OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Getting Better

A quiet day yesterday after the excesses and illness of the Easter weekend. Too much, curry, tagliatelli, ale, lager, wine and God-knows-what had left me intellectually and physically drained.

So back to work today after a crap night’s sleep. As I get older, I just can’t seem to drift off like I used to. All sorts of thoughts start churning through my head. When I do sleep it’ll be for a couple of hours then I wake again and lie there in a sort of semi-coma, dreaming and dreaming and dreaming and.......

Finally, when it’s time to get up, I end up knackered. Still – not a lot of work to do at the moment so I was able to drag myself through it. Could've been worse. I could've had a morning like this poor bugger. Had to grab 40 winks and dinner though.

Wonder where the phrase 40 winks comes from ?

The Chimes of Freedom

Still, thank God Iraq's been liberated and George will soon be able to salute a democratically-elected, religious government - almost like his own. A government probably overwhelmingly supported by the majority Shi'Ites. A majority that has been systematically persecuted by the minority Sunni's over the past 20 - odd years. I somehow can't see much scope for 'truth and reconciliation'.

Still - at least the elections should be democratic - unlike the one that gave us hanging chads and George Dubya.

Does history teach the statesmen of the world anything, do you think ? Why would the 'coalition' believe that, by creating a power-vacuum in Iraq, nobody would attempt to step into it until Jay and his chums were good and ready to let them ? Wherever you look when oppressive regimes are overthrown, (USSR and Yugoslavia for example), years of score-settling, political manouvreing and military opportunism rise to the surface. We're playing a dangerous game out there at the moment. I foresee a non-secular, democratically-elected government in Iraq. Possibly followed by a civil-war.

Anybody got any ideas how to prevent this ? I'd love to be able to say "go ahead - George and Tony are listening". But I don't think they are. Do you ?