The British Betrayal of Basra

I have been thinking about how best to write this post for a few days now I can’t seem to find a good way of doing it. Partly because it is such a large topic, and partly because for me it is such an emotive one that any attempt at coherent argument is bound to end in farce.

I have attempted to keep it brief but unfortunately it isn't, so for those of you brave enough to read on you can find the majority of it in the comments section. I think it should be read though, if I may say so myself. I’d like to know what you think, fellow countrymen and Atlantic cousins alike.

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I think Britain has betrayed the people of Basra, Iraq and our Coalition allies. A few weeks ago we withdrew what few troops we had left and isolated ourselves in an airport come fortress on the outskirts of the city. Before this we had effectively barricaded ourselves into Basra Palace and achieved little more than absorbing significant numbers of hostile bullets and mortar rounds. On Sunday we handed power back to the Iraqi security and police forces. Mission Accomplished!

Well no, far from it in fact. This was a retreat. The proud British army has failed in its task of restoring stability to the area. Paramilitary organisations, many with strong connections to the weak police and security forces have stepped into fill the power vacuum. These militias continue to fight one another and persecute the innocent civilians of Basra. Women are brutally murdered and their bodies put on pubic display for failing to wear their burqa correctly or for being caught wearing makeup. Shop owners are beaten to death in the street for daring to sell alcohol. Men that used to work for the British have been forced to flee. We have done little but overseen a transition from the organised tyranny of Saddam to the chaotic tyranny of religious and ethnic cleansing.

Is this what we fought for? Is this what men died for?

Cont…

Battle Cry!!!

This morning got off to a great start. A spot of Match of the Day before watching the brilliant Sunday AM. Then I did something silly. I pressed 'tv guide' followed by '0' for 'other options' and then pressed '3' for 'religion'.

On these channels you can witness lots of black Americans shouting at each other from pulpits. A perfect demonstration that religion really is for the oppressed. Every white man in America must chuckle to themselves when they see these things, we can screw them over for generations - and how do they cope with it? They channel their anger and frustrations into our own European based methods of control! - giggle.

But then something far more worrying appears. There is a lot about 'Battle Cry', which from what I have read before is some sort of cult that is taking the public preaching of the gospel, a long established tradition of the south, into the 21st centry. Hordes of teenagers attend these rallies to pledge their alliegence to the organisation's handsome televangical frontman, Ron Luce. All a bit weird pehaps.

But then I am once again introduced to something even more unsettling - Christian rock. I know, this is a well established genre in the American south. But I like to think that it is still a highly bizarre concept to us Europeans. Rock is surely the ultimate cultural manifestation of anti-authoritarianism, its about . . .

You know what. I can't be bothered.

It's absurd.

"Hey, my name's Megan. I was teased in high school for being fat and I had no friends. But then I found Battle Cry, they preyed on my weaknesses and I have now found happiness through adopting their fascist lie, I love you Jesus, Prince of Peace! Thank you so much Battle Cry!"

The most enlightened and wealthy generation in history and you do THAT?

You sick. .


Arghh!

Death to you all for ruining my Sunday morning.

The roaring nineties

I wish I had grown up in the nineties.

Now before you say anything – I mean I wish I had really grown up in the nineties. I wish I had ‘come of age’ during the nineties. I wish I had been born in 1974 and not 1984. I wish it were currently 1997.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. CompuServe, dial-up connections and Playstation. Clunky mobile phones reserved only for flashy businessmen. You’re also thinking really bad boy bands, haircuts and tracksuits.

But I’m thinking that it was a golden age. I mean it. A real golden age. Growing material wealth went hand in hand with almost limitless hope. Global Warming? Terrorism? – These things were trivial, fringe interests. Communism had fallen. Western democracy was the bee-knees and things simply couldn’t get any better. Didn’t the machines in the ‘Matrix’ choose to replicate the year 2000 as the pinnacle of human civilisation? Aren’t the compilation CD’s I still have from that year some of the happiest and upbeat music I own? It was a time when anti-globalisation rallies attracted hundreds of thousands and when America’s youth, however naively, could comfortably rebel and bring tear gas to the streets of Seattle. Good times. Innocent times. Hopeful times.

Take TV for example, what do we have today? 24, The Unit, Battle Star Galatica, Heroes, Lost. As great as they are, they're all about moral dilemmas with large doses of hero/nationalistic worship thrown in for good measure.

Now look at the 90’s: Seinfeld, The X-Files and Buffy.

The X-Files! Just for a split second consider the sort of world that could spawn the X-Files - A world in which America simply couldn’t think of anyone that would wish them harm! They had to delve into the realms of the supernatural to find bad guys back then! How incredible is that? Just how great a world was it if ghosts and ghouls were all that people were afraid of?

While American audiences have come to accept that Jack Bauer has no choice but to disregard the Geneva Convention in the pursuit of justice – when did you ever see Fox Mulder suggest prolonged torture as a perfectly viable means of discovering the truth? No. In the 1990’s the biggest threat to America (if TV is to be believed) was the cigarette smoking man. The threat came from within their own untrustworthy government! And today? The government is nothing less than a beacon of divine justice in a hellish world of atheists and heathens.

Damn Al-Queda!

And damn the decade of distorted western culture for which they are responsible.

beanscene

I want to write something but I'm not sure I have anything to say. My inflated sense of self-importance usually lends itself to something. But not today perhaps.

I have just finished reading Snow Crash (despite starting it in August!). It's quite simply brilliant and is my nomination for this book swap thingy that some people seem interested in doing.

I'm in another coffee shop near Holyrood. Behind me some men with jobs talk loudly about some business of other, I think it’s biotech. A lot of talk about lab results, testosterone and market share. Perhaps I could become a corporate spy. Spend my days hoping from coffee shop to coffee shop where influential people re likely to be, eaves dropping on business meetings. Seems like a good life. Lots of time in fancy hotels and expanding cities. I have a young face and the shabby appearance of a liberal arts student. No one would be suspicious.

I began thinking the other day that I should look into becoming an academic. See what happens? I experience real life for about three days and I'm already running back to the safety of a uni campus. But no seriously. Ludology - the study of play (or video games actually) is rapidly expanding. I get the sense that the bandwagon has already started rolling but there may still be some room for me in the back. Amazon is full of books on the topic. And I am sure far more of the Amazon will soon be sacrificed to make way for more on the subject. But I'd say there are only about fifty books at most that are actually worth mention. Fifty! That's nothing. I could realistically read the lot of them in a year or so - and I'd be an expert in the field, right?

Well, whatever. A Muslim women walks past holding the hand of her young son. Britain's future. Opposite the shop a coach has pulled up with 'Skye tolls: Justice' painted along one side. A bunch of hippies get out, mill around for a bit and then one of them, the one with the longest beard, seems to take control and leads them down towards the Parliament. The result of another pfi scheme gone wrong. A well intended but poorly written policy that will leave that young Muslim paying national debts for decades to come.

Single use sachets of sugar and 'sweeteners' sit on the table. Men and women walk past carrying their single use take away coffee cups. This is one coffee shop amongst maybe a hundred or so in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is one city amongst thousands. And this level of waste has been going on for decades. And people tell me investment in space travel is a waste of money. Ha. I’ll send you a postcard from Mars, before voting along with the other Martians to put strict limits on the number of refugees coming from Earth.

I went to a Green Party meeting the other week. It wasn't very inspiring. They made lots of cheap jokes at the expense of the Tories. Bastard hippies. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't despise each other so much. I subscribe to the local email debates the Greens here have. Hilarious stuff. The local green councillor voted against a scheme to expand the sidewalks of some road somewhere because it would have cost an absolute fortune. The three Greens who happen to live on that road sent a flurry of angry emails to her before promptly leaving the party. Brilliant.

Anyway. I apologise. That was about four posts in one there.

Fernando

Aha. Well then. November 30th 2007. Benjamin Nakizo, as he likes to be called on these occasions sits in his shop on South Clerk Street. Surrounded by chickpeas, apple tea and Turkish delight he cradles his digital radio and allows jazz fm to sooth his woes. Occasionally he serves customers. Recently he appeared to break the heart of one young man who asked if he still stocked those olives that "reminded him of his youth". Nakizo replied that he no longer did and could swear he heard the tinkle of heart fragments as the man got his answer.

Benjamin wishes he had so few problems as that gentleman. Two things are keeping him in the beautiful national capital he has come to inhabit. One is his ambition of pursuing a military career at the same time as a civilian one. The second is his relationship with a pretty young girl from the colonies.

Both are proving a lot tougher than he ever expected. This is placing great strain on his morale and appears to have led to a state of semi-depression, which has manifested itself in a bizarre condition that causes him to forget everything. Keys, berets, coats, jumpers, tickets, phones, graduation certificates and yet more keys. Benjamin believes that his brain is consuming so much energy in avoiding the mental static of stress and worry that some basic functions are being forgotten.

Cont...