Whatgetsmygoat

If John F Kennedy's ghost is wandering around the White House, he must be smiling at the ongoing debate about a possible troop surge in Afghanistan.History has a weird way of repeating itself.

In 1961, Kennedy was involved in a debate about South Vietnam. The United States was determined to prevent a Communist takeover of its client regime. The President,Ngo Dinh Diem was an American puppet who relied on Washington's support.His regime lacked popular ,especially in the countryside, and corruption was rife. He was also at war with the Viet Cong, which was a guerilla army formed in South Vietnam to overthrow him.

Kennedy had a problem,as he recognised Diem's faults, but he also had to support him. More troops(advisers) were sent from the United States, which meant that the Americans' role increased in an undeclared war. The more troops you send, the more you look like a colonial power or an army of occupation. The more troops you send, the more chance that they will get shot at or worse.You then end up with more casualties.You invest so much politically and militarily, that you cannot abandon your client.You are trapped.

Does any of this sound familiar?The statements made in the early 1960s could easily have been made today.If you replace Communism with the word terrorism, then all the speeches sound just the same as the ones we hear about Afghanistan.Just replace the Viet Cong with the word the Taleban/ Al Qaeda.Hamid Karzai is a dead ringer, historically, for Diem.

Kennedy's Administration was divided over South Vietnam in the same way that Barack Obama's is. Do you send more troops or do you walk away?You have a national leader who is surrounded by corruption and who lacks popular support.The paralells are scary.

By 1963, Kennedy gave the nod to the South Vietnamese generals to overthrow Diem.The rest as we say,is history.

Let's hope that Afghanistan does not prove to be Obama's Vietnam.

If you are over 35,you may recall that there was once a US President called Jimmy Carter. He was a former Governor from Georgia who defeated Gerald Ford in 1976. Jimmy Carter's appeal was that he was a Christian, he was a fresh face and he seemed too good to be true. Jimmy Carter was one of the most intelligent men ever to be elected to the Presidency.The only problem is, he was an awful President.

I bring this up because I'm wondering if Barack Obama is going the same way.The world needs American leadership now more than ever. Yet so far, we are still waiting for action. We need to see movement with the Middle East. The Palestinians need to believe that their aspirations will be met, that one day they will have a state to call their own. In conjunction with that, Israel needs to be re assured that her security is guaranteed. Only the United States can kick start this peace process. If that means putting presssure on Israel to stop building settlements , then so be it.We need America to wade in, especially as George Bush was never bothered about peace in the Middle East.

The West is still waiting for Obama to make a decision about further troops as requested by General Stanley McChrystal. The request was made ages ago, and yet we are still waiting. The Dutch, the Canadians and of course, the British are all kept in limbo. The worst thing for the NATO alliance is loss of faith in American leadership. This happened to Jimmy Carter in the 1978, when he dithered about the Neutron Bomb. West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt lost all belief in Carter.

George Bush left Obama with such a mess, from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay. It's amazing that Obama can sleep at night. After all the euphoria has died down ffrom last year's election, we need to know that Barack Obama can fill the chair in the Oval Office.

I am praying that he is the real deal, and not Carter Mark 2.

You have got to be kidding me!Tony Blair is seriously being touted as President of the European Council, with Gordon Brown supporting him.Has the world gone mad?

Tony Blair was not a committed European. During the ten years that he spent in Downing Street, he was so pro American to the point of embarassment. He willingly supported Bill Clinton when he bombed Iraq in 1998,and joined in the war in Kososvo.After 9/11, Blair was the first European leader to fly to Washington to express his support to George W Bush.Blair willingly agreed to the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no link between Saddamm Hussein and Al Qaeda. We were told repeatedly that there was intelligence that indicated that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that there was clear and present danger to our security. Blair stood in parliament and spouted all this bullshit, perhaps convincing himself that this was the truth.

The French and the Germans were not convinced, and for their sins, they were subjected to attacks in the media, basically calling them cowards.How can Blair call himself a good European?

We never got a referendum on the euro,party because he was too much of a pussy with Rupert Murdoch. The support of the Sun was seen as far more important than our long term economic future.That was Tony Blair's committment to the European project.

I suspect that ego and vanity is a major factor in this. Some leaders become addicted to motorcades and entourages that they find it hard to let go.

Tony Blair is just the wrong man for the job.

Let's be blunt: Nick Griffin is a racist m___________r, who leads a nasty vile party. He is a white supremacist who would probably love to see anyone who is not white sent to the far corners of the Earth.He's that charming!The BNP are a bunch of racists that hark back to another era. We know exactly where the BNP is coming from.

Despite this,we cannot pretend that the BNP don't exist.Afterall,they now have elected members in the European Parliament.The recent leaked list of the BNP members reveals that its members include teachers, nurses, the Police and(ahem)the clergy.So the members are not knuckle dragging Neanderthals ,but they cut across all sections of society. Therefore, we should be given the opportunity to hear Nick Griffin live on Question Time. He cannot claim that his words were edited or taken out of context. We can hear the garbage that comes out of the sewer that he calls a mouth.

I object to the Anti Nazi League or any left wing pressure group telling me what to think. I got into an argument with some guy who wanted me to sign a petition outside the LSE.I told him that Nick Griffin should be heard on the BBC because we can make up our minds.Shouting him down or banning him is what he wants.That feeds into his warped view that he speaks the Truth.Let us listen to this Holocaust denier spout his crap.He will condemn himself with his own words, and show us who he really is.

By the way, it would be fun to give Griffin a DNA test. Wouldn't it be hilarious if he Asian or Black blood somewhere in his gene pool!

In the United States, there is a debate within the Obama Administration about the strategy to fight the war in Afghanistan.Do we send more troops or do we use more planes and drones to fight the Taliban? It's almost certain that Barack Obama will send more troops based on General McCrystal's report,to fight the insurgents.

My qustion is: where is the debate in this country?There is no discussion here about strategy or Britain's interests. I get the impression is that Gordon Brown is waiting for Obama to give the green light so that he can send more British troops. Is that what we are Little Miss Echo?Neither the Tories nor Labour have engaged in any strategic debate on Britain's long time interests. Do we have to send more troops to fight in a country for a regime that is corrupt and whose legitimacy is in serious doubt? Our interest should not, must not be to copy the United States. We should map out what is best for Britain.

For so long,Britain's foreign policy seemed to rubber stamp Washington. From the Gulf War in 1991, Kosovo,the invasion of Iraq and the current in Afghanistan, we have opted to support both Bushes and the Clinton Administration. Tony Blair was so keen to cosy up to the USA that he joined George W Bush in a crazy war in Iraq based on faulty, some would say doctored intelligence. Britain's reputation has never recovered.

One of the few British leaders to see Britain's interests may be different from Washington's was Ted Heath. He drove through Britain's entry into the then EEC in 1972.He was not that keen to suck up to Washington.Our long term interests lay in being part of this political-economic power bloc.He was right.

If David Cameron does enter Downing Street,then he will need to conduct a review about Britain's interests abroad.

I have a horrible feeling that he will be Tony Blair-lite.He may prove me wrong.