Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

Sticking Another Finger in the Dyke

My first thoughts on hearing reports of Des Browne’s latest comments on Iraq, were that it was so good of him accept reality and confirm our report a couple of weeks back that British troops are likely to be out of Iraq by the end of next year. Defence ministers seem to spend so much of their time denying obvious realities, that any attempt that gets close ought to be applauded. But a closer look at what he actually said made me realise that it was just another attempt to stick a finger in the dyke holding back the flood of calls for British troops to be pulled out of Iraq.

The Travesty of a Trident Debate

Tony Blair has now announced what readers of this blog have known for more than a week, that we are pressing ahead with a revamped Trident nuclear missile system, at a cost of up to £20bn [the £14bn I mentioned in the original blog is just for the missiles and warheads, as "3rd Column" was quick to point out]. I dont know why the prime minister bothered making the announcement really, it was no surprise to readers of TimesOnline. But for those who missed it here it is, just as I wrote it:

The cabinet had its first sight of the White Paper produced to justify continuing with a submarine-based nuclear deterrent on Thursday ahead of its official unveiling in Parliament on Monday. Tony Blair has promised MPs a full debate on the issue sometime early next year and reportedly told last week’s cabinet meeting that he wants to launch the debate very quickly "because a decision needs to be made". It’s a good quote that isn’t it? You can actually hear him saying it, with that little bit of irritation that we just don't get it in his voice. The truth is that a decision doesn’t need to be made now at all. But whether it does or not is irrelevant, because the key decisions have already been made. So MPs from whatever side of the house can go whistle, what they say will not change a thing. Is this what passes for democracy under President Blair? I’m afraid it is and the sooner we get rid of it the better.

I’m a Proper Journalist Get Me Out of Here

Last Friday I visited the Cheshire Cheese, Fleet St, for one of those increasingly frequent rituals of the British journalistic scene, a Daily Telegraph going away do. I have no idea if any television companies have thought to film a fly-on-the-wall documentary of the Telegraph’s transformation into a newspaper for the brave new world but if they didn’t they really did miss a trick. The place seems to be becoming more like one of those tabloid TV “reality” shows by the minute, what you might call “I’m a Proper Journalist Get Me Out of Here”.

Are They Really Dying for Their Country?

The spin doctors have done pretty well by Tony Blair over the last few days. The deaths of four servicemen and women on the Shatt al-Arab was neatly edged off the top of the BBC newscasts by the news that the prime minister was going to push for talks with Syria and Iran - actually reported before their dreadful deaths but regurgitated by the BBC’s reliable idiots as if it was somehow new and more important than the loss of four lives in a totally unnecessary fashion. Thereafter their deaths fell swiftly down the bulletins, apparently less important than a series of meaningless government announcements that it was going to do this or that. We shouldn’t of course be surprised. It is all we should expect from the dreadful post-Hutton BBC. They are frankly not alone. The scandal that is the continuing loss of British lives in Iraq is the story that no-one seems able to confront.

On this Iraq thingy...

We should be careful in interpreting the differing positions of Blair and Bush on talking to Iran and Syria as some sort of Damascene conversion on the part of the Prime Minister. Blair is of course right. We should be bringing them into the process. In fact it would have been pretty helpful if instead of slamming them as part of the axis of evil, we had been talking to them from the start. After all in the immediate aftermath of the allied invasion, Iran was pretty desperate to hold talks with Washington but these were rejected in favour of a policy of threats that only talked up the hardline idiots in Tehran and Damascus at the expense of the pragmatists who understand we all have to live together.

But to get back to Blair, don’t go expecting him to stray too far from the President’s line and don't expect too much from these talks. You won't get much from either Tehran and Damascus by going into the talks treating them like pariahs as Downing St seems determined to do, in a pretty obvious nod to the US rhetoric. This looks to me to be just a half-hearted and pretty inept case of tough guy, soft guy, and no prizes for guessing which of the two great world leaders gets what role!

Good Riddance Rumsfeld

President Bush’s decision to get rid of Donald Rumsfeld in the wake of the Republicans' disastrous election defeat has to be welcomed. I’m afraid we are going to have to accept that Rumsfeld wasn’t reacting to the call made by this blog for him to go - even if he had read it, he would undoubtedly have ignored it - and while there is no doubt that this resignation was pre-planned, it would not have happened had the Republicans won. Rumsfeld was behind all four of the main decisions that contributed to the disaster that is Iraq and while he can’t be held uniquely to blame for the first, the decision to invade in the first place, he was the first to suggest that 9/11 provided the excuse to invade. Just as importantly, he was also the man ultimately responsible for the other three stupidities.

In Memoriam: British Servicemen Killed in Action in Afghanistan

During my recent trip to Afghanistan, I came across a great memorial to the British troops who have died in Afghanistan. So I am placing this post at the top of the blog to give people a chance to see the memorial, at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand province, and to pay their respects to the dead. Whatever divides us on this blog, we can I am sure all agree that those who die for their country deserve our respect. So I have been surprised how few people have added their own thoughts to this page as opposed to those on more contentious issues.