Safeguarding oil supplies?   This is an interesting idea. Forgive me, but this would seem to assume that the West has some sort of moral right to oil situated in other sovereign states? I'm sure nobody can possibly think this.   In the bad old days of Empire this would have meant propping up some sympathetic but ruthlessly autocratic regime or oligarchy that had no respect for human rights. Thank goodness we live in more enlightened times.

I'm also delighted by the idea of creating a democracy in Iraq. Could someone just remind me how many of the other oil producing gulf states are currently liberal democracies?   Just at the moment their names seem to have slipped my mind.

I'm also gratified to think that a democratic oil producing state might vote not to sell its oil to the West, and everybody would now think this perfectly acceptable behaviour and respect the decision of a sovereign state.   


My starting point for discussions of this nature is a belief that while there is a child on the planet that does not have enough food, clothing or shelter, and is without access to education and medicine, then all our political systems are failing that child and urgently need to change in a direction that will address these needs.

I would hate to think that any vested interest in the West would for a moment stand in the way of extending such basic humanitarian needs to all, regardless of nation, race, or creed.   After all, this is not what liberal democracy is about, and if this were allowed to happen, it would probably lead to all manner of indiscriminate backlash....


I mourn the passing of the "Angry Young Men"   and the vociferous Protest and Civil Rights Movements. I miss Trade Unions that that could seriously rattle and embarrass big corporations, governments and individual ministers. The world was a better place for them.   I fear the dispassionate non-involvement of so many of the younger generation that I find around me. It seems to me the death knell of real democracy, a rolling over and acceptance of defeat.   

It's not anger I would like to see, or even rage.   Some blind incandescent fury and a useful way with words would be a useful starting point right now.

SM