NORTH AFRICA CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO FAIL

UNLIKE THE UNITED STATES, we Europeans have a stake in what is happening throughout north Africa. The earlier conflicts in Tunisia and Egypt, and now in Libya will affect us one way or another. If we had ignored the plight of Libya’s people and allowed Gaddafi’s forces to overwhelm them, the blood would have flowed liberally through the streets of Benghazi – a city of one million people. Such would have been the reckoning that Gadaffi would have wrought on his rebellious citizens, that the international community would have once more disgraced itself as it did over Rwanda.

            Perhaps we in Europe could have carried on with our lives regardless of Gadaffi’s brutalities; Libya is after all a far off country whose fate is not Europe’s responsibility, any more than was Rwanda. We cannot police the world; people just have to find their own way in life as we in the UK have had to do. Is it not enough that we, a medium sized military power should have punched above our weight and given so much in terms of money and our young men and women’s lives to Afghanistan and Iraq?

            If Gadaffi is indeed a monster, then why (asks  those who oppose our intervention) was he courted and kow-towed to by politicians and academics alike? The likes of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, as well as academics belonging to the London School of Economics (LSE), all of whom paid homage to the Libyan orchestrator of international terrorism from shipping guns to the IRA, to arranging Lockerbie: and did the LSE not take £1.5 million from the beast of Benghazi as payment for guaranteeing that a PhD was awarded to his somewhat dim son?

THE PEOPLE ARE RIGHT to be cynical about our involvement in Libya, and, as a consequence, withhold their support.

            But what is happening in North Africa will indeed impinge upon our lives in Europe (and yes, also the UK). For the elephant in the room which our politicians chose to ignore is once more immigration. I believe that those two designers of the concept of a no fly zone for Libya, Cameron and Sarkozy, were torn between helping prevent a human tragedy and avoiding an equal tragedy on Europe’s mainland.

            What I would like to do is ask people to imagine the consequences of ignoring not only Libya but the whole ‘Arab spring’ in North Africa.

            Lampedusa is a tiny Mediterranean island belonging to Italy, described by the New York Times (NYT) as “a kind of Ellis Island”. It is to this small Italian community that, in the past two months some 6,000 refugees, mainly from Tunisia, have sought refuge. It comprises, again according to the NYT, “Young men in hooded jackets [who] smoke cigarettes [and] await transfer to the mainland – a prospect that is striking fear in many European hearts”.

            In Italy panic is just another boat load away. When Gadaffi launched his revenge upon those who dared oppose him, and threatened the inhabitants of Benghazi; many hundreds and thousands of Libyan citizens fled the city to go where?

            Luckily the no fly zone became operable and drove Gadaffi’s forces back. In so doing it allowed those thousands who fled the city to return. If we had not taken a hand, then those who fled would have sooner or later turned up on some European shore…and yes, it does mean the UK.

            At the moment those seeking asylum in Europe via Lampedusa are, in  the main Tunisian. But had we not intervened when we did, yet another language could be added to the dozens we are confronted with in the UK today. We stopped Gadaffi and allowed the rebels to briefly enjoy their pursuit of his forces as they retreated in the face of Western bombs.

THE PEOPLE OF THE TINY ISLAND of Lampedusa were visited by the Italian president Berlusconi. He told them that the immigration centre on their small island would begin to disperse the Tunisians. He also rather bizarrely promised the Lampedusan community that he would put forward their small island’s name on to the Nobel Prize Committee  as a contestant for the peace prize.  

            To accommodate those that would now leave Lampedusa, a new hastily built camp in Manduria, in the Puglia region of Italy (the heel), would be made available. This camp which holds a mere 1300 people, will prove insufficient unless the influx of North Africans can be halted.

            In Libya last week it was temporarily halted because the no fly zone was activated. But if Gadaffi wins, a tsunami of people will cross the Mediterranean come what may in fear of their lives.

            So those in this country who think that by ignoring the events in North Africa we can carry on as normal, must think again. These uprisings in North Africa must be supported by the West and Europe in particular. We have far stronger (be it selfish) reason for participating in Libya than we ever had for so doing in Afghanistan.

           

ACCORDING TO MOST OF THE POLLS, the most important priority for the British people is immigration. The politicians know this and they know that the Mediterranean is no more than a lake that separates us from North Africa.

            If Gadaffi wins we will have another migration crisis on our hands in Europe to further exacerbate those we already have. This fact alone should encourage support for intervention in Libya. This is what the politicians fear most and is why the likes of Cameron and Sarkozy are hell bent upon the destruction of Gadaffi.

            The interpretation of UN Resolution 1973 will be fought over in the coming days and weeks. Does it allow the arming of the rebels? Lawyers, it seems, will once more protract the arguments, thus allowing those who are for and against in the political arena to undermine what is needed.

            Europe must support the Libyan people if only out of self-interest. By overthrowing Gadaffi and supporting a Libyan transition to democracy, the Libyan people will feel safe where they are.

            So, for the sake of Europe, we must do whatever is required to preserve its peace. If NATO says that arming the rebels is not part of UN Resolution 1973, then we must proceed anyway. For the harmony of Europe requires such an approach.

            Much talk about al-Qaeda infiltrating the Libyan rebels has been ignited by a passing reference by NATO’s General Secretary. This reference has caused the media to question the international alliance’s ability to separate the wheat from the chaff when talking to the rebels.

IT HAS NOW COME OUT that CIA operatives have been at work in Libya for weeks studying the opposition and passing on their view of the oppositions reliability. In other words, the USA has pre-empted the dangers of al-Qaeda infiltration into the rebel forces.

            In addition to the presence of the CIA, British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are also working inside Libya. In addition, “American spies are meeting with rebels to try to fill in gaps in understanding who their leaders are  and the allegiances of the groups opposed to Colonel Qaddafi”, according to United States  government officials.

            What we in Europe have to consider is the safety of our boarders, and in so doing, we must act to help the Libyan people overcome their tormenter. For to forgo this challenge only invites another addition to our multicultural experiment.

            So those who think that the events in Libya can go unchallenged by the West in the hope that they will sort themselves out, had better think again.

           

             

THE RULE OF LAW IS PARAMOUNT

AMONG THE MANY STUPID acts carried out by New Labour during its period in office, signing  us up to the European Human Rights Act in 1998 was perhaps the most disgraceful example of a free nation voluntarily giving away the one momentous characteristic of its sovereignty – the right of democratically elected MPS to enact laws without such laws being undermined by a foreign power.

            But this is just what the last Labour government did; and by doing so enfeebled our judicial system, and made our parliament’s legislative activities subject to decisions made by Strasbourg judges.

            The only meaningful function of a parliament is to repeal and create laws. Government polices and promises require the stamp of parliamentary process for them to be enacted, and once that process is complete, new laws become part of our everyday lives. Thus, in such a manner, has this country functioned for centuries, creating a stable society where parliament has always had the final say.

            However, now our laws are being challenged by an outside foreign body that  has sovereignty over our judicial machinery including parliament, thus bringing into question the whole purpose of going to the polls and voting. For if we have forfeited our right to make our own laws and see them enacted without interference; then why indeed should we vote at all?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, Lord Judge, has just given a talk in Jerusalem on this very subject. Quite rightly, Lord Judge points the finger of blame at the politicians who effectively signed  away our independent law making ability. He points to the fact that whenever a judge makes a decision that runs contrary to common sense as well as public opinion, it is because our judiciary are obliged to enact it. They do not create laws, only use them when sentencing.

            We have seen uncountable examples of judges making decision that have enraged the general public. But those decisions are invariably based upon the obedience the judges owe to the EU’s Court of Justice. In the words of Lord Judge ‘The words “human rights” are sometimes described in language which might suggest they stand not for the noblest ideals, but, using polite language, as woolly nonsense,’  but such decisions, ‘must be applied whether we judges in the United Kingdom agree with them or not’.

            What is happening is that our national laws – the laws we elect our politicians to enact, are being overruled by non-elected bureaucrats (for want of a better word).

            The latest example of this European hegemony over our ability to govern ourselves was the issue of voting rights for prisoners. Europe said we must have them and the Strasbourg judges have given Britain until August to obey their ruling: which left the majority of the British public rightly outraged at such a demand.

            The European Court of Human Rights stands above English law and frustrates all common sense. Yet we seem to be trapped within its ambit without the ability to break free. It is as if we are chained by gravity to forever obey its remit. For no politician of the three main parties will offer the people the opportunity to break free from its influence. Even the arch Europhile Kenneth Clarke has come forward to say the Human Rights Act needs reform – but stops at modification.

           

WHEN WE GO TO VOTE we expect our votes to mean something. We elect 640 MP’s whose £65,000 salaries plus expenses are paid for out of general taxation. For this we expect them to govern and pass laws that their manifestoes’ promise.

            If they prove unable to make such laws work because of any kind of displacement          brought about by a willingness to forfeit their powers of law making through a signature on a piece of paper; then why should we vote for such a neutered institution as the British Parliament?

            The last government left our parliament much weakened by this one act alone: but as we know there were many more to follow. New Labour sought to chain this country to Europe. Our national sovereignty was seen as nothing more than an imperial throwback by these modern men and women who were now in control of a party that once represented the working class, but now sought to entice, via immigration,  new and various ethnic minorities to replace them with; which will no doubt, in another piece, bring us on to another of New Labour’s stupid acts.

            Like Europe, uncontrolled immigration  was seen by New Labour as an opportunity to keep the Labour Party afloat after the decline of socialism and the working class politics it represented.

            But our laws are what makes us what we are as a people. They should remain our property and no one else’s. Whether considered by the rest of the world as either good or bad matters little. Laws are what gives us our identity as a nation and should be in the control of no other body, than we the people.

            It is indeed an outrage that the laws we pass can be subjected to the inspection and censorship of an outside body, whether elected or not. It is we the people who pick our representatives to govern us and enact the laws they promised us in their manifestoes; without interference from foreign soil.

           

I BELIEVE THAT THE LAST GOVERNMENT of this country did real harm to its sovereignty, and it did so deliberately. For how could it have been otherwise, considering the intelligence of the Blairite New Labour assemblage that governed us from 1997- 2010.

            New Labour sought ultimately,  not to keep this country as a country, but a mere district/province of Europe. As part of this process of creating a Federal States of Europe, Tony Blair, early in his premiership, signed both his party and his nation up to the European Human Rights Act in 1998. An act that in itself removed legal sovereignty (the embodiment of any democracy) from the country he was prime minister of.

            I find it almost beyond belief that a people could so calmly hand over its legal sovereignty to an outside force so benignly without any form of  physical opposition from them. We have indeed (or so it appears) gone quietly into that dark goodnight.

            The rule of law is paramount and should be in the ownership of democratic nations to determine. Once we freely, without objection, allow foreign laws to trespass over our own creations, then we are without national identity, whether we be Irish, Scottish, Welsh or English. We become mere vassals of something called a Federal European Union which discounts all national identity and seeks to drown us in all things Europeans.

PETULENT YOUTH ONCE MORE AT WORK IN LONDON

YESTERDAY THERE WERE TWO DEMONSTRATIONS taking place in London. One was organised by the TUC, and involved 250,000 people marching peacefully in protest at the Coalition’s cuts; while the other comprised several hundred members of various groups including anarchists and an organisation called UKuncut.

            The anarchist/UKuncut groups had come for one thing only - to use violence against any business like Top Shop and Fortnum and Mason whom they perceived of as robbing the exchequer of funds through various tax avoidance schemes. They also attacked various banks like Lloyds and Santander who they blamed, along with their kind, for causing the economic crises.

            As far as the peaceful majority and their Alternative rally is concerned; the ‘alternative’ to which they refer seems to comprise more or less the same solution as the anarchist/UKuncut, but without the frenzied and malicious behaviour. For it seems that the banks and the rich tax avoiders could, if the political will was there, be made to pay off the deficit without cutting public services.

            It must be said that the vast majority of those 250,000 marchers work in the public sector and as such will no doubt be seen by many of those working in the private sector as  being comparable to, what with their final salary pension and early retirement, the rich bankers they were marching against yesterday. For in the private sector, working men and women, create the wealth that not only keeps this economy afloat, but whose taxes keep those in the public sector afloat; and it is unfair that those working in the private sector should have to forfeit their pension rights while supplementing those far more generous ones in the private sector.

            When interviewed in vox-pop fashion by the media, I failed to hear from a single protester who agreed with Ed Milliband’s disingenuous position on cutting public services, which amounts to doing the same thing as the Coalition but over a longer period of time. It is a deceitful position to hold, and I think many of those who were on yesterday’s demonstration would have still been there had we had a Labour government implementing such a policy.

            This country needs to make serious inroads into its deficit, and it can only be done by making sacrifices that sadly, will cause much displeasure and anger. But if the deficit is not tackled and tackled quickly, then the markets will react as they have done to the news of the Portuguese parliament’s  attempt at defying the economic realities of its position.

            This country may be economically better off than Portugal, Greece and Ireland, but the road to ruin still stares us in the face if we detract in any way from deficit reduction, and the Labour Party’s nuanced position is such a detraction. For to follow it would be to invite scepticism from the markets, and lumber our children and grandchildren with the financial consequences of our greed.

           

AS FOR THOSE SPAWN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS who chose to take the law into their own hands yesterday and create havoc on the streets of London -  one thing is for sure; they will not be treated like working class football hooligans by the police, despite the fact that their behaviour merits far worse.

            Over 200 of these middle class reprobates were arrested and will no doubt be either released with a caution or taken to court and daddy’s cheque book brought into use.

            They will then set about organising their next spat with the police over the internet when the TUC calls another day of action against public sector cuts.

            In any other Western country, class would not be an issue and tear gas and water canon would be deployed against these favoured sons and daughters of the middle classes. It is only in modern Britain that the police can be humiliated in such a way as they were in London yesterday by this country’s favoured youth.

            The people cry out for these little emperors to be dealt with forcefully by the police; but sadly the police are governed by an hierarchy of university educated liberal senior officers among whom such measures are to be found objectionable.

            What, however, was welcomed by these senior officers, was the presence of the human rights group Liberty in their control box overseeing the whole drama as it unfolded. The police felt they needed to persuade these people that they were not the KGB or the Stasi and no doubt pleaded for their understanding.

            What a farce this has turned out to be. Was, for instance, the police’s action on the day retarded by the presence of Liberty in the control room? Did senior officers pass down through the ranks orders to the effect that they must be seen to be in control but without any kind of behaviour deployed that could cause Liberty to challenge their actions?

IN CONCLUDING, one of the main targets for UKuncut’s attention was Fortnum and Mason, who they believed to be part of a rich set up of tax avoiders in this country whose retrievable tax evasion could help reduce the nation’s deficit.

            These wretched creatures managed to invade this company’s premises and frighten and intimidate its clientele. They were convinced that, like their other targets, Fortnum and Mason were part of capitalism’s tax evading bourgeoisie who, through their wealth, were able to forgo their full quota of taxes.

            But if these chosen sons and daughters of the middle class, many of whom will, in all probability, become the next generation of MPs, had forsaken their prejudices, if only temporarily, to enquire into the nature of Fortnum and Mason’s business, they would have discovered, as I did, that the company is owned by a charity. The trustees of which spend £40 million annually on grants to various good causes. Among which are the Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign (£1million), as well as Cancer Research UK who received £500,000.

            The bulk of such giving is distributed among the Art (£5,680,500) and education (£11,985,166) categories. On top of which a grant of £3 million was made to the British museum. But then perhaps those gestures will only inflame anarchist/UKuncut even further in their determination, especially when Fortnum and Mason also gives £1million to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

              There can be no justification for such a display on London’s streets of the kind that was witnessed last night. Such deliberate and calculated menacing of the public’s right to move freely without being intimidated by these middle class yobos, who believe they hold some kind of moral high ground defended by their parent’s wallets should they fall foul of the law, must not be tolerated.

           

SILENCE IS GOLDEN – FROM A ‘NATIONAL TREASURE’

THERE IS LITTLE LOVE in much of the West for the Jewish settlers of Israel. They are seen as the main obstacle to any Middle East settlement involving Jews and Palestinians - and even many Israelis’ wish they would just somehow disappear. Even the present Right-wing government finds them an embarrassment on occasions. For the settlers are doing what their ancestors did in 1947 after Germany had done its worst. They retreated back to a land that was once ancient Judea long before the Romans’ re-christened (excuse the pun) it Palestine. Once settled on this land they sought to widen its boundaries, especially after the Six Day War in 1967, which brought victory and more land to Israel.

            Now settlements are mushrooming over the West Bank, much to the consternation of the international community. The Palestinians want this stopped and the Israeli government to oversee the settlers departure.

           

ON FRIDAY MARCH 11 in the West bank settlement of Itamar near Nablus a 12 year-old girl returned home to find that her family had become the victims of a terrorist attack. This in itself would be considered bad enough; but the nature of her family’s homicide was like something out of slasher movie.

            What Tamar Fogel came across were the bodies of her parents, both stabbed to death; the throat of her 11-year old brother, Yoav, had been slit; while her four year-old brother , Elad’s throat had also been cut but was still, barely, alive. He died later. But perhaps the most shocking discovery this 12 year-old made was that of her sister, Hadas, just three months old, who had had her head sawn off.

            But perhaps from a ‘newsworthy’ perspective, the most shocking feature of this terrible terrorist attack, was that it received the minimal of coverage in this country’s media. In particular the one news outlet that we are all taxed to watch – the BBC.

            I am no friend of this institution and resent having to make a financial contribution to its existence; so I declare my prejudice now.

            The reason I abjure this organization is because of its political bias, that, under threat of prosecution, takes taxes from those of us who do not share its predisposition toward a liberal agenda.

            The events that occurred at the Itamar settlement should have been within in the first three or four items of any news broadcast, even if Japan and Libya were hogging the headlines. But according to Louise Bagshawe, the MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, and writing in the Daily Telegraph, the BBC mentioned this act of terrorism just once – on the Today programme.

            There has been no other reference to it in other news bulletins on that day or since. This from a supposedly world trusted news organisation that is continually blowing its own trumpet as the most reliable news organisation on the planet.

I WAS SHOCKED WHEN I read Louise Bagshawe’s account. It was the first time I had heard of this crime, and her description was based upon her own investigation via Twitter, where she came across a piece written by Mark Steyn.

            The BBC supports the Palestinian cause to the point where they have, or did have, a Gaza correspondent, on hand to report upon the latest Israeli  ‘massacre’.

            It is shameful that such an incident that occurred in Itamar could not be reported upon (not because of its newsworthiness) but because to have done so would have thrown into bad odour the very Palestinian cause and its people, that the BBC unashamedly support.  

THERE WAS HOWEVER, one place where these appalling events did not go ignored. In New York, members of the Jewish community gathered to pay tribute to those who perished at Itamar. Almost 1,000 people gathered at the Orthodox synagogue, while at least 2,000 followed on line. This memorial service was sponsored  by various Jewish organisations including the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

            Among those attending were the Conference of Presidents Executive Vice Chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein who had played a part in organizing the memorial and spoke during the proceedings.

            In all probability there were more people attending this gathering in New York and tuning in on line who were aware of the tragic events, than there were British citizens outside of our Jewish community. It is only so because the BBC, the nations prime broadcaster, chose not to advertise what would have been an anti-Palestinian storey of the most pitiless kind.

           

THE JEWISH SETTLERS believe in recovering land taken from the Hebrew race. They see this part of the Middle East as their homeland and have every historical and moral right to lay claim to it.

            The international community represented by the UN say that the Jewish state has a right to exist. But how many of its members believe in such a right? The settlements now under construction will continue in order to advance the boundaries of the state of Israel. But these boundaries cannot be never-ending, despite the justice of the claim of the Jewish people to have a nation state.

            But even so, this does not mean that a three month old baby can have her head decapitated in a terrorist attack.

            It takes something more than an ideal to decapitate a three month old baby. It requires a psychopathic personality with a sense of injustice to do such a thing. Those who carried out this abomination against this family were cowardly in their actions and a curse to their cause; and it was up to the BBC to point this out to its listeners and viewers.

            But this they never did; preferring instead to ignore the whole wretched business apart from the merest of mentions that could waylay charges of bias.

           

THE NEXT CHAIRMAN OF the BBC Trust  is one Lord Patten of Barnes. Louise Bagshawe asked him about political neutrality. As a member of a Palestinian aid organisation, he promised to give up his membership and he denied any BBC bias against Israel. Asked what he would do if such bias was indeed proven, the noble Lord promised to refer such evidence to the very BBC Trust of which he is chairman.

            Now Louise Bradshaw regards the BBC as a national treasure. She is not a BBC basher. But if the likes of Ms Bradshaw feels uncomfortable with the BBC’s Palestinian bias (at least as far as the events in Itamar are concerned) should we not also feel the same distrust, if not outright contempt, for those who treated human beings as animals to be slaughtered  and salivated over by their assassins?

           

            

AND ON THE FOURTH DAY THE UN…

ON THE FOURTH DAY of  the allied no fly zone over Libya, questions are being asked that should have been asked before allied raids began at the weekend. First of all Colonel Gadaffi’s status is now being argued over between politicians and the head of our armed forces (believe me, only the lawyers will do well out of this).  For all the wickedness perpetrated by Gadaffi on his own people over the past forty years, we are actually debating as to whether he should be targeted or left alone in the hope that someday he will face  trial in the Hague as a war criminal.

                The mealy mouthed western politicians and diplomats dance merrily on the head of a pin, debating whether the egg should be cracked open at its pointed end or its more rotund end. Like the people of Lilliput the international community represented by the United Nations have managed to make a legal pigs-ear out of getting rid of Gadaffi.

                David Cameron, Hillary Clinton and Nicolas Sarkozy have all said that Gadaffi has to go, but to deliberately target him would be tantamount to regime change, which was not part of  UN Resolution 1973. However,  to leave him safely holed up somewhere in Tripoli orchestrating his fight back from his near death  experience of a few weeks ago, invites stalemate in what is fast becoming  a civil war.

                According to resolution 1973 the Libyan people are to be protected from Gadaffi’s forces by a no fly zone. Now, if the rebel forces were well armed and capable, a no fly zone would have been enough to tip Gadaffi’s forces over the edge. But the rebel forces are ill equipped , ill-trained and ill-disciplined as well as argumentative and without a cohesive political central leadership and military structure.

                The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, was vilified when he sent a diplomat guarded by eight special forces personnel into Libya to make contact with the rebels in order to set up a conduit between the rebels and the allies, in order to establish a workable network of contacts between the West and the rebels on the ground. But as we know, the rebels threw what was their one chance of defeating Gadaffi on land, out of the country.

                We are now in a position where it is becoming necessary to have feet on the ground because the rebels are in no position to deliver a quick end to Gadaffi and his regime.

                Resolution 1973 states that there cannot be any kind of foreign occupying force in Libya; but the allies would not be in violation of this if they deployed a sufficient but not overwhelming ground force that would be perceived as a occupying force, to end what will otherwise become a costly stalemate lasting many years.

                Only a madman of Gadaffi’s stature would want to govern this country, let alone occupy it. If we do not end this problem quickly then it will come back to haunt us. Let us just get rid of the whole Gadaffi menagerie and let the Libyan people argue their future out among themselves. In this way our collective consciences will be clear – which, after all, is it not what most appeals to a good liberal?

                By implementing the no fly zone we have bought time for the people of Benghazi who were being threatened from the mouth of Gadaffi with genocide - and it was no idle threat. The success of the no fly zone brought back the thousands of Benghazi citizens who had fled when Gaddafi’s forces were entering the outskirts of Benghazi.

                David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy were both right in fighting for a no fly zone to be created by the UN. For to have stood by and done nothing would have incurred the wrath of those very same croakers who today express their opposition to the no fly zone. For if we had ignored what was about to befall  the people of Benghazi; and images of the inevitable carnage had reached western news outlets; those who today express their scepticism would have been the first to castigate their leaders.

               

NOW, WE ARE WHERE WE ARE. I supported the no fly zone in order to stop what would surely have become an even bigger migration problem for Europe. Many of those escaping Gadaffi’s revenge would have made their way up the spine of Italy into the broader Europe, and yes, into the UK.  As far as I am concerned the allies success would have prevented a further foreign language I could not understand, from walking down my street.

                As soon as the no fly zone became operable people began to return to Benghazi from where they had fled hours earlier. What the Libyan people want is to be rid of the Gadaffi tribe and we should accommodate such a request, and in doing so should not balk at killing the head of that tribe, irrespective of the legal perceptions.

                This whole business is not about the oil cliché. After all, Libya’s production amounts to little more than 2% of world production. Now if it were Saudi Arabia those martyrs to the West’s greed for oil would have a point.

                We do however have an interest in North Africa that does not embrace oil. We are witnessing a domino effect throughout the Arab world; and depending upon how these numerous explosions of public descent end; we in Europe may face masses of migrants ending up on our shores.

                Our people cannot pretend that Libya is a distant land that cannot impinge on our lives. Our politicians have used the argument that should Gadaffi be victorious all sorts of things may happen related to various acts of terrorism. But they only, in the most obscure of terms mention migration.

               

IF WE DO NOT put feet on the ground to bring this man and his sons to heel  then he will once more manage to survive in some capacity, even if it is as a ruler of just three quarters of his country.

                I believe that Gadaffi need not take up much of the West’s time if the West did what was required of the situation they find themselves in. Libya is a country of eight million people. Gadaffi’s army requires the inclusion of mercenaries from other parts of Africa to make up its numbers. We are not dealing with any of the following, Vietnam, Serbia, Afghanistan or Iraq.

                Gadaffi can be manipulated like a lump of putty; his forces, if at all loyal in every circumstance required of them, are in insufficient numbers to challenge the West.

                If the Libyan problem is to go away then it will require some kind of land presence by the West to help it do so. But I fear that neither the UN or America are open to such an arrangement. In the end one of two things will have to happen. Gadaffi will have, in some way or other,  to be gotten rid of, or have an accident. Or Britain, France and whomsoever we can bring on board from other European nations will have to put military personnel on the ground ; if need be in violation of resolution 1973.

               

OVER THE COMING DAYS the USA is going to leave Europe holding the baby. Obama has made it plain that he does not wish the USA to permanently hold a position of leadership over the UN forces arranged against Libya. It was hoped that NATO would take on the overseeing role, but Turkey has opposed this, and so where now for the alliance against genocide?

                It is wonderful to think that, for all the problems the West now faces with Libya; it would only take few words from their arch enemy to let the West off the hook. If only Gadaffi would announce his intent to take up residence either in Zimbabwe or South America we could all breathe a sigh of relief - and in doing so the Colonel may even avoid a war crimes trial.

                I believe he is testing us as he has always done. He knows we are hemmed in by international law and a softness that he despises but welcomes. Gadaffi knows just how weak and feeble are Western moral values when turned upon someone like him.

                If we are to rid ourselves of this creature then we must act in accordance with our military might and not some UN resolution that effectively ties our arm behind our back and allows Gadaffi to prolong, perhaps for many years, his fate.

                Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya need not drag on for years. It can be ended if the West shows the necessary ruthlessness that may, on occasions, contradict resolution 1973.

OBAMA, CAMERON AND GADAFFI’S SURVIVAL

JUST WHAT ARE THE Americans up too? What on earth does the Obama administration think it is doing to its credibility throughout the Western world, which relies upon its power to help keep the world and Western values safe.

            David Cameron has been calling for a no fly zone over Libya from the very beginning. There have been reports that prime minister and president were at loggerheads over the issue: of course both will deny this was ever the case. But American unwillingness to intervene militarily to help the Libyan rebels keep Gadaffi at bay has not exactly remained hidden from the public.

            Fear of another Iraq is said to have held Obama back from allowing his navy to patrol the skies over western Libya. Another excuse was that before such an action was put in place it needed UN authorisation, and, as we know, China and Russia were set against it. So it was argued that forming any resolution to be voted upon was pointless.

            Now, only today a different, more cynical view is emerging. Could it be that the White House would be happy to see Gadaffi returned  to power; as this would be better than a extremist Islamist regime (i.e. Iran) that may replace him? Better the megalomaniac you know than the megalomaniac that may come after him.

            It is now being reported that Gadaffi’s forces are on the outskirts of Benghazi, the last stronghold of those that dared oppose him. It took a great deal of courage on behalf of those Libyans who dared stand up against this tyrant. They acted with greater courage and principle than did the international community.

            Such courage should have been rewarded with far more than the platitudes and verbal bellicosity issuing from the lips of western politicians. Having dared oppose the monster, those Libyans who did so knew they had to win or suffer the wrath and vengeance that would surely follow their defeat.

            Now they stand on the brink of such a defeat. Remember those members of Gadaffi’s army who sided with the people against their master? What fate now awaits them?

           

IT IS MY VIEW that President Obama has done no more than any modern Democrat would have done… stand back and twiddle his fingers in the hope that events resolve themselves to the benefit of his administration. Was it not a fact that Bill Clinton, for instance, had to be cajoled into standing up to Milosevic by Tony Blair? At the time the Democrat administration was worried about another Vietnam and its place in history of course.

            Today the Democrat administration is worried about Iraq and the country’s first black president’s place in history were Libya to become another Iraq. So indecisiveness has been the policy of the Obama administration since the whole Libyan business blew up in his face.

            Now, when it is in all probability, too late, President  Obama has sent his UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, off to demand much more than a no fly zone to be enforced by the international community.

            David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy must be cursing their ally and no doubt bemoaning his somewhat late conversion to their point of view. Could it be that Ambassador Rice’s overture to the UN for more effective action than a no fly zone was deliberately made in the full knowledge that the events in Libya will overtake the need for such action; and this is why the demand for such action was made in the first place by her president?

            Thank God for the cynic in me! For I do truly believe that after days of silence on the issue of Libya by President Obama (and no, not because of Japan) he now appears from his shell at the very time that the Colonel is on the brink of victory, and sends his poor functionary to recapture the moral high ground from Cameron and Sarkozy at the UN

            Even when Republicans act and get it wrong – they at least act. This cannot be said of the Democrats in the modern era when it comes to an unpalatable course of action that requires the use of the military. They are haunted by the ghosts of history (of Kennedy and LBJ) and the cowardice of conscience

            At least George Bush acted in what he thought to be the best interests of the United States, and took whatever the liberals threw at him on the chin. At least he acted in accordance with what he thought was in the American interest. If President Obama had, if necessary, imposed a no fly zone over Libya and, if need be, had done so without the support of the UN, he would have acted like a president. Instead he has not been heard from on Libya until he pushed Susan Rice into the lime-light.

WE LIVE IN TROUBLED TIMES when we need the services of our military more than ever to back up the words of our diplomats and politicians. David Cameron, from what I have read, has tried to impress upon President Obama the need for action on Libya; action that only America has at its disposal.

            But Cameron cannot get away with this. He may have lead the charge against Gadaffi, but he did so with a broken lance taped together. For he has set about reducing our armed forces to a point where all he has left to back up his idle threats is indeed a broken and ill repaired lance.

            While President Obama cannot escape his role in what may turn out to be human butchery on a grand scale, David Cameron must not be allowed to take the moral high ground in all of this. For it was his decision to put international development aid before the protection of our armed forces.

            If I were Obama, I would have indeed sent Cameron away with a fly in his hear if he had suggested a course of action that needed the use of American military might when that of the British had been so diminished by the British prime minister in his list of priorities for ring-fencing.

           

           

           

            

NUCLEAR OR FLINT

FOLLOWING THE AWFUL events in Japan, the whole debate over nuclear energy will begin again. Our politicians, who, after years of sitting on the fence over the issue, had finally decided to go ahead with a new generation of nuclear reactors; but will no doubt once more waste precious time reconsidering the option. Always followers and rarely leaders of public opinion, more time will now be spent rehearsing all of the old arguments for and against nuclear energy.

            Those who have always opposed and managed to delay the next generation of nuclear power stations will deploy the events at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant to further their argument, hoping that after the Fukushima catastrophe, the upshot of the next opinion poll  will be to rally the public to their cause, and create an anti-nuclear momentum that will drench the politicians in righteous public anger and force  to the surface their instinct for self-preservation.

            The environmental groups have gained a second wind over this issue and will, along with Three Mile Island, Windscale and Chernobyl, add Fukushima to their ‘roll call of death’ from this technology.

EACH GENERATION of nuclear power station surpasses its predecessor in terms of its safety. According to media reports the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant was forty years old and was due to be retired within the next two weeks. As far as we know it spent forty untroubled years helping to build the Japanese economy into the world’s third richest and most productive.

            Nuclear power has been and still is Japan’s life line: from its use the Japanese people have not only improved their own lives, but also the lives of all of us in the West through the use of technology empowered by nuclear energy. There are over 50 nuclear plants in Japan, and the country has been criticised in the past for relying too heavily upon its use.

            So far, the Fukushima Dai-ichi incident is said to have been less harmful than Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. It may turn out that other reactors in Fukushima will prove prophetically more to the environmentalist’s taste in terms of the threat nuclear energy poses to mankind. But even if this proves to be the case and there are other incidents waiting to happen on a vastly more impressive scale due to the tsunami; the Japanese will not only have been right to use this energy source, but hopefully will continue to do so for the sake of its people once this terrible period ends.

            The environmentalists look to an anti-pragmatic world constructed upon idealism. A world which will have no truck with anything with the prefix nuclear attached to it; a world where rusticity and cottage crafts replaces mass production, with its environmental leprosy.

             If northern Japan had, instead of nuclear power stations some 500,000 windmills planted off its shores, would the earthquake and the consequent tsunami have ignored this environmental technology?

            The trouble with the environmentalists, is that they think some six billion people (and forever growing) on this planet can survive using their green technologies whose output falls well short of what is needed for humanity.

            Of course, and this is where we come to the crux of the matter, the environmentalists agree that their solutions require changes to our lifestyles in order for their ‘solutions’ to work. They know that green energy falls well short of the wants and needs of six billion people, and will therefore require us to sacrifice much of the comfort that it has taken a millennium to secure. This, however, is not spelt out in much detail by environmentalists whose sole purpose in the light of the events in Japan, is to gather support for their cause.

OVER THE GENERATIONS, humanity has advanced in numbers, and those numbers have been helped in doing so by an equal advancement in science, medicine and technology. All of which  require an advanced and cheap form of energy to allow such a development to happen.

            Because of the numbers of people living on this planet, we have to come up with ever more workable solutions to an intractable problem – the problem of catering for such numbers without resorting to ‘Nazi-like’ solutions for half the population.

            We can only do this by putting our trust in science which can deliver on its promises as nuclear energy has done. Nuclear energy is cheap and efficient in terms of delivery. Wind farms and other environmental ‘solutions’ are inadequate for the planets population.

            The human race, if it is to survive in such large and ever increasing numbers, has to take its cue from science; and no matter what the doubts about nuclear energy are, an equally productive and efficient green system for six billion people is not yet available. In the meantime, until such an efficient and risk free source of energy becomes available, we have to work with what we have if humanity is to avoid  such drastic steps that haunted the late 20^th  century in Europe under Hitler.

            We, as a species, can only survive in such numbers if we harbour science and technology. And if that science and technology carries some kind of health warning which has yet to prove itself disastrous to mankind, then, in the interests of ever greater numbers of people, we must embrace it.

THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS are asking us to take a step backwards, to a time when technology was in its pre-steam stage, for was it not this technology that started the evolutionary progress toward nuclear technology? If you think I exaggerate the environmentalist intent, then just look, for instance, at their ‘natural’ method of disposing of sewage.

            Alright, this is a cheap shot, but one which, if after the events in Japan causes people to reconsider nuclear energy, then I do not apologise for making it.

            Environmentalist measures are three hundred years beyond its sell-by date. For a world population of six billion people to fully put themselves at the mercy of such remedies will only lead to disaster after disaster on an African famine scale.

            Idealists can be tolerated on the fringes of civil society. Most of us have trodden such a path. But there is an old saying, “if you are not a socialist at twenty, then you have no heart. But if you are still one at forty, you have no brain.”

            Just replace socialist with Green and you have the same analogy. Environmentalism seeks to retard through turning to the past, rather than allow mankind their progress. For it is indeed advancement and improvement that is at stake in this battle between modern technology and the impeding technology of the environmental movement.

            So Japan, in spite of the criticism it will attract from some quarters within its own country and the West for its reliance upon nuclear energy; she should persist with this technology, improving upon its safety. Remember, it was an earthquake followed by a tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant; and if worse is to follow it will be from the same source.

            We simply have no choice but to rely upon nuclear technology for at least part of our energy needs. To pretend we can meet our future needs with wave or wind, or any other form of none nuclear energy, is to bring false hope and tragedy if we turn our backs fully on the nuclear option.

            Now is the time for pragmatism not idealism. The events in Japan will no doubt set back the cause of nuclear power at a time when we have to act quickly. Whether you believe in manmade global warming or not, our future energy needs demand the greatest variety of ways in which to manufacture energy; and the sooner the Greens and other environmental pressure groups come round to accepting this reality, then the sooner we will be able to meet mankind’s needs.