A view on UK Foreign Policy

Classic clip from Yes Prime Minister

Living in the End Times:

Brilliant Documentary by Marxist Philosopher Slavoj Zizek

The Death of Bin Laden: Why the 10 year Wait?

The death of Osama Bin laden, source of triumph for the Obama administration and a source of US suspicion and embarrassment of the pakistani intelligence community, has brought an end to a manhunt that has spanned a decade and a half. Bin Laden was found in a compound worth $1 million in a relatively affluent area in Pakistan situated next to the country's 'equivalent 'Westpoint or Sandhurst'. The discovery then liquidation of Bin Laden, while celebrated by the US government officials and the general public at large, has brought up more questions than answers, two of which proved to be prominent, firstly, how can Bin Laden go undetected  in compound near to a military academy not to mention the various clues that should have led to at least a minor growth of suspicion with respect to million dollar property with colombian drug dealer like security levels without internet access or any another form of communication and secondly, why has it taken so long to find, capture, and kill Osama Bin Laden given that Bin Laden's broke his usual pattern of evasion in 2005, despite it being well known his whereabouts were in pakistan. A plausible answer to these questions lies in a change in priorities as shown in the video below.

         

Bush's attitude in the video towards the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden seems to provide ample reason why finding Bin Laden required such a wait and can explain why the CIA shut down Alec Station in 2006, a unit dedicated well before Bin Laden became a 'household name' to killing or capturing him with focus shifted to foiling plots from 'Al-Qaeda inspired groups' rather than actually addressing key 'Organisations and Individuals'. This follows the trend experienced by other units in pursuits of Bin Laden such as Delta Force were reassigned from their hunt for Bin Laden to Al-Zarqawi, with the escalation of the iraq war between 2005-06. 

It can be argued that this change in tact and target could be due to considerable growth in the knowledge of Al-Qaeda an organization acknowledging the decentralized structure and the increased occurrence of  terrorist attacks independent of any central command. In sum, the death of Bin Laden signals neither the beginning or end with respect to the war on terror but a major scalp on the battlefield from which the US can draw hope, however the 'scalp in question happens to be a scalp that should not have taken ten years to claim.                 

deconstructing popular myths

A real account of capitalism of without bells and whistles

-

the irony of domino theory

The pro-democracy or anti-backed by the west-dictatorial strongmen movement that has spread across the middle east region in recent weeks has proven the old, cold war influenced idea of domino theory, which posits the emergence of social change or politico-social norms in one country in a region will eventually spread to fellow states in its region. This logic was applied brutally throughout the cold war as the social change that sent a shudder down the spine of many americans at the time was communism, with states accepting then applying the political processes that the Kremlin favored, deemed unacceptable among the political class. 

This lead to a number of  leaders and strongmen who were brought to power or backed by the US in the hope of staving the rapid growth of communism. This policy, Realpolitik at its most cynical, involved many deaths at the hands of those leaders in the effort to silence all dissent or challenge against the regime, however this policy, slowly in some places and quickly in others, began to unravel as these dictators found themselves facing broad mass movements within their countries demand their dismissal and/or major political reforms. In the middle east region this meant mostly the substitution of one tyranny for another, the Iranian Islamic revolution serves as a key case of this instance. 

fast forward to the present day, the world bears witness to scenes in the middle east many political observers never thought would be so widespread in the region as  observed longevity of autocratic rule in the region suggested that such political arrangement were to be the norm in the middle east, with some political commentators and academics arguing that such rule was what citizens in the region preferred.The last few has forever crushed such arguments and resurrected a cold war relic as a key idea to explain the current developments in middle east as the spread of movements calling for reform or dismissal . 

In libya, this clash of wills between the people and those in power has become bloody, however, such blood was not spilled in vain as anti-Gaddafi forces have managed to claim half the country through an unshakable will for change (how that will look like is unclear due to the complex political set up in Libya) and defections of the army in the east, refusing to use force against fellow citizens. In sum politics has a funny way disproving new ideas and vindicating old ones proving all political are small morsels of political reality, some obviously less than others