Talk about a very, very long haul!

Things aren't on the impove in Iraq. The news, daily, from that war-ravaged country couldn't be worse. One almost gets the impression that we are all now enured to things going badly there. A bombing here, a car-bomb there.....and casualties in large numbers.

On that other war-front, Afghanistan, things aren't too rosy either - so much so that the new British ambassador to Kabul has made what can only be seen as a dire prediction [as the TimesOnLine reports]:

"Britain will need to stay in Afghanistan for "decades" to fight terrorism and pull the country out of poverty, the UK's new ambassador to Kabul said today.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who has been in his post for six weeks, said efforts to stabilise and rebuild the war-torn country would have to be a "marathon rather than a sprint".

In an interview this morning the ambassador, considered one of Britain's biggest diplomatic heavyweights, admitted that the UK should have stepped up its development and regeneration efforts in Afghanistan earlier.

“The task of standing up a government of Afghanistan that is sustainable is going to take a very long time,” Sir Sherard told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme today. “It’s a marathon rather than a sprint. We should be thinking in terms of decades.”

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here? Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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