Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 163
June 22, 2015
Afghan Parliament Attack
This attack is ongoing as I write this. It is dreadful that after all the lives lost in years of intervention, so fragile is the security situation that the Taliban can directly attack the seat of government in Kabul. It shows that the future of Afghanistan is uncertain without some kind of accommodation with the Taliban, whose military defeat is out of reach of all the forces mustered against it. In the view of this blog it underlines a systemic fault in Western foreign policy in which the UK has been a principal architect.
There has been a view, and this lingers still among the zealots, that military or political intervention to encourage the overthrow or actually to overthrow an unpalatable regime the West does not like, will improve the stability of the governance, quality of life and freedom of the people of the country and region concerned. The opposite has been the outcome.
Not just once, but time and again. In Iraq where we invaded, in Libya where we bombed, in Afghanistan where we occupied, in Syria where we called for the overthrow of the Assad regime and backed the initial rebel grouping and in Ukraine where we backed street demonstrations which overthrew the legitimately elected government and replaced it with a western leaning one of very doubtful provenance, which split the country in two and has led to civil war. There are now five major states in strategically important regions in varying states of dysfunction, violence and failure.
The individual circumstance of each country were different but the principle underlying the response was the same. The West had a duty to intervene to rescue a subjugated people and failure to do so would risk enhanced threats to Western collective security. The opposite has been the outcome in every single instance. Not only has humanitarian suffering been on a scale not seen since the worst periods of the twentieth century world wars and of much longer duration, but the threats to the West have multiplied and expanded way beyond the level at which action was initiated. This is a collective failure of strategic analysis and policy application of depth unseen since the fall of the Roman Empire. The worst of all is that few if any lessons have been learned and it is still far from over.
June 20, 2015
Human Rights and Delusions
The reported finding by a judge that an electronic tag must be removed from a terrorist suspect on the grounds that his human rights are being breached because he suffers from delusions that the tag is a bomb is as perverse as finding against the tax authorities because the person they accuse of tax evasion suffers delusions that George Osborne is Dracula.
This blog is in favour and fully supports the Human Rights Act and sees it as a valuable safeguard for citizens in a country without a codified constitution. Like any set of laws it is open to interpretation and requires measured judgement to be effective. There will always be idiosyncratic judgements, which is why there is an appeals process, and when they occur it is a mistake to call for a change in the law. A look at how judges are selected and appointed might be more to the point.
June 19, 2015
Weekend Read: Transatlantic Thriller
Dr. Rachael Benedict is an American historian a
nd a best-selling author. She has a British connection through her estranged father Saul, an English thriller writer. Saul, whose parents were of Anglo-German origin, has spent much of his life plotting to expose secrets from World War Two, which are so sensitive they have been subject to an extensive cover-up lasting seventy years. As the time approaches for him to make his move to expose duplicity, murder and lies at the heart of the British State, he seeks Rachael’s help. This provokes a killing spree as parts of the security services of both Britain and the United States become engaged in the drama, with one side determined to get the secrets out and the other determined to keep them hidden.
Set equally in the United States and Britain, the narrative grips from the first page, transporting the reader to the heart of government both in Washington and London and on into the darkest corners of the secret states on each side of the Atlantic. Rachael battles forward to unearth the truth both from intrigues of the Nazi era, but also within her own family, surviving three attempts on her life, before finally achieving her goal. Not only does she expose the truth from history and from her own roots, she has to delve deep into her own emotions to find the truth about herself.
America’s Two Cancers
The news of the church massacre has stunned America and shocked the world. The fact that it has happened at all flies in the face of everything America stands for and believes itself to be. An exasperated and deflated President seemed powerless to do any more than ring his hands. And no wonder. This is apparently the fourteenth time he has had to comfort America in the aftermath of a massacre of innocents at the hands of a nutcase with a gun.
America is the only developed country in the world in which the citizens are lawfully armed against their neighbours and have the legal means to purchase weapons to launch such attacks. The perpetrator of this attack was given the gun which he used, as a twenty first birthday present by his father. That gift would have been a crime in the UK. Yet every attempt to control guns is thwarted by the country’s most powerful lobby which sees the means to kill at hand in the home or pocket a constitutional right which is synonymous with freedom.
But it is now getting worse. Racism is back. This latest tragedy is the murder of black people, among them men and women of distinguished public service and unimpeachable integrity, by a white man full of colour prejudice and hate who killed not because of who his victims were but because of the colour of their skins. Few crimes can be worse nor their motivation more perverted. It comes after several incidents of police shooting unarmed black people for little if any reason, which has inflamed tensions and caused riots.
America is now presenting an ugly aspect of itself which disgusts the world and diminishes its authority. The great irony is that America is the country which sets the bar of excellence highest, champions freedom above all others and seeks to do the most good. Sadly the weaknesses of its foundations, built upon slavery determined by race when all men were said to be equal, and resolved by conflict in one of the bloodiest civil wars in history, rather than by dialogue in a country claiming to be the most complete democracy in the world, have become fissures which have not and cannot heal unless there is a national awakening that things cannot go on as they are. Only when all its people are, are said to be and are treated as truly equal and of equal value will America be truly free. And only when the citizens are disarmed by law and the constitution amended to prohibit the unauthorised ownership of guns will Americans be safe.
June 18, 2015
DQE: Learn About It for .99p
An idea to stimulate economic growth without further government borrowing. Written in plain English and very easy to follow, this is the only really fresh approach out there to the intractable problems of the UK economy, and it is just beginning to be noticed in important places. Buy! Download only .99p Paperback £2.99
Labour Hustings : Nuances From Nuneaton
I saw about thirty minutes of the opening event in the hustings to choose a new Labour leader from the line-up of four. The first thing to say is that whoever is chosen will be most likely up against Boris in 2020. If not it will be May or Osborne. All of these are big hitters. Boris is a political mega star, celebrity and national treasure all in one. So the winner will have to measure up.
My impression, and of course this can easily change as one gets to know these people through the progression of the campaign, is that Burnham means well but is too lightweight in personna to win votes in the south and Reeves is too far to the right. With her why not get the real thing and vote Tory? So that leaves Cooper, who came across as a much more engaging and connected personality than I had previously thought, with a sharp political instinct, who may become the front runner. And Corbin. He was powerful, focussed, answered the questions actually put in plain words which were to the point and got the most applause. Watch him.
EU Referendum: Outcome Doubts Grow
A month ago this blog was confident that when the vote finally comes, the UK will vote to remain part of the EU. Now I am not so sure. The reason for these doubts which I know are shared by many, is that several things are going wrong in Europe at once, which give an impression of muddled vision, weak governance, lack of strategic planning and a failure of common purpose.
The key areas are the fiasco of Greece, the failure to agree a common policy to receive desperate migrants, most of whom are fleeing conflicts and persecutions fanned by policies supported by or originating from Europe, indigestion from too much eastward expansion creating an over diverse Union with widely differing aspirations and values between North and South, West and East leading to drift and division and finally the problem of the UK and its future relationship.
All of these things could be solved by a strategic view, a logical and practical plan based on fact not fancy, sound governance and a common purpose. But none of this is in evidence at all anywhere except in Germany and its view is not shared by very many of the other nations in an enterprise which not long ago seemed forever, but so much of European history, looks increasingly here today and gone tomorrow. It is not too late to get a grip, but the time when it will be is not that far down the track.
June 17, 2015
Nazi Era Hess Thriller
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Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war. The truth has been covered up for generations because to reveal it would somehow undermine the honour and constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom. Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?
There are many questions to which in the modern day one man, Saul Benedict has all the answers, because his parents were players in the drama involving Churchill, Hitler, leading politicians and an important Royal. Saul is an author and declares his intention to write a book to reveal all, but he is shot dead, apparently accidentally by a poacher. But was it an accident? Rick Coleman an investigative journalist determines to find out and in doing so to uncover the mystery.
Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, the novel is a fast moving and compelling read based on the family knowledge of the author whose parents had connections to both Hess and Hitler and to British Intelligence.
Post Thatcher Era Steamy Political Thriller
Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving 
thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. The novel catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.
