Who are the Bad Guys?

If we're talking about international diplomacy, the answer is "Everyone who isn't you".



You can hardly fail to have noticed that very soon (perhaps even by this time tomorrow) the second Gulf War will be kicking off. It's an eagerly awaited rematch that will pit the nation ruled by an unelected man who shows flagrant disregard for the rule of law and acts in the interests of whatever will line his and his backers' pockets instead of the people he supposedly serves, against Iraq.

Okay, so I'm anti war. That in itself should not be a surprise. It seems that everybody and their mother is queuing up to give reasons why the war shouldn't happen. Not least among the anti-war voices is that of France. They and the US/UK pro-war camp have indulged themselves in all manner of name calling and bitchslapping since it has become clear that the one will oppose the other, come what may. And I don't know about you, but it instills me with confidence to know that the most powerful single nation in the world is ruled by people who react to somebody disagreeing with them by calling them "Cheese eating surrender monkeys" and declaring them as the biggest threat to world peace other than Iraq itself. Good to know that calm, rational heads are doing the thinking in American government.

Actually, since I've mentioned that "Threat to world peace" point, I may as well clear something else up. Iraq is not, has never been, and shows no sign of becoming a threat to world peace. It doesn't have any missiles capable of launching nuclear or biological agents (the only ones we definitely know that Iraq has are Anthrax and perhaps Smallpox. We know about them because the US and UK sold it to them in the first place...) more than 150 miles. Unlike North Korea, which admits to trying to develop Nuclear Weapons, can launch the missiles as far as Japan, and has actually threatened a nuclear attack against America if any sanctions are imposed on it. Iraq is a threat to its neighbours, certainly. However, if we agree that any threat to stability is in the Middle East is a threat to world peace then we are forced to accept that the US and UK are in fact the biggest threat to world peace that we currently face. Iraq is also a threat to it's own people, but seeing as how Saudi Arabia, Israel, Nigeria, the UK in Northern Ireland, and Burma to name but a few are also a threat to their own people, it seems strange how only Iraq are being picked on now.

If, as has been suggested but not proved, Iraq were harbouring Al-Quaida terrorist cells, and that is the reason for the coming war, then I wouldn't want to be in the CIA right now. After all, they trained Osama bin Laden and many of the Mujahdein who became Al-Quaida to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Of course, as the head of the CIA used to be George Bush Senior then I doubt we'll see any blame being attached to them. Besides, if Dubya threw his Dad into prison for aiding public enemy number 1 then who would tell him what to do?
And if support for terrorism is a prerequisite to being invaded by the US, does that mean we can declare war on them for all the money that was donated to the IRA? Maybe Nicaragua will invade America for supporting its Contra rebels? Or will we find that China will start hostilities with the rest of the world for buying goods from Taiwan, an area that they consider a rogue state?

And seeing as the more simplistic supporters of the coming war usually fall back on their emergency argument of "You must be Saddam's best friend if you don't support the war" at this point (they're very predictable in that respect; it's like their brains have some sort of glass case with "In case argument is rebutted, break down and bleat the following refrain..."), then let me make something else clear. Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath regime in Iraq should be viewed with the same distaste as one would reserve for being vomited on by a tramp that has drunk more than his usual share of meths. Getting rid of him would be a wonderful thing. Doing it without bombing and murdering thousands of innocent people would be better still. We're always boasting about our special forces. Why not use them? An assassin's bullet right now would save a lot of unnecessary carnage later. And it would give the Iraqi people a chance to have a say in their own destiny rather than having one dictator replaced with another who is more to America's liking.

So, realistically, and taking all the various factors into consideration, has anyone come up with a reason for this war, and a one that stands up to scrutiny, that doesn't involve oil? I mean lets be honest here, the US economy is in thrall to oil. To the extent that they basically have to kowtow to Saudi Arabia and prop up an increasingly unpopular regime in order to guarantee their supply. To the extent that the government are prepared to force wildly unpopular measures such as drilling in the Alaskan National Park for oil on their people? A successful war would guarantee cheap oil supplies for the next 20 or so years.

Okay, so it's about the oil. Lets forget for a moment the standard pro-war rebuttal ("It's not about oil!!" 'So, what is it about?' "Ummm...dunno, but it's not oil!") of that argument and accept it as the most plausible of the reasons for this war (I can't bring myself to believe that Dubya is about to send men and women to their deaths in order to get revenge for an Iraqi assassination attempt on his Dad about 10 years ago...). The thing is, if we apply that rule to the US (and by 'that rule' I mean "Where is the money"; if you can find where the money is involved in any given situation then you have invariably found the motivation for the coming event) then we should also apply it across the board. After all, the US and UK are not the only nations who's leaders are motivated more by profit than peace.

And so the first place to look when we're being evenhanded is at the opposition to the war. Obviously I can't pretend to know the motivations of everyone opposed to what is going to happen. So we have to look at the countries predominantly opposed. They are Russia, Germany, and France. Are they opposing the US out of a sense of duty to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Were they aghast at the news that American soldiers have beaten 2 Al-Quaida suspects to death in Guantanamo Bay since their capture in Afghanistan? Will these 3 nations demand that Dubya and Blair face war crimes trials if they start a war without UN backing? Does anyone think I would have written this many questions if the answer to any of them had been yes?

Both Russia and France currently have very favourable oil deals with Iraq. These deals will quite probably get torn up once Hussein is toppled, and the two nations don't want to lose their oil. Hence, they oppose the coming war. Germany's opposition stems more from domestic reasons. The chancellor, Gerhardt Schroeder, was facing the prospect of defeat in his country’s elections. One "I oppose war at all costs, me. Go on; vote for me again!" speech later, and Schroeder had the backing of Germany's Green party, and so was able to form a coalition to stay in government.

I think what I'm trying to say here is that, when it comes to world diplomacy and shabby situations like this one, there is no "good" and "bad" guy. Diplomacy is just one country fucking another one. Sometimes it's all done rather nicely, with romantic meals and flowers and sweet nothings. Other times it's thrust up the arse with no Vaseline and little warning. But it's always the same theme; one side wants what the other side has. France and Russia getting upset about international law? They must have been rolling in the aisles in Rwanda and Chechnya when they heard that one!

Iraq is now facing the choice between being gently screwed by France and Russia, or roughly screwed by the UK and the US. Either way, both sides are destabilising and destroying the UN for reasons of pure self-interest. When the League of Nations went down in the 30's, world war followed. Some will tell you that it doesn't matter, that the UN is already as good as dead, that the League of Nations didn't matter much in the first place. These are the same self important, blinkered, and cheerfully non-thinking mindmesses that didn't see why there was a problem with the League allowing Japan and Germany to invade whatever nations they saw fit to conquer. The only problem with my desire to say "I told you so" to them is that we will have to live through interesting times in order for me to do so.
As with the last war, can we just get this one over with please?

A working life

Judging by how my own career has advanced since writing this, I think it was something that spurred me on to try and advance myself up the career ladder.



Working: Isn't it just the most joyous period of your life? Coming in to whatever your place of employment happens to be, spending a 3rd of the day there for at least 5 days a week, being appreciated for the work that you do, and leaving with the satisfaction of a job well done. Yes, working life in the 21st century is a good life!

And they, ladies and gentlemen, are the most sarcastic few sentences that I have ever written in my natural life! Indeed, I don't think I could have told a bigger lie had I said that the coming war with Iraq had nothing to do with oil. Working in the 21st century, and I hope you know this and I suspect you do, is not that many rungs on the ladder above slavery in the 1st century. Naturally I would imagine that you are rather...resistant to that idea. Well, maybe I'm completely wrong to think that, but I find myself believing it more and more these days. So please, hear me out before deciding that I'm talking utter nonsense...

Firstly I'll declare my own bias; though the conditions where I work have started to improve recently and though I now find myself getting some more management responsibility and (eventually) more money, generally speaking I get the same pleasure from my job as I would from having my eyeballs wrenched out and licked clean by a leper's dog. Without getting too graphic, you can safely assume that I'm not really of a mindset to be delighted at the working environment that I and the millions like me find ourselves in.

Secondly, seeing as I'm using them for a comparison, it's worth seeing just what kind of conditions slaves in the 1st century had to endure. Back then, the number one slave-owning people were our old friends the Romans. The keeping of slaves by all social classes was commonplace; anyone who was anyone had at least one personal slave, and the rich landowning classes had legions of slaves in their household. But their lot was not entirely as bad as we may think. My image of a Roman slave incorporated endless misery, whips and torture, being kept in near starvation, and living in perpetual fear of losing one's life due to the whims of ones master. Whilst this was very occasionally the case, generally speaking a slave’s life was not as bad as the various movies make out.

There were numerous laws in place to protect slaves from ill treatment by their masters. Every slave had to be properly fed and housed. Sick slaves had a right to medical treatment. And all slaves had the prospect of winning freedom from their masters and making the most of their lives; in later years, even Roman Emperors were sons of freed slaves. So whilst they were not exactly living in ideal conditions, they were at least guaranteed a full belly and a reasonably safe and uneventful life to the extent that many preferred slavery as it at least guaranteed them a roof over their head at the sufferance of their masters.

Now then, what of our own working lives? Well, if one were to replace the word 'slave' with employee and 'master' with employer then chances are the above paragraph isn't a million miles away from what we have. Perhaps it's even an improvement on your current lot. For example, sickness at work. If you are feeling unwell (perhaps you have a touch of flu or your stomach is rebelling against you. For the record, I'm talking about GENUINE illness here...), will your employer accept that you are unfit for work and make the necessary allowances? Or will they put pressure on you to turn up anyway, make veiled threats about your future at the company if you do not, and generally do their best to make you feel like a criminal for wanting to stay at home and recover? Jesus, at the company I work for there was an HR person who used to turn up at people's houses to check on them if she felt that they weren't sufficiently ill! At least Roman slaves were left in peace when they suffered an illness.

Also, if you were to ask the reasons why people are in the jobs that they currently have, what do you think the most common answer would be? Is it going to be job satisfaction? The salary? One's co-workers? Or is it going to be because we feel so beholden to whatever debts we've accumulated (mortgages, loans, and the other sundry costs of being an adult) that we are pathetically grateful to our employers due to our need for a steady, unbroken cashflow? To the extent that we will put up with any amount of crap from them? Because, in fact, we prefer to have a roof over our head? A roof placed there thanks to our masters...sorry, employers.

Meanwhile, even as we in the small world are concerning ourselves with such wonderment as whether or not we can afford some new electronic baubles and gadgets, big businesses and corporations are finding strange and inventive ways to avoid paying any taxes whatsoever on their embarrassingly large profits. So whilst we are being exhorted to work harder for the benefit of the company, not only are we paying the price in terms of leisure time lost (how many companies 'encourage' their staff to work longer hours?), stress (on the rise in the workplace according to statistics), and general unhappiness. No, we're also paying the price in terms of a greater tax burden. In effect, the harder we work the less we will be paid. And if you doubt any of that, ask yourself this question; if the company you work for has been doing well in the marketplace, have you yourself seen your job and conditions improve at a similar rate? Or has it gotten that much worse?

And if their profits should fall, will it be the company director who placed the company in such peril, and who can probably afford a few months out of work, that loses his job? Or will it be you or I? We may not be in perpetual fear of losing our lives due to the whims of our employers, but who can say that they have never had sleepless nights at the prospect of losing our jobs? And having been in that position myself, I can assure you that it is NOT a nice feeling at all. We may say that we are free men and women, but we really are not much more free than a Roman Slave; if our employers say jump then no matter who you are, the only thing you will think of asking is "How high?"

So why has it come to this? Speaking personally, I've always been under the (obviously misguided) impression that work should be for the benefit of society as a whole. The more society benefits, the better our lives in general will become. Yet we're living in a time of failing public services, shrinking investment in the national infrastructure, and the prostitution of our welfare state to the demands of big business (or "Public-Private Partnerships" as I believe they're laughably called). Our working lives would seem to be for the benefit of a very few people at the top of the heap.

I'm not disputing the right of a company to make full use of the spirit of free enterprise and do as well for itself as it possibly can. But genuine enterprise is just naked, rapacious capitalism with its hair combed and a nice shirt on. It is about cash, pure and simple, with no consideration of responsibilities toward society as a whole. So whilst it is the right of a company to maximise their profits at any cost, it is the duty of society's guardians to ensure that this is not done at the expense of the men and women in that company's employment. And d'you know who society's guardians are? That would be the government that we elect.

And that makes the whole situation...mostly our own fault really. We, who sit about on apathetic backsides and reassure ourselves that our votes won't make a difference whilst bitterly complaining about what the bastards at work have done now, are to blame for our own working conditions. On the plus side, that gives us something that no Roman slave ever had; the ability to change things. Whether we use it or not is another question entirely. On that note, I bid you an enjoyable day at the office.

Dead Air

So called because of the book that inspired this little rant.



This will probably rank as the shortest rant I've ever done. Actually, it probably doubles up as a test for whether or not you're suffering from compassion fatigue. Read the statistic below (courtesy of a book called Dead Air by a superb writer named Iain Banks), and see if it makes you feel angry. Or guilty. Or nothing at all. I'd like to think we'd all feel something of the first two but I have a feeling that, in order to ensure that we can satisfy ourselves that today is much the same as yesterday and that we're living a blameless life, we'll probably slip into that 3rd category with barely a whisper of complaint from our conscience.

Are you ready? Ok, here goes...

Remember how horrified you were when you saw the Twin Towers collapsing? And how the idea of those people throwing themselves out of the upper floors to their death gave you an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach? Maybe you even felt a few pangs of unwelcome empathy with the hundreds of people trapped there who knew that death was upon them. Well, let us just put it into perspective:

Every 24 hours, approximately 34 thousand children die in the world from the effects of poverty (chiefly from malnutrition and disease). So that's 34 thousand children (I'm not including the adults here, just the children) dead each day across the world. As I'm sure you're sick of hearing from those well-meaning lefty types (whom none of us really like because they're such doomsayers, and they maybe occasionally remind us of how idealistic we perhaps once were) those deaths are needless. I've been writing this on and off for 2 hours by the way, so that's about 2800 dead since I wrote the first word. And they are dying in a world that could feed and clothe and treat them all, with a workably different allocation of resources, but who'd prefer to allocate resources to more important things. Such as ensuring that enough beef gets to McDonalds, or that our employers can keep their profits nice and large. I may sound smug and self-righteous in saying that, but I'm no better; what do I do to make a difference other than spewing endless words that might make you think but won't make you change anything about the way you live.

Meanwhile the latest estimate is about 2800 people died in the Twin Towers, so it’s like that ghastly, grey-billowing, double barreled fall, repeated twelve times every single day; twenty four towers, one per hour, throughout each day and night. Full of children. But it's okay! We don't need to worry about it! It almost all happens in the 3rd world, South America, and Asia. As such, there is almost no danger of seeing it on our TV screens, so that’s almost the same as it not being real! And it's just as well too; after all, George Bush was so upset by the carnage and loss of innocent life at Ground Zero that he felt the need to declare Police Action on Afghanistan and war on Iraq. If he knew about this daily death toll...well, the armies of the US and UK would never sleep! They'd be invading the countries that allow this to happen (because allowing death on that scale in the name of lining the pockets of a particular government is at least as evil as killing thousands in a tower block, right?) and toppling their governments at the rate of 1 a week!

Except of course, they don't. We have the luxury of not worrying about people dying of Malnutrition. Then we invade countries where that is a very real danger, we chastise them for...well, no one is really sure what we're chastising them for (if it was about weapons of mass destruction, then how come North Korea is getting millions of dollars of aid from America, and not invaded? If it was about flouting UN resolutions then Israel would be equally in the shit), and we add to the death toll whilst making sure that they stay poor and stay hungry. All in the name of a few more millions being added to a company’s profit margin.
And then we wonder why they hate us. Sometimes, despite my best attempts at optimism, I can't help noticing just how fucking stupid we all are.

Anyone for Iraq

I got this one TOTALLY wrong. A right war for the wrong reasons. And don't get me started on the lack of a plan for after the invasion...



So then, this Iraq business: what's going on? (hey, it's a miserable Monday morning; what do you expect to be on my mind?!)

Well, firstly of course we should look at the good news. Firstly, there are now UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. They are doing their job rather well (despite attempts by Dubya's cronies to smear the reputation of Hans Blix, the chief inspector. So desperate are they for the oil...erm, I mean for the war, that they leaked numerous stories to the press questioning his ability, his impartiality and, as we're talking about the Republican right here, probably his sexuality) and should have conducted numerous inspections at hundreds of sites by the time January 27th, the deadline for the inspectors' first report, rolls around.

Secondly, Iraq actually bothered themselves to produce what they say is a full and complete list of all weapons in the country. As both Europe and America could check the veracity of this document by simply having a look at the receipts for the millions of pounds worth of weapons that we sold to Iraq in the 80's, one would hope that Iraq would have provided a full and complete list.

Finally, the nations of the Gulf are quietly starting to make it clear that they will comply with any fresh UN resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq should they fail to comply with the program of inspections. The prospect of a Middle-Eastern conflagration of pant-shitting proportions has thus receded somewhat, though one should always remember that the will of the Middle Eastern governments does not always (or in some cases, ever) represent the will of the Middle Eastern people.

Okay, so that's the good news. Well...good if you're anti-war in Iraq anyway. However, as is always the case, there is ample bad news to balance it out. And that bad news has led to my amending my rather fervent belief that we should not be joining Dubya in his quest to get more oil by means of force. But I'll get to that presently; for now, on with the bad news from the Gulf:

First of all, the weapons inspectors are not getting what they call "genuine co-operation". In other words, it looks like that nice Mr. Hussein is going to stall and procrastinate just like he did last time. That will mean that America will have all the reasons they need to attack. With luck, they'll bother themselves to get a fresh UN resolution to authorise such a course of action, but don't hold your breath expecting them to do so.

If that were not enough, despite this lack of co-operation the weapons inspectors have still been able to find some weapons that were not declared by Iraq. They only amounted to a few empty chemical warheads, but that would seem to be an indicator that Iraq does indeed have or is developing weapons of mass destruction. Again, this alone is pretty much all America needs to attack. Maybe it's not strictly speaking the "smoking gun" that Dubya is itching for, but it's close enough.

Finally, and probably most convincingly, the build up of American (sorry, Allied) forces in the Gulf is now so large that it would be economic suicide not to use them. The reason being, once you've spent so much money getting an Army to the other side of the world, feeding them, and equipping them, it would be disastrous for that money to effectively be poured down the drain by not using them. In other words, no matter what is said in the UN, no matter what else the inspectors find (or don't find) in the coming weeks, and no matter what Dubya's speechwriter tells him to say, it would seem 99% certain that there is going to be a war. If we take it as read that there is going to be a war, there would seem to be only one pertinent question.

What the hell are we going to do? By 'we' I mean the UK. At the moment, our Glorious Leader Blair is taking a lot of criticism from both domestic and overseas critics. As the leader of a supposedly left wing political party, many of his own supporters are uneasy to say the least about our taking part in a war of questionable motivation. And as America's only ally, he is being accused of lending legitimacy to the actions of a...well, I don't have enough time to list the derogatory terms that have been applied to Dubya, but I'm sure you get the idea. This would appear to be a lose-lose situation for Blair and the Labour party in general.

However, this is not necessarily the case. At the moment, various dignitaries of sundry other nations are pontificating at length about what SHOULD be done to Iraq. Deposing Saddam and replacing it with a regime that will treat the Iraqi people with the respect and dignity due to them as human beings comes (rightly) top of this list. All of these nations seem to have the rather sweet and naive belief that, once America has done the business and deposed of Saddam (assuming that they do; a recent US military war game exercise that was essentially a dry-run for the war ended in embarrassment when the Iraqi side inflicted massive losses on the American team), they will listen to these mainly European anti-war advocates when it comes to drawing up the plans for a postwar government in Iraq. This view is about as far removed from reality as the idea that Dubya is a statesmanlike leader who wants peace.

Can you explain to me just why America's leadership will be inclined to share responsibility for the running of this oil-rich country? The American people will be almost as one in supporting their government’s rejection of any outside interference. After all, it will have been their country who did the fighting (though if we're brutally honest, it won't be their country that provides most of the corpses...), and as Americans are by and large a patriotic bunch, it will take barely any rabble-rousing and demagoguery to shift public opinion to the "Fuck you, we're going to do what we want!" mindset of the Dubya and his merry men.

As a brief interjection, lest you still doubt that this war is about oil and not, as the rhetoric would have it, improving the lives of innocent Iraqi's and removing an unelected and brutal dictator, I would point to the fact that the US today offered amnesty to all of the "evil and brutal" Iraqi leadership if they give up without a fight. Not exactly the actions of a nation who wish to bring an evil man to justice (though Operation Paperclip and similar initiatives, which saw Nazi scientists being granted amnesty by the Allies in exchange for their knowledge, shows that justice has never been high on the agenda in international relations...). And should we believe that a US sponsored Iraqi leadership would be any better? Why not ask the people of Uzbekistan, who's current paranoid despot, Karimov, is one of the world leaders in human rights abuses...but who, thanks to his decision to allow US troops to be stationed in his country, enjoys the full support of the US government. Maybe these two facts don't add up to a dim future for Iraq no matter who wins, but history would tend to suggest that they do. Unless....

Well, unless Tony Blair actually has does possess the morals and conscience that he has rammed down our throats at every opportunity. If we are the only other nation involved in an attack on Iraq, then we're the only other nation with the authority to have any say in a postwar Iraqi government. And that might actually mean that Dubya doesn't get things entirely his own way as he did in, for example, Afghanistan (where you can now barely get moved for American Oil men who are involved in setting up the new government).

And lest we forget, getting rid of Hussein would be a very good thing. That is the one thing that both pro and anti war pundits are in total agreement about. It's just that I have a nasty suspicion that if the US was left to this war on it's own, it is extremely likely that the misery of the Iraqi people will continue. As I've said, America doesn't have a good record for installing benevolent puppets in it's client countries (check out http://www.rimbaud.freeserve.co.uk/dictators.html if you want confirmation of this), and I don't imagine that anyone in the White House will give a crippled crap about their further suffering in Iraq just so long as the oil is flowing.

For that matter, no one nation has a good record on that sort of thing. It's only when more than one country gets involved that anything is done to address human rights abuses (the Nuremburg trials after WW2 and the current trials of the assorted nefarious Balkan Bastards would seem to be proof of that), and even then I'm not so foolish as to believe that the UK alone would make much difference. Yet if more nations bit the bullet and committed themselves to this inevitable war, we could perhaps ensure that the criminals of Iraq get punished, that the people get some sort of relief from tyranny, and that the criminals in America who pushed this just war for selfish and unjust reasons onto us all don't get the money out of it that they're hoping. All of these reasons are good ones, and that's why I for one am no longer opposed to war. Have fun making your own mind up.

Anti-Americanism

My opinions on this haven't really changed; I abhor those who unthinkingly condemn anything, regardless of whom or what it is. I don't think in these supposedly enlightened times, I'm asking too much to expect people to be able to articulate their hatred. Am I?



I don't know how to say this without shocking you so I'll just come right out and say it; anti-Americanism really gets on my nerves. I really cannot stand the blinkered and unconditional hatred of all things American that spews endlessly and mindlessly from the mouths of people who couldn't actually tell you what it is that they would like done instead, but know that if America wants it then they will oppose it. Even after September 11th (which, when mentioned now, seems like the most ancient of history don't you think?), there were warranted reminders that America's policy in the Middle East had done much to provide the breeding grounds for this seemingly new species of terrorist. They soon degenerated into justifications for why America SHOULD be destroyed. I'm sure you've heard the sort of thing; well meaning types who nod in agreement at how awful the atrocity was only to launch into a learned-by-rote "If you think that's bad, look at what America has done...." spiel.

Which, in itself, isn't so bad; America's various governments are indeed responsible for some horrendous acts across the world. But to listen to some of these people, you'd think that the destruction of the WTC was an act of youthful high spirits ("Cor, what about those terrorists eh? Cheeky little blighters..."), whilst every act of oppression or destruction committed by the US was planned by Satan and executed by the direct descendants of Hitler. I'm not blind to the countless tortures, murders, acts of brutality, and curtailing of freedoms that can be directly or indirectly attributed to America. But neither am I willing to gloss over the degenerate and hate fuelled ideals of Al-Quaida.

Now there's a name you probably won't have read or heard about in a while: Al-Quaida. Remember them? What with all the fuss about Iraq, you may have forgotten that they ever existed, or assumed that they no longer do. Well, sad to say that they are alive and bombing. They are an organisation that has anti-Semitism and totalitarianism at the heart of its beliefs. One only has to look at the effects of Taliban rule in Afghanistan to get a taste of what life would be like with them as the world’s foremost power. They are to Islam what the Nazi's were to patriotism; a good idea twisted to suit the needs of evil men.

You may yet hear some of those rabid anti-Americans mention them, but only to say that the US don't want to mention them as it will distract you from hating Iraq with all of your sheep-like soul. Those same anti-Americans will then forget all about Al-Quaida, and proceed to tell you why you should hate the US. In other words, they will treat you with all the contempt that they accuse the US of treating you with, and try to get you bleating a refrain more to their liking.

To put it another way, I dislike anti-Americanism because many of those who fall into this bracket are exactly what they accuse the US as a whole of being; selfish little fools who disguise their simplistic hatred by dressing it up in high minded motives that fall apart under close inspection. To put it another way, I also dislike them because they allow people to dismiss all criticism of America, be it justified or not. And whilst I am generally pro-American, I have found myself growing more and more disillusioned with the land of the free.

There are a number of reasons for this and I won't presume to bore you with all of them. I think, however, that the crux of the matter lies in the fact that, like every other pro-American, I believed the hype about the American dream. Does anyone even remember that any more? Has the world grown so weary and cynical that we say the words with a sneer on our face? It was supposedly the birthright of every American to dream the impossible dream; that they may one day achieve whatever it is that they want, maybe even be President one day, so long as they are willing to work hard to get it.

Now it seems that the American dream is over. It has been dreamt by a select few, and it is THEIR dream, not yours. THEY will achieve whatever they want, and you will be expected to keep your head down and keep yourself busy with 3rd rate dreams; maybe it's that home entertainment system that you've been saving for. Perhaps a new car, or a better house. If that is what you want, you will die content. But don't expect to make a difference, or have any say in the way things are done. That dream is reserved is for the rich, the powerful, the established circle of a few hundred people who don't much care about anything beyond what they want.

When anti-Americans bray their mantra, it is these few to whom they should be addressing their bile. Instead they implicate the whole nation in the shortsighted stupidity of a few men, and so Americans are (understandably) bullish in defending themselves against what appears to be an unwarranted attack. Yet in defending their nation and its actions so unconditionally, they are defending those few men who are only patriotic Americans so long as America can be milked for all it is worth. To steal a literary reference, the American people are akin to Don Quixote. America's elite are the idle and worthless nobility who contribute nothing and take everything. If you really want to stretch the metaphor to breaking point, anti-Americans are the knight who demand Quixote abandon his dreams and return to drudge and normality.

So why should I, or anyone else in Europe, care about America and it's people? Well, partly because the alternatives to American world dominance is perpetual warfare with extremists who think nothing of butchering thousands of civilians in the name of a prophet who preached peace and brotherhood. Or dominance by a nation who, despite having a fifth of all the world within their borders, are not exactly renowned for their love of human rights. For all my desire to see a just and equal world, a tarnished American dream is better than no dream at all. However, it's mainly because the same thing is starting to happen right here.

How many people have given up having any say in the way the nation is run? How many people spend their lives worrying about their job and all of it's mind numbing day to day minutiae rather than sparing just a single thought about whether or not life is really getting better for them? How many people can say that they have ambition beyond getting their next house, or car, or whatever pretty gadget that will make their life easier? Speaking personally, I don't want to be free to do exactly what my increasingly corrupt and self-serving government tell me to do. I would like the freedom to be able to make a difference (and the freedom to not want to make a difference either; I'm realistic enough to accept that politics isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea!). It's not so remote a possibility that someday we will all be like Don Quixote; mocked and abused by rulers who don't care if we live or die. If we can turn anti-Americanism into pro-Freedom, that would be one step on the road to ensuring that such a thing never happens.

Tiberius

I was very bored, and decided to write a potted history of a man I feel has been unfairly treated by History. WARNING: Simon Schama would hate this rant.




Once more, I find myself reasonably bored. So, in the interests of keeping me sane, I'm going to tell you a story...

This is the story of the Poor Oppressed Victim and the Big Bad Roman Emperor. Just to somewhat confuse matters, they're both the same person. Tiberius (or to give him his full name, Tiberius Claudius Nero; bit of a mouthful...) gets something of a shitty deal in the history books. He's now known (when remembered at all) as an Olympic standard sexual pervert and sadist. And I suppose there's a grain of truth in that, but in the interest of striking a blow (or taking a blow; any offers? Any at all?) for historical fairness and showing off, it seems only right to give the opposing view. And besides, with luck you'll find it entertaining.

So, Tiberius was born in 42 BC to Claudius Nero and Livia, a stultifyingly awful woman and poisoner extraordinaire. In attitude, she wasn't a million miles away from her namesake in The Soprano's. He was born in what would politely be called interesting times, and realistically called incredibly scary times. Three gentlemen named Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar had just finished using the Roman Republic as the battleground for settling their long running game of one-upmanship (it was really rather silly;
"Caesar, the noble Pompey has conquered the Greeks and Armenians!"
"Hah! I'll see those countries, and raise him...conquering Gaul and the Britons! How d'you like THEM apples, motherfucker? What say you Crassus? Crassus? Oh...some Syrians seem to have rinsed his mouth out with molten gold...").

Unfortunately, 3 other chaps named Octavian (or Augustus), Lepidus, and Antony enjoyed the game so much that they carried it on. Rome degenerated into a bloodbath, with high society and the foremost Roman Citizens being especially at risk from the mob (it was sort of like the prototype version "I'm a Celebrity; Get Me Out of Here!", with rather more worrying penalties than putting ones hand in a box of centipedes).

Each side attracted supporters, and each side took great pains to cause great pain to the other team. Unsurprisingly, living out the first years of ones life in constant fear of being A: Brutally murdered by the nobles of Rome, B: Brutally murdered by the people of Rome, or C: Being handed over by ones own mother to be brutally murdered instead of her, had rather an adverse effect on the young man. He became quiet, sullen, and surly; think of Kevin the Teenager in a toga and you've got the right idea.

Livia, being wonderfully devious, not only ended up on the winning side of the Roman Civil War, she married the captain of the winning team, the Emperor Augustus (aka. the bad guy from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra). Tiberius was now the Emperors stepson. Huzzah for him, you may think; time to relax, to try (and fail) to build up a wine cellar. However, there's nothing like not knowing whether today will be the last day of your life to put a total dampener on ones celebratory mood. Tiberius wanted a peaceful life out of the public eye and (more importantly) the public lynch mob. He had married a lady named Vipsania, to whom he was devoted, and was spending much of his time studying Greek mythology and literature. If, he reasoned, he made it clear that he had no ambitions beyond academia and raising a family, he'd finally be safe from the assassin's knife.

And if he had a mother who didn't make Margaret Thatcher look like Snow White, he may have been allowed to do so. Livia wasn't satisfied with being the Cherie to Augustus' Tony. She wanted to be the Hilary to his Bill. And she wanted to start a dynasty of Emperors that would guarantee her immortality (literally; she wanted to be made a Goddess in the Roman religion. Not even Thatcher ever went that far...). Guess who her only child was? Yup. So, despite the fact that she and her confidants had used him as the butt of insult after insult during his life, Tiberius found himself being used by his mother as a means to an end for the next 30 years.

Firstly, he was forced to divorce his beloved Vipsania and marry his stepsister Julia (of whom historical records show that she was the first person to have been the subject of the comment "I wouldn't say she was easy, but she had a mattress strapped to her back"). Then he was dragged from his books, and signed up to the army. On the plus side, his elevated status meant he commanded armies rather than fighting in the front line. On the minus side, he had to fight the inhabitants of the Balkans.

In what was an eerie foretaste of every century to come, the people of the Balkans were doing their very best to kill anyone and everyone who wasn't a member of their tribe. Tiberius showed himself to be a superb military commander via the medium of annihilating anyone who crossed them (though curiously, Tiberius' army was once trapped in a valley, and the enemy commander allowed him to withdraw instead of ambushing and destroying the Roman army. I rather thought that was the point of warfare...). However, in deference to the fact that Tiberius did NOT want to be there, he was a strict general who was harsh with his troops. "Let them fear me, so long as they obey me" was his maxim.

Meanwhile, back in Rome, Livia was keeping herself busy. Tiberius' stepbrothers, stepsisters, and anyone else who could be a rival claimant to the Empire succumbed one by one to the numerous cheese and arsenic parties thrown by the evil queen. Thanks to Livia, some were poisoned, some were starved to death, some were exiled, and still others were just plain, old fashioned murdered. The upper classes of Rome were slowly thinned out, and it was all done in the name of making Tiberius the Emperor.

He returned to Rome in the midst of this, where the plots and machinations resembled an Eastenders storyline with additional orgies and murders. He loathed Julia (apparently, he felt that the woman one returns home to shouldn't have vaginal scars and rectal stretchmarks...). He was also afraid for his life; Livia was not the only powerful person who wanted a specific candidate installed as Emperor. With the dark and fearful memories of his childhood still haunting him, the last thing Tiberius wanted was to be put in a position where he was the target for ambitious men.

So he asked Augustus for permission to retire from public life to Rhodes, where he intended to devote the rest of his life to books and studies. Augustus, who had never really like his grim-faced stepson (he used to make jokes about Tiberius' slow chewing movement; I suppose if the Emperor makes a joke then everyone finds it funny) was only too happy to send him away from Rome. Livia, naturally, was furious at this uncharacteristic show of defiance. As a petty revenge, she spread stories about Tiberius' supposed sexual perversions (just how bad does one have to behave to be considered a pervert in a society where orgies were a social occasion?!).

Rhodes didn't provide the sanctuary the Tiberius had hoped. He still feared for his life; now that he was out of the public eye he could be easily disposed of. And he found that the Greeks poked fun at him and his dour manner. After a few years of unhappy retirement, he returned to Rome and public life, a rather more bitter man than he had been when he left.

By this time, Tiberius was the only realistic heir to Augustus. Sensing this, Livia poisoned Augustus (he was ready for her and only ate food he prepared himself; she however was ready for him and poisoned some figs whilst they were still on the tree. What a bitch, eh?) and had Tiberius installed as Emperor. He became the one of the few people to receive supreme power who didn't want it. However, he had spent a lifetime acquiring grudges against those who made fun of him, those who questioned his intellect, and those who had looked at him in a bit of a funny way. He was to be Emperor for 23 years, and by the time he died, not one of those people whom he bore a grudge against had died of natural causes.

At first, he was a slave to Livia's will. He was Emperor, but she ruled. Gradually however, he weaned himself away from her control, and by the time of her death he was pretty much his own man. Although he never felt entirely safe at Rome, he began to appreciate the benefits of power. He also developed a rather fun sense of humour. He delivered every speech and every statement in a deadpan manner, but would intersperse them with surreal and bizarre jokes. No one was ever sure whether he was joking or serious, and people were afraid to do laugh in case it was the latter. I always imagine him to be a bit like Jack Dee at this point. Well, Jack Dee with the power of life and death over millions anyway. Okay...so maybe it's just me that appreciates his sense of humour! He, however, found their uncertainty and subsequent insecurity hilarious .

In all of this time, the Empire remained secure and stable. He was a fair Emperor to the people (he castigated any governors who set their taxes too high), though the whispers and rumours started by Livia et al never really died away. After 12 years of his reign, he decided to go on a little holiday to the island of Capri. He never came back to Rome for the remaining 11 years he was Emperor. He felt completely secure on his island, and so in the lap of luxury and with absolute power at his disposal, he began to enjoy himself.

I don't doubt that some of the enjoyment was gained from shagging anything with a pulse. By this time, Vipsania had died and he felt no need to restrain himself. He also harboured a hatred of the Empire itself. He never wanted it, and it had ruined his life. But by the same token, it allowed him to get revenge on those who had wronged him (you wouldn't have liked to have been the Greek scholar who had insulted Tiberius back in Rhodes...) and it afforded him a measure of security.

That said, his paranoia was still ever present; a fisherman surprised him on Caprii with a huge fish that he had caught and wanted to present to the Emperor. Tiberius had him beaten with it (inspiration for Monty Python's 'Fish Dance'?), jabbed and poked with crab claws, then threw him off a cliff. All in all, he was not a man to get on the wrong side of.

When he died in 37 AD, he was a mess of contradictions. The paranoia that haunted him from his childhood was now being inflicted on others in the form of treason trials, which saw many innocent people die. He wanted desperately to be a good person, but the disappointments of his life led him to become bitter and twisted; he cheerfully had his own son starved to death, allowed two thugs (Sejanus and Macro) to rule on his behalf. Above all, he hated Rome and it's people. By this time his maxim was "Let them hate me, so long as they obey me". His final revenge on Rome was to adopt the fiercely insane Gaius Caligula as his heir. He said that he was nursing a viper for the bosom of Rome. Caligula's time as Emperor is legendary for it's cruelty and barbarity.

But still, I find myself pitying Tiberius. He wanted a quiet life and because he didn't get it, he made damn sure that no one else did either. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't make him a beast. It makes him endearingly human.

And thus concludes probably the most whistle-stop treatment that the life of Tiberius has ever been treated too. Now what do I do to stave off boredom?!

Xmas Cheer

The theme of governments being in power for the sake of power is not a new one. From my point of view, it's an obvious 1984 influence and it crops up again and again in my writing.





You can tell it's near Christmas by the increase in media items of no real consequence that no one is particularly interested in. For example, Cherie Blair's recent financial faux pas (which, near as I can tell, seems to revolve around allowing a friend of questionable honesty to do some financial dealings on her behalf) has entirely failed to rouse a huge amount of interest outside of the media. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about it couldn't give the remotest beginnings of a shit. Yet if you read the papers you'd think it was a scandal on a par with finding that John Prescott buggers and sacrifices a live ostrich every night.

To a certain extent, the fuss is the fault of the Labour party itself. It was originally elected on a wave of public antipathy towards the Conservative party and the attendant sleaze allegations against it. To fully capitalise on that, Labour cast itself as a group of men and women so ethically pure that they wouldn't be out of place in the Vatican. The problem is, now that they're the entrenched government and now that the full glare of the media has been applied to pretty much every dealing of every Labour party member and all of their relatives. Naturally enough, we're finding that the government really wouldn't be out of place in the Vatican. Unfortunately, as it seems that 1 in every 3 paedophiles and pederasts is a Catholic priest, that is no longer such a grand boast.

So then, we're finding out that our government and their families are not perfect models of integrity. Is anybody actually surprised? I mean look at the Conservative government; it seemed to consist entirely of people whose facade of normality was so studied and false that we were expected to believe that not one of them had ever acted in a weak, foolish, and altogether human way. No, all of these men and women were infallible! And, unsurprisingly, that facade didn't stand up to scrutiny. Did that lead to the realisation that it is unreasonable of us to expect perfection in our politicians? Did it create an atmosphere similar to that of France, where politicians seem to get a mistress or toyboy as a part of their job description? Of course not. It led to us electing a bunch of people who made equally unreasonable claims to perfection, but who simply hadn't been caught out yet.

There are a couple of standard get out clauses exercised by most people (myself especially) at this point, one of the favourites being "They're all the same so there's no point in voting. The same kind of bastards will always get in". Well, yes they will. For as long as we allow ourselves to be distracted by the meaningless popularity contest that is politics in the UK they will anyway. How many people know anything about any political parties other than the Conservatives or Labour? Come to think of it, how many people even know whom their local MP is? Essentially, when it comes to election time we decide who we think looks the most 'normal' out of the politicians who appear on our TV. Then (assuming we can all be bothered to drag our fat arses off the sofa) we vote for them. And yes, we get people who are imperfect (some more than others). If our media actually did their job and bothered to find out about their ability as politicians, rather than how many affairs they've had, or how many dodgy friends they've got; and if we deigned to care about such trivialities like "Who are the best people to govern the country?" then chances are we'd be spared this false high-ground haughtiness that the press indulge in the instant a scandal is required to boost newspaper sales. What right has anyone got to say, "They're all the same" when very few know what the fuck any of them are like in the first place?

At which point did leadership stop being about ability and start being about popularity? Or has it always been like this? Can anyone seriously imagine that Dubya would be in office if we lived in a meritocracy? He's a bumbling idiot who got where he is by money and luck. In our own government, only Gordon Brown springs to mind as a politician who's ability to do the job is adequate to justify him being there. There was a while when I thought the tide may have been turning against those who ruminate scandal for scandal's sake; by the end of Clinton's time as US president, everyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together was sick to death of hearing about his poor taste in women. Yet the only effect that the long running saga had was to give Clinton a peculiar sort of legitimacy; all of his other (many) errors and failures, as well as most of his successes were pushed to the back of our collective minds. We don't really remember that he ordered bombs launched at suspected Al-Quaida camps, or that he so nearly brought peace to Israel. We only remember a smear of sperm on a cheap dress. So it's impossible (or at least, so difficult as to be nearly impossible) to say whether he was a good leader or a bad one (Happily the only scandals that have thus far surrounded Dubya concern corruption on such a huge scale that one feels rather more justified in complaining about him).

The faint whiff of scandal surrounding the Blairs is being magnified so that it has become a stench, yet they have acted little differently from someone getting a sacked British Gas Engineer to fit their boiler on the cheap. Or asking a struck off solicitor to give legal advice. Or asking a friend to bring back rather more beer and wine from a trip to France than they otherwise would have. If we're going to have a tabloid feeding frenzy around 10 Downing St, is it really that unrealistic to ask that it's about something like the forests of money that have gone into businessmen’s pockets due to Public-Private partnerships? There are many reasons for us to mistrust our government. Let's not get distracted by a rapidly growing molehill of a scandal.

Still, Merry Christmas eh?