| Issue 24 Vol I, September 30, 2006 | Archive |
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British UN Official: Iraq Policy Muddle gets Blair out British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair is our and so the verdict. It his colluding with the American president George W Bush parroting his war on terror and the policy in Iraq that proved ultimately fatale. Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Mark Malloch Brown asserted that the Prime Minister's failure to call for an immediate ceasefire during the Israeli bombing of Lebanon was the final nail in his coffin, triggering the final rebellion by many previous loyalists. He also said that Mr Blair learnt no lessons from his earlier unquestioning support of the United States. The war lasted 34 days. It left 1,393 people dead. Another 5,350 injured. And more than 1,150,000 displaced, of whom 215,413 are still homeless. The damage amounts to more than £2.6bn. Exactly one month after it ended, a British Foreign Office minister admits that Tony Blair should have called for a ceasefire. His constant muddling and being an appendage to President Bush cost him leadership of the Labour Party and the position of the prime minister. Mr Malloch Brown, whose term of office runs out at the end of December, was also critical of Mr Bush and Mr Blair's "megaphone diplomacy" on the Darfur crisis. "The Sudanese know we don't have troops to go in against a hostile Khartoum government," he said. "That would be tantamount to fighting a war with Sudan. Blair also stands no chance of becoming Secretary General of the United Nations, a position he would love to occupy. "It's not just a credible threat... Tony Blair and George Bush need to get beyond this posturing and grandstanding," Brown told a major British daily, the Independent. It may also cost the Labour out if surveys in prestigious The Guardian weekly and observer are to be true. |
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Afghanistan: Looking back on a disaster
When the American and British jets struck in October 2001 with their lethal bombs and reduced to rubble many a bustling towns and villages, all in the name of democracy and development, it was widely publicized by crony western media that in matters of month, the al Qaeda and Taliban would be wiped out and their leaders Osama bin Laden and mullah Omar and others killed or captured. The world had agreed as did the United Nations to the plans of Bush and Blair that attack on that poor backward country was a necessity in order to defeat terrorism and the forces behind it. Those providing the moral high ground for the attack allowed Americans and the NATO to do what ever they wished. Destroy villages and kill innocent civilians and then declare it was being done to save them. As millions of Afghans face starvation, development and democracy promised by Western leaders has proved not even a mirage . British troops are currently engaged in their most prolonged period of intense combat since the Korean War. In Helmand province, they are consuming ammunition faster than at any time since the Second World War. In mid-2005, there were 25 insurgent attacks per month. A year later, that number has quadrupled. The fatality rate among NATO forces now averages five a week, only slightly lower than the rate suffered by the Soviets 20 years ago. Between August 1 and September 10, 28 British soldiers were killed. As is customary in the "war on terror", no count is kept of poor innocent civilians. These are collateral a damage. The number as observers point is at least 40 to 50 times more. The insurgents clearly enjoy more support among the local people, British forces have found it impossible to operate on the ground without extensive air support. The Daily Telegraph wrote that during the month of August, the town of Musa Qalah, to take but one example, was bombed by U.S. Air Force B-1s, A-10s and RAF Harriers on an almost daily basis. The result, inevitably, is an increase in civilian casualties and a corresponding rise in popular antagonism to foreign troops. Had there been some compensation in the form of economic development and poverty relief, outlook might be different. But despite the high-profile aid pledges, the past five years have seen no measurable improvements. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest societies with more than seven million people as chronically hungry. According to the U.N 53 per cent live on less than a dollar a day. One in four children does not survive beyond the age of five. The life expectancy of 45 is 20 years lower than in neighbouring countries. In some provinces, the maternal mortality rates are the worst ever recorded, anywhere. Seventy per cent of the population suffers severe malnutrition. Less than a quarter has access to safe drinking water, only 12 per cent to adequate sanitation and 10 per cent to electricity. Millions face starvation in the coming months — the result of drought, war, corruption and profoundly mistaken Western priorities. The U.S. and its allies have spent ten times as much on their military efforts in Afghanistan as on aid and development. According to the 2006 World Health Report, there are 4,104 physicians in Afghanistan, approximately one per 7,066 Afghans. In contrast, there are more than 23,000 U.S. and 18,500 NATO troops, one foreign soldier per 742 Afghans. The priority for the U.S. and Britain has been poppy eradication. According to a report recently issued by the policy research group, the Senlis Council, "In many cases, the only time Afghans have seen anyone from the Government or the international community has been when crop eradication has taken place. Poppy cultivation is now twice as extensive as it was five years ago. As Afghans are aware, the international military force seeking to subdue their country is not answerable to the Afghan Government — indeed, the reverse is the case. The soldiers on the ground are accountable to their masters in Washington and London. It's the requirements of the "war on terror", not the welfare of Afghans, that shape the agenda of the West. |
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EVERY
week savegry scales new heights as death and destruction increases.
Afghanistan is a jinxed country and its hapless poor who passionately love
their freedom have been the target of invaders for the past many centuries.
But what is happening to them for the past five years has no parallel.