2020 Vision: A Warning from the Future

Today, I was shocked to receive an email purporting to come from Britain in the year 2020. There's a faint possibility it may be a hoax, but it did explain that technology was invented at the end of 2019 which enables emails to be sent backwards in time using superluminal neutrinos or something - only emails though - so I guess it's entirely legit. It certainly seems to ring true when you read its account of what Britain is like in the year 2020. Here is the main part of the text:


Dear Citizen, 


This is a message of solidarity from the future. It is the year 2020 and the Conservative-Neo-Liberal-Corporate Alliance Party has won its third successive electoral victory with the biggest landslide majority in history. This was inevitable, following first the abolition of voting rights for the unemployed in 2016 and then the introduction of corporate block votes for companies with more than £10 million annual turnover in 2018. It was felt that this was fair, in view of the 'wealth' that these companies create. Besides, it was also just an honest reflection of the fact that these big companies have provided most of the funding for all three of the big political parties anyway for many years. Seeing as they wield so much power behind the scenes, why not just give them votes, so they can wield that power more openly, it was argued - and everyone simply agreed because, well, the media were in favour and it would have been political suicide to gainsay them and their advertisers. 


Unemployment itself is now at a new record high of 91%, although productivity has never been higher and the economy is actually booming. Of course, only very few people are sharing this bounty. When I say, 'unemployment' is 91%, that is actually a bit misleading, because everybody still has to work, apart from the top 1% who are rich enough to live off their investments.


The Government introduced various 'workfare' schemes at the end of 2011. This was in response to a terrible outbreak of laziness, especially among young people. For some strange reason, which economists  at the world-renowned think-tank, the Institute for Economic Affairs, are still researching, poorer people are prone to becoming lazier in harsh economic times, but not when jobs are plentiful. The young are disproportionately affected, too, as are women. No one is sure why the inability to get out of bed seems so strongly correlated with economic recessions, but the finest minds in economics are working on this problem and it can only be a matter of time before a Nobel Prize is awarded for this ground-breaking research. A few dissident voices who suggested that by sacking thousands of public sector workers, the Government might, in some way, be adding to the laziness epidemic, were dismissed as 'moaning minnies' and 'economically illiterate'.

Poster from Arts Against Cuts

Thus it was that big companies such as Tesco, Arcadia Group (Topshop, Topman, Burton etc.), Boots, Asda, Serco and so on were offered the chance to obtain free labour from unemployed people who were told that they had to do it or else they would be made destitute and left to starve or beg on the streets. By an odd coincidence, most of these companies had made generous political donations and yet were far less generous when it came to paying the tax that was due from them.


It soon became obvious to many of these companies that they were paying their regular workers far too much, considering that they now had access to a large pool of free labour. Soon, they stopped advertising actual paid jobs, since they no longer needed to hire people and pay them a wage when they could simply get people in at the expense of the taxpayer (i.e. someone else). The Government was managing the economy so badly that unemployment was already pretty high and there were plenty of well-qualified graduates and people with good CVs among the 2.8 million on the dole, so why pay wages when you can get these people for nothing? A few audacious companies even began to contemplate a rather cheeky strategy, suggested by management consultants and accountants: why not simply sack your entire workforce and then get them back in for free once they started signing on?


It was a brilliant idea and the consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers who suggested it was later knighted for services to industry. At first, some companies baulked at the idea, as they weren't sure they could get away with such a blatant scam; surely people wouldn't be so utterly moronic as to fall for this, they thought. Wouldn't there be an outcry? They needn't have worried.  It turned out that the British public were amazingly docile and incredibly easy to fool. Years of corporate propaganda throughout the media, washed down with reality TV, celebrity gossip and sport, combined with a natural deference to authority and there was barely a whimper of opposition - especially from the official opposition (the so-called 'Labour' Party).

How coerced labour destroys real jobs

All over the country, companies started sacking their workers en masse in 2013, only to get them back within weeks, without having to pay them a penny. The bill to the taxpayer (who is currently a man called Mike from Dorking) soared, of course, as did the official unemployment figures, but the economy itself was largely unchanged, as people continued to do their old jobs. The only real difference was that people were now working for benefits, paid out by the Government, rather than proper wages. Salaried jobs became so scarce they were auctioned to the highest bidders and given as prizes in the national lottery.


Today in 2020, the only salaried jobs are senior management positions or top jobs in the media and banking 'industries'. The army is largely supplied by forced labour too, which is just as well, since a US-UK led coalition invaded Scotland 'to restore democracy' in 2016 following Scottish independence. Scotland almost immediately descended into civil war between two rival factions; one supporting Celtic and the other Rangers. Rangers fans immediately seized the North Sea oil fields, including those claimed by England, causing alarm in the oil markets. They also alienated the US after they announced their intention to trade Scottish oil directly in return for Mars bars, eggs, flour and hydrogenated fats, instead of US dollars.


A full scale invasion of Scotland, however, only received UN backing after a 'dirty bomb' was left in a shortbread tin at the gates of Buckingham Palace, together with a note saying "Och, pal, stuff this up yer boggin Sassenach airses and haunds aff oor oil, ya wee bawheid shites!" US intelligence sources immediately blamed Scottish religious fanatics and ordered an invasion, saying it had nothing whatsoever to do with oil, although 'conspiracy theories' have proliferated on the internet, some even claiming that the bomb might not have been planted by Scots at all! (Ridiculous. I mean there was a note and everything and a guy in a kilt was seen placing it on CCTV. Come on, FFS it was in a shortbread tin!).


Meanwhile, an unexpected side-effect of workfare is that many new work-for-benefits jobs have been created which curiously recall the kind of jobs which might have existed in medieval times, when we last had this kind of feudal system. The textile industry is back, as Britain now exports cut-price clothing to newly-affluent China, made by children as young as 12 in the revived Lancashire cotton mills, following the lowering of the working age in 2017. Most people don't go to secondary school any more, since tuition fees were extended to secondary education in 2015, after the Liberal Democrat wing of the Party promised categorically that it would never happen on their watch. But it's OK, because no one needs education any more.


Soon after workfare was introduced, the billionaire Sir Philip Green, who controls the Arcadia retail clothing group, created the new post of 'Anal Hygienist' leading to an honours degree from his newly created private university. The new 'Anal Hygiene' profession has flourished due to high demand from super-rich socialites such as multi-talentless heiress, Tamara Ecclestone, who never quite mastered the art of wiping their own bottoms. However, highly-paid economists have proven with irrefutable mathematics that laziness is a problem confined to the poor, since rich people obviously must have been extremely industrious in order to acquire their wealth (it stands to reason). Tamara, for example, barely has enough hours in the day to buy enough shoes to keep her on her feet, in between visiting beauty therapists and furiously employing people to be creative on her behalf. In 2020, such people are truly the wealth creators and workfare-job-creators of the nation.


I urge you therefore, not to change anything! Just keep on not doing whatever it is you're not doing. Capitalism is feudalism and feudalism works! It's a time-honoured system and there is absolutely no alternative. Don't think for yourself. Don't protest. Do as you're told.


Yours sincerely,


D. Cameron


President-for-Life, 2020


There is a UK-wide day of action against workfare on Saturday 3rd March, 2012.

Iran vs the Petrodollar: World War Three?

The US is raising tensions with Iran, possibly as part of the build-up to a war which has been threatened, on and off, for at least a decade. The US has had a unilateral trade embargo against Iran going back to 1995. There are reasons to be alarmed now, however, as the US has called for an international embargo of Iranian oil, to which Iran responded by threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, through which about 40% of the world's oil supplies pass. Only the EU has responded positively to the US call, though, as China, Russia, India and even key NATO-member, Turkey, have all firmly rejected the US position.


If you live in the West, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is all about Iranian nuclear ambitions. The media narrative is that the West wants to put pressure on Iran to halt its supposed nuclear programme. Every now and then, hysterical claims appear in Western media outlets, that Iran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons and intends to use them against Israel, Southern Europe or perhaps give them to terrorists. A Telegraph story from 6 years ago (Iran 'could go nuclear within three years') is fairly typical. This is propaganda but it is not all scaremongering, as Iran does have a nuclear enrichment programme, although the informed consensus is that it is still quite a long way from developing a nuclear weapons capability, let alone an actual bomb.

Cartoon from www.hermes-press.com

Iran has been repeatedly threatened by Israel and the US, who both possess nuclear weapons. No doubt Iran would feel a lot more secure if it did have some nuclear capability of its own as a deterrent to its belligerent enemies, but it is still co-operating with IAEA inspectors and it clearly has no current intention to develop a nuclear device, so Western accusations are knowingly premature and exaggerated, as they were against Iraq in 2002.


Still, the hawks would argue that Iran is a rogue state; part of the infamous 'axis of evil' identified by George W Bush, including Iraq and North Korea. Therefore, any attempt to stop the Iranian nuclear programme must be justified, as is any attempt at 'regime change', despite the fact that we scarcely batted an eyelid at North Korea's nuclear programme. Does this argument really stand up to scrutiny? There is no doubt that Iran is one of the most repressive states in the world, in terms of its attitude towards internal dissent. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, Iran ranks 159th out of 167 states on its (slightly subjective) scale of democratic freedom (North Korea is bottom). That's pretty bad, but do remember that Saudi Arabia actually ranks two places lower, at 161st. We sell all the arms and torture equipment the Saudis could possibly want, because they are among our staunchest allies in the region. Iran is apparently the enemy of democracy, where as Saudi Arabia isn't. This kind of doublethink illustrates clearly that freedom and democracy have got nothing to do with our policy towards Iran.


History also attests to Western hypocrisy with respect to Iran. You will almost never hear it mentioned in Western mainstream media (including the BBC of course) that Iran used to be a relatively democratic state, until an infamous coup in 1953, instigated by Britain and the US. This is also one of those vital bits of history you will never, ever learn in a British or American school. I'm guessing this is because it must be rather embarrassing for countries which boast of being 'democratic' and 'free' to be caught red-handed overthrowing democratically elected foreign leaders for rather sordid reasons like oil rights. So the reason that Iran is a paranoid autocracy today is because that is how the US and Britain wanted it to be. When it comes to making foreign policy, democracy is a total pain in the arse, frankly.


Britain and the US installed the Shah as Dictator in 1953. His brutal rule was ended by a broad-based revolt of the Iranian people in 1979, but democracy never returned to Iran, as the revolution was taken over by Islamic fundamentalists. Democracy would be too easy for the West to undermine, so Iran became a repressive Islamic republic, its paranoia somewhat justified. Thus, from the viewpoint of history, it is the US and Britain, not Iran who are the  major aggressors in the region, constantly meddling in the internal affairs of other countries in order to secure oil supplies and lucrative contracts for their transnational oil companies. Indeed, since its foundation in 1783, there has scarcely been a single year in which the US has not been at war. Most of these have been wars of aggression beyond US soil.


OK, but surely Iran is a major sponsor of international terrorism, right? You could say that. Iran is a sworn enemy of Israel and does give material support to the highly unsavoury groups, Hezbollah and Hamas, although some might describe them as 'freedom fighters'. As always, the definition of 'terrorist' is subjective: The US provided support to the brutal, right-wing rebel Contras against the democratically elected left-wing government of Nicaragua (ironically by illegally supplying arms to Iran), and numerous similar organisations throughout Latin America. Some might call this 'sponsoring terrorism' and there are dozens of other examples of the US and the UK giving support to terrorist organisations all over the world, except we tend to label them as 'rebels' when they are on our side.


More recently, it appears the West or Israel have been waging a covert war inside Iran, murdering Iranian scientists, the latest with a sophisticated car bomb, and sabotaging nuclear facilities, all without any legal justification. This is surely terrorism, by any definition, but we seem to be OK with it. How many people have been killed by Iranian covert operations in Europe or the US? None, although there are lots of unproven and rather wild allegations of Hezbollah attacks in unlikely corners of the world, like Argentina, although the latter may well turn out to be one of a number of Israeli Mossad false flag operations. Also, how many wars of aggression has Iran started, compared to the US or Britain? I think the last time Iran started a major war may have been around the 6th century AD, although I may be wrong. That's hardly a very aggressive country, although I'll grant that a possible 21st-century Sassanid revival could be a complete game-changer.


So, if it isn't terrorism or Iran's nuclear ambitions that are driving us towards war, what is it? The answer is the same as always, of course: oil. But there's more at stake this time. The future of the dollar as the world's reserve currency is on the line and that is no trifling matter. The main aim of Western powers appears to be the same as in 1953: regime change. Patrick Cockburn in the Independent argues that this is primarily due to Israeli manipulation and provocation, although he also points out that the US has been sponsoring Jundullah Sunni insurgents inside Iran to carry out terror attacks since 2008. There is no doubt that the West, especially the US has always wanted to regain control of Iran's huge oil fields. What worked in 1953 could work again; a covert war to destabilise the country from within, combined with external pressure, to force a coup favourable to Western interests.


I do not think that the US is in any position to mount a successful full-scale invasion and occupation of Iran, despite all the sabre-rattling and even a limited naval operation in the Strait of Hormuz would be highly risky. The US is militarily stretched and domestic sentiment is weary of large-scale ground wars. Russia has also signalled repeatedly that a US attack on Iran risks provoking a much larger conflict. Both Russia and China have considerable interests in Iran and they may well be ready to defend those with more than diplomacy. Iran certainly has the potential to spark World War 3 and even US military hawks are - hopefully - not crazy enough to risk that. Hence the strategy is to provoke internal revolt, as in Libya and Syria.


The extent of Asian opposition to the US-EU-Israeli policy towards Iran is made very clear by the earth-shattering news that India has made a deal to buy Iranian oil using gold instead of dollars, to circumvent US-EU financial sanctions. The Israeli DEBKAfile agency also reports that Russia and China are ready to follow suit. Could this be Israeli misinformation designed to provoke US military action? Possibly, but the news has scarcely been reported at all in the Western media and it certainly rings true to me, since several countries have been making moves towards dumping the dollar in recent years. This would ultimately be catastrophic for the US economy and its hegemonic position in the world.


Ever since 1971, the US has been able to write blank cheques by printing dollars, no longer linked to gold or silver. Initially, this was to pay for the Vietnam War. They got away with this because other countries needed to hoard dollars to pay for oil and any surplus was stored in US Treasury bonds, allowing the US to run endless budget deficits very cheaply. Hence, as long as oil trade increased and was conducted in dollars, the US could print money without causing too much inflation at home. If the dollar stops being the world's reserve currency, all those foreign-held dollars will soon come home to roost, probably resulting in hyperinflation. China is one of the largest holders of US dollars, so if China were to start paying for oil in gold, that would be very bad news indeed for the US. It is perhaps no surprise that the wars against Iraq and Libya followed soon after those countries stopped selling oil in dollars.


As China, Russia, India and Turkey clearly have no intention of joining any sanctions on Iran, it is obvious that they will only serve to hurt Europe, causing the price of oil to rise. European nations already reeling from the effects of the banking crisis, eurozone instability and counter-productive austerity policies seem hell-bent on collective suicide. The last thing they need is an inflationary oil-shock but this is what they are inviting, all for the sake of indulging US and Israeli belligerence.


Western hubris is likely to precipitate a major shift in world power to the East and Iran could well be the catalyst for this, although it may not require an apocalyptic military conflict. If Europe's (including Britain's) leaders had any sense (which they don't), they would grow a collective backbone and take a course independent of the US and Israel, in readiness for a world in which the US no longer calls the shots. Finally, I would observe that US attempts to repeat their 1953 trick of sparking a coup in Iran may ultimately backfire so severely, leading to an economic collapse, that it could result in some kind of popular revolt in the USA. Wouldn't that be poetic justice?

Cupid of the Underworld

And now for something completely different. This is a poem from the vaults: a poem about the redemptive power of suffering, with an anti-war counterpoint. Then again, maybe it's just about a rather fetching lady with a bow and arrow. Whichever you prefer:

Redeemer - my killer, my victim - pale Archeress

Cupid of the Underworld

Draw taut the silken sinews of your hand.

Could drops of pity foil perfection's aim?

Your bow smiles to see its prey unmanned -

an arrow flies - the killer bears no blame.

Somewhere in a desert stands a man,

about to move his finger. Blood tastes the same

in every clime - from London to Afghanistan -

a bullet flies - the killer bears no blame.

Like Zeno's arrow spinning in eternal flight,

my mind retraces time to whence it came:

You live in darkness, hunt by moonlit night

and guiltlessly you smile but bear the blame

for every cruel cut this world endures,

for which injustice there is one redress:

the poisoned barb that breaks my skin is yours;

redeemer - my killer, my victim - pale Archeress.

Colours: A Poem

British newspapers have themselves been in the news spotlight of late, much to their discomfort, as allegations of phone hacking, bribery and possibly even perverting the course of justice, have forced the closure of the News of the World and look likely to bring down the whole News Corporation empire. This update isn’t about that case. Instead I want to make some related points, which are true about the mainstream media in general – and war in particular – that will remain true long after the Murdoch empire has crumbled to dust.

The media has a primary role to play in maintaining public support for overseas wars, as well as internal repression at home, all justified in the name of the War on Terror. They appeal to patriotism and the cult of blind sacrifice. Every now and then, this backfires, as the reality of war comes home, wrapped in a flag, wrapped in the colours: wrapped in a newspaper. One of those newspapers was caught hacking into the mobile phones of the relatives of dead soldiers, which should be enough to show that the corporate media cares for nothing except money. 

Photo: AP

Despite that, I found this Daily Mail report of a young widow’s grief particularly sad and moving.
I cannot read it or look at the picture of Mrs Kirkpatrick, dressed unusually in pink, placing a rose upon the hearse bearing the body of her husband, without crying. These images have haunted me for over a year. The pink dress seems like a defiant expression of love in a world governed – literally – by hate. I had to write a poem about it, in Sapphic stanzas; the form associated with Sappho, one of the very first love poets. Why? How else does one defeat war, but with love? How to stand out against black, but with pink? It’s all about the colours …


Colours

Wearing pink, she places a rose upon the
coffin of her former defender; so the
lines would claim. He died not for nothing, words cry,
draped in the colours.

Red and white and blue are the colours; shrouding
dead and dying soldiers of Empire, shrouding
too the things of love, which were broken, long lost
covenants buried:

Sacrificed and sold for a well of black gold.
Keep the wheels in motion and don’t ask why, or
who or where your enemies really are – just
follow the colours.

---

By coincidence, the Daily Mail story is dated on the anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London, which claimed 56 lives and which was used by the Blair government to shore up support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have in their turn destroyed many thousands of lives and continue to claim victims today: mostly innocent civilians including many children. US troops are finally due to begin withdrawal from Afghanistan this month. I would like someone to explain to me exactly why it was all worthwhile and why all those people had to die. Mrs Kirkpatrick is also owed an explanation.

Note on form: Sapphic stanzas were originally written in patterns of long and short syllables in ancient Greek. The English Sapphic form translates this pattern into a regular metre based on stress. The predominant foot is the trochee, although each line incorporates a dactyl. The effect in English is to induce a sombre and solemn mood, reminiscent of a funeral cortège, but injected with a note of urgency thanks to those dactyls.

Bin Laden 'Buried at Sea'. Skepticism Killed in Crossfire.

I was going to blog about the death of free speech in Britain, following the pre-emptive arrests of dozens of anti-government activists in advance of the Royal Wedding, but that will have to wait, because there has been another reported death since then which has totally captured the news agenda. Osama Bin Laden is reported to have been killed by US special forces in Afghanistan, on 30th April, 2011; a date which happens to be the supposed anniversary of Adolf Hitler's suicide, although I'm sure this is nothing but a curious coincidence.

Osama Bin Laden has been presented as the great bogeyman of the West, the prime suspect for the 9/11 terror attacks, the official main reason for the invasion of Afghanistan and the prosecution of that war for nearly 10 years, at the cost of countless, mostly innocent, lives. Bin Laden's media persona is a character strongly reminiscent of George Orwell's Goldstein, from 1984. Yet there has long been speculation that he may have died some time ago, given that he has been more elusive than Elvis for a number of years; his appearances confined to videos of increasingly dubious authenticity, or a few unreliable witness reports. Even the Daily Mail has taken seriously the possibility that Bin Laden may have died on 13th December, 2001, just 3 moths after 9/11. This belief comes originally from an item in the Egyptian newspaper, al-Wafd, on 26th December, 2001, which is sourced to a senior Taliban official and is, until now, the only credible report of Bin Laden's death. It was repeated by several Western media outlets, but quickly forgotten. The report is given credence by the fact that Bin Laden was a kidney dialysis patient who needed special medical equipment to keep him alive; equipment and expertise which is unlikely to have been available in the mountain caves of Tora Bora.

Osama Bin Laden (1957 - 20??). Photo: AP

Whilst searching for further information about these reports, I chanced upon a website which claims to document the evidence concerning Bin Laden's death. When I last checked at 22:43 on Sunday, this website was claiming that it was under a continuing massive distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack which began just moments before the official announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death by President Obama. Of course, this may be some kind of joke or deception, but I find it somewhat strange, if it is true. For now, I would treat that claim with the same skepticism with which I would like us all to treat official reports of Osama Bin Laden's death. The fact that the website is still up suggests that the DDOS attack was not very successful. Another reason to doubt the website's claims is that it also seems to advocate a number of causes such as climate change denial, for which there is very good contrary evidence. However, the evidence it presents concerning Bin Laden's death must be judged entirely on its own merits, which is something I invite readers to do for themselves: it does present numerous links to reputable independent news reports supporting the contention that Bin Laden may have been dead for many years. Those who prefer a more authoritative investigation of these claims might want to read Professor David Ray Griffin's book on the subject, 'Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?'

The most curious feature of the official US report of Bin Laden's death is that his body was apparently buried at sea, within hours. US officials say this was in accordance with Islamic custom and to prevent his grave becoming a focus for anti-US sentiment. This excuse does not impress many Muslim scholars, nor does it impress me. Indeed, it is standard custom throughout the world, since time immemorial, to exhibit the bodies of your defeated enemies, or at least to exhibit incontrovertible evidence of their death. This is exactly what the US did with the body of Che Guevara in 1967 and those of Saddam Hussein's sons; there was no standing on custom out of respect for the traditions of the deceased, or concerns about martyrdom. The most crucial thing is to prove that your enemy is dead. If America were really concerned about not offending Muslims, perhaps they should not have invaded two Muslim countries and killed tens of thousands of innocent Muslims over the last 10 years.

Still, it seems very likely that US special forces did mount a raid on a 'compound' in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Saturday night. We have already been treated to some video footage of the supposed aftermath of that raid and I expect more will follow in due course. We may get a photograph of the deceased, but we know that such things are all too easily faked. It is possible that a man or several people were killed in that raid. It is even possible that the men who died were Taliban or even Al-Qaeda fighters (if the term 'Al-Qaeda' still has any useful meaning). What we cannot say with any confidence at all is that one of these men was Osama Bin Laden.

Hence I find it alarming that there has been so little skepticism in the mainstream media and even among self-proclaimed rational skeptics in the blogosphere, concerning the official statements from US military, government and intelligence sources. Instead, accusations of 'conspiracy theory' are routinely hurled across Twitter in the direction of anyone who dares raise so much as an eyebrow. Perhaps it is time we began to deconstruct the phrases 'conspiracy theory' and 'conspiracy theorist', exposing them for the cheap insults and avowedly unskeptical thought-bypass devices that they are. We may find that the idea that Osama Bin Laden was the criminal mastermind and head of a global terror network called Al-Qaeda, which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and many others, is equally worthy of the label 'conspiracy theory'. Personally, I find that line somewhat self-defeating. I prefer to reject all accusations of 'conspiracy theory'; then we are left looking for actual palpable evidence of things. This is a concept which often proves far too hard for the mainstream media to grasp, sadly. We are therefore left with little more than fables, constructed from prejudice, suggestion and misdirection.

Sometimes these fables are exposed, just as the ridiculous claims of Donald Trump and the so-called 'birther movement' were exposed. Those claims had no credibility to begin with because they were based on no real evidence. Ironically, President Obama's victory over the 'birthers' will help to deflect skepticism over his own equally unsupported claims that the US has now killed its greatest enemy. It was really a victory over nothing, since it was always going to be easy for Obama to produce his birth certificate. I suspect it will be very much more difficult for him to produce truly believable evidence that Osama Bin Laden was killed by US forces this weekend, but I am willing to be convinced.

Nonetheless, there is real significance in the demise of the legend of Osama Bin Laden, and there is a real sense in which a bogeyman has been laid to rest. Bin Laden's assumed death paves the way for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was already set to begin in July this year. It gives President Obama an immediate popularity boost (in spite of bad economic news) and will allow him to claim some kind of victory, both in Afghanistan and the closely related phony 'War on Terror'. The truth is that the Afghan War has been a defeat for the US (and its allies) and it never had anything to do with homeland security or global terror. It was always a war about access to Caspian oil fields, as was ably demonstrated in The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia, a book by the Berlin-based journalist, Lutz C. Kleveman.

RIP Osama Bin Laden (1957 - 20??). RIP The War on Terror? Until the CIA invent a new bogeyman to support the next foreign adventure, perhaps.

Postcard from Nassau

Sorry it's been a while since my last article and I feel it's time for a poem. I wrote this one a little while ago, as I was mulling over the detritus of the recent global financial crisis and also wondering how it related to the other events of the past decade. I tried to write something which succinctly illustrated how the threads of various themes have intertwined to create a coherent tapestry of the years from 2001 to the present day. I think I almost succeeded! This is about as close as I ever get to writing free verse, by the way:

Postcard from Nassau

Here am I 

hanging dollar bills out
in the sun to dry.
George and Tony send their love.
George says “Stop! It’s hammock time.”
“That guy kills me”, says Osama,
laughing like an AK47.
He’s playing Risk with Tony, who just smiles:
“How many virgins do you get in heaven?” 

We all love Osama –
more than virgins, more than beer,
more than liberals love Barack Obama.
If there’s a bond more powerful than love,
it’s fear.

Give my love to Lehman Brothers,
AIG and Goldman Sachs.
Praise be to Dick, and Paul - and Dick.
God bless Rupert and his hacks.
My golden parachute opened like an orchid,
petals stitched by tiny hands
chained in darkness in Shenzhen.
I can even hear the silkworms singing
“Here we go round the mulberry tree”,
in happy voices, thinking they are free.

They all love Osama –
more than virgins, more than beer,
more than buddhists love the Dalai Lama.
If there’s a bond more powerful than love,
it’s fear.

***

Notes: Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas, which is a tax haven, as well as being a tropical holiday isle. It also used to be a major centre for money laundering, drug running, gun running and tax evasion, until the Cayman Islands overtook it in the more dubious respects. Shenzhen is a free economic zone in Southern China, famous for its sweatshops, corruption and lack of workers' rights. I doubt silkworms stop to think much on the nature of freedom and their relationship to it, but I hope that the rest of us do. Dick and Paul and Dick are Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle. Oh, and Tony Blair is mainly famous for smiling ... and starting wars ... never play Risk with Tony.