Andrew Mitchell called a debate in the UK Parliament on Syria yesterday. It's to be hoped that his motives were pure and they probably were, although what good he thought it would achieve I cannot imagine. Maybe he thought it would show solidarity with the victims; if so, the near empty chamber failed to achieve even that.
Clown Boris, our not so esteemed, from where I sit, Foreign Secretary called for the Stop The War Alliance to demonstrate outside the Russian Embassy. Thousands, possibly millions marched against the Iraq war and that was to send a message to our own government, a lot of good that did. A few protestors outside an embassy in London is sure to deflect Putin then. Boris is indeed a clown in my view of the world.
We spend billions on nuclear submarines and American missiles, which if rumours are correct we don't even have the firing codes for. Mind you anyone who would throw nukes around would be bonkers. What we actually need here are wind farms, power stations and tidal power, airports (I think next week may be revealing), better trains, better roads and more houses. IF you believe in the great god of never ending growth anyway.
Airlines are now allowed to double the passenger flights to and from China, with no limit at all on cargo flights, where they will all take off and land is a mystery, although a decision appears at long last to finally be imminent, if the protestors don't force another stand off, review, or whatever. The UK is a small place, any increased airport capacity anywhere would help the economy, if they really believe in a northern powerhouse they should do something up here AND down south since the capacity issue will surely come up again before long if they only match the immediate need.
I think Trump may win in the USA, from what I see his America first and to hell with the rest of the world message seems to be resonating, at least with those selected for interviews by the UK media anyway. People I've listened to seem to think that each American generation should automatically be better off than the last. They should look around. American cities did not live through what London, Southampton, Coventry, Dresden, Berlin, Rouen etc went through in world war two, but missiles have a far longer range and far more deadly consequences today.
The foreign policy and the attitude of America to the rest of the world is of a level of importance which cannot really be overstated. Sadly Britain is swamped in selfishness and paranoia, racism and a mood to roll the dice too. I'm not saying we're any better and America has yet to speak, maybe Trump won't win. The opinion polls don't favour Trump right now, but we didn't expect the stupidity of Brexit here either.
As regards Syria, the US is distracted by the election, understandably, neither Britain nor America wants military conflict with Russia and frankly neither Britain, nor America nor anyone other than Russia really knows what it does want, only what it doesn't want and that really isn't helpful.
We've created chaos in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and effectively in Syria too, Egypt doesn't look too healthy at times either. My heart bleeds when I see a child pulled from the wreckage of Aleppo crying for her daddy. What to do about it isn't so simple.
In fact the situation is so difficult that most MPs didn't bother to attend the debate. The United Nations Special Envoy to Syria has offered to escort the rebels out of Syria in person, if Putin and Assad will let them go. He's a brave man. Whatever agreements or guarantees Assad and Putin were to give I wouldn't trust them once nine hundred rebels were out in the open, I very much doubt they would miss the opportunity to strike just because of the life of one UN official.
Not to sit on the fence I think the UK should scrap Trident and sort out the economy. We can influence countries we trade with; as bankrupts we won't be trading with anyone, just giving away the family jewels as we did with our latest power generation project.
Next I would pull the RAF and every military person we have in the Middle East out, you cannot be part of the solution when you're part of the problem and for too long we've been wasting lives and money with no idea what we actually want at the end of it. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
I would resign our seat at the UN Security Council, it's utterly meaningless in the face of Russian vetoes and I'd campaign for a new more relevant UN constitution. Something framed to work in the world we find ourselves in, not the cold war period world. The UN failed in Bosnia, is failing in Syria, brought cholera to Haiti and then claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid paying compensation. Disgusting. I could list more failures but that's enough, it needs to start over. Whether we in Britain still have any influence in the world is a big question, we've certainly done everything we could to reduce it recently.
Not in order of priority, but next I would try to do more for Syrian refugees, especially the children. Britain is an enigma, we raise millions once a year for Children In Need, but not on our doorstep eh. Idiocy. I'm not talking about economic migrants I'm talking about those innocents in most need.
As regards economic migrants, we should try to help those countries which are becoming depopulated, but which are not actually at war. If people have a roof, food, a job, education and hope for their children's future the migrant crisis would be much reduced. Our ability to help is also dependent on the economy and the pound is on the way to being worth less than the Euro or the US dollar which is not a great help.
We should stop arms sales, especially to regimes like Saudi Arabia, Boris criticised Putin and Assad's atrocities in the house yesterday, yet what is he doing to prevent atrocities carried out with British weapons? Hypocrite. You go and stand in the rain outside the Russian Embassy in a clown suit Boris.
Finally I would like to see us reconsider our membership of NATO, especially if Trump becomes US President. NATO does not oblige us to follow on America's coat tails on every and any military adventure the US may undertake, but if Trump were to provoke an attack on America we would be obliged to get involved.
Mrs May might think that to be a citizen of the world is to be a citizen of nowhere, but tribalism is the problem and platitudes like "we're leaving the EU but we're not turning our back on Europe" convince no one. The world is a small place these days, Europe has a voice. Europe matters.
Andrew Mitchell was correct when he said that Russia is treating the UN much as Mussolini and Hitler treated the League Of Nations in the nineteen thirties. To avoid a repeat of that disaster we need to address the failing UN and quickly. Even if clown Boris does lose his seat at the top table.
You can support this blog by looking at and sharing my online shops, such as this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment