Instahoglets 13th July 06

Who cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war? Maybe instead of always trying to chain up the dogs we should chain up the dog-handlers.

Israel invades Palestine and Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of three soldiers - causing widespread civilian death and promising to degrade infrastructure if the troops are not returned. No diplomacy, no waiting to see what the democratic governments of both nations might manage. Israel obviously believes that George W. Bush's words,"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them," didn't just apply to America. If its good enough for a superpower then its good enough for anyone (except India, it appears - on which more later). Dubya appears to agree with them. Forget the concept of America as the world's policeman. Policemen don't stand idly by and watch a street brawl while cheering for one of the brawlers. No, what we have now is America as Mafia capo.

"A dozen unsung Alamos now being fought nightly." That's how London Times reporter James Hider reports the Baghdad he is living in. His must-read long report on the escalating chaos there also says, "It is, quite simply, out of control." Ambassador Khalilzad is living in the Green Bubble Zone - the rest of Iraq is as much far-off foreign country from there as it is from DC. Although at least the Government Accountability Office sees that Bush's stratergy is a crock of wishful thinking and empty talk. Bush and his buddies have managed to make Iraq a Mission, Insoluble - with untold consequences and knock-on effects for generations to come.

Now go back to last Sunday and read another long London Times on-the-spot report - this time on Afghanistan. (Wonder in passing why no US media outlet produces reporting of this standard even though warmongering FOX and the Times have the same owner.) Christina Lamb once sat in a trench next to future president Karzai while Russians shot at them. At the time he was chief fundraiser for the Taliban. Now she has sat in a trench with British troops while karzai's former colleagues shot at them. There are few as qualified as she to say that Afghanistan has become a "Death Trap". She blames, primarily, the distraction of the Iraq war as well as American insistence on dealing with narco-warlords and the arrogant violence of U.S. troops (whom the British commanders are forever apologising about to Afghanis).

Hundreds of mourners paid their last respects last Saturday to Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, the first British Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan. You will search in vain for a refernce to this among the Islamophobic punditry of the Militant Right. They want you to believe in a monolithic and evil Islam so that they can push their "clash of civilisations". It's all about keeping the dogs hungry.

Back at home, the handlers get to feed from the dogbowls. The biggest bowl of all is the "war on terror". How else to explain Republican Indiana getting more earmarked anti-terror funds than New York or DC? How else to explain a no-fly list that has grown from 16 to 80,000 names in five years? Several private contractors have been fed by that one. MZM, the bribers of Duke Cunningham, have often fed at the big bowl while making sure the bowl stays full. Conrad Black is concealing how much he got from the bowl. Meanwhile the media empire he set up - including the UK's Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post - continues to shill for the neocons and keep the bowl filled to the top.