Walk like an Egyptian

Last week and over the weekend (yes, I know this is late, and no, I don’t have an excuse) Egypt imploded into internal turmoil, culminating in riots and angry crowds calling for President Mubarak to stand down. The unrest was triggered by the downfall of the Tunisian government earlier this month. Mubarak has a 30 year history of abuse, negligence and oppression in Egypt which looks set to end in the coming weeks.

The most interesting thing about this story as far as I am concerned is that in most people’s list of countries with oppressive and undemocratic regimes neither Egypt nor Tunisia tend to feature very highly. We all know about Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, indeed most of the Middle East would be black listed by most people with a working knowledge of international politics. Mubarak’s 30 year dictatorship, along with President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia’s 23 years in office have largely slipped under the radar.

This begs an obvious question. Why are some world dictatorships given a far worse press than others? An obvious answer would be to look at the severity of the offences; here we can clearly see why Zimbabwe and North Korea remain in the public eye. However given the revelations that have come out in the last few days about lack of basic freedoms in a grossly undereducated population in Egypt indicate that there might be something more sinister involved.

If one looks at the regime in Iran for example, there is little to suggest that the situation is any worse than in Egypt. While internationally aggressive, internally Iran has far better standard of education and, in many cases, more freedom. Yet the media focuses far more on the evils of the Iranian government (of which there are many) that they do on those of Mubarak.

Perhaps the most obvious case of double standards amid the international community is the example of Iraq. The Iraqi people did not even have to rise up in revolt for the American government to send in the troops. Saddam’s regime was terrible and there is no avoiding that, but then so is Mubarak’s. The international response has generally been to talk a lot of nonsense about moving towards a democracy and supporting the Egyptian people’s right to freedom of expression. There has not even been a hint of condemnation directed towards Mubarak from international leaders. I suggest that, were this to happen elsewhere in the Middle East, the international community would be up in arms condemning the government for crimes against its people.

A simple explanation for this seemingly unbalanced response from the international community is that Egypt has generally internalised its troubles. Egypt does not strut around on the world stage like Iran and North Korea. Mubarak is not outspoken like Mugabe. Egypt rarely finds itself in the international limelight these days and if it does it is usually in relation to Israel. Egypt simply isn’t interesting. The dictatorships people have heard of generally pose a threat to world peace.

This is, of course, not an excuse. An offence against human rights is an offence against human rights whether is threatens to spark an international conflict of not. The Egyptian people will not take solace in the fact that, despite 30 years of an oppressive regime, their government is not a threat to anyone else. While of course it is the job of journalists to report on international affairs and focus on the ones which are most dangerous to the world at whole, the fact that Mubarak can pass under the radar in such a way for 30 years is unacceptable.

The interesting thing is that, for many years now, Egypt has been an ally of the United States. The Suez Canal is a vitally important international trade route that, according to the American government, needs protecting more than the freedom of the Egyptian people. Mubarak has no ambition to hurt America, so is considered far safer that other Islamic leaders, so, despite the lack of democracy or liberty, Egypt is a good ally to have.

This blatant, shameless and unprincipled manipulation of international affairs with the sole intention of strengthening America’s position on the world stage should surprise no-one in light of the Wikileaks scandal. For a country built in principles of life, liberty and happiness for everyone (not just Americans) it is depressing that the US government openly supports despotic regimes for their own benefit.

The dreadful situation in Egypt is an exemplar of what is wrong with international politics. Democratic countries in which political and social freedom is widespread did not leap to the support of the Egyptian people as they burst out in protest against 30 years of oppression. People, you see, are volatile. The Islamic Brotherhood, an extreme Islamic group, may well aim to fill the power vacuum left by Mubarak. This would lead to The West losing a valuable ally in the Middle East and control of the Suez Canal. Better for Mubarak to remain in power so as to maintain America’s favourable status quo. Of course there is another option. The protests are not explicitly religious. There are, of course, religious elements to the protests, but protests calling for greater freedom are hardly likely to end up supporting extreme Islamist groups who would doubtless curb freedom just as much as Mubarak. A democratic process could be established which allowed the Egyptian people to chose who rules them.

Fortunately this is most likely to happen. However it will happen in entirely the wrong way. The Egyptian people will and have been left out to dry by the international community aiming to maintain their political advantage. The right thing will be done because that’s what works best for America, not because democracy and freedom are political rights that all should have and that all should strive towards. 

Leaky Pipes

As I’m sure you’re all aware, international politics has recently suffered a crisis of honesty with the leak of numerous documents, most of which detail American diplomats bitching about world leaders to their superiors. The more interesting and sinister ones detail the private dealings of America with various other world powers to manipulate international politics. Obviously the leaks have caused America and her allies to go rushing around smothering any dissent and trying to put the man who leaked the documents into the deepest jail cell they can find, while trying desperately to retain some kind of moral high-ground – and looking like petulant children in the process.

Now I could spend all day detailing all the amusing personal comments about various world leaders; calling Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, ‘paranoid and weak’, or accusing Prince Andrew of being ‘cocky’, or calling Silvio Berlusconi ‘feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader’ for example – most of which are probably true and not really news to anyone – but that’s not really the issue at hand here. Indeed these comments are largely irrelevant and unhelpful – they are private comments made in confidentiality. They should not have been published in the first place because they do little beside provide dirt for journalists and thus muddy the water, making it harder to actually focus on the important things being leaked.

Like documents detailing how America has been launching anti-terrorist attacks in countries like Yemen without even telling the international community, while the Yemeni president covers it up by lying to his government. Or orders for US diplomats to steal sensitive information like passwords, credit card details and DNA samples from supposed allies in the UN. Or the UK continuing to store US cluster bombs, despite their illegality. Or the US offering monetary and political incentives for countries to take prisoners in Guantanamo Bay off their hands.

All of the above revelations are either illegal, immoral or both. They are indicative of America’s arrogance and disregard for international law. It is also telling that America’s obsession with their own international dominance at the expense peace, justice and morality has not begun to fade since the Cold War days. More than anything I think this whole episode has highlighted the problem with politics, both internationally and domestically.

Politics is all about gaining power. The job of an American diplomat is to try to further America’s power and influence over the rest of the world, so that the USA might continue to be a political and economic superpower. It is not to try to find the solution which promotes the most peace, justice or democracy. They are not there to find the right solution that is best for both parties and will promote international peace and good will for years to come. They are simply there to look after America’s short term interests.

Now I’m not saying that America is the only culprit here; every country enters any international diplomatic situation with its own interests firmly in the driving seat. These interests; political and economic, are to be ruthlessly pursued at all costs, even if the end result actually lands the rest of the world in a lot of trouble that will eventually cause a lot more suffering and hardship further down the line.

For examples of this we only need to look at almost any international law created since World War 2. We could look at the laws on international trade for example, that allow Europe and the USA to monopolise world agriculture, despite having much higher wages than the third world, because they can afford to play subsidies and don’t let third world countries protect their own industries with import tariffs. This means that cheap produce can flood third world countries from the developed world, undercutting local products and meaning that farmers cannot make a living out of the land, causing untold poverty and drastically slowing the development of the countries in question. No change in this situation seems likely in the future, given that the international bodies which regulate these laws, such as the World Trade Organisation are dominated by developed countries which benefit most from these unjust laws.

Politics, then, has become, or always was, nothing to do with creating a better world, trying to arrive at solutions which benefit the entire world in a non-violent, well thought-out and virtuous way. Politics is all about looking after number one. It is entirely selfish and self serving. Now those of you who know me and my political views will no doubt be wondering why I, usually so adamant that self-interest can be a force for good, am criticising selfishness. I must explain by saying that there are two kinds of selfishness; rational self-interest, which promotes one’s own interests without threatening the interests of others – indeed, it usually promotes the interests of others as well as one’s own – then there’s the kind of irrational, unthinking selfishness which is the kind that everyone criticises and it, unfortunately, predominant in politics. It’s the kind of short-sighted, ill-considered selfishness that leads to greater problems down the line, which are in turn only solved by temporary fixes which bring short term gains at the expense of long term interests.

This leads to international politics becoming based not on reason and the long term interests of the world, but based on who has the most power and from whom smaller nations can whore themselves out to; usually the USA. These leaks are mostly indicative of the countries either sucking up to the USA in order to gain political favour – like the Cluster bombs, Guantanamo Bay and Yemen cases – or attempts by the USA to manipulate world politics in their favour, like the spying case. Either way they’re all a rather chilling and deeply disturbing insight into the world of politics – a world that quite desperately needs to be cleaned up if the world is ever to become a place of widespread peace and prosperity.

Inevitably the USA and her allies have tried to cover up these leaks, shut down the website, fix the pipes and generally try to make themselves out to be the victim. In a completely flagrant disregard for anything they might have done wrong, US politicians are accusing the man who leaked the documents – Julian Assange – of causing irreparable damage to international relations and causing untold setbacks in the cause of world peace. While of course this is true, all Assage is doing is being the messenger; he is simply telling the world about all the dishonest, self-serving and largely illegal behaviour of the US and her allies. It is rather rich for the US to be accusing him of causing all this damage when it is simply the truth about their behaviour that has caused the damage.

Immediate self evaluation would be far too much to expect of a political system which has shown itself again and again to be incapable of changing without enormous pressure from voters – and even then there’s never any real change. One would hope that these leaks will at least enlighten the voters about just how shockingly corrupt and self-serving their politicians are. Whether this will cause any change, given that the only way to change the system if from within and the only way to get into the system is to be a part of the corruption and culture of selfishness in the first place, is highly doubtful. Nevertheless these revelations are incredibly important, even if they only serve to prove, once and for all, that a politician will never change his stripes and politics will always be an exercise in self-aggrandisement at the expense of virtue.

The Sickness of America

Unless you have a terminal fear of calendars you will no doubt be aware that yesterday marked the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and (less notoriously) the White House. You might also be aware of the rather disturbing threats by some fervent anti-Islamists to honour this anniversary by burning Qur’ans. Fortunately these threats were largely hot air, but they are indicative of a dangerous attitude held by many Americans, and indeed people of other nations, towards the Islamic world.

Yesterday was a day of mourning in The Big Apple marred by a rather unfortunate protest. The epicentre was a proposed Islamic Cultural Centre and Prayer Room only a few blocks away from the site of that most terrible of attacks. While it is, perhaps, somewhat insensitive to build an Islamic Centre so near such hallowed ground, especially when the wounds inflicted on that September day are still painfully fresh, it should be seen as an opportunity for reconciliation and to heal the wounds inflicted by Islamic Extremists. To protest against these proposals does nothing to repair the damage done on 9/11, indeed it only serves to further drive a wedge between America and the Muslim world; even the more liberal end of it, which holds many similar ideals to those upon which America is founded.

One of those ideals is tolerance. America was once a melting pot which accepted people from all walks of life and of all creeds into its society. The ‘land of opportunity’ is in part a myth, but it is built upon a genuine openness and acceptance which is now, as with many of the ideals upon which America is built, sadly forgotten by many Americans. If America is ever to fully recover and move on from 9/11 it needs to change the policy that caused the fierce resentment of America that was held by even relatively moderate Muslims at the turn of the millennium. Over-aggressive foreign policy towards the Middle East made America the enemy; American support of the state of Israel being indicative of this attitude. The radical views of the few influenced the majority of the Muslim world, turning all of them against America. The way to solve this problem is to stop being the enemy of liberal and moderate Muslims; stripping the extremists of their popular support.

The thing is that the proposal is being put forward by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a liberal American Muslim who has condemned the 9/11 attacks as ‘unislamic’. He has the very reasonable aim of promoting tolerance in his Centre by facilitating all religions and promoting reconciliation and respect between religions. Rauf is exactly the kind of man that America should be welcoming with open arms and this proposal would be a huge step in the right direction towards pulling the rug from beneath the feet of terrorism. Yet people protest against this proposal, displaying the same attitude that caused the almost world-wide resentment of America that existed in 2001 and still exits to this day. It’s almost as though people don’t learn from their own mistakes.

The real tragedy of this protest however is the timing. Yesterday should have been a day of mourning and introspection, not a day of protest and anger. 9/11 may have been an international disaster which has changed the face of world politics and triggered at least 2 large scale conflicts, but it was also a human tragedy that tore apart literally thousands of families. Its 9th anniversary should be a time to mourn the loss of all the people who died that day and to try to make sure that such a tragedy never happens again. It is truly sad that a group of people feels the need to undermine such a day by voicing hate and prejudice against people striving for such reconciliation.

There is another side however. Opposite those protesting against the Centre was a group on favour of it. A group of Americans who believe that they have every right to build an Islamic Cultural Centre a few block away from ground zero. A group who think that to blame Islam as a whole for the tragedy of 9/11 is a complete misunderstanding of the situation and is also deeply harmful to international relations between America and the Muslim world. So maybe this other group is indicative of the fact that there is some hope. That in the future America might be able to put the resentment and the hate of 9/11 behind them, to recover from that terrible wound inflicted that autumn. Or maybe it’s just indicative of the fact that America is divided on almost every political and ethical issue.

Like self-indulgent butter spead too thinly over a peice of bread that is far too big

HAPPY NEW DECADE!!!!!

Well technically the new decade doesn’t start until next year, but if you’re pedantic enough to care then I feel sorry for you.

As is inevitable when a decade turns and I have too much free time on my hands, I have spend some time reflecting on the past 10 years, not just in my life (because let’s face it no-one cares) but also on the world in general. Obviously the most memorable (and not in a good way) event of the decade was the terrorist attack in the twin towers in New York in 2001, killing thousands and drastically changing the face of world politics. It was the catalyst for two controversial and politically damaging wars by America (with Britain tagging along in) against smaller powers as part of the uninformatively named War on Terror. Who knows maybe in the decade someone will tell us what that actually means.

9/11 was in many ways a turning point, but by no means a one off. Various other attacks throughout the decade, such as the 7/7 bombings on London and the Madrid train bombing are indicative of the dangers of the decade. The main enemy seems to be Islamic extremism, based largely in the Middle East. So far we’ve had little success in combating it.

The second major political theme of the decade has been climate change. Fears over what all that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere for the last 150 years might do to the planet reached fever pitch this decade, culminating in the Copenhagen conference late last year, which certainly blogs completely failed to cover… Anyway I really don’t know what to think about climate change. I can see that the science has a point, but I’m not exactly sure to what extent the government can force businesses to change. Much has been done over the last 10 years to build up a strong case for climate change; I guess the actual action to stop us all drowning sometime this century will have to come from the bottom up, not the top down, in the next decade or so. Maybe if we stopped dropping so many bombs on innocent civilians that might help.

Politics aside, this decade has seen massive advances in technology; computers have become faster, smaller and more powerful. Technology such as music players, phones and camera have now become something that everyone carries around in their pockets, usually as part of the same piece of hardware. The internet has gown to become a huge part of everyone’s life, in a way that many would not have seemed imaginable in the year 2000. To many the fact that we don’t have AI and space exploration yet will be a disappointment, but to be honest we could do without Blade Runner style Cyborgs running around putting us all to shame and beating Han Solo up (if you don’t get it go watch Blade Runner).

With this massive improvement in the power of computers comes a massive improvement in CGI. This has expressed itself most in video games which have become bigger and more beautiful than ever. Even post-apocalypse Washington DC is looking pretty fine these days thanks to games like Fallout 3. The internet has also allowed people to play against each other across the globe and expose their wilful ignorance to more people than ever. Games like WoW and Modern Warfare have all but dropped the pretence (or dropped it entirely) of a story in favour of getting people to pay through the nose to play for hours online while getting nowhere.

To me this is a great shame. Video games provide a superb opportunity to tell a very unique story because it is much more immersive and involved than a film or a book. The story is no longer being told to you, an independent viewer entirely outside the action, you the player are actually part of the story; you interact with it and possibly even effect its direction. ‘Sandbox’ games like Fallout and, well the majority of games released recently, allow you to fully explore the setting and choose exactly what your character does and says, even what he looks like. The game leads you in a specific direction, but doesn’t dictate how the story flows or even how it ends. However often more linear games rely on cut scenes to tell the story, which is basically like playing a game for 30 minute to and hour, then turning it off to go watch TV for a couple of minutes. I’m sure with the complexity of games these days story telling could become even more immersive. Maybe in the next decade we will see games focusing on storytelling again, rather than simply dumping you in an environment and asking you to explore or even worse just dumping you online with hundreds of other idiots and telling you to go nuts. The technology is there, someone just needs to use a bit of imagination and not jump on the bandwagon of what makes money, which they have done recently (see previous post on motion sensing).

CGI and special effects in general have also served to make films much more visually complicated, allowing for frighteningly realistic animation and stunts. A recent example of just how far we’ve come is Avatar, which I really need to see. The decade has been dominated by high octane action thrillers, with impressive special effects and fun explosions. These have a tendency to get in the way however of what really matters to a film; the story and the characters. Sure a film may look nice now, but as CGI gets better and better, is starts to look a little dated and all you’re left with is outdated animation which fails to impress. Let’s take the Star Wars franchise as an example. The first three films (that’s the three that were made, not one ones that come first in the chronology) are amazing films, with a superb story and brilliant characters. The animation and stunts and all that were good when they were made, but pale in comparison to what is achieved these days. Even so the films still stand out as some of the best ever made because a good story is timeless, it doesn’t matter that it looks a bit shit compared to the more recent Star Wars films because what matters is the story, not the aesthetics. Compare this to the most recent Star Wars trilogy. Looked pretty impressive at the time, lovely choreography, lots of explosions capped with some truly cringworthy one liners. Looking back now however, especially in the light of a film like Avatar, it’s not actually all that impressive any more. It no longer looks that good and all we are left with are a crap story, spoon-deep characters and a bitter taste in the mouth. CGI and special effect cannot compensate for a lack of a decent story.

Of course the film industry is not all terrible films that rely in looking impressive with no depth, films like the Dark Knight, Brokeback Mountain, Gladiator, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Minority Report and I could go on and on are brilliant films that will continue to stand out even when all rest of the bilge has paled again the slightly better looking bilge of next decade. I’m sure the filming industry will continue to play on gimmicks like 3D and CGI and produce some truly god awful films, but I’m sure there will continue to be some gems as well.

What we can gleam from the last 4 paragraphs and 10 years of visual forms of story telling is that games and movies have not gotten any better in the last ten years, just a hell of a lot prettier. Hopefully the latter will continue to be the case and we continue to get some damn fine stuff mixed in with the inevitable dirge of complete crap.

The latter can also be said for the music industry. This decade has been characterised by some truly dreadful, manufactured abominations, mostly popped out by the X factor poptart making factory run by Simon Cowell. This decade has probably seen more talentless clones singing other people’s songs than any other. Thankfully there have been some genuinely talented musicians trying and in some cases (like Muse and Coldplay if you like that sort of thing) succeeding, but in most cases (like most of the bands I like) failing to get a look in. To be honest this has and will continue to happen for the same reason that crap films and crap games will continue to be released; people are morons. Yes I lost my faith in most people’s opinions long ago and it’s hardly surprising given how popular Twilight and Lady Gaga are between them

Right, so to wrap up the decade, we have only really progressed in that we have found better and more interesting ways of blowing people up and entertaining ourselves. We are no cleverer and our stories are no better. We make the same old mistakes and will continue to for as long as it takes for the ice caps to melt and us all to drown in a flood of stupidity and water.

Before you sigh in relief that this frightening mass of self-indulgent drivel has finally finished, I have a couple of announcements to make.

Because I have decided that I still have too much free time and I got some weird flashes of inspiration, I have decided that in the New Year I will be starting 2 new different but slightly linked projects.

The first is called Project 365, the idea being that you take at least one photo per day all year so that you have a pictorial record of the year. With any luck I will manage to keep it going for longer than a month. The second and more interesting one is inspired by something called ‘postsecrets’, whereby people write shameful secrets on postcard sized images and send them in anonymously. However because I am not nearly as depressed as the people who send in these things (seriously read them, they really heart wrenching), I have decided to do a similar things, just with little sound bites that I enjoy, either from me in my day to day life, or important, intelligent people who have something interesting to say. My first comes courtesy of Wil Wheaton’s twitter (the guy who played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation)



I shall be putting them up on this photobucket account, the Postcards every Wednesday (roughly) and the daily photos whenever I can be bothered to make an update, probably every couple of days and at least every week with any luck.

Lessons from History 2

Earlier this week Barak Obama pledged a further 30,000 troops to the war in Afghanistan in the hope that this troop surge will have the same effect as a similar surge in Iraq last year. It won’t. The war in Afghanistan is not one that can be won by sheer force on numbers. Indeed I would debate whether the war in Afghanistan is winnable at all. Certainly when one looks to the history of Afghanistan, we see that every invader has come upon the same problems as the British and American troops are coming upon today.

We can go even as far back as Alexander the Great and still see similarities. Alexander invaded Afghanistan in 330 BC and, despite early success, was soon dragged into a long and arduous guerrilla war which claimed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of troops and led to Alexander himself receiving a near fatal wound. While Alexander’s powerful and experienced army was able to sweep away any opposition that stood in its way, it had a much harder time dealing with the guerrilla, hit-and-run tactics of the Afghan tribesmen. As soon as Alexander swept through Afghanistan, founding cities and replacing the Persian Satrap with his own governor, the locals fled to the hills. Strategic victories and the besieging of major cities was not enough to conquer Afghanistan for Alexander, nor was it enough for the British invaders over two millennia later.

In 1839 Afghanistan provided a neutral buffer between British controlled India and Russia, which was hostile to British control of the subcontinent. So when a Russian diplomat arrived in Kabul, fears of Afghanistan becoming a Russian Satellite state ignited. In a typical aggressive, imperialist move, an invasion of Afghanistan was ordered. British troops took Kabul in less that 8 months and installed a puppet ruler on the throne. Despite this they spent the next three years trying and failing to subdue the Afghan countryside before withdrawing, having achieved little apart from the loss of thousands of men. The British faced the same problems as Alexander; the Afghan tribesmen retreated to the hills and disappeared into countryside that they knew far better than the British. The invaders ended up trying and failing to fight an invisible enemy who could disappear as quickly as they could emerge unsuspected from the hills and wreak havoc on the British troops. This time however they were not only fuelled by a general distain for the invader, but a fierce nationalism fuelled by religious devotion, a devotion that would only become more prevalent in later invasions.

Little had changed in 1878, when Britain invaded again for similar motives. Again quick gains were made, with Jalalabad and Kandahar being subdued within a couple of months. A treaty was drawn up and it seems that the objectives have been achieved quickly and easily. However when the British ambassador was murdered, the war began again. A long guerrilla war was only adverted by installing a governor who was favoured by the tribesmen. For a change the second Afghan war was fought like a conventional war, with armies fighting each other, rather than elusive guerrillas. It is not surprising then that the British won. The aims of the war were not to conquer Afghanistan, but to achieve a limited set of objectives which would result in Afghanistan falling under the Empire’s sphere of interest, but not actually being ruled directly by Britain. Britain did not try to subdue the Afghan countryside because it recognised that it could not, instead it was content to install a friendly ruler and leave him to manage the Afghan tribesmen.

More recently, in 1979, the Soviets attempted an invasion of Afghanistan. It has been called ‘Russia’s Vietnam’. Russian troops very quickly took Kabul, but were drawn into a long guerrilla war against the Mujahideen, an extreme Muslim group who took to the hills and violently opposed the Russian invaders. Fuelled by religious fanaticism, the Mujahideen out fought the second most powerful military in the world. After using extreme measures to dispose of the Guerrillas, such as Napalm and poison gas, the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, her face red with embarrassment at the failed war against such a minor power, despite the support of the ruling party.

History tells us then that wars in Afghanistan almost inevitably descent into vicious insurgency. The mountainous landscape of Afghanistan endears itself to hit and run tactics from locals who know the area far better than any invader could hope to. These tribesmen come not from major cities, but small towns and villages, scattered around the country and almost impossible to subdue. Strategic victories are a myth. Taking cities and establishing control over the political centres is pointless, opposition comes not from the ruling classes, but the fiercely independent tribesmen. Extremist Islam only serves to extenuate this problem; Islamic hatred towards western Christianity fuels the tribal hatred of invaders. In short an invasion of Afghanistan is doomed to failure.

Obama’s decision to pour more troops into Afghanistan then, when set against the context of the violent history of the country, is absurd. More troops on the ground are not going to be any better adept at flushing out the insurgents as the troops currently in the country. No amount of troops will ever be able to subdue the country because whenever an area is cleared to the Taliban, they wait until the troops have left and return from their hiding places. The tribesmen live in the villages, so all then need to do in order to melt away is to return to their homes. They then become no different from other civilians.

When set in its historical context, the invasion of Afghanistan was never going to be anything but a futile waste of life and resources. The war is unwinnable because Afghanistan is not like any normal theatre of war. Unless the tribesmen are in support of the invader, the invasion is bound to become a guerrilla war, which the invader will never win. Further proof that we do not learn the lessons of history.

The Patriot

Earlier this week I sat down and watched The Patriot, a movie from 2000 staring Mel Gibson and the late Heath Ledger. Much as I would enjoy ripping the Triumphalist pile of American cock-suckery, I think that reviewing a 9 year old film might be just a little bit too far; even I have standards you know. Anyway, the film got me thinking about several things, one of which was where the nearest bucket was.

If you haven’t watched it, and I expect that you haven’t, I’ll give you a brief summary. If you feel like putting yourself through a couple of hours of futile misery by watching it then be my guest. If that’s the case you may want to skip this next bit for fear of spoilers. The film is set in South Carolina in the American War of Independence, or more accurately a parallel universe in which all Americans are righteous god-loving, high-minded demi-gods and the British are a load of snivelling, oppressive pricks that seriously lack a moral compass. The story revolves around a family, of which Mel Gibson is the father and Heath Ledger is the eldest son. In short Ledger’s character (named Gabriel... I’ll leave you to infer the obvious joke) goes off like all good flag-fucking young men should to fight in the name of freedom and justice. Meanwhile Gibson’s character pretends to be a pacifist in the name of character development. The war eventually comes to the family home and they agree to house some British wounded, in return their house gets burnt down, one of the sons gets killed and Gabriel, who is conveniently at home at the time, gets dragged off for execution. The antagonist in this case is the most stereotypically evil British Commander in the history of Film. Gibson along with his two remaining sons goes off and ambushes a rather incompetent column of troops and free Gabriel. For the next hour or so Ledger and Gibson run rings around the British with guerrilla warfare until the stereotype evil Brit starts killing everyone. With about half an hour to go, with Gabriel and any other family or love interests dead or in hiding Gibson unfurls the flag and embarks on the most sickeningly patriot conclusion to a film I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. I won’t detail it for fear of making you and me queasy.

To be fair to the film, until the last half hour the patriotism simmered gently under the surface of a decent story which focused on one specific family in the context of a larger war; it could have been any war and it wouldn’t have mattered. However once the writers killed off or conveniently removed any family interest and the director really let Mel Gibson off the leash the film took a turn down creation myth alley and it was downhill from there.

I say creation myth because the general perception of the American War of Independence is just that; a creation myth loosely based in reality. While it started as a revolution by the Americans for their own nation free from British rule, it very swiftly escalated into a much larger ‘Proxy’ War between Britain and France. The French funded the Revolution from the very beginning and ended up entering the war as the deciding factor. The war of Independence was as much a war between Britain and France as a Revolutionary War. Essentially the image which is portrayed by the media is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. It is a glorified creation myth designed only a self-gratification for the then emerging United States of America. Now that the USA is the one global superpower, this collective delusion only serves to inflate the already enormous American Ego.

The principles of Life, Liberty and a the Pursuit of Happiness are admirable ones and the American Dream, while mostly propaganda is something that we can and should respect, however the slogans and philosophical self-righteousness are a thin veneer placed upon the blatant and dangerous patriotism which lies at the heart of the American consciousness. It is easy too look at the flagpoles in every garden and chants of “USA, USA” at political rallies in a Romantic light, but in the modern world of fast travel wherever you want, it is ever more dangerous. America is no longer a distant ‘Brave New World’ an ocean away; it is a few clicks of a mouse away.

America can no longer afford to be so self obsessively arrogant. So long as films portray America as a dream world were everyman is born equal under God and Manna falls from heaven on a daily basis, American will be seen by the world not as a place were anyone can go from rags to riches with the right amount of effort and hard nosed determination, but as an outdated, self obsessed lumbering world power which throws it weight around under delusions of righteousness.

America’s collective arrogance is painfully outdated in the postmodern world we live in were people are rushing to distance themselves from their country. While there may be fringe groups and ferocious support for national sports teams, the embarrassing shadow of colonialism looms large over Europe and any national pride is left in Trafalgar Square or the Champs-Élysées. It is time that America leaves its national pride in its own monuments and approaches world affairs seeing itself on a level pegging with the rest of us, rather than trying to assume the position of superiority without consent. Rather than appearing like a teacher schooling children, America looms like a school bully ready to use force to get his way. It is past time that America forget it’s delusion of grandeur and treat the rest of the world as equals not inferiors. While this change may be gradually happening already, you need only look as far back as the Iraq War to see that it isn’t happening fast enough. Mel Gibson strutting around with a flag fluttering in breeze behind him is certainly not helping.

Election Woes

Well after last week’s dive into the world of fiction, we bring you back slowly to the merry world of reality! I have just this week started my A-levels, so I may not be able to publish this every week, although I have a few things sitting on my hard drive that I suppose I could let you read if I’m feeling nice. Anyway something in the news has been getting my metaphorical hackles up this week and that is the US election, or at least a certain aspect of it. Yes, like the vast minority of people in this country who actually listen to the news occasionally I have been forced to listen to endless features on how the Americans are doing in choosing their new president. At first I was quite interested; I was curious as to how the system works and who will be the next leader of the most powerful country on the planet. My interest as gone in inverse proportion to the amount of time they seem to be taking over it!

I was, by this point, only mildly interested in whom the respective candidates would choose to put on their ticket as vice president. My interest was captured once again when one Sarah Palin was announced as McCain’s running mate. Ok I tell a lie, at first I couldn’t have cared less, but the more I heard about this bright-eyed Alaskan unknown, the more I got interested and the more as feeling of dread crept into my mind like a seedy paedophile creeping into your bed at night (I think I’ll compile a list of these fucked analogies and get you to vote on your favourite!).

So if you did not already know, Sarah Palin is a Fundamentalist Christian who believes that the bible is the absolute and infallible word of God. She does not accept the theory of Evolution and believed that the world was created six thousand years ago. She does not believe that ‘global warming’ is a man-made phenomenon, rejects the rights of homosexuals to marry, does not believe in stem cell research and believes that abortion should be banned in all circumstances except when the mother’s life is put in danger.

In short this woman is not the sort of person any of the outside world wants to be the second in line to the one and only world superpower. You may not know this, but if McCain does get elected and is forced out of office in the next 4 years, this woman will automatically take over control of America.

Need I remind you that Senator McCain is 72 years old?

The most absurd thing is that Senator McCain supports stem cell research, does not out and out reject the rights of homosexuals and believes that global warming is a serious issue and is caused by man. Although religion and politics are intertwined in his view, he is considered a religious liberal.

As you can see, they have very contrasting views on some key issues. When you look at their beliefs, it seems that these two are far too mutually exclusive to be running mates, so why has McCain chosen her, a complete unknown with very different political beliefs from his?

The answer lies in these facts. McCain is 72, male, and has vast experience. He can appeal to the independents, but fails to grip the Conservative core of the Republican Party, most significantly the Christian Right. So who better to choose as a running mate that a 44 year old (relatively young in political terms), female who is fresh faced and can appeal to the Christian Right with her fundamentalist beliefs?

McCain has only chosen Palin because she balances his ticket. Once she is in the Whitehouse she will sit behind a desk looking pretty and get wheeled out for special occasions for four years. In the meantime we had better hope that McCain doesn’t get run over by a bus. Or that the American people have enough collective sense to see through the thin veneer of credibility that fails to cover this cynical act and vote Obama.