Month: March 2011

The ‘madness of America’ is well-interpreted by much of the rest of the world. ‘Only in America’, is a slogan commonly used throughout Europe. The likes of Glenn Beck or Limbaugh would never be tolerated in the UK, France, or Germany – not because of any restrictive political regime, but simply that European folks demand higher standards from their media.

The latest ‘madness of America’ took place recently in the state of Utah. One would expect a state founded by a sect with the name “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”, to be aiming towards unity and peace. After all, that was what Jesus Christ taught, according to the Bible.

Utah is certainly taking aim, though hardly in the cause of unity and peace. It has recently added a new state symbol to its already lengthy list, comprising: a state bird (seagull), a state fossil (allosaurus), a state fruit (cherry), and a state gem (topaz), among others.

They’re all relatively harmless little items, suitable for occupying the limited brains of politicians on a hot Utah afternoon, while wiling away the time in committee conjuring yet another innocuous article to add to the long list of ‘official’ state symbols. After all, they need to justify their high salaries, and kill time till the first club brandy of the evening.^[1]

Now, however, it would appear one brandy too many has pickled the brains of Utah’s political community. Someone has come up with a new state symbol.

After the prerequisite debate, the committee took a vote and approved THIS as Utah’s latest addition to its list of state symbols:

Yes, it’s a gun. The Browning M1911 has just become the official state gun of Utah.

Congratulations, Utah. Jesus Christ would surely have approved.

^{[1] “Utah designates Browning M1911 official state firearm” BBC, March 18th 2011}

Filed under: Only in America

Here we go again. Once more the Western world is interfering militarily in the Middle East, as the UK, France, and the US, fire dozens of missiles into Libya.

It’s a conundrum: on the one hand, criticism for allowing a brutal dictator to wreak revenge on his own people for daring to stand up to him, and on the other, the potential repercussions of another war with the Arabs.

There was a simple solution. The UN mandate authorizing this latest action was fully supported by the Arab League. Why then, once the vote was agreed, did the West not turn round to Saudi Arabia and say, “Okay, then, you’ve got your mandate. Off you go.”

The Saudis have an abundance of fighter aircraft and other military hardware; they’ve been buying them from the UK and US for years. Abdullah has no hesitation about sending Saudi jet fighters and tanks into Yemen, at the request of that country’s president, to carry out attacks on rebelling Yemeni nationals.^[1] Attacks similar to those Gaddafi is presently inflicting on the Libyan people.

Why then is the West so willing to do the Arabs’ dirty work for them?

The clue, perhaps, lies in the trigger for this military offensive against Libya. The prime mover was Sarkozy of France, closely followed by the UK’s Cameron. The US lagged behind until it became obvious that the UN was relatively united.

Sarkozy is exceedingly unpopular in his own country. Polls show his ratings with the French public to be dismal. Cameron is struggling to maintain credibility in Britain, as his austerity measures bite against the working people.

As Margaret Thatcher taught politicians, when the going gets tough the best popularity medicine is a good old war, so long as its far enough from home not to inconvenience the populace. In her case, it was with Argentina over the Falklands.

Involving the US in another Middle-Eastern war is far more likely to cause Obama political grief, hence his distancing himself from the action, even to the point of not being in the country when the first shots are fired.

As always, the excuse is humanitarian, but the true reason we’re doing the Arabs’ dirty washing for them is entirely political.

And then, of course, there’s the oil.

^{[1] “Saudi Arabia Bombs Yemen Rebels” Huffington Post, November 5th 2009}

Filed under: Same old, same old

The ‘war on terror’, a phrase coined to good propaganda effect here in the United States by George W Bush, is not, of course, a war at all. The Iraq invasion of 2003 was a war, as is the occupation of Afghanistan. The ‘war on terror’ consists of a series of covert operations often based on intelligence as dodgy as that which was used to precipitate the attack on Iraq.

It must be quite fun to sit at a computer desk in the office of an air force base in Arizona and guide a Predator drone aircraft to kill a group of people in some remote area of Pakistan; the ultimate in video games, one might say.

Unfortunately, the game can take an ugly turn when those people are innocent civilians: tribal elders, local traders, and members of the tribal police.

Forty innocents died in this latest US unmanned drone attack, including thirteen children.

The tribal elders have vowed revenge against America:

Tribal leaders in the Pakistani region of North Waziristan have vowed revenge against the US after drones killed more than 40 people near the Afghan border.

“We are a people who wait 100 years to exact revenge. We never forgive our enemy,” the elders said in a statement.

Thursday’s attack has caused fury – most of the dead were tribal elders and police attending an open-air meeting……

“The world should try and find out how many of the 40-odd people killed in the drone attack were members of al-Qaeda,” the elders said in their statement following the attack near North Waziristan’s regional capital, Miranshah.

“It was just a jirga being held under local customs in which the prominent elders of Datta Khel sub-division, and common people were participating to resolve a dispute.

“But the Americans did not spare our elders even.

One of the elders, Malik Faridullah Wazir Khan, said he reached the scene 30 minutes after the missiles hit – four of his relatives were killed.

“The area was completely covered in blood,” he told the BBC.

“There were no bodies, only body parts – hands, legs and eyes scattered around. I could not recognise anyone. People carried away the body parts in shopping bags and clothing or with bits of wood, whatever they could find.”

He said 44 people died at the scene, including 13 children – one as young as seven.

On Thursday, Pakistan’s army chief condemned the raid by US unmanned drones in unusually strong terms, calling it “intolerable… and in complete violation of human rights”.^[1]

The ‘war on terror’ is completely out of control.

It leaves one wondering who to fear more – al Qaeda, or the US Pentagon.

^{[1] “Pakistan: Calls for revenge after US drones kill 40” BBC, March 18th 2011}

Filed under: Man’s inhumanity to man