In many essential aspects, the leader in The Mail today could have been EU Ref, as you find it synthesising the sentiments from our piece here and this one here, plus the issues raised here - from last night.

The Mail has the advantage of coming in late, but its heading, "Focus on the war that matters most" tells you most of its message, the theme being that the government needs to concentrate on issues at home, rather than pouring money down the drain on foreign adventures.

View full article here

Tobacco tax UP from 6pm tonight

Only to improve our health though.

Unfinished Business...title of the next book ?

Dr North made an observation a few years ago that 'them and us' has made a comeback and 'right and left' has had its brief fling in the UK in the twentith century.
Cameron started his first Question Time answer today by robustly congratulating Ed Miliband on his very powerful speech in the pro-War debate agreeing with Cameron (which only 13 MPs opposed).
They really do seem on the same side: 'them and us' with 'them' being the Party Leaders and loyalists.

You do get that feeling ... I certainly see the divide as horizontal rather than vertical.

Stratfor On Libya, The West And The Narrative Of Democracy

While they rightly criticise for not knowing who the rebels are, before wadeing in, one can probably surmise that Iran and Radical islam are watching closely if nor directly involved.

We may well be creating a new radical Islamic state, if not now, then some time in the near future. The take over of Palestine and Lebanon by Hamas, should have given our fools plenty of warning, of what could happen.

This Blog showed how well radical islam plays the victim card in Qanagate. It knows all the right buttons to push to get bleeding heart liberals in a froth and demanding action. Whose to say that isn't what is happening now, as it plays the West this time to help it takeover whole countries, without itself fireing a shot. If true it is a strategy of genius and one way beyond any of the mental pygmies running the West today.

FU,

Exactly.

While Gadaffi has been a serious pain over the years, ways have been found to cope with him. He's more or less a known quantity and seemed to have left some of his more irritating aspects behind.

What follows from this intervention is largely unpredictable, but probably far from what Cameron and Co surmise will be the happy outcome. Obviously, there'll be attempts by radical Islamic states to steer things in the way they want them to go.

If this adventure is justified by Gadaff being a wicked man, killing civilians etc., then why pick on him alone? It isn't hard to make up a list of at least 20 equally wicked men.

There's something very naive and contrived about it all. Once again, no thought whatever seems to have been given to the consequences.

The mental pygmies seem to be facilitators, they do the bidding not of their electorate but to those who control the money and the real power they have bought.
It must be said that oue situation is replicated in many countries albeit in different colours and packages.

World War III: One Nation at a Time
......"Some nations succumb in silence behind the scenes, others are invaded, mercilessly brutalized, and assimilated into the globalist combine. The civil society overlay the globalists use to establish what amounts to a subversive shadow government is always creeping forward no matter how hard a target nation may try to ward it off. Only in the most extreme cases, such as Qaddafi’s Libya has civil society been uprooted entirely – making military intervention an acceptable and inevitable alternative from a globalist perspective.

Indeed there is a battle raging between the corporate-financier oligarchs of New York and London and their ever growing collection of globalist stooges and vassal states worldwide against the rest of free humanity. Each nation that falls to the globalists, however far from our own shores it may be, empowers and emboldens them and is one nation closer to their ultimate goal of one world government.

They have created a perfect system, a strategy of tension, where we wrestle with one battle after another, work to head-off one war after another, expose meddling and subversion in one nation after another all while their agenda moves ever forward."......
http://www.prisonplanet.com/world-war-i ... -time.html

Our political elite are out of step with the British public (nothing new there), but they are in step with the political elite of the EU and thats what really counts.
This latest military adventure is about picking a fight, you can't lose, to demonstrate that the EU has clout. That doesn't mean we can win, because we don't seem to have any military aims to show we have won.
Its a show by the EU political elite to demonstrate they can project power. Who they are showing off to I'm not quite sure, but I suspect it is to each other. On the other hand it could be a way to demonstrate that the recent or planned cuts to the military haven't really affected the ability to project military power. A sort of, "See we can still do it", therefore our SDR was right.
Its pathetic really, and if people weren't being killed and wounded it would also be laughable.

This really is the point, isn't it. We are spending all this money, yet we seem to have no firm ideas of what we are seeking, and may end up creating a situation which is actually worse than we already have.

Very well said, the 'snoring twenties' the time when politicians vied collectively, to see how far up their rears, they could push their heads.

Common reasons for starting wars have been:

Unifying the country under its leader against an external threat. People are disinclined to criticise the basis for war once the shooting starts.

Distracting attention from events at home.

I'd say that amongst other things we are seeing Cameron applying a tried and tested formula. However, it's all a bit hot on the heels of the Iraq and Afghanistan embroilments which didn't end with grateful populaces showering tanks with flowers and everyone living happily ever after, as in the script.

Sarko the Mad Dwarf certainly qualifies for the 2nd, he is behind Martine le Pen in some polls and she is makeing a big deal over immigration. This all suits him very well....

As for our own Green Tosser, I really wonder what he thinks is in it for him.....if there was anyone with a functioning brain around him, they'd have realised there was very little to gain and a massive amount to lose, especially with Obummer being so totally useless. Obummer is almost guaranteed to do whatever is the worst possible action......but the Green Tosser thinks the sun shines out of his proverbial.

With all the dissent showing up, ie Germany takeing all it's assets back and Obummer so craven, all Gaddafi has to do is lay low for a while and wait them out and then where will our two great leaders be......neither of whom can do a damn thing without the US......looking very stupid indeed.

This has all the makeings of a very big ballsup.

FU (Fed up )
Comet
You may have got it right, anyway there is little chance of doing damage to Gaddafi he is 200 meters underground in his 'I am going to live for ever' 10 star anti-nuke holiday complex.

Libya, Ronald Reagans "Unfinished business"

As for our own Green Tosser....

Well, like it or not Blair did very well out of the Iraq war. It was a major coup to get the Tories to go along with it thereby largely neutering the subsequent investigation. The inquiries were very well finessed. I doubt Blair was doing deals with Halliburton, but it set him up for the lecture tour in the USA. It didn't seem to do that much to damage his electoral success and I'd say that the idea that he'll be brought to book is an extremely remote possibility. I was amazed that the messes in Afghanistan and Iraq weren't hung round his neck, but they weren't.

Maggie did pretty well out of the Falklands, admittedly in much different circumstances.

People like wars, with pictures of jet planes and tales of derring do, if they don't turn into an obvious mess straight away - all the planes shot down and carriers sunk, thousands mown down without firing a shot. Gadaffi won't take much beating up.

Cameron's got the whole HoC behind him, much like Blair. He hasn't told the lies that Blair had to tell. Gadaffi is much more of a bogey man than Sadam was. He's off playing as the statesman who's off moving an international coalition. He's demonstrating that EU cooperation in defence matters works - well sort of. That helps set him up for the future.

I'd say that was his line of thinking. As to what happens if Gadaffi manages to survive or the whole thing turns into a mass of intractable tribal wars with much damage to oil installations, or becomes a democracy, which promptly elects a fundamentalist government which fulfils its manifesto promises by ending this democracy nonsense and returning the country to the 14th century?