Posted 4:30 PM by Paul
The Day the World Changed Forever - Err Not Exactly

For perhaps two or three days after September the 11th I walked around in a daze. Like millions of people around the world who had visited New York and had been dazzled by it from afar, I could not really take in what had happened. I spent two days on phone and e-mail trying to trace a good friend from Baltimore who worked in the wine trade in New York and did business in the World Trade Centre. He was a regular at the Windows of the World and knew many of the waiters and someliers. As luck would have it he had just left on a luxury cruise selling fine Bordeaux wines to millionaires. I shouted with exhultation when I heard the news, but immediately felt guility for all the thousands who would not be traced. Obviously our distress was only a tiny fraction of the pain felt by Americans and particularly New Yorkers.

The UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw seemed to sum up the mood when he said "the world has changed forever". We all nodded sagely at his comment, but only a day or so later I began to question it. 20 million pople died in the Soviet Union during World War II. Perhaps as many as 400,000 Russians and Germans in the battle for Stalingrad alone. But amazingly Germany and Russia recovered as did the East End of London where thousands were crushed and burned in the air raids between 1940 - 1944. The wounds healed remarkably quickly. That is perhaps the beauty of the human spirit. It's ability ot transcend chaos and hatred.

My opinion that the appalling events in New York had not changed society was confirmed today when it was revealed that the stunning designs for a new tower to replace the World Trade Centre may be watered down. Apparently the owners of the lease want more space for shopping. Will the hauntng empy vault of commemoration be sacrificed to a Wal-Mart or a string of fashion concessions? Possibly. It's not an American thing. I am sure it would be the same if London had been attacked on September the 11th. The accountants would have wheeled out the equations showing desired ratio of turnover per square foot. I suppose that's capitalism and New York is its most perfect expression. Business as usual.

It make's you wonder how we got around to building the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages.

Oiii! Can't you shorten that trancept. I wanna get a cattle market, two ale houses and a brothel in 'ere!

Posted 8:09 AM by Paul
51st State - Let's Join the Union and Stop Pretending

So, what's the point. If the UN passes a second resolution by a slim majority - Bush will invade. If Saddam relents and allows Hans Blix to search his underpants for anthrax - Bush will invade. It the UN does not pass a second resolution - Bush will invade. If the Iraqi parliament adopts the US Constitution - Bush will invade. If the French, the Russians and the Chinese use the veto - Bush will invade.

It is a done deal. However, over here in the UK we are still going through this pantomine that we can somehow influence the result.

One of the saddest things about the debate in the UK Parliament yesterday was the belief by most MPs that in some way the opinion of the UK Government mattered. Personally, I would like to think that the UK had influence in Washington - but it doesn't. We should wake up to the fact and stop the pretence. Lets look at the recent evidence.

Blair complained about the punitive tarrifs that Bush placed on imported steel. The tarrifs are still in place and UK workers are facing the sack. Jack Straw asked the State of Texas to commute the death sentence of a British citizen to life in prisonment without parole. The prisoner was strapped to the table and executed by lethal injection. Blair pleaded for the USA to fall into line on greenhouse gas emissions as laid down in the Kyoto Agreement. Bush loosened anti-pollution laws in the USA. Now of course you may well applaud the stance that the US adminstration has taken on these issues. It could be argued that they were in the best interests of the average Joe in the USA. My point is that the view of the UK Government is irrelevant when the boys in the West Wing are playing hard ball.

The only person who summed up the Realpolitik in the parliamentray debate about Iraq was an MP called Peter Kilfoyle. He is a chainsmoking bruiser from Liverpool who has spent most of his adult life expelling Trotskists and other far leftists from the Labour Party. Call him a Pinko and he would probably break your nose. He is on the right of the Labour Party but against Blair's policy of total compliance with the White House demands that we disarm our critical faculties. Kilfoyle just stood up and laid it on the line. "The decision will not be made in the Foreign Office or in No. 10 Downing Street because the decision has already been made in the White House." At last, a man who tells it like it is.

So, what's the alternative? Given that many people in the UK have a pathological fear of being subsumed into a Great Europe,
( jealousy of German efficency and superior French cuisine perhaps?) maybe we should allow ourselves to be subsumed into a Greater America. We could submit an application to join the Union after Puerto Rico. There is no strict geographical imperative to the USA. London is nearer Washington than Honolulu. We might have more influence as a State of the Union than a state of compliance. We could at least get votes in the Electoral College. At present we are a dependency whose role seems to limited to replying "How high?", when George asks us to jump. Even Mexico is displaying more independence than the UK. Perhaps Vincente Fox knows something about Bush that Tony Blair does not.

Which brings me to my final point. The French are smart and will come out of all this with more influence in the USA than the UK .
The simple reason is that they have leverage because they have already impacted on US geo-political planning. If I were on Bush's team I would advise against making any concessions to the UK. What's the point? The Brits are a free lunch. They never say no. Better to save any money, aid or favours you have stashed in the bank for countries that might need some cojoling. Like France or Turkey.

P.S Don't believe the anti-Disney reviews. Treasure Planet is not a complete turkey. I took the kids and they loved it. Bizarrely for an American film one of the heroic characters even had an English accent.

Posted 11:12 AM by Paul
Art for Democracy

An American friend passed tis on to me. We can only dream.

CHRISTO ANNOUNCES NEW PROJECT

World famous artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have today announced a new project that is slated to be begin immediately.

Responding to U.S. Homeland Defense Secretary Ridge’s call for artists to rally the cause through anti-terrorist art, Christo has received permission to wrap the White House in Washington D.C., using duct tape and plastic sheeting.

Much like the artist’s 1995 project "Wrapped Reichstag" in Berlin, "Wrapped White House" will, according to the artists’ plan, seal the building and those inside. Of the project the > artists said, "We are very excited to use our art making > methods in the > international fight against terrorists. By wrapping the White House we hope to help keep terrorism under wraps, so to speak. Unlike "Wrapped Reichstag" which was a temporary project, "Wrapped White House will be the artists’ first permanent work of public art. 100,000 square meters (1,076,000 square feet) of clear high-strength polypropylene plastic, and 15,600 meters (51,181 feet) of silver duct tape, 13.2 cm (4 inch) wide, will be used for the wrapping of the White House. The work will be completed in as little as one week.

The artist’s have contacted other artists across the U.S. who are now in-route to Washington D.C. in order to finish this work in record time. Materials have been provided without charge by the German Government. Recalling the "Wrapped Reichstag," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated,

"Wrapping the symbol of German Democracy was a defining moment for the new Germany. Wrapping the White House will likewise be a defining moment as democracy is restored in America."

Posted 5:24 PM by Paul
Warfare is Not a Lifestyle

I worry that the West is going a little bit soft it when it comes to war. Not that we are becoming pacifists - I am all for exercising extreme caution before playing with fireworks - but in our expectation of what happens when the shooting actually starts.

I was listening to a phone-in programme where people were calling in to share thier experiences of having a loved one away on active service. It's a worrying time for thousands of people sat at home waiting for news. Naturally your heart goes out to them. Then a woman came on the radio complaining about the "appalling way" the Navy had treated her daughter - a 19 year old new recruit straight out of basic training. Tapping away at my laptop, sipping tea and munching on a biscuit I awaited the woman's horror story. It didn't come. Her complaint was that no one was there to meet her daughter at the airline check in desk to Quatar and she had been asked to pay for her daughter's excess baggage. Excess baggage? What was the girl taking? A complete fashion wardrobe and her double decks in case she wanted to join in a hip hop jam with some US home boys? Did she expect a chaperone or a holiday courier?

It occurred to me that this trip to the Gulf may have been her first time abroad away from her mum and dad. Mine was a camping holdiay in Belgium. Really dull, huge ant bites and the weather was awful but altogether more congenial than the Iraqi desert.


I felt sorry for the girl and her mum. No one had mentioned war in any of the slick recrutiment ads for the Armed Forces which promote sport, team work and the chance to use "lots of secret kit" - as though active service were an episode of the Man from UNCLE. Maybe decades of consumer confort has made us less able and willing to put up with even the natural discomforts of war, like not being able to take more than your baggage allowance without paying extra or having to organise your own airline tickets. Clearly nobody mentioned anything to her about killing foreigners.

It wasn't always like that. My uncle Wilf who faught in Burma from 41-45 knew that his job was to kill the Japanese before they killed him. Ditto my old friend Matt who was on Iwo Jima with the US Marine Corps. Their main worry was to get something to eat once every 48 hours and stay alive. Both of them made in back but in Wilf's case his wife heard nothing of him for over three years. Would we put up with that in 2003? I wonder.

Posted 6:33 AM by Paul
Sitar Jazz Blues?

I love the new Nora Jones album. Glad it swept the Grammies A return to unhyped great American music. It is even on the the legendary Blue Note - a label revered by all young men in the North of England who grew chin beards, played bad sax and dreamed of what it would be like to hang out with Bird, Chet and Kerouac in the Village in ' 52. It also reminded me of the massive debt that contemporary music owes to that great American (OK Canadian) Joni Mitchell and of course her soul sister and Nora's mother - the magnificent Ricki Lee Jones. Except she isn't - Nora's mother that is. I just assumed it because of their shared surname, vocal styles and lyrical brilliance. We now discover that Nora's dad is the equally legendary Indian sitar meister and friend of George Harrison Ravi Shankar. And mum? A Texan music promoter.

Only in America as they say. Which got me to thinking. Maybe America is not really a country at all. It's a state of mind.

Posted 1:51 PM by Paul
UK - Those Islands near Iceland

Maybe all this stuff going down at the UN is no longer about Iraq at all - but about the relationship between an emerging (if disorganised) Europe and the good old USA. Muscles are being flexed. The disagreements over the course of the crisis and France and Germany's attempt to slow down the Bush Cheney war machine is actually giving the EU some kind of new raison d'etre. Russia may now throw in its lot with Germany and France. That is one hell of a power bloc. From the Baltic to the Pacific. Are they looking to challenge the US rather than simply criticise it? Not in terms of miltary but economic power, with a new currency as its spearhead. It's a thought. And the UK? We seem to be about as relevant as Honduras at the moment. An adjunt of the White House. No 10. is the East Wing.

Blair's only big ally seems to be Aznar in Spain who has already announced that he will not stand at the next election and whose party is plunging in the polls. Besides he has an awful moustache and looks like Charlie Chaplin. Hardly a big hitter. I know there is this theory about a new Europe emerging out of the old Eastern European states with Tony Blair as its leader. To me that seems to be the conceit of the English.

The real power in continental Europe has lay in a triangle between Frankfurt, Paris and Milan for centuries with the UK looking outwards to empire and the sea. I cannot see that changing much in our lifetime at least. German and French ministers and their civil servants meet on a monthly basis to harmonise policy. A kind of secular Holy Roman Empire. As for Blair he is looking old beyond his years and stressed out. He is starting to look like Jack Nicholson in the first Batman movie, but he is not much of a Joker. The proposals laid on the table by the Franco- German allaiance will make his job harder tomorrow in parliament as MPs see that there is an alternative to war that is not appeasement. But there will be a war because the troops have been mobilised. Bush cannot just send them home. Colin Powell may be the first casualty.

Posted 1:05 PM by Paul
Porky's in The White House

I picked up a copy of the Sunday newspaper and there was a picture of George and Jeb....buddying up as they are entitled to do, being brothers after all. Then it hit me. Whilst we were sleeping, eating, bringing up our kids and enjoying life - the cast of Porky's III have taken over the running of the worlds most powerful country.

Posted 12:58 PM by Paul
Memories of a Reluctant Peace Activist

Sunday 23 February 2003

We had an old friend of mine around for lunch yesterday. Leg of spring lamb, roast potatoes, glazed carrots and green beans. Icecream for dessert. After a few glasses of wine the talk turned to the largest protest march in British history. I started talking about my impressions and the fact that it was not the "usual suspects" on the big anti-war march. My friend's wife interrupted,

"Yeah, I know I was there." She could see that I was slightly taken aback. I had never taken her for a political activist.

" I just felt I had to be there really. Even though I am bit agro-phobic, hate crowds and don't do marches".

Here lies a major problem for Blair who is now the UK Government personified. If a 49 year old swing voter who hates crowd and runs a PR company for her day job was on the march something is happening out there that he clearly does not understand. It has come straight out of Leftfield. Middle England, Blair's England, disagrees deeply with what is going on, and instead of staying home it is on the move.

The lowest estimate of the attendance was 1.5 million. It could have been as high as 2 million. But when the figures yet that huge, who is going to quibble over the odd hundred thousand. It took 5 hours to move through some of the widest streets in London. Hundreds of thousands of people who had never been on a political demonstration in their lives were there. The most smartly dressed demonstration in history.

You could tell that by the clothes and the number of women who were wearing nice jewelry and high maintenance hair. I saw at least three fur coats. I made my stand against hippy clothing by wearing the kind of pin stripe suit; shirt and silk tie normally seem on Wall Street. The police were very friendly giving directions and helping people through the barriers. I guess a few of them would prefer that Blair spend a little more money on their fight with crack dealers armed with Uzis that Bush's war on Saddam

You have got to hand it to Bush - Blair they certainly know how to pull together a huge co-alition….against them.

As the crowds passed No. 10 Downing Street the booing was deafening. A middle aged women stood opposite the security gates with a hand painted sign. "Tony - I voted you in. I can vote you out." Popular democracy.

I would say that Blair is hated now as much as Thatcher was. I suppose it is because the voters feel let down. There was so much promise when he walked into Downing Street on that sunny May morning in 1997. I was in the crowd that day with my wife and young daughters, but that's another story. It all seems a distant memory now. There is just hardly anyone outside his close political allies who has a good word to say about him in the UK. He is seen as a liar who is making it all up as he goes along. His story changes on a daily basis. Listening to his speeches is like being lectured by the school prefect. It is like being back at school. But on the march people broke free of his hectoring. School's out Tony and the pupils are making their voices heard.

Banners at the march included

- Make Tea Not War
- Give Bush a Pretzel
- Tony Blair - Muppet on a String (my favourite)
- I'd rather Jack than bomb Iraq
- Texas the Nexus of Evil
- London Jews Against the War (Loud applause for the young couple carrying it)
- Tony Blair is Very Annoying


And strangely a man carrying a Turkish carpet as a placard.

Heather (who went for three hours and then came home to take over looking after the kids) said that she saw a group of about 15 people carrying the French Tricolour who were getting a lot of cheering. But then again maybe they were headed for the England - France rugby match at Twickenham.

Amusing stunt of the day was a group of students who were hanging out of the window of their hall of residence (dorm / frat house for US readers) mooning with the following written across their naked buttocks

"George Bush Can Kiss My Ass"

No jerks burning the Stars and Stripes. No anti-globalization cliches. In fact McDonalds and Starbucks were doing a roaring trade. Even GAP was open. So if anyone tells you that the UK was gone anti-American tell them from me that is quite simply nonsense.

It is just those scary guys in the West Wing we don't like. Bring back Carter... Bring back the Ronny & Nancy Show...get Bill out of bed...elect Will Smith. Anyone but George W.

Paul Bower

Posted 1:09 PM by Paul
22 February 2003

Tip for Iraqi Military Planners

Just watch the BBC.

Now I don't know a great deal about strategy and tactics. I have never been to war, trained in the armed forces or been shot at. It is one of the few things I have in common with George W. Bush.

However, my basic understanding is that, if at all possible, you should try to keep most of your troop movements and concentrations secret. Imagine my surprise when the BBC showed footage of US Army trucks disembarking today at a Turkish port. This was followed by aerial and perimeter fence shots from a couple of months ago and today of a big air base near the Turkey - Iraq border. The later shots showed that there was no big build up of airplanes as of this evening.

The pictures were striking in that they were so much clearer than those provided by Colin Powell at the UN Security Council to show that Saddams men had been moving nerve gas around in ice cream vans.

This may of course be disinformation. In fact the US may launch a surprise attack on Baghdad via
St. Tropez led by Jolly Jacques Chirac. But it makes you wonder. The BBC report then went into great detail of which divisions were stationed where. If true - it was the sort of information that used to cost big bucks in bribes, spies salaries and OO7 type secret agent kit. It seems that in February 2003 Saddam can just ask his people at the embassy in London to tape BBC Newsnight and pop the video in the post. Unless of course it is all spin.

Blair is having a torrid time today. He has gone to ground. His grin is nowhere to be seen and he has sent out the Stetford Politicians to bat for him. These are members of his Party (he rules them with an iron fist) whose brains have been replaced by loyalty chips. They wear the strange glazed look of the cocaine addict. Like they are not quite "all there".

Both the Catholic and Church of England Archbishops have doubted the morality of an attack on Iraq and issued a joint statement. It seems like only yesterday that they were burning each other at the stake.

This is a few days after Blair opened up a new rhetorical front by claiming that there was a moral case for war because Saddam was - wait for it - "an evil dictator". Not exactly hard news. In the same speech he praised China. Obviously the Tianemen Square massacre and the invasion of Tibet were the work of the French. He also claimed that China was an "ally of the US". Something which must be news to the butchers of Peking. The man is making it up as he goes along. But he is such a brilliant actor that he gets away with it nearly all of the time. Has he been taking lessons from Clinton and Spacey?

During the speech Blair read out a beautifully written e-mail from a 19 year old Iraqi student at Cambridge who supported a war to rid her country of Saddam. Totally understandable and any decent person would empathize with her views, even if they did not agree with them. But now it seems there might be a problem. The text of parts of her letter bear a striking resemblance to an article written by a Blairite columnist a couple of weeks earlier. Did the tame columnist write the e-mail for her? The columnist neither admitted it nor denied it when questioned. In the present climate nobody believes a word the PM is saying so doubts are growing.

This is particularly the case now it has been revealed that Blair tried to bury a petition from 160 leading Iraqi exiles (many torture victims) who stated their opposition to an aerial bombardment but stressed support for getting him out in other ways (creation of democratic front, civil insurrection etc.) Loud guffaws were also heard when it turned out that one source quoted by Blair, as being in favour of an invasion was an Islamic fundamentalist cleric who supports hard-liners in Iran. Said cleric probably wanted to overthrow Saddam's torture regime so that he could establish a more effective one of his own.

But back to God. Both the Church of England and the RCs in England gave qualified support to the Gulf War. So it is not as though they are Pacifist Vegan Commies who hate baseball. When Blair goes to Rome he is also having an audience with the Holy Father. That's the Pope - not the Head of 5 Families. Given that Blair has nearly gone RC and his wife is a life long practicing Catholic this could cause problems.

What happens if El Papa whispers in Tony's ear that his whole family will be excommunicated as soon as the first Cruise missile begin to fly? Or will Blair excommunicate the Pope?

Coverage is also being given to the fact that a poll in the US today shows that 50% of Americans would only support a war if it were sanctioned by the UN. Contrary to popular opinion in Euroland US citizens are not all gung ho for war. They are after all good people who enjoy nothing more than hunting. making pots of money and eating unfeasibly large sandwiches. The poll proves what any fool should know - that the vast majority of US citizens are more sophisticated that their President.

Which takes me to my final insane theory which is based on nothing more than my own personal prejudice House and distaste for the present occupants of the West Wing.

So here goes.

Election 2000 was a freak and has put the political cycle out of kilter. By any sane analysis Bush just lost that election in the final days as Al Bore rolled up his sleeves and started shouting around the same time as George went home to bed. That is, "lost an election", in the almost universally accepted definition of "polling less votes than your opponent"

Mid Terms 2002 - Bush wins and becomes President in the eyes of most Americans and foreign observers except effete whining Brits like me and radical Louisiana hotheads like Ray Mouton.

Election 2004 - George Bush hits mid term blues and can lose

So the message is clear. Prepare for a George Bush landslide and a short successful war in Iraq.

Paul " Roadkill of History" Bower