Author: R J Adams

If you’ve heard the name, Linda Norgrove, this week you’ll be one of few in America that has. The US media, usually so quick to report its military’s successes, hasn’t rushed to bring us this particular headline. Those that did labeled it as a US troop operation to rescue a British female aid worker kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The woman was, unfortunately, killed by her captors during the ensuing firefight.

At least, that was the official version.

Linda was a British girl who lived on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. She was kidnapped in Kunar province, along with some Afghan workers, on September 26th. The Afghans were later released, but her captors held onto Linda.

According to a Guardian report, a group of Afghan tribal elders were in place near the hut where Linda was being held, ready to negotiate her release, when the US military opened fire on the compound. One of the elders told the Guardian “there had been a complete lack of cooperation” between the Afghan group’s efforts and those of Nato, prior to the rescue attempt.^[1]

When all opposition was quelled and the troops found the girl, she was lying on the floor of the hut badly injured. She died a short while later.

“Killed by her kidnappers,” was how it was announced to the world.

The truth appears to be somewhat different.

Senior US and UK politicians were quick to pass any blame for Linda’s death onto the Taliban who kidnapped her, but the fact is, they didn’t kill her. The rescue attempt was bungled because a US soldier threw a grenade into the room where Linda was lying. It killed her.

US forces are known for their “gung-ho” attitude towards such missions. “Never mind who gets killed so long as it’s not me or my buddies,” is very much the attitude of mind prevalent among the US military.

As one British Foreign Office official remarked while questioning the use of US troops to rescue a British national:

“There is a gung-ho attitude in certain parts of Nato special forces elements which does not apply to the UK elements.”^[2]

When asked why British special forces were not deployed to lead the rescue, British prime minister David Cameron said “it would not have been right to have insisted that British forces lead the rescue bid.”

It would have been quite unorthodox to overrule and insist on a particular set of forces to carry out an operation against the advice of extremely talented and professional commanders on the ground,” he added.

Unfortunately, Mister Cameron, those ‘extremely talented and professional commanders on the ground’ got it wrong.

This story may not have hit the headlines in the United States, but it sure has made it to the top of the UK’s list.^[3]

^{[1] “‘We were ready to negotiate for Linda Norgrove when rescue bid began’ claim” Guardian, October 12th 2010}

^{[2] “Linda Norgrove: how the rescue operation was bungled” Telegraph, October 17th 2010}

^{[3] “Whitewash fear for Afghanistan kidnap inquiry as MPs express concern about chief investigator” Daily Mail, October 13th 2010}

Filed under: War games

There was a time when America was known for neighborliness and a good-hearted attitude towards others. I’m not sure when that time was, but I’ve heard it was so. It may still be true in some areas of the United States, but for sure, not in Obion County, Tennessee.

Only in today’s America would a fire crew stand and watch a house burn to the ground because the home owner had forgotten to pay his annual $75 “pay to spray” fee.

Pay to spray? What the hell sort of crazy phrase is that? Who’s the nerdy, simple-minded, county official responsible for that piece of intellectual articulation?

Home owner, Gene Cranick, forgot to pay the annual fee levied by his local city officials, so when his house caught fire the brigade were forced to stand and watch as it burned down.

The city officials (being as they were city officials) ordered the fire brigade not to intervene, thus causing the death of a cat, and three puppies belonging to Mister Cranick’s grandchildren.

Presumably, these city officials (being as they were city officials) would have given the same order had Mister Cranick’s wife, or three grandchildren, been trapped inside the property.

Meanwhile, to compound this strange disease, this American madness that seems to have overtaken the once good people of the United States, the lunatic broadcaster, Glenn Beck, goes on air with a crazy, convoluted, notion that the Obama Healthcare Bill is no more than a means to bring back slavery to these ex-colonies.

Beck recently attempted a lecture on the history of slavery during his Fox News program.^[1] It would have been laughable except for the knowledge that most of his viewers probably believed every word. Among the many spouted inaccuracies, Beck announced that there were no slaves in America in 1640. That’s strange when you consider that by 1690, one out of every nine families in Boston owned a slave.

In fact, it’s well documented that there were black slaves in the New World as early as 1502,^[2] long before any civilized government existed, let alone the law courts that Beck blames:

The President is exactly right when he said ’slaves sitting around the campfire didn’t know when slavery was going to end, but they knew that it would. And it took a long time to end slavery.’ yes it did. But it also took a long time to start slavery.

And it started small, and it started with seemingly innocent ideas. And then a little court order here, and a court order there and a little regulation here and a little more regulation there. And before we knew it, America had slavery.

It didn’t come over in a ship to begin with, as an evil slave trade. The government began to regulate things because the people needed answers and needed solutions. It started in a court room then it went to the legislatures. That’s how slavery began. And it took a long time to enslave an entire race of people, and convince another race of people that they were somehow or another, less than them. But it can be done.

I would ask you to decide, are we freeing slaves? Or are we creating slaves? That’s a question that must be answered.^[3]

There’s a big difference between the US media and that of other Western nations. It’s called regulation; or, in America’s case, the lack of it.

Glen Beck would never be allowed near a microphone in Europe. Free speech is as important to Europeans as it is to Americans, but doling out large sums of money to lunatics and allowing them to spew forth their own brand of lies and falsehood to the nation is, at best, unseemly, and at worst downright dangerous.

It’s all part of the new and insidious madness of America, a nation that seems hellbent on blowing itself apart like some great egotistical supernova, until eventually it collapses in on itself and disappears into its own black hole.

^{[1] “PART 2 Glenn Beck: History of Slavery” Fox News, August 19th 2010}

^{[2] “The Slave Trade” National Humanities Center}

^{[3] “Glenn Beck Blames Evils Of Slavery On Government Regulation” Mediaite, October 4th 2010}

Filed under: Get the asylum ready

I remember my old Mum telling me more than once that ‘folks always get what they deserve’. In fact, it was a favorite saying of hers. That one, and the one about …..’some folks never learn’.

She usually voiced these quotations following some apparent failing on my part. The response she got was invariably along the lines of, “Oh, leave it out, Mum, those old sayings are rubbish.”

Which inevitably got her going all the more.

The only other person she ever had a go at in similar vein was Margaret Thatcher, when she was the British prime minister. Mum hated Thatcher. She’d been a staunch socialist all her life and what Maggie was doing to the country fairly made her blood boil. No-one was happier than my old Mum, when the Tory witch finally got her just deserts, and was kicked out by her own party.

She was right, though, my Mum. Folks never learn, and they do get what they deserve. That’s because folks generally don’t think a lot. Instead, they rely on their gut reaction, and gut reactions are usually nothing more than indigestion.

Take the British, as an example. Ten years of Tony Blair was too much, but a decade of Labour government after the disaster of the Thatcher/Major years did turn the country around. No-one in their right mind could forgive Blair for going to war in Iraq, when 85% of the country said, “No!”, but during those years the pensioners got better off, unemployment stayed relatively low, and the National Health Service began to slowly recover from the devastation wreaked on it by Thatcher’s privatization policies.

Then, America plunged the world into recession, after George W Bush deregulated the US financial sector and allowed them to run riot, leaving governments no option but to bankrupt their nations to bail out the banks. Suddenly, unemployment shoots sky high, closely followed by taxes.

It didn’t just happen to Britain. Europe was hit badly with Greece and Spain far worse off than the UK. Yet, along comes a general election, and what do the British do? They vote another Margaret Thatcher into power.

Folks get what they deserve.

The BBC headline on Sunday read:

“David Cameron indicates universal benefits face curbs.”^[1]

The amount of the cuts could be in the order of 40%. David Cameron says he wants to inspire those on benefits to “go back to work.”

Unfortunately, he fails to say where the jobs will come from. Two million plus unemployed are not all professional ‘scroungers’. The vast majority are workers who’ve lost their jobs to the recession. Companies are laying off workers hand over fist. The number of available jobs is falling, not rising.

Today’s BBC headline reads:

“Prisoners ‘should work 40 hours’ a week says Ken Clarke”.^[2]

Now that’ll really help the unemployment figures, won’t it?

Kenneth Clarke is the Justice Minister in Cameron’s still-wet-behind-the-ears Tory cabinet.

Apparently, Mister Clarke considers that “jail is a place of sluggishness and boredom for many prisoners, where getting up in the morning is optional,” and he “wants offenders to prepare for life on the outside by establishing the habit of “routine hard work”.”

“Routine hard work?” How typically Tory! Spoken like a man who’s never done a day of “routine hard work” in his mollycoddled, upper class, university-pampered, life.

The words and the ideas are typically Thatcherite, but that’s hardly surprising when you consider Kenneth Clarke was one of Thatcher’s ‘boys’.

Under Margaret Thatcher’s thumb he was Paymaster General, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretary of State for Health, and Secretary of State for Education and Science. Under Thatcher’s successor, he was Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, until Major’s government fell to Labour in 1997.

The great British voters have taken Britain back to the dark days of the eighties. How short are their memories. The ghost of Thatcher once again stalks the corridors of Parliament.

It is, of course, a similar story in the United States. The man responsible for the huge Federal deficit was George W Bush. The man who handed huge cash sums to the bankers was George W Bush. The man who spent billions of dollars invading Iraq (for what?) was George W Bush.

Consequently, when the Bush administration left office the Democrats inherited a huge Federal deficit coupled with the worst recession since 1929. Two years later, and because the economy is slow to pick-up and the demand for workers still low, the good citizens of America are voting for egocentric lunatics like Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin.

It’s just another gut reaction, which, if the Palins and O’Donnells of this world ever gain power, will turn into one almighty bellyache.

Oh, well, it just proves that some folks never learn. I suppose that’s the reason my Mum said they always get what they deserve.

^{[1] “David Cameron indicates universal benefits face curbs.” BBC, October 3rd 2010}

^{[2] “Prisoners ‘should work 40 hours’ a week says Ken Clarke” BBC, October 4th 2010}

Filed under: Baa baa