Carry on deceiving

Don't disturb our settled views even though they may be hopelessly wrong. That was the theme of the day in parliament. The subject was Afghanistan.

I intervened on several speakers. I also made a speech but you know all about that. Few satisfactory answers were received. The Foreign Secretary was  looking forward to Karzai's mission to eliminate corruption. I ask David whether Karzai had offered to prove the sincerity of his will to eliminate corruption by promising to arrest his drug dealing brother, Wali Karzai. The answer had no connection with the question. I can safely concluded that Karzai did not promise that.

I intervened on Hague  who was saying that we should not follow the example of Canadians and the Dutch in naming an exit date from Afghanistan. I put it to him that an exit date would change our mindset from believing in the fantasies of success and victory and concentrate on the inevitable eventual solution which will be a deal with all parties involved. Hague gave a tired old answer that naming a date will encourage the enemy. The Dutch and Canadians have already paid their full price in blood and treasure.

Tory Patrick Mercer made a good speech. He does not believe the joint party lie that our fighting in Afghanistan is reducing the threat of terrorism here. He even differentiated between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I asked him if he wanted to send British soldiers to Pakistan. He said he was in favour  in the right circumstances.

I asked the LibDem spokesman whether he was embarrassed by his leader's  use of the latest scare propaganda story that a nuclear war would follow our exit from Afghanistan. He said he was not. Not easily shamed.

Finally Bob Ainsworth gave way to me while he was being lyrical about our planned future successes. If President Obama decided to retreat from countryside to the cities, will the UK follow suit. He said we would.

That's is really interesting because that is precisely the way that the Viet War collapsed. The American's retreated to the cities, then ran out in panic. But those were the days when we had our own British foreign policy. We stayed out of the Vietnam disaster, Pity we are wasting our British lives in a vain war that is already lost.

How soon will politicians find an exit strategy that can be spun as a victory? Until then it's carry on dying.

Ethical corruption?

A novel remedy in the debate from LibDems Ed Davey.

He urged the wider use of bribes to persuade Afghans to desert the $10 a day Taliban to join Karzai's Army and Police. Of course we and the American have been throwing vast amounts already in bribes to Afghans. That's the Afghan way. But we are also urging Karzai to end corruption. He says he will. Incredibly some speakers yesterday said they believe him.

Meanwhile we are fighting corruption with...err corruption. Ours, of course, is an ethical, house-trained British corruption unlike the nasty foreign stuff.

Somehow, I don't think it will work

Comments

[Gareth Howell]

I am sorry that Paul thinks Hamed Kharzai is corrupt, any more than any politician anywhere in the world.

Practical politics is based on compromise, not on ideals. Political theory is indeed about the Ideal and not the real.

Merely because you have got fed up with somebody's face is surely no reason to call him corrupt, especially when you are not an opium eater.

It is as bad to campaign for such a man to be ousted as it was to "put" him in to the job.

There can be no country in the world the election of whose President or PM is NOT influenced by his opinion of US govt politics or US govt of his.

Perhaps if I had a better knowledge of the Pashto/Pathan/Taliban/Al Qaeda I would have a more informed opinion of what should take place in Afgh.

I am actually quite dismayed at the lack of enthusiasm of MPs of both chambers to campaign for the withdrawal of UK troops from Afghanistan.

In that I agree with PF.

Who does provide the weapons to the Taliba
which kills so many US/UK troops?

Are they such efficient hunting men in their own place that their bird and boar shooting equipment has been lethal for so many years?
I doubt it.

It seems to be mainly road side bombs which cause the deaths, and those could not be simpler to make.

Even I, as a life time pacifist, know what they are made of, and how. I understand the substance has now been banned in the UK.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks George. I have over 200 cases of asylum seekers/ immigrants that I am dealing with at the moment

It's not possible to get involved with cases from other constituencies for many reasons. This familiy must rely on interventions from the local MP. He/she should have the full information.

[George Laird]

Dear Paul

I would like to ask a favour.

Florence and Precious Mhango currently held in detention at Yarl Wood awaiting deportation.

Could you write or speak to Phil Woolas and ask him to look closely their case from a humanitarian point. These people should be returned to Scotland and allowed to return back to the community that has taken them to their hearts.

The matter of their return is a political decision but there is a human rights aspect to this case.

If returned to Malawi, this little girl faces being separated from her mother and may face female gentile mutilation, an abhorrent practice carried out in that country.

If politics is about anything then surely it is about helping people particularly in distress.

From what I can gather Florence and Precious are well liked by the people of Cranhill where they live and have become part of that community.

Anything you can do would be most helpful to this family; the little girl is only four years old.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

[Patrick]

US foreign policy amounts to redneck generals and accountants that lie and spin fantasies about another nation that their economy needs them to invade.
They then 'justifiably' infest and trespass that nation and violate the natives.

Although there are countless nations suffering with appauling human rights the world's dogooders only ever invade a nation that just happens to have strategic value.

Strategic as in financial gain. The victim nation will not only have to be useful in perpetuating the US arms industry but will need it's own mineral wealth to extract.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-builds-up-its-bases-in-oilrich-south-america%20%20%20-1825398.html

[Adam]

We are still waiting for President Obama to tell them what their opinion should be. It was originally George Bush who said there could be no timetable for withdrawal because it would ‘encourage the enemy’.

‘It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing. All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength.’

So that is the opposition foreign secretary and the government all parroting George Bush’s war propaganda.

A timetable for withdrawal would be a great boost to the idea that NATO wants to leave as soon as possible rather than occupy indefinitely.

What angers me is that it is the NATO occupation which has caused this war. Until several years after the occupation began everything was peaceful. A new regime with promises of peace and development after several decades of war and destruction was welcomed.

How can a war against this insurgency be justifiable? The insurgents have my support.

Imagine that it was your family or friends who had been bombed by NATO. Imagine that it was your community that had a police force imposed on you who extorted your money and raped your children.

I hope the NATO troops and the ‘afghan government’ are driven away.