Will defeating the Taleban actually stem terrorism or is political violence a fact of life in an unfair world? The West defines itself by choosing its enemies. After the Nazis, came the Soviets. The threat of communist Russia justified enormous spending by America that resulted in over a thousand nuclear tests being conducted (mainly by America) refining the deterrent or amplifying the madness?

MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is still considered a deterrent. It is extremely wasteful of national resources in a time of great financial troubles. Using fear as a weapon against their own populations is hardly beneficial.

Conspiracy theorists come unstuck when they consider that Governments are evil. Although some Governments may indeed be evil, most are not. They do however act in the interests of their own nation.

How is the deterrent logical if you can not use it under any circumstances? How can war succeed if a “short” war extends to nine years of bloody vengeance for the acts of 19 people?

Management by government was never an intent. Left wing government thinks that it gets what it is intending, however it becomes entwined in the ever more complex bureaucracy it creates while the politicians hurl insults at each other.

The Right wing thirst for the non involvement of Government bends too much in the other direction. A Government needs to be responsive and yet aloof to the daily concerns of every individual. There should be no courting of favour by the Government toward the electorate it serves. There should only be a ruthless, evenly applied tax of every entity that forms to pay it and it should be charged at the point of expenditure and not income.

If there was no income tax in the UK, but a high consumption tax with proper protection for lives very basic needs (like food, drink, housing and toilet paper) allows a lower level of income tax, if indeed any is required at all.

Adding streams of foreign capital to a London that can invest it tax free is very appealing on a spreadsheet.

Over a time a 40% VAT for everything except food, educational needs, medical requirements, with an exemption for those over 70 years of age or those on community support would bring in capital from every corner of the world.

London’s strict compliance and very smart monitoring of every detail with standards such as ISO 27001 compliance available in mediating organisations.

It is evident that infrastructure is present to make a finance-led recovery in London. Lord knows what will happen to the rest of the UK’s economy. But the application of such philosophy by Labour boiled capital into steam – expanding money supply without increases in value. So the “system” imploded and we are left with a larger shell. The hollow nature of a non-productive economy which is driven by a need to protect capital is how it treats its most unfortunate. And there are far too many of these.

In converse is a socialist society empowered to support an those values a right wing non-progressive economy may choose to overlook and choose instead to stick with the safe?

The choices a society is forced to make may do more to define it than its direction of government. Provided there is a change in the wind. That is the health of a democracy. The mantle of office does not guarantee the same level of intelligence as a willing public may come to expect. After all, they went out and bloody voted, their say should be significant. Instead it is drowned out with administrative cover, a sort of overcoat that defines views, a railway along which ideas must flow. This is the constraint of policy.

Hard talk interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Author and critic of Islam points out that there is a war and a clash of civilisations due to the treatment of women by Islam.

“The Exxon-Valez every four days”

The scale of the unnatural disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a horror. The responsibility of BP in drilling this hole in the seabed and then not managing the risk so as to prevent destruction of sea life for generations and use excuses like “the sea is very large” when they made record profits last year in a time of international recession deserves more scrutiny.

Even the Obama Administration’s response that they must pay for it is short sighted. How can they pay for the destruction of an entire eco-system? How can they be made accountable so that they are motivated to not take the same risks again? What technology failed and how can it be made more secure?

These are the real costs of the oil industry. It is the world’s cigarette. It is a blindness to let it just carry on costing us with its pointless wars, pollution and bio-damage.

“Initial investigations by Congress and government agencies in Louisiana have pointed to a series of equipment failures on the rig, and a culture of lax regulatory oversight of the offshore drilling industry.”

- Guardian UK Article

“The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.”

“Those scientists said they were also regularly pressured by agency officials to change the findings of their internal studies if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or if wildlife might be harmed.”

- New York Times article

UPDATE: Since publishing this article, this article appeared, confirming that the risk of environmental damage is being discussed by scientists.

The Guardian

UPDATE: Google satellite images of the oil slick

The world’s most democratic countries are not the United Kingdom or the United States of America. Both use outdated systems for democratic choice that do not grant equality to each vote, and allow entrenchment of a sitting government via the drawing of electoral boundaries.

Examine the chart of votes in the UK election that resulted in a “hung parliament”.

It is immediately clear that the Conservatives have 36.1% of the vote. Their alignment with the Democratic Unionist Party does not quite give them enough seats to govern, but it very nearly does. The total percentage of the vote the Right Wing has received amounts to 36.7% of votes.

Compare this with a potential Labour/Liberal Democrat alliance. Between then they have more than 50% of the vote.

The party with 23% of the vote gets about 1/5 of the seats of the one with 29% of the vote.

In either coalition the Liberal Democrats appear the very junior partner.

The Democratic Unionist Party has about 1/40th the vote of LibDem, yet 1/7th as much power. The Alliance party gets a seat with 0.1% of the vote, but the UKIP gets none with 3.1%. Is this a democratic choice or dishonesty?

Make your own coalition

Despair at the horror of humanity, the horrible way in which “religion” masks hatred and intolerance; the way in which the internet – a free medium for human exchange has been turned into a push-button expression of extreme greed and avarice.

The Afghan war is not a war. It is an act of supreme cowardice and revenge by the all powerful against the insidious spread of hatred against them for thinking that they can, that they should. If GW Bush had been able to strategically manage a response to 9/11 that reduced terrorism and its threat then that would have been reasonable. What he did has turned the world into a world that hates the West and all it has. It is blind to the pain it creates every time a mother loses her child or a father weeps over a burnt home.

It is not a war on terrorism. Those relatively small acts which wounded the West’s illusion of safety were responded to with continuous terror for year upon year. And beyond bringing “justice” to Osama Bin Laden, in which it has failed after nearly ten years, it has achieved the initiation of hundreds of thousands of “terrorists” convinced they are fighting the “good fight”. The “war on terror” is not just a bad name for the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, it is an excuse for genocidal behaviour that has no end, no objective and no result.

The response to Afghanistan, which refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden, was outright war. Like any war, as it progresses the original purpose of it is lost in the rubble of history. Its purpose is to remove one history and create a new global view. A new geopolitical game plan.

And it is hardly working in the interests of progressive thought. Like Vietnam, it fails to change the mindset of the culture being attacked. Military action has but one goal and that is replacing the controls of one set of evil minded men with the control of another set. Neither set of rulers believes they are evil. But in the end, both are.

Al Jazeera carries this Wikileaks video of a disturbing illustration of the rules of engagement followed by the US military in 2007

The Right Wing strikes back! In memoirs published by Karl Rove and reflecting attack dog Dick Cheney and his daughter, truth is not respected but the myth that Bush did everything to contain terrorism and that “no attacks happened in America during his term of office” would be a joke if it were not for a sizeable slice of American that actually buy this twist on reality.

To justify torture and mass slaughter of innocents under Bush’s watch, a war which was not at all necessary but bankrupted American prowess and ability to police the world effectively, to justify the stupid “war on terror” these discredited and destructive old traitors trot out this garbage as it if it is their sole domain and duty to “keep America safe”.

Balony. Bush’s terrifyingly ineffective reign as war maker in chief has given the likes of Osama Bin Laden the perfect recruiting tool. Instead of a small movement of extremists there are now millions of young men prepared to throw their bones into the furnace. They see the American action in Iraq as aggression and it makes no sense to justify it. The United Nations weapons inspector, before the war, stated clearly that there were no WMDs. And yet fruity dossiers were used as “evidence” of a need to go to war.

War is not effective when it is waged for invalid reasons. And the invasion of Iraq was from a sense of belief – of a personal grudge – of the convictions of a fundamentalist that history may well view as just as insane as the acts of Osama Bin Laden. Although one has to credit the terrorist in chief with a little more leverage and effect, the “war on terror” is merely a bad fiction and evidence of corruption in the American political system.

And so these stupid men strive to continue the myth. Meantime President Barack Obama is forcing the Taleban, the real crooks, into a corner and trying to save a country that is so torn by war from itself. Is his “surge” justified? It has been heavily criticised by the Left and may indeed prove ineffective. But if the Taleban are broken as a force, and Al Qaeda’s head is removed, there is a hope that the opium trade could be abated and that US military forces could withdraw from both of these nations.

The real issue is Pakistan, Iran and the continued spreading of anti-Western feeling as American forces blunder over the dead bodies of children. The real issue is over population and the need for power. It is not Islam. It is the threat of death and destruction. It is a lack of trust that these countries can exercise a political will that is based on a philosophy of peace and good will.

The same can be said of the Cheney – Rove – traditions and how America may well embrace it as they vote Sarah Palin into power, is America that gullible?

See also
New York Times

The Right Wing strikes back! In memoirs published by Karl Rove and reflecting attack dog Dick Cheney and his daughter, truth is not respected but the myth that Bush did everything to contain terrorism and that “no attacks happened in America during his term of office” would be a joke if it were not for a sizeable slice of American that actually buy this twist on reality.

To justify torture and mass slaughter of innocents under Bush’s watch, a war which was not at all necessary but bankrupted American prowess and ability to police the world effectively, to justify the stupid “war on terror” these discredited and destructive old traitors trot out this garbage as it if it is their sole domain and duty to “keep America safe”.

Balony. Bush’s terrifyingly ineffective reign as war maker in chief has given the likes of Osama Bin Laden the perfect recruiting tool. Instead of a small movement of extremists there are now millions of young men prepared to throw their bones into the furnace. They see the American action in Iraq as aggression and it makes no sense to justify it. The United Nations weapons inspector, before the war, stated clearly that there were no WMDs. And yet fruity dossiers were used as “evidence” of a need to go to war.

War is not effective when it is waged for invalid reasons. And the invasion of Iraq was from a sense of belief – of a personal grudge – of the convictions of a fundamentalist that history may well view as just as insane as the acts of Osama Bin Laden. Although one has to credit the terrorist in chief with a little more leverage and effect, the “war on terror” is merely a bad fiction and evidence of corruption in the American political system.

And so these stupid men strive to continue the myth. Meantime President Barack Obama is forcing the Taleban, the real crooks, into a corner and trying to save a country that is so torn by war from itself. Is his “surge” justified? It has been heavily criticised by the Left and may indeed prove ineffective. But if the Taleban are broken as a force, and Al Qaeda’s head is removed, there is a hope that the opium trade could be abated and that US military forces could withdraw from both of these nations.

The real issue is Pakistan, Iran and the continued spreading of anti-Western feeling as American forces blunder over the dead bodies of children. The real issue is over population and the need for power. It is not Islam. It is the threat of death and destruction. It is a lack of trust that these countries can exercise a political will that is based on a philosophy of peace and good will.

The same can be said of the Cheney – Rove – traditions and how America may well embrace it as they vote Sarah Palin into power, is America that gullible?

Conjecture that Israel would bomb Iran may return as the highjacked election that kept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the President’s seat seems part of a plan to escalate tension by asserting Iran’s “right to power”. When it perceives enemies have nuclear weapons, then it naturally will pursue that course. Previously it may have appeared that Iran was claiming not to be wanting nuclear weapons but the world now knows that they do. So what will happen next? An arms race?

NY Times