Labourhome - Stories by andy ray

[Blogs] The Darkling Plain of Cold War II

2008-08-27T17:35:42-05:00

A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of Cold War II! Cold War II seems to have now formally broken out with the Russian dismemberment of Georgia (albeit being triggered by Saakashvili’s recklessly CRIMINAL rocket attack on his own CIVILIANS at the middle of night!). Possibly this is the logical prognosis of the Bush-Blair doctrine of dismantling the painstaking achievements of Reagan-Thatcher-Gorbachev by unnecessarily needling Russia instead of capitalising on its eagerness to be “European” and be the vanguard against terrorism. So, whilst we may brace ourselves to sadly watch history repeating itself (unless Obama’s diplomatic approach later on stops the rot), let me defer to the oracle of Matthew Arnold (“Dover Beach”) written in the 19^{th

..... the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.}

[Blogs] Saakashvili's War Crime is the PROXIMATE CAUSE

2008-08-17T02:13:26-05:00

In war-torn Georgia, are we guilty of pretending to treat the disease by its symptoms?

For, if Saakashvili’s blatant war crime of ethnically cleansing -- by making 50% of them flee -- a section of his own citizens by unleashing a battery of multiple rocket launchers at the middle of the night can be pretended to be ignored as the MOST PROXIMATE CAUSE of the current Georgian conflict, Alan Johnson’s recent “progressive” (sic) internationalist analysis (on “Findlandisation”) in Progress Online, despite it being in the company of arch US right-wingers like Krauthammer, and despite its misguided salvos at The Guardian, may shed some non-realpolitik, academic, light on the EFFECTS of Russian intrusion into Georgia proper.

But perhaps even then we’ll have to pretend that the Russians should be stupid enough not to learn from our right-wing (neo-con, neo-liberal, neo-Labour!) leaders and should not dare to mention our exclusive phrases like “legitimate interest” (ours : oil thousands of mile away from home; theirs : Russian passport-holding PEOPLE at their border), or “territorial integrity of a sovereign UN-member” (a la Yugoslavia), or “bullying a democratically elected government” who we don’t like (a la Hamas), or “regime change” without UN approval!

By the way, admittedly I’m no good at sweeping labelling. But I wonder whether the way we treated Hamas was tantamount to “Finlandisation” or not?

Lastly, will Saakashvili agree with Johnson to allow South Ossetia to join Russia if they wished? Not to speak to this extent, but for the past two months Russia was trying in vain for Saakashvili to sign an agreement saying non-use of force to resolve any issue -- ironically, after so much death and destruction, which he had to now sign. But Saakashvili, probably goaded by some young foreign policy prodigies in the White House (like we seem to have here), kept avoiding to sign it and instead launched this opportunistic attack : miscalculating that if he could destroy and occupy South Ossetia overnight (with his “shock & awe”?) and call a cease fire immediately after it, that will freeze the situation and stop the Russians to move in! Do we realise that Saakashvili’s multiple rocket launchers TOTALLY WIPED OUT the whole Russian peace-keeping battalion when they were totally unprepared. And let’s also acknowledge that they were UN-designated peace-keepers; and if they were allegedly breaching their neutrality, why didn’t a New York trained “human rights” (sic) lawyer like Saakashvili raise it in the UN in the first place?

This brings me back to reiterate Saakashvili’s obvious and unpardonable war crime again : let’s not forget that he is specifically a human rights lawyer who launched rockets on sleeping civilians and not some communist-trained, human rights ignorant, general like Serbia’s Mladic! This modern-day Goebbles exactly knew what evil crime he was unleashing. It’s a pity that when even the traditionally right-wing papers like The Economist or The Daily Telegraph at least dare to mention Saakashvili’s war crime, probably due to our Bush-poodlism, the needle of the “moral compass” that we were showing off seems to be broken now!

[Blogs] Boris Is the Fiishbowl of Tory Contradictions

2008-05-05T23:56:05-05:00

Fortunately for the Labour Party, Boris Johnson not only remains a contradiction incarnate but now provides the public a high-profile fishbowl of Tory (opportunistic) contradictions too! As we know, despite his, and the Tory Party’s, proclamations, Johnson’s actual policies contradict them and do not give anyone any confidence that they will help lead toward the proclaimed goals. How would Johnson justify and reconcile his apparent anti-crime tough stance with his actual opposition to the proposed automatic five-year sentence for knife/firearm possession? Or reconciling Cameron’s green leanings with his own declared intention to undermine Ken’s new Congestion Charge initiatives against the gas guzzlers?