Controversial Political Issues

Iraq, where did it all go wrong?

by SocialDemocrat @ Monday, 19. Feb, 2007 – 17:03:14

The question of whether Britain and America were right to go to war in Iraq will rage on for as long as, and probably longer than the war does. However this question is now largely irrelevant; it is now four years since the invasion and it is time for us to think about the future rather than the past. Whether you agreed or disagreed with the war everybody agrees that the situation in Iraq has dissolved into civil war, and I would like to ask the question why.

In my opinion there are three key reasons: Firstly Iraq is a manufactured country with no single ethnic or cultural identity. There are a large number of distinct groups within Iraq. For example you have the Kurds, the Turkmen, the Persians, the Armenians and within these groups you have the two different faiths, Sunni and Shi’ite. Of course the hatred felt between these groups is immense, and although Saddam Hussein did some terrible things he was able to keep order between the groups. I think that the Americans and British are finding it much harder to deal with this problem, and a so called “democracy” will find it almost impossible.

Secondly the US led occupation has failed miserably to secure the borders. There has now evolved a situation where foreign insurgents are able to enter the country to help fight the occupiers. This insurgency has come from neighbouring Muslim countries who see Iraq as the new “field of jihad”.

These two points are important, but I believe that fundamentally the most crucial point is the arrogance of the occupiers. I mainly see this arrogance coming from the United States and you can see it in everything they do. For many years the U.S has believed that it is its right to police the world and this is bound to breed resentment. When the British were in control of Basra it was a much safer place than anywhere else in the country; and I believe that the British understand how to occupy a country much better than the Americans. The rules of war have changed, and the main failing of the Americans is that they have been unable to realise this. The Americans are very good at fighting a war, winning it, bullying the population, getting a good peace settlement and then going home again. However these types of wars belong and should remain in the past. The coalition beat Saddam Hussein, but the rest of the population is innocent until they do something wrong. However when I hear the way Americans talk and I see pictures like the ones at Al-Garaib jail I realise that the Americans do not know how to treat the population of a nation which it has defeated in combat.

I believe that this problem stems from the curse of patriotism in America. The number of flags that fly and the number of people who talk about other countries in such derogatory ways, shows that this is a country which looks down on other sovereign nations; and this, I believe is deplorable.

Brown outlines 'patriotic vision', such a shame.

by SocialDemocrat @ Wednesday, 14. Feb, 2007 – 17:26:22

Gordon Brown gave an interview on the BBC on Sunday to Andrew Marr, you can see it here if you want, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6238565.stm

Again Brown outlines Education as Labour's priority, changing the soundbite from "Education Education Education" to "Excellance Excellance Excellance". Of course this is a very good thing, because the future of all public services stem from the qualities of our children and our education system, but this doesn't say much about what Brown would be like as PM.

Unfortunately Brown outlines a 'patriotic vision' for government. Brown has been talking about the idea of being British for many years, but the basis of Labour is not patriotic.

I personally am against the idea of patriotism; nobody chooses the country of their birth, so why should anybody feel proud of it. I can understand it when it comes to football, then I am as patriotic as the next person, but apart from then I find the idea baffling. I hope that Brown will not try and increase the patriotic feeling within the country, surely his loyalty is to the people and not the country. In my opinion patriotism is a old fashioned outdated idea that can border on racism.

Please reply so we can have a debate!

Cameron's cannabis, does anyone really care?

by SocialDemocrat @ Tuesday, 13. Feb, 2007 – 16:35:44

Cameron continues to refuse to comment on the issue of whether he smoked cannabis at Eton. This means that the media will probably have nowhere else to go with the story and consequently it will probably dissapear for a while, exactly like it did during his leadership campaign over a year ago. However the problem with saying nothing on the subject is that Cameron leaves the topic open ended, meaning that the media can return to it any time they get bored. But it seems that the public is already bored with the subject; the drugs issue really wont hurt Cameron because nobody actually cares. And why should they, the idea that people should think less of Cameron just because he made a minor mistake when he was fifteen years of age is ridiculous. I don't understand quite what the media thinks is so scandalous, the fact that Cameron hasn't instantly resigned from the legislature? Because there are many more people in the Houses of Parliament who have done much worse things than Cameron and still remain there. Take Jeffrey Archer he was imprisoned for perjury, yet he still has a seat in the House of Lords; I ask you which is worse a grown man knowingly breaking the law or a teenager experimenting with a soft drug?

The question of why the media is so interested in digging up as much dirt on politicians as possible is one which I will address at greater length in other posts. However, in short I believe that the media are trying to make politicians more and more like celebrities. They build the politicians up just so they can knock them back down again. And it works; just look at Tony Blair, in the nineties he was viewed as the saviour of British politics, and now he is one of the most hated men in the country. And why do the media do this? You might ask. Because when everybody stops believing in the politicians, who do they turn to, who can they trust; the only body with nearly as much power, the media.

So while I was hoping that the reason why nobody cared as much as the journalists about Cameron's cannabis was because that the population was more mature than the media, I unfortunately realised that this was naive. The real reason is that the media like to see politicians crash and burn even more than we do.

Obama versus Clinton, the battle of the minorities!

by SocialDemocrat @ Monday, 12. Feb, 2007 – 19:23:48

The race for the 2008 presidential election is beginning to get interesting. With the list of potential candidates starting to get larger than George Bush's vocabulary, the chances are that we will have an incredibly open battle.

While the Republicans will once again field an ageing white male, the fight for the Democratic nomination will, in contrast, be fascinating. The two front runners being Barack Obama, who would be the first black presidential candidate and Hilary Clinton, who would be the first female presidential candidate. To me it does feel disrespectful to continually highlight the fact that both candidates are from politically minority groups; I am sure that neither wants to be seen as such. However this is inevitable; in recent times the issue of discrimination has come to the forefront of political discussion, and will remain there for some time.

The idea has arisen that if Clinton gets the presidential nomination then Obama could run for vice president; this way they could cover as many minorities as possible. All they would need then is a homosexual muslem with jewish tendencies, to complete the set. However for now the challenge is very much open, with both candidates very close in the opinion polls. So the real question is, is America more ready for its first female president, or its first black president?

Due to the fact that I am a resident of the United Kingdom, I have little knowledge of American culture and American feelings, consequently my opinions on this subject will not be as informed as I would like them to be. However my belief is that the U.S is not as discriminatory as it was twenty or thirty years ago and so I don't think that either candidate will be hindered as much as they might have been. Racism in America is dying out and so I don't think this will be too much of a burden for Obama, and also the populations which are more racist are likely to be in republican areas anyway. I think that sexism is more of a problem, and Clinton will come across a lot of people who, wrongly, believe that women are mentally weaker and less able than men. However Clinton will also pick up colossal numbers of the female population who want to fight this kind of chauvinistic sexism.

It may be more beneficial globally to have a black man as the leader of the most powerful country in the world, especially one with a name such as Obama. This would be a great symbol of racial equality and it would truly show how far the U.S has come. Whereas if Clinton was elected, the good it would do for domestic equality would be immeasurable.

Of course it is be unreasonable to assume that the whole primary will be based on the issue of race against sex. Both candidates are actually reasonably similar. I would class both as liberals, and both are highly critical of the war in Iraq, however this is a bit rich coming from Clinton since she supported the war in the first place, while Obama was against it from the word go. The main defining factor between the two is that Clinton has had much more experience than Obama, having been Senator since 2000 and the First Lady since 1993. Whereas Obama has only been a senator since 2004. This is one of the main reasons why I will be supporting Clinton for the nomination; I get the feeling that she understands the issues much better than Obama, and I also believe that Obama is trying to write himself into history with clever and dramatic soundbites.

However whoever wins the Democratic nomination, I sincerely hope will be in the White House by 2009, for I believe that the security of the world will be much safer without a Republican president.

The Illusion of Democracy

by SocialDemocrat @ Sunday, 11. Feb, 2007 – 15:10:36

Democracy! A wonderful enlightening word that seems to encompass all that is good in our society, it symbolises fairness, equality and freedom. It seems to me that democracy has become a buzzword; as soon as a politician utters the word democracy they will have the audience eating out of the palm of their hand. Nobody in their right mind would question democracy, everybody now assumes that the only way a country can be run is by democracy, and yet it seems that democracy is such a vague term. Originally democracy was intended to mean, "The rule of the people", however there is nowhere in the world where the people actually rule the country. Yes! We have a minor say in how our country is run. Yes! Every few years we can vote in an election. And Yes! There are very rare occasions when something called a referendum is held. But on the whole the population acts as little more than an advisor to the government; often the government will have to pay attention to public opinion, and especially when an election looms the government will have to use any measures necessary, including advertising, trickery and downright lying, in order to harvest votes. However at the end of the day the government acts like a complaints department, always having to humour the old woman who can't get her television to work, in order to keep up good public relations but nonetheless they still think of her as an unfortunate but necessary nuisance.

As I take a look at the other side of the world at the farcical democracy in Iraq, I wonder whether there isn't a better way of running the country. Although the occupation by foreign forces doesn't help the situation, when you have so many different factions who loathe each other with an absolute passion, I get the feeling that a democracy is going to be mightily inefficient and mightily weak even if it is eventually given a chance to govern. Surely a benign dictator who would be firm but fair would hold such a splintering nation together much better than any democracy would. But no, it is not right for me to say this. Dictators are bad and democracies are good, that is the way the world views these two bodies. But I don't see it as being such a black and white issue. Don't forget that Hitler was democratically elected in Germany, don't forget that it is the great American democracy that has inexplicably chosen George.W.Bush as their President, twice! We have this idea that the majority of the people will always be right, but this is a distinctly naive view. There are large numbers of the electorate who do not know enough about the major issues and therefore are unable to make an informed choice about what needs to be done. That is the reason that we do not have a proper democracy, the government doesn't trust us, and in my opinion rightly so. A few months ago a poll was published in the guardian, the poll asked which party was putting forward the best policies on health; the poll came back with a two point lead for the Conservative party. Great! You might think, or not depending on your party allegiance. However you have to be slightly worried by the fact that the Conservatives don't actually have a health policy. Is it any wonder why we are not given more power and why the idea of a pure democracy will never be reached?