There is a strong feeling among Republican faithfuls that George W Bush took them on a merry goose chase all over the wilds without even once gracefully accepting the core values and beliefs of the conservative sections of society. The Republicans might even in the Presidency in November 2008 because as things stand there is no White Male candidate in sight and it is therefore unlikely that Hilary Clinton will get the kind of support that a strong white male candidate can get. And if her runn...
There seems to be an emergining consensus amongst the US military establishment: there is every danger of the US occupation of Iraq collapsing in a medley of confusion a la Vietnam. One factor that nobody talks about is the fact that the leadership has lost the conviction that the Iraq War can be won and to ask the military to carry on a failing mission is only counterproductive. The surge of 21,000 more troops has not eased the security situation in Ieaq and the Baghdad security,plan has all...
The Baghdad Security Paln has been launched with great fanfare. The al Maliki Government and the Secretary Defence, Dr Robert Gates were both extremely optimistic about the success of this Plan. A week into the operation and six appache helicopters later the Plan has slowly, but surely, begun to get stuck. Let me state that the paln was well thought out and could have worked has certain basic conditions been met. First, there was need for the sectarian violence to be tamed through a politica...
Finally the US voting public has awoken to the fact that the Iraq War into which President Bush plunged his unsuspecting people is virtually lost. Even Republicans are breaking ranks and are calling for the withdrawal of troops and the Bush strategy of escalation, euphemestically caslled "surge" will come a cropper. Having said the obvious let me move on to the issue at hand. Barack Obama made a fine speech at Springfield, standing on the very steps that Lincon had walked 160 years earlier...
The state of the Union Speech was a piece of political theatre and it cerainly set the Republican fox amongst the Democrat pigeons. George Bush, struggling for political relevance did what every politician is distress does: he coopted the entire Democrat agenda for himself. This astute move will ceratinly gain him some political mileage, but the conservatives will feel that they have been betrayed and the Democrats will feel upstaged. This round to George Bush. The Democrats realising the g...
The excecution of Saddam Hussein aon the day of Id marks an opportune moment to look back on his life, his brand of politics and of course, his relationship with the US which extended over three decades. I must say at the very outset that I deplore all that Saddam Hussein did in his life time, but yet maintain that the killing was not just bad politics but totally unjustified due to the fact that he did not receive a fair trial. Saddam Hussein was born on 28th April 1937 near Tikri to a s...
The Bush White House has let it be known to the world at large that though the Iraq Stusy Group had called for negotiations with Syria and Iran, the strategy of the Bush regime is to "surge"troops in Ieaq. What on earth does this mean. There are two options only. On the one hand it means that there will be more American troops on Iraqi soil and therfore more casualities. Instead of saying that troop strength is to be increased the Bushmen have mangaled the English language and term it "sur...
In a few months from now Tony Blair would have given up the Premiership to Gordon Brown, his long neglected successor. As he leaves Downing Street, it is time to reflect upon the remarkable carreer of Tony Blair and his most uninspiring legacy he leaves behind. He shares along with Dame Margret Thatcher the distinction of being the only PM re elected thire in English history. He shares with Maggie the credit for reshaping the very contours of contemporary politics. While the Graet Dame enjoy...
In a few months from now Tony Blair would have given up the Premiership to Gordon Brown, his long neglected successor. As he leaves Downing Street, it is time to reflect upon the remarkable carreer of Tony Blair and his most uninspiring legacy he leaves behind. He shares along with Dame Margret Thatcher the distinction of being the only PM re elected thire in English history. He shares with Maggie the credit for reshaping the very contours of contemporary politics. While the Graet Dame enjoy...
The Establishment has finally spoken. Nearly 10 years after the tragic death of Princess Diana, a Report prepared by the British Establishment tries to do the impossible--square the circle. The fact that the death of Princess Diana appeared to follow exactly the same sequence of events as she predixcted to her buter seems to me to be crucial. She said that the Palace will try to kill her in a car accident and that happened within weeks of her making that prediction. Does that not appear too ...
It is now clear even to the most fanatical Bush acolyte that the neoconservative agenda in Iraq has come unstuck, horribly so. President Bush is trashing about for a solution and the old statesmen of the first Bush Presidency are there to help out in the Baker Commission. A few important points need be stressed. First, the partition of Iraq along sectarian lines will not help in establishing peace in the region. On the contrary it will only add to the list of failed and failing states. Secon...
Now that the Democrats have 51 seats in the Senate and the Republicans 49 there is a small bot effective shift in the balance of power in the political establishment . Beltway politics will be a wee bit different as a result. However the Rpublicans have won a convincing majority in the House of Representatives. If the USA had a parliamntary form of government then the government of the day would have to resign. Bush is trying to brazen his way out of a political crisis by sacrifcing the Secr...
The verdict from the Baghdad court did not come as a surprise. Just a few days back the Prime Minisster of Iraq who is of course backed by the occupation forces had publically called for the execution of Saddam Hussein. This raises the question of the fairness of the entire judicial proceedings instituted by the Iraqi Government. It is a moot point that the massace carried out in 1982 for which President Saddam Hussein has now been sentenced to death was the direct outcome of a botched assasi...
In the run up to the Iraq war three years ago, both Republicans and Democrats vied with each other to denounce the threat posed by Saddams alleged weapons of mass destruction and his support for the Al Qaeda. Now after destroting a rich and vibrant country, after killing nearly 650,000 Iraqis ans spending huge sums of tax dollars, the US cotizens now know that their president took them to war for totally unwanted and probably self delided reasons. This is not the time nor the place to state ...
The going hasd not been better for the Democrats if only they get their act together. The Democratsd have taken 11 percentage point lead over the Repuli8cans and the Republicans do not even have a strategy to respond to the Fo9ley Affair. I do not call this a scandalo because Mark Foley by no means misused his position to proposition thye cdongressional page, something Bill Clinton did in his affair withy MONICA. The Repulicans are behasving like a buch of scared buffaloes, trampling over eac...