Let me begin by saying the I enjoyed Da Vinci Code just as I enjoyed the Rule of Four. Both are immensely readable and written in a racy style that makes one turn the page to find out what happens next. While the Rule of Four does not take great liberty with history, it has not created a major stir as has Da Vinci Code. It is unfortunate that many take the version of the Life of Christ and the subsequent developments in the Roman world especially after Constantine as being based on historic...
The London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard need to be congratulated for the quick detection of the identities of the 4 youth who pertetrated the horricfic act on 7/7/05. It took the US Administration a good two weeks before the names of the 21 9/11 killers were made public. The CCTV images caught pictures of the 4 British citizens entering King's Cross station at 7:50 in the morning. Less than an hour later all four of them were dead, making this the first insatace of suicide bombing in...
The bomb attaks in London took place when Londoners were going about their normal work. The tube trains were probably targetted because of their symbolic value and also provided an easy soft target. This was an attack on civillian non combatants and there fore needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. This kind of terrorist attackis not onlo bad for Islam but if it is done in the name of Islam damages the very cause for which it was done in the first place. LIke the Madrid Train...
The downing of the Chinook chopper a few days back came as a surprise because the war in Afghanistan is really a forgotten war with the World's attention centered on Iraq .Reality has a way of forcing itself and the incident last week did just that. The fact is that American strategy is too closely tied to the survival of the Ahmed Karzai regime and it is well known that except for Kabul and parts of Kandhahar the Afghasn National army controls little teritory. Therefore the reliance on the U...
The speech that the President of the USA, Geogrge Bush gave last night was billed as the speech of the prsidency.The expectation surrounding the speech was stupendous. At a time when the entire American nation is debaing the wisdom, legality and morality of the Bush-Blair War in Iraq, the President goes on air to declare to the world that he has no,policy. Three times during the course f his speech he said:We will stay the course in Iraq.This is Bushspeak for the status quo, that the majorit...
In a recent hearing before the House Committee on the Armed Forces, the Secretary for Defence turned away from answering a direct question from Senator Byrd:he only said that it is not possible to set a time table to end the War in Iraq. This is ofcourse pentagon speak for a long long indefinite haul. The political support for this long a war is just not there and the American people have already started asking whether the war was worth the candle. What the Secretary did not mention but came ...
The Bolton nomination has once again got stuck in the Senate. By putting the entire weight of his political office behind him in the struggle to make Bolton his man at the UN, Bush has lost out politically. Seldom does a re-elected President lose ground politically so swiftly as did George Bush II. Bus and his neo conmen think that their narrow agenda will ispire the American people. Unfortunately they have seen through the game and are not responding. The War in Iraq is going very badly an...
All over the world people are reading alarming news coming out of Karbala, Iraq. Three days age, the Anglo-American Forces launched a combined attack on Karbala. TThe British, who unlike the Americans are somewhat sensitive to world public opinion,for the first time decided to use their air force against the civillian piopulation of Karbala. The US ariforce has trained bombs and cluster boms at civillian target in Falujjah and other places including Bagdad, but this is the first time since t...
Michael Jackson, the Sultann of Pop, has won his legal battle and there is no doubt that the charges were trumped up. Jackson rightly said in one of his sdongs:Stenton is a hard man. However, Neverland, will never be the same again. The trial and the media hype against Jackson all mean that Michael Jackson will,have to work hard to reinvent himself. The iconic status of Jackson has actually been reinforced by this victory. We were sure that he was innocent and prayed the he will walk free. Th...
Any one who seen Robert Redford in his role as the award winning journalist Bob Woodward in the film Watergate would know that the disguised muffled telephonic conversation taken in furtive snatches formed the basis of the expose of the wrong doings of Richard Nixon and hi men. The truth has finally come out: Mark Felt was the Depp Throat. In reality Felt has a crystal clear voice and hence the deep addition to his voice was an affectation to disguise himself. Nixon had passed him over for th...
Richard Nixon is unlikely to make it to a list of Great Amriican Presidents in a hurry. Thirty yersa after Watergate he is, unfortunatly, a rather lonely figure on the landscape of American memory. The Media destroyed him because the Liberal Pressdetested him. The bloched attempt at forced entry into the Democratic Headquarters was harldy an issue to drive an elected President from his office. His contribution to American foreign policy and economy are yet to be assessed. Anything good that...
The news from Iraq is getting messier by the day. The American public was told that once the elections are held peace and quiet will descend on Iraq. Those opf us who have been follwing that story knew better. Now after 150,000 Iraqi lives destroyed, billions of dollars worth of infrastructure destroyed, nearly 2000 US soldiers killed in action and the golbal image of the USA is tatters it is time to reflect on the whole issue. The neo conmen who led the country to war underestimated the po...
France is one of the founding members of the fore runner of the E U the European Common Market, which later evolved into the gargantuan European Union. Why are the French upset? They do not want to take on board Turkey. France has a huge Moslem population and obviously will not find Turkey's presence in the EU welcome. Second, France has had to surrender its leadership role in Europe to the Atlantic union which is essentrially USA and UK. General de Gaulle had vowed to keep the Brits out of t...
There is mounting anger in the Islamic world against the USA and its allies who call themselves "COalition of the Willing". The War in Iraq, the large scale killing of innocent civillians fo;;owed by a ruthless policy of search and destroy that is being followed, and the story of the descecration of the GOLY QURAN has resulted in palpable anger. The USA could have issued a denial when the sory broke in NEWSWEEK. Instead the spokeman of the State Department issued a statement the the matter is...
The American Economy accounts for nearly 30% of the world economy at a global scale. down from 50% at the end of World War II. During the recent presidential elections almost all political paries including a few Republicans from industrial states, spoke very critically of outsourcing. Keep US jobs at home seemed to be their credo. Fortunately for the World economy, Bush won the election and out sourcing is helping the USA as much as it helps other parts of the world. The US economy is now sh...