AFGHANISTAN AND KARZAI – WHAT A TRIUMPH FOR DEMOCRACY
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
Meet the President of Afghanistan. Elected for a second term by means of balloting irregularities that even George W Bush might have blushed over, Hamid Karzai (pictured above, centre) was sworn in yesterday for another 5 years in the presence of such dignatories as the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the inept, incompetent UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband. As brave Coalition soldiers continue to die to prop up his rotten regime, Karzai swore to fight corruption – even as one of his ministers was accused by the US of taking a $30 million dollar bribe. After the proceedings, in a piece of crass stupidity even by his standards, Miliband actually welcomed Karzai’s “crusade” against corruption – that’s language that’s sure to get Islamic fundamentalists onside, isn’t it, David ? And in a supplementary statement right out of New Labour’s election manifesto, Happy Hamid also pledged that Afghan forces would take total control of the country’s security within 5 years. And then the band played. Why don’t we just get out of there NOW and let this corrupt dictator stew in his own juice ?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) yesterday warned jovial, upbeat UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling (pictured above) that he could not afford pre-election giveaways, as official figures revealed that last month was the worst October on record for the public finances. With the Chancellor putting the finishing touches to his pre-budget report, due on 9 December, the Paris-based OECD think tank insisted that “the weak UK fiscal position leaves little room for additional stimulus”, and urged Mr Darling to announce “concrete and comprehensive consolidation plans” to put the government’s finances back in order. What nonsense the OECD talks – there’s no lack of money in the UK - we simply print the stuff – it’s called Quantitative Easing !
You would think that the appointments of a President and a Foreign Minister of the EU would be big news. But last night The first EU President was named as Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy (pictured above). I’m sure major world leaders are queuing up to meet him – Herman Who ? Unknown Baroness Cathy Ashton, the UK’s EU Trade Commissioner, was also celebrating after becoming Europe’s first Foreign Minister. She got the post after being endorsed by Gordon Brown. That’s what happens I suppose when a nonentity gets endorsed by a nonentity. Mr Brown said the appointment would reaffirm Britain’s influence in Europe. What a load of bollocks.
One welcome side effect at least of the appointment of these nobodies is that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (pictured above) didn’t get the EU Presidency. The thought of him strutting about the world stage, not to mention the notion of Cherie Blair coming across as First Lady of Europe, was a nauseating prospect. So Tony’s cynical ploy of converting to Roman Catholicism and all these cosy private audiences with former Hitler Youth and Nazi anti-aircraft gunner Pope Benedict XVI came to nothing. I wonder how many times he’ll attend Mass from now on ?
The rapidly ageing and totally irrelevant Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (pictured above), may well be accused of racist assault. The former mistress, now wife, of the equally rapidly ageing and almost as totally irrelevant Prince Charles, was paying a visit to a nautical-themed Happy Child Harlesdon Nursery, a children’s playground in north-west London yesterday. She bent down to talk to one toddler but as a result her ample behind bumped into 3 year-old Jerrod (above right). Judging by his expression, he wasn’t amused ! Trust Camilla to make an arse of it. But look on the bright side, Jerrod – if you don’t get compensation, at least you’ve got a royal photo for posterity.
Pictured above are 3 of the world’s greatest sports stars. On the left, tennis legend Roger Federer. On the right, golfing legend Tiger Woods. And in the middle, football cheat Thierry Henry. But advertising sponsors are reportedly standing by Henry after the Barcelona striker’s blatant, cheating double handball (pictured below) gave France a place at next year’s Soccer World Cup finals in South Africa at the expense of Ireland.
Sports fans the world over have turned on the football star, who enjoys a global profile partly thanks to an advertising campaign by Gillette, the shaving brand, that placed him in the very top tier alongside Federer and Woods. Advertisers’ decisions to retain Henry after his disgraceful display on Wednesday say plenty about the corrupt state of business – as does the football authorities’ decision neither to punish Henry nor order a replay. It’s not sport any more – it’s grubby, cheating money making and it stinks.
And while we’re on about sporting irregularities, Caster Semenya (pictured above), the controversial South African athlete, will be allowed to keep her (!?) 800 Metre World Championship gold medal (s)he won in Berlin. The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) has ruled that the 18-year-old, who stormed to victory only for questions to be raised about her gender immediately after the race, was innocent of any wrongdoing. Semenya’s victory was overshadowed by the revelation that the IAAF had commissioned a gender test on the teenager. However, South Africa’s government, Semenya’s lawyers and the IAAF have now reached total agreement that (s)he should retain her medal, title and prize money and confirmed that gender tests conducted on Semenya would remain confidential. Why have the tests to remain confidential ? As if we didn’t know. Still, I suppose it would be racist to suggest that the IAAF has made a balls-up.
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I really do wish you’d promote this blog more Jim. It’s one of the most enjoyable I read.
Karzai’s “crusade against corruption” is almost laughable. What we should and must do is to get out of there. I fear for the worst, however, and that would be a timetable.
Camilla: Nothing so poetically justified as her aging. Time can be a great equalizer. Too bad Diana is not here to see it.
On Henry, everything is ran in relations with money,we all know this! It is sad fact that today people that run things are the people with the big bank accounts, sports federations, states especially the “democractic” ones are all fuelled by the thick rich people, you just need to look at Italy to see, its not what you know its who you who with the right amount of money (Craxi and Silvio B.) so lets face it, this notion of democracy is simply an illusion or merely that our western democratic states are all corrupted in one way or another but they are simply corrupted in a manner of “political correctness” so back to the football some French guy within the sports federation had clearly made a bigger “investment” recently than the Irish one.