 |
| Blog |
 |
| Archive |
|
|
|
|
| Blog |
| To find an archived article, simply click on Index and scroll the subject titles, or do a Ctrl-F search |
|
|
| Blog |
|
|
| Archive |
|
|
|
|
| Blog |
| To find an archived article, simply click on Index and scroll the subject titles, or do a Ctrl-F search |
Opinion & Analysis |
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 |
||||||
West must intervene to liberate ZimbabweWords and sanctions have failed - military action is needed to end Mugabe's regime, writes TONY ALLWRIGHT WE HAVE all been shocked and horrified by the recent goings on in Zimbabwe. In his desperation to cling to power at all costs during the "election" process of the past few months, its despot Robert Mugabe has starved, beaten and killed Zimbabwean citizens for the affront of not supporting him. The run-off "election" alone saw a further hundred people murdered, thousands beaten and tens of thousands evicted from their homes. And the violence continues, although Mugabe has now "won" an umpteenth term as president. He is clearly bent on punishing and destroying anyone with the temerity to vote or speak against him. Of course, the man has form. Within a few years of coming to power in a popular vote, Mugabe, a Shona, sent in his personal, North Korean-trained military hit squad to perpetrate widespread massacres in Matabeland, stronghold of his political opponent Joshua Nkomo. Some 20,000 died from the rival Ndebele tribe (which, descended from proud Zulus, historically regarded Shonas solely as a source of slaves, women and cattle). It was in the 2000 election, which Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party lost by only four seats, that Mugabe first learnt, to his shock, he was no longer adored by his people. In response, he began violently expropriating white-owned farms to reward his cronies, and as a direct result precipitated the economy's disastrous collapse. For the 2002 presidential election, he deployed widespread violence and vote rigging against the opposition and achieved a "seriously flawed" if comfortable victory as his reward. Similar tactics for the 2005 parliamentary election ensured a substantial triumph over the MDC by 37 seats.
Throughout all this criminal mayhem, there have been continual calls from the international community for Mugabe to moderate his behaviour and observe democratic norms. Travel bans and similar piffling sanctions have been applied, all to no effect. And in the past few weeks, he has happily journeyed, unmolested, to Rome and Egypt for conferences. We are supposed to be encouraged because the UN Security Council for the first time "discussed" the latest "election" (even if China and Russia exercised vetoes), Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu condemned it, and even the 53-strong African Union (31 of them non-democracies) mumbled some vaguely critical words. Politicians, media and NGOs in the West continue to bleat about the need for sanctions, talks, negotiations and compromises. Words and mild slaps have been going on for years. If they were ever going to work, they would have done so by now, at least to some extent, but they haven't. Mugabe has made it abundantly clear that he will never leave office, that "only God" can remove him. And this is wise because his lifestyle if not life will be in immediate danger the moment he steps down. In 2002, Ian Smith, the country's last white ruler, laid down a challenge: "If Mugabe and I walk together into a black township, only one of us will come out alive. I'm ready to put that to the test right now. He's not." Only direct military action - not words, not sanctions - will remove him and only the West has the military capability. It won't be difficult (though many will doubtless scream "illegal war"). In 2000, British prime minister Tony Blair deployed a crack task force to Sierra Leone, which in just six weeks defeated rebel forces who had been waging civil war for nine years. A few months later, he sent in a handful of SAS and SBS commandos who rescued a dozen military hostages from a different group of rebels deep in Sierra Leone. These decisive actions were instrumental in turning the country into one of the African Union's 22 democracies. At the first sight of professional soldiery, you can be sure the Zimbabwe army and police, who have no idea how to deal with anyone who isn't an unarmed civilian, will discard their weapons and uniforms and simply melt away, much as Gen Mengistu's powerful, 400,000-strong army in Ethiopia did when confronted with rag-tag opposition in 1991. In the name of enforcing the election results and without anyone's permission, the objective should be to capture or kill Mugabe and his senior colleagues. Survivors should be delivered for trial for crimes against humanity at the international criminal court in the Hague. Having handed the administration to Morgan Tsvangirai, whom no one but the Mugabe clique doubts won last March's election, the invading force should then rapidly withdraw. This would allow the international community to provide the support it has already promised to help rebuild the shattered country. In Mugabe's Zimbabwe, words kill, because by achieving nothing, they permit and encourage him to continue his murderous rampage. Thus those who forswear military action should just remain silent, for they are, however, unwittingly on the side of Robert Mugabe. I am not. © 2008 The Irish Times
|
|||||||
|
Further details in a blog post entitled “In Mugabe's Zimbabwe, words kill” |
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Gift Idea |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
