Where in the World is Garry?

Postcard from the Edge

Living in a Bubble

During my time away the world news is filled with UN Resolution on Iraq and all its weapons of mass destruction. We are told that they are plentiful and abound Baghdad and its environs. The locals cannot leave their 'house' without tripping over at least one warhead or chemical delivery device. America again treads rough shod over the world community and world public opinion. Thirteen years of UN sanctions are not enough these people should also be bombed in an operation we are to learn later is called 'Shock and Awe'. Both great adjectives to describe how I feel that this is actually happening and there seems nothing I can do to prevent such a catastrophe. Some people are widely read, I have to say I am thinly read, even more so when it comes to politics so I, unlike the Americans, tread softly within these paragraphs. It is heartening to find that the events of 9/11 have softened significantly American foreign policy to foreigners and that the one of the lessons learned was not to bomb the bastards but to make real and tangible changes. As I opened my cutlery which came with my airline meal there was living proof that a profound change had taken place in the world, a change to end all evil. My stainless steel knife had been replaced with a plastic knife nestled neatly next to my metal fork and spoon. What a ludicrously perfunctory change.

Today, there are still over 700 'prisoners' from forty two different countries held without charge at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay. They are not protected by the third Geneva conventions because America doesn't want them to be, although America also doesn't want its soldiers serving on UN tours of duty to be subject to prosecution for war crimes and for troops captured by Iraquis to be treated under the Geneva Conventions. The irony of all this is that the Geneva Convention is quoted by US authorities in Guantanamo Bay to justify why reporters and other NGOs are not allowed access to the detainees, that the convention mandates that "the detaining power shall not subject prisoners to insult or ridicule".

Source - Ted Conover - New York Times Magazine - In the land of Guantanamo.

x billion dollars has been spent on the war so far and yet there has been little or no money spent on replacing the Iraqi information minister. Rumours are rife in Iraq that Sadam Houssein is actually living it up at the Whitehouse as this was all a plot between him and the Americans.

Contracts are already being awarded to the administrations' buddies. Yet again the oil industry, defence industry and corporate America benefit from other people's tragedy. What's even more scary is that there is also a billion dollar industry now based on war. Companies who actually provide their fighting services. What does this trend spell for the world? A new spin on corporations taking over the world perhaps? I don't have to tell you the consequence of one of these military services firms becoming as prolific and as profitable as say CocaCola or McDonalds.

The news in the US and the UK is filled with rumours that both governments might actually have exaggerated the intelligence claims over the weapons of mass destruction as if we actually believed them in the first place. Unfortunately some people did. We are spoon fed more distraction neatly summed up into a 30 second sound bite

The real UN resolution should have been to prevent the proliferation of Europeans wearing offensive speedos on the beach in public. Offending nations should have to doucment the fact that their arsenals of flimsy swatches are being destroyed.

Read More >>

Sunset Glasses