The United States and Sierra Leone - Two countries not a world apart

A bold headline I know, but I do feel it partially true. If you are wondering where an earth this idea comes from, the answer lies in a film - "fair game" - a good film at that, about the Valerie Plame affair during the Iraq war. During the film, a certain conversation resonated with me. A taxi driver from Sierra Leone mentioned that in his country, corruption is widespread because there is too much power at the top. He then went on to say that in America, the so called land of the free, this is not the case - to which another of the main characters replied that actually the two countries are "more similar than you would think".


In my opinion, this meant that the Plame affair highlighted that in America in particular, there was far too much executive power - an imperial presidency if you will. This is not just the fault of Obama, the presidency has been increasingly powerful, since the end of the Cold war.You only have to look to foreign policy to see how much power the president yields. Bush launched both the Iraq and Afghanistan war without congressional approval, Obama is fighting in Libya, where it could be argued he is ignoring the War Powers Act and Clinton signed many treaties like Kyoto for example without any ratification from congress.


I would not go as far to say that we now have corrupt regimes and we need a citizens revolution, but I do think that the president and the White House now hold an immense amount of power, possibly too much. Should this be the case in the worlds leading democracy? Maybe, they should try to flatten out the cracks in their own democracy, before trying to preach or impose democracy on other countries.

Bin Laden's war

As we move swiftly towards the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the first (and hopefully last) of the War on Terror, I think it may be valuable to take stock or evaluate what we have actually achieved.


The achievements in my eyes, come to very few. With Afghanistan clearly the focal point of the War on Terror, from the outside and information from the media, it does not appear to be much better off then when we arrived. Granted, the Taleban is probably slightly less influential, but the war lords are still powerful and losing trust in the coalition forces.The national and local governments appear rather weak, particularly in Helmand and suicide bombings (resulting in civilian deaths) appear to be commonplace. The country itself looks to be very unstable and in no state to support itself (even the president's brother was killed). Although the lack of progress could be partially down to the apparent corruption of Karzai,(rigging of elections) the Afghan leader. It must be said that the soldiers fighting are not to blame; putting their life on the line to make a safer Britain is admirable. But was invading Afghanistan ever going to make Britain a safer place?


The answer lies with Bin Laden's vision - an Afghan war would just make the world more unstable. The purpose of 9/1, for Bin Laden, was to provoke the west into a war they could not resist - Afghanistan. Bush and Blair quickly obliged, carelessly it now seems. For Bush in particular, after 9/11 he had the sympathy and backing of not only America but the world. The world would support America in eradicating terrorism. However the recklessness of the Afghanistan war was always likely to anger the Muslim communities, possibly causing a more wide scale war between Christians and Muslims. Not only this but the West was going to be drawn into a war they simply cannot win - as seen by the little progress achieved in ten years.


So, if the war in Afghanistan was never going to be won, then surely the War on Terror would never be won. If this is the case, then Britain may well not be any safer than before we invaded Afghanistan, terrorism would still remain potent. In fact, invading Afghanistan may lead to the eventual increase in anger and terrorism directed at the West.


So it now looks as though the aims of the west, after 9/11 - to win the War on Terror and make Britain and USA safer places - have so far not been accomplished. This, to me begs the question, what have we been doing for the past 10 years, if not completing our goals?

Libya, A dangerous precedent?

Libya then, well as with any conflict, there are many questions that need to be answered - but I think the most important, is the same question arising from any situation; what happens next?

What do I mean by this, well we all have opinions as to whether or not we should even be there in the first place? We all have differing opinions about what exactly are we there for? Although we are there to officially to protect civilians, it could be argued we are therefor “regime change” again. 

The fact is though, we are there now and we are there for good with missiles, ships and planes etc. The biggest concern for the allied forces though, is what precedent does this set? If we are there to protect civilians from being slaughtered by Qadafi, then I fully support our presence, but what message exactly are we sending to these dictators and their respective countries.There is already the beginnings of another uprising in Bahrain and it is definitely possible that Yemen or Saudi Arabia may follow suit. By invading Libya, are we saying that we will support any protesters who wish to rid an evil dictator? Are we only going to intervene if protesters are campaigning for the western model of democracy? Are we saying that we are no longer willing to support dictators who give us oil? Maybe you can answer more accurately than me?

The current situation in Libya is intriguing, but what happens when Qadafi is inevitably defeated, will be particularly unpredictable? Will the allied forces pull out of the middle east completely or will they remain there and help other revolutions in Yemen or Bahrain?

And who knows, if these types of revolution spread as far as the repressive regimes in the far East like China and Burma for example, do the west support the protesters again? Do we risk damaging our valuable relationship with China? (almost certainly the next big global superpower)

Irony in the search for Democracy in the Middle East

As you will know, the past 20 years has been littered with American attempts to force democracy among the so called “failed states” or “rogue states” - Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria etc.

Obviously these American attempts seem to have failed so far, proving that countries really must find democracy for themselves - which funnily enough is exactly what’s happening. 

It will in the short term have negative effects in the form of destabilising the region (and probably Americans supply of oil, but i cant say im sad about that - that much destruction in a region deserves punishment).

In my opinion, the long term positives far outweigh these negatives. They should end up with some form of democracy, at least more representative than the systems in place now. 

So where is the irony - well Americans have been pushing for this so called gem of a political system (democracy) to be instated in the middle east for decades (with no success), but the power of the people seems to be the mechanism for change, not pre-emptive wars - which i feel is how it should be.

Ben

Sarah Palin - out of this world ?

Sarah Palin, definitely the talking point of American Politics currently - may i just say that in almost any other democratic country she wouldn’t have a chance at the presidency, far too extreme - but in the land of opportunity, well anything is possible.

Much has been written of the middle aged wonderwoman from Alaska, but none more accurate than an article a couple weeks ago. Someone clearly against the rise of Palin described her arrival as that of a meteorite, and on reflection I would have to agree.

Firstly, for an American, she seems to be rather clueless about American history and heritage - naming the founding fathers is like potty training, but no one seems to care she gets it wrong. Secondly, she seems to have hit political scene rather quickly, somewhat clumsily and as if unnoticed previously. She has very little political experience - governor of Alaska - not really the qualifications for presidency. And finally, she seems to be someone that nobody can seem to judge quite where she is going or what she is going to do next - either dangerous or refreshing for a politician.

In my opinion, if history is anything to go by,then she is a bad sign. For the only time a meteorite has successfully collided with earth, it wiped out all living species. If Mrs Palin becomes president of the most powerful country and economy in the world, somewhere down the line, someone may ask - why is America the only country with people in it?  To which we reply, the meteorite hit and wiped out everything.

Wikileaks - with great power comes great responsibility!!

Watching an bog standard piece of investigative journalism (panorama) has brought to my attention the idea that Wikileaks may have gone too far, or has it just been getting bad press.

My issue is not with Julian Assinge, make what you will of him, for yourself, but how he and Wikileaks have acted in their powerful position.

I like most other humans aware of the concept of democracy, treasure it and know that good government is crucial to any nation hoping for a democracy. For a long time, government have kept secrets from us, involving wars, killings or arrests - Abu Grahib for example - no one would have known was it not for transparency and freedom of information. On this level, we owe a huge debt to Wikileaks - we now know about Americans killing innocent Iraqi civilians with helicopters.

Wikileaks has had  particularly bad press, but for me, its because Wikileaks has gone too far - beyond reasonable limits, if you will. To be publishing any documents revealing informants identities or details of anyone working for the allied forces - well that’s just a death wish.

I support what they are doing, but anyone with that amount of information and power, has to act responsibly. It could be argued that government’s haven’t set a good example of how to deal with information - America invaded Iraq based on false information- Wikileaks now has its chance to show how to deal with information and power responsibly. Can they prove that this much transparency is a good thing?