Will Afghanistan be Barack Obama's Vietnam? I sincerely hope not. Over 58,000 US military forces personnel lost their lives in Vietnam, with another 2,000 still missing. The goal of the US presence in Afghanistan is unclear to me. They are propping up what appears to be a corrupt regime. For example, President Hamid Karzai turned a blind eye to last year's alleged loss, through abuse, of two thirds of his country's annual revenue amounting to $1.6 billion. The international community seems to be reluctant to fight this corruption head-on, and this has inextricably linked it with the despised administration.
Talking of corruption, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, according to a recent report by monitoring group Freedom House, is another government that leaves a great deal to be desired. This is another President that fiddles his elections and presides over a corrupt state. This is a man who prays for holy guidance and tells lies about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Corruption and cronyism is rife in Iran. The State Audit Court has revealed numerous cases of embezzlement from state agencies, the Freedom House report said, citing $6 billion in oil revenues that was never deposited in the national treasury last year. It's only a matter of time before the Israelis take revenge for Ahmadinejad saying that he'd like to destroy the State of Israel.
Not that the Israelis are much better. I believe there will be no peace in those parts of the world until the Israelis stop treating the Palestinians as second-class citizens, and stop bulldozing their homes and stealing their lands to build more settlements. There was another country that did this sort of thing some seventy years ago; they also wanted lebensraum at someone else's expense.
Getting closer to home, I see Gordon Brown has fired the starting gun for the next general election. Labour hopes aren't high, but what else is out there? Do you think the Tory hopefuls, Cameron, Osborne and Haig, will be any better? But the Sun and Rupert Murdoch will be trying to dictate who will be the next PM, as usual.
As for the Liberal Democrats pushing Nick Clegg - he's got no chance. I reckon I've got more chance of being Prime Minister than him. If Clegg really thought anything of the Liberal Democrats as a party he would move aside for Vince Cable.
Playing at home, Lib-Dem local white hope Andrew Simpson is being pushed as the candidate for Northampton North. What chance has he got with the recent record of the Lib-Dems in this town? Not a party you'd even want to be associated with, let alone try to represent. The time of their arrogant, blustering, blundering reign is running out, and as always the pen will be proved mightier than the sword.
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