Nobel Peace Prize for Cameroon in the offing

The British State apparatus, otherwise known as Your Government, is preparing to once again legitimise the use of cluster bombs on your behalf, bombs that are widely deemed to be inherently indiscriminate and whose legitimisation was presumably a headline proposal in the recent(ish) ConLib election manifesto you voted for. Oops, no, it wasn't.

Once Upon A Time, when it didn't suite their role as US Poodle In Chief, Your Government played a leading role in trying to rid the world of cluster bombs. Your Government was one of 111 countries that signed up to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and was on target to destroy its own stockpile, and had ordered the US military to remove any submunitions it holds on British soil. Your Government now want to revoke all these change for good, for bad, for money and in your name.
 

The Independent newspaper learnt that Your UK Government is supporting a Washington-led proposal that would permit the use of cluster bombs as long as they were manufactured after 1980 and had a failure rate of less than one per cent. Well that's O.K. then, seems perfectly reasonable to me. (So - for approx. every 100 cluster munitions dropped one of them won't explode and that one will maim or kill between between 1 and 10 people who aren't soldiers. Fair enough or Enough's A Nough?)

 

Arms campaigners say the 1980 cut-off point is arbitrary, and that many modern cluster bombs have far higher failure rates on the field of battle than manufacturers claim. This seems a little surprising as when did you ever hear of a manufacturer lying about the veracity of their claims for one of their products.
Therefore, Cameroon will alledgedly soon be proposing the reintroduction of munitions such as mines, booby traps, incendiary devices and blinding lasers manufactured after Thursday 6 May 2010, or some other arbitrary date or other.

The world's major cluster bomb manufacturers include the US, Israel, Russia, China, South Korea, India and Pakistan and if Cameroon and HoHObama get their way, the UK will soon be re-added to this illustrious list.

Arms campaigners say the draft proposal would effectively legalise almost all cluster bombs and be a nail in the coffin of the hard-won cluster bomb ban, which is all but two years old. Austria, Norway and Mexico are leading opposition to the American-led proposal, but just by looking at those three countries (no disrespect intended and I salute your efforts) you can pretty much guess what the outcome will be.

In a briefing paper, the Cluster Munition Coalition – which campaigns against the weapons – said that every recorded incident of cluster bomb use since 2008 had involved submunitions that were manufactured after 1980.

Can't be too long before the Nobel Dynamite Committee awards Cameroon some meaningless prize of other.
(Ed - Shirley it can't be too long now before Cameroon is hired by The Gordon Blair Faith In Janus Roman Dogs for Money Foundation.

Or read the original article here.

US invades Australia - No lives lost - Yet

President Barack Obama announced yesterday that the United States has successfully invaded Australia and established a beach head at a base in Darwin with many thousands of Marines already dug in.

Northern Australia's proximity to the South China Sea, closer than US bases in Japan and South Korea, is part of its appeal, the head of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Robert Willard, said from between clenched teeth. Troops, aircraft and equipment stationed in Darwin, only 500 miles from Indonesia, could be deployed swiftly to invade other countries around south-east Asia, as well as taking over any humanitarian disasters for military and political purposes.

Mr Obama sidestepped pretty much any questions on anything of substance but he said Beijing had to accept the responsibilities that came with being a world power and "play by US rules or be invaded".

At a news conference in Canberra with the sell out Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, he said: "The notion that we fear China is entirely true. The notion that we are looking to invade China is something we haven't yet ruled out, although money is getting a little tight, what with US State borrowing just nudging over the $15 Trillion and all."

Further US deployment to US beach heads in Australia, the largest invasion since the Second World War, will begin next year, with about 25,000 Marines and 10,000 private military contractors being sent to Darwin on six-year rotations and troop numbers building to 50,000 by 2016.

Or read the original article here.

Cameroon and Shmerkel: all smiles but no progress

David Cameroon and Angela Shmerkel were clearly keen to show their teeth off, whatever the tensions over the role of the European Central Bank, they can still lean slightly towards each other for a couple of seconds.

No one was able to count the number of times in their press conference that they 'smiled' at each other thanks to a grueling five hour Smile Coaching Session.

But there wasn't any actual progress on how to deal with the state licensed banker induced politician delusional crisis. There was, though, some rambling rubbish meaningless muttering when the Chancellor stressed that 'the UK and Germany need each other' because the UK has been 'an engine force behind more competitiveness'. This was a reminder that the Germans really don't like the French.

Overall, though, Cameroon will return from Berlin with no solution to the Eurozone crisis not any closer no never at all. Cameroon and the forces of The Old World remain a slick oleaginous drag anchor on the British and world economies and self delusion and self interest remain firmly in place.

 Or read the original article here - Coffee House - The Spectator Blog