It's not the problem stupid; it's the solution.

Numbers are coming out on the BBC news channels regarding the growing populations of refugees. Folks running from the horrors in Darfur and Zimbawe are adding to those along the borders of Afghanistan, Irag, and Burma and of course the internal refugees in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh . . . Sudan, CDR, Monrovia . . . . it's endless. The refugee problem is endless because even if governments could behave so openly and wisely as to avert subversion the elements will have their way in the form of meteorlogical and siesmic activity - Solomon himself could not prepare for every eventuality. Or could he? Could we?

Well we know what happens if you build a city below the water table. So don't do it. Don't shore it up with levies and dams because the mothere and father of all tropical storms will hit just at the wrong time and you and your are swimming. So if you live in New Orleans, move out. If you live in Calclutta, stay way back from the river; it floods. It floods a lot.

Who dares to make change?

It is now clear to all who have watched the ebb and flow of Middle East Madness over the last sixty years that whatever we, the rich nations of the west, are doing in Iraq, it's not helping. The situation is not improving and we have failed to bring about political stability or even to provide a regular supply of food and electricity to the long suffering populous.

By way of a reminder it was for the populous that we invaded Iraq; to free them from the tyranny of Sadam and not, as we first thought, to nip the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction in bud. UN investigators did not find WMDs and were of the opinion that there were none to find. There was evidence-a-plenty to support claims of tyranny and even ethinic cleansing, so we used that instead.

We are in Iraq to change the regime and help the people along the road to democratic freedom and material prosperity. But we are failing - witness the unending street violence and the refugees piling up at the borders - and must conclude that our policies are not working. Which is tempting, but sadly not true because there is another agenda with another set of goals outside of the interests of the Iraqi people.

Our policies are in fact hugely successful if you bear in mind that Bush and Blair, staunch Christians both, head the two biggest armaments countries in world and are therefore serving their god and their populous well. Every rocket fired and bomb dropped adds to the wage packet of British and US workers, puts pennies and dimes on the share prices, and helps drive the non-believers from the Holy Land.

Never mind that it costs the lives of a soldier here and there, it keeps many more from the dole queues.

It is perhaps harsh then to agree with David Frost and the British PM that "Iraq is pretty much a disaster," because to do so is to limit one to the purely humanitarian point of view. Should we contrive to have both commercial success and humanitarian progress then "Iraq would become pretty much a success," but that would require a radical change in policy. That would require a direct targeting of Iraqi hearts and minds through the provision food, shelter, medicine and education. Which could also provide a dividend for the construction, catering, medical and education industries but it would have to be huge to match the returns from the guns and bombs business.

Who would dare; who of those waiting incandescent with political ambition in the wings to take on the mantle of world responsibility would dare announce, " We can no longer guarantee the safety of civilians in so we are going to bring our 170,000 troops home along with a million Iraqis who would like to learn the joys of a peaceful non-sectarian government in a first world country.

Would Gordon Brown do that? Could he quietly put it to the folks in and around Basra that he is not prepared to spend anymore British lives taking care of folks who would rather look after themselves, and instead offer aid to those who can use it in their homeland, and a place in Britain for the poor dislocated souls pouring over the borders all day every day. That would be a very Christian thing to do.

Perhaps Barack Obama could throw down the gauntlet with the cry, "Not one more death on my watch. Not one more soldier to die in that foreign land. My troops are coming home to America, to the land of opportunity, to the home of the brave." Well that would be courageous. That would require a brave citizen to say to the millions displaced and disgraced by the world's most murderous war machine, "I'm sorry. Here is aid, here is a place to live and learn and let your sectarion blinkers fall away. Here in the land of the free. Come and be American." My that would be a very brave Christian.

Posted 15th June 2007

Comments: