Or, to look at it another way….
“I think our political weakness has been our lack of courage in defining what price we are not willing to pay for European membership,”
Liam Fox (Shadow Foreign Secretary)
[Thanks, EU Serf]
US troops are part of the solution, part of the problem
US generals are saying publicly now that the insurgency in Iraq could go on for many years and that, in fact, holding out until it’s over is a non-runner. The emphasis must be on training the Iraqis to deal with it themselves.
Herein lies a problem, however. Leaving aside the relative inability of the very average Iraqi army to fill in for the mighty US one to combat a fierce and murderous suicide campaign, the very presence of the US military means the Iraqi Army will never learn to stand on its own two feet.
Furthermore, according to the Generals, it may well be that the US presence in Iraq is actually fuelling the very insurgency they are fighting.
During a trip to Washington, the generals said the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing terrorists across the Middle East.
“This has been hinted at before, but it’s a big shift for them to be saying that publicly,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It means they recognize that there is a cost to staying just as there is a benefit to staying. And this has not really been factored in as a central part of the strategy before.”
I doubt the insurgency will decrease significantly until all the coalition troops are gone - and even then the killing may go on against what the insurgents will see as collaborators. This will include most of the Iraqi security and police forces.
Additionally, an ideal exit strategy is going to be difficult - if impossible - to come by. If staying in Iraq until the insurgency is defeated is now not an option then the US has to be extremely careful that any pullout does not appear to be surrender in the insurgents’ eyes. Every attempt will be made to ensure it’s seen as one.
This war between the west and Muslim terrorists is being played out on battlefield Iraq. The world is watching but it is the US who has most to lose if the world concludes that it blinked first…
Sexist to say mothers’ care is best
Yesterday we found out what we already knew: children are better off cared for by their mothers than by nurseries and childminders - and even other relatives.
Today, the boringly predictable response courtesy of the taxpayer-funded Equal Opportunities Commission: It’s sexist to say children are better off with their mothers. See how the left mixes up fact with their utopian dreaming:
Jenny Watson, the commission’s acting chairman, said: “We are sorry to see the National Childminding Association following the assumptions of decades ago by restricting its research on the needs of children to the role of mothers, ignoring the contribution increasingly played by fathers.”
The commission is due to publish research which it says “proved that both men and women had more confidence in men’s child care abilities”.
“Four in five new fathers are happy to stay at home to look after the baby,” Miss Watson said. “Fewer and fewer people believe in the inflexible model of a stay-at-home mother and breadwinner father.”
Do they miss the point deliberately or because they’re not following the plot? There is a world of difference between creating the social conditions that make it easier for a father to be the stay-at-home parent and it being the best possible arrangement for the child’s benefit. Just because fathers want to spend more time in child-rearing does not mean they are as effective as women.
I’d happily stay at home to raise our kids; in fact, it makes economic sense since my Mrs can out-earn me anyway. Bottom line though is she wants to do it and will provide our kids with more of the right kind of nurturing during their early years than I can. That’s no failing on my part, just one of those leftist-unfriendly facts of life that the left just can’t come to terms with.
From The Daily Telegraph:
Prison staff have been told to stop wearing Cross of St George tiepins because they could be “misinterpreted'’ as a racist symbol.
Maybe these cultural awareness courses that white people are sometimes compelled to attend should be opened up for others. If people construe the English flag as a racist symbol then maybe it is they who need some education rather than the badge wearers be forced to remove the badge.
Inspectors said several black or minority ethnic prisoners reported that “white staff had a lack of cultural understanding of their background and they were disadvantaged in systematic small ways that were not recognised'’. In addition, “the canteen list had an inadequate range of affordable skin and hair products for black prisoners”.
Are our prisons too soft? When the lack of appropriate hair-care products is cause for complaint I think they might just well be…
