’s to say he won’t change his mind tomorrow?
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The Johann Hari controversy: a gift that keeps giving
Oh, praise the Lord – this Johann Hari thing is the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it? Sentencing the little arse to a year’s hard journalism studies is Just. The. Perfect. Outcome for this whole hilarious escapade – it ends nothing and ensures an ongoing mutual fragfest between some of the nation’s most tiresome hacks.
I can almost hear that little vein on Toby Young’s temple throbbing.
I mean, where to start? The precious spectacle of British journalism up in arms over some grievous affront to its much-vaunted integrity, perhaps, a proposition akin to a career poledancer launching a crusade for public modesty? Oh, please, continue!
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What are the chances parents will shop their kids to the police now?
Let this be a lesson then – if your kid is out of control and needs a short, sharp shock, why not just trap them in their rooms and nail the doors and windows shut for a week, or debag them and chuck them out of your car in front of their school?
Hell, why not just beat them down with a rolling pin?
I’d take that over any amount of jail time, since prisons – for men or women, and young offenders’ institutions – are about the most godawful, dismal places in the country.
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