You mean we are not

Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked a very reasonable question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the light of the numbers of British troops fighting in Afghanistan, they are directly involved in peace talks between the Taliban, the United States and the Government of Afghanistan; and, if not, why not.

Lord Howell's minions in the FCO replied on behalf of HMG:

The UK has always supported an Afghan-led political process to help bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. At the start of the year, the Taliban issued a statement expressing a willingness to participate in a political office in Qatar. President Karzai recently publicly endorsed the idea of an office in Qatar. We are supporting the Government of Afghanistan in its efforts to take this process forward.

I take it the answer is no, we are not and have no real way of making sure that we have any say in the matter. Why not, exactly?

Verdict first, sentence later

Or, in the modern world, which is so topsy-turvy that Lewis Carroll would find it far too confusing, apology first, inquiry later. Apparently there were reports, so far unconfirmed, that some Korans might have been burnt by NATO troops after "books were taken from prisoners after the US uncovered a secret Taliban message system".

As soon as those unconfirmed reports went out crowds gathered outside Bagram, with people getting hysterical and one person being hurt when NATO troops fired rubber bullets.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the reports that the Koran had been burnt, as did the Taliban who said the incident would hurt the feelings "of one billion Muslims around the world".

To be fair, this is excellent propaganda for the Taliban whose care for the feelings of Muslims (particularly those they murder and torture) is well known and not much else can be expected these days from President Karzai who is looking forward to a very uncertain future. However, when it comes to NATO commanders one would prefer to expect something more rational:

The Nato commander in Afghanistan has apologised over reports foreign troops may have burnt copies of the Koran. Announcing an inquiry, US Gen John R Allen said any "improper disposal" of religious materials was inadvertent.

Would it not be a good idea to have that inquiry first and try to establish what happened and only then apologize, if necessary, rather than give propaganda points to the other side?

NGOs criticized shock!

A very good and very detailed article in Der Spiegel about the ghastly NGOs in Afghanistan and their lack of popularity. Something to do with the fact that they dare not leave Kabul, spend their money on their own security and welfare, appear to be pally with the Taliban, undermine the local economy and, generally, help nobody but themselves. Otherwise, there is nothing terribly wrong with them.

The Boss over on EUReferendum is ahead of me. He has linked already.

Something of a mess

There is so much around, especially on American blogs about the Obama - McChrystal mess that it seems superfluous to add anything. The best summary seems to be by Claudia Rossett, which is not surprising. Glenn Reynolds adds his own comments. Politico thinks that, whichever way you look at it, this is an embarrassment for the White House, as, indeed, was the earlier altercation when President Obama dithered about his response to General McChrystal's plan that he had asked for. Michael Yon, as we all know, has been warning for some time. Here is that "infamous" piece on NRO. A couple of comments here and here on Neo-Neocon are worth reading and mulling over. And, of course, Michelle Malkin on the "McChrystal mess". There really is no other way of putting it. As it happens, I do not see any parallel with General MacArthur, who went directly against the Commander-in Chief, that is the President. This mess could have been avoided by both sides.

UPDATE: The Boss deals in his own inimitable fashion with General McChrystal's enforced resignation. I do not, as it happens, agree that President Obama has come out well. This problem was created by him and reasserting his undoubted abilities as a Chicago thug will not go down well with the people of the country, many of whom would, in other circumstances agree that the general acted wrongly. For one thing, as this round-up by Glenn Reynolds reminds us, General McChrystal was President Obama's hand-picked successor to General McKiernan who had been unceremoniously removed.

Muddled heads

On various occasions I have articulated my belief that left-wing feminists are seriously muddleheaded. Either that or completely dishonest. Of course, one does not preclude the other.

Let us look at a couple of stories that demonstrate the above contentions. Via Instapundit we hear that Code Pink, the most vociferous women's anti-war movement is reconsidering its attitude about withdrawal from Afghanistan.

An article in The Christian Science Monitor describes meetings between representatives of Code Pink and various women in Afghanistan with the latter falling over themselves to assure their American "sisters" that they do not wish to see American troops pull out as yet. The consequences of such an action in the country and especially as far as women are concerned would be catastrophic.

The surprised Code Pink representatives are reconsidering their position. The only problem is that, as far as women in Afghanistan are concerned, this is not exactly new. We have been hearing this for several years and Code Pink have been criticized for not paying sufficient attention to the plight of women in that country. What has made them change their minds? Could it be the fact that George W. Bush is no longer President? That Barack H. Obama is entitled to their support (assuming he does decide to stay in Afghanistan)? Could it be that the movement was not really about peace or American "imperialism" but about undermining a Republican President? Surely not.

Let us now look at something else. It is one of the cornerstones of left-wing feminism that opposition to Israel is the correct attitude; that feminists must support the Palestinian struggle, regardless of how that affects women.

Noah Pollak points to an interesting contrast on Commentary Magazine, linking back to relevant articles.

As the LA Times reports, this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been shared between three people, two Americans and one Israeli. The latter is not only the first winner so far who is not American, either born or naturalized, but is also a woman, the first to win a science Nobel Prize since 1964. (One of the winners of the Medicine Prize was also a woman, this time an American.)

So that's Israel, where women can rise in their chosen profession as far as their abilities will take them and can win distinguished prizes for their work.

What of the Palestinians, the chosen cause of left-wing feminism? Fortunately, Noah Pollok provides another link. The Jerusalem Post tells us that in Gaza (where there are no Israeli troops so they cannot pull out any more) Hamas has banned women from riding on motorcycles as this is not in keeping with traditional Islamic ideas. (I don't suppose there were motorcycles in the days those ideas were developed.)

The decision to ban women from riding motorcycles was published by the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the movement's security forces in the Gaza Strip.

The decision is seen in the context of Hamas's efforts to enforce strict Islamic teachings in the area.

Two months ago, a Hamas judge issued an order requiring all women who appear in court to wear the hijab.

Men and women who are seen together are regularly stopped by Hamas policemen or militiamen who question them about the nature of their relationship.

Let us remember this the next time we hear feminist organizations proclaiming their support for Palestinians against Israeli oppression. Who exactly is being oppressed and by whom?

A difficult problem

I have just taken part in a discussion on the BBC Russian Service about the elections in Afghanistan. This was a general talk about the problems of trying to run democratic elections in a basically undemocratic country and whether democracy can grow where there are no democratic traditions.

My immediate point was that the problem with Afghanistan is the war going on there and just recently the military situation had deteriorated. There was no time to suggest that one reason for that may have been that Iraq is a good deal more stable and some of the erstwhile insurrectionists have gone to Afghanistan. Also, the Pakistani government has announced that the Taliban is leaving their country. We must wait and see how true that is but if it is, they must be going somewhere and Afghanistan seems the obvious first port of call. Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, has suggested that "foreign al-Qaeda fighters were now leaving Pakistan for Somalia; others were returning to their home countries in Sudan and Yemen".

As it happens I do not think all countries with less than democratic histories are hopelessly lost to the concept of liberal democracy, though that does involve considerably more than just elections. Just look at post-war Japan, suggested I cheerfully.

The Russian interviewer and interviewee, a professor of political science in Moscow, were less sanguine as they referred to the example of Russia in the nineties, where elections were fixed because otherwise Zhirinovsky's Communists most probably would have won and the first free election would also have been the last.

The problem of building civil society and liberal democracy in Russia appears to have no immediate solution and under President Prime Minister Putin and his mishka, President Medvedev, the process has suffered severe set-backs.

Another piece of news, that can be related to this topic, was that one of the largest railway stations in Moscow, the Kursk-Kol'tsovaya Station has been refurbished to its pristine 1950 look, which includes carved slogans that glorify Stalin, including the famous war-time cry: "За родину, за Сталина", "For Stalin and our motherland". (You can see the pictures here.)

A number of humanitarian organizations are planning to go to court, to demand that the slogans be removed. The assumption must have been that the station will be refurbished without those words. The big question is, therefore, what will the courts decide and will financial considertaions prevail over people's sensibilities. An even bigger question is what sort of public reaction are we likely to see.

And while we are on the subject of Russia and nostalgia, Sergei Mikhalkov the poet has died at the age of 96. He was a very well known and fairly talented children's poet. If pushed, I could probably recite some of the poems I learned as a very young child even now. He was also a writer of prose works and film scripts, some very successful. I find from the Russian Service website that he was a war correspondent who was wounded at Stalingrad.

His greatest claim to fame, however, is that he wrote no less than two (well, two and a half, since he had to remove references to Stalin in 1977 from the original) versions of what was first the Soviet, then the Russian national anthem, both to the same tune. Amazingly enough, the new words refer to the great country protected by God and Mikhalkov cheerfully explained that, of course, he had always been religious but could not admit to it in the Soviet period.

He was, of course, a good party apparatchik who led the attacks on Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sinyavsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, among others.