Other problems persist. The politicians are weak and remain divided on the restoration of the judges sacked by Musharraf. The Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, is the most respected person in the country. Asif Zardari 9the caretaker-leader of the People’s Party who runs the government and second richest man in the country) is reluctant to see him back at the head of the Supreme Court. A possible compromise might be to offer him the Presidency. It would certainly unite the country for a short time.

Over the last fifty years the US has worked mainly with the Pakistan Army. This has been its preferred instrument. Nothing has changed. How long before the military is back at the helm? [More]

The ‘Big Lie’ theory comes from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography, and is this: "in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation… more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” So if Mr. Bush would have us believe that a new democratic Iraq is dawning, he is telling ‘the big lie.’

But perhaps neither of these explains the president’s apparent willingness to accept a troop withdrawal timeline (he calls it a time ‘horizon,’ apparently believing that the U.S. citizenry is too stupid to know he means timeline). The youthful, dynamic Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is ahead in the polls; his Republican opponent, the awkward, elderly and decrepit John McCain, has not been able to spark any excitement on the campaign trail. McCain is a stalwart supporter of war, any war it seems, and foresees the U.S. occupation in Iraq lasting for generations. Perhaps it has finally dawned on Bush that this is not what the American people want; perhaps someone has finally gotten through to him; perhaps someone has penetrated his inner circle of yes-men and women, and has made him realize that a campaign platform of more of the same death, blood and destruction, is not selling too well even in middle America. [More]

In Australia (& Britain) we think we’re smarter than that but both our progressive governments ask what have we got this coal for if we don’t use it. Coal made Britain great and it’s making Australia very rich and inside both countries there is a powerful web of union, political, financial & industrial groups that have grown rich and are committed to keeping the coal power economy going. Power as a metaphor for power. In both countries this web is at the centre of the “Union Industrial Complex” (UIC) that runs the countries. Anglo-Australian companies like BHP are in there with their $15 billion profit. UIC leaders like Michael Costa want to prove Climate Change is false by making a new 40 year commitment to coal.

But there are also nice, reasonable people, like Penny Wong (Minster for Climate Change), who say we must find a carbon capture solution because the world is going to burn more coal (5th Aug 08). Read that again. False logic. A safe cheap method of massive carbon capture may be scientifically impossible (especially in the short term) but, like the MIC, the Union Industrial Complex doesn’t care about results - it just wants huge profits and it’s in control.

Could the Georgians have been working under the illusion they had the full backing of the U.S? What Condoleezza Rice told Saakashvili during her July 10 trip becomes critical. Did she really tell the Georgians in private not to attack as she claims? Or did Tbilisi take Rice’s public rhetoric supporting Georgia’s claim of sovereignty at face value? Shortly before Georgia attacked, the Russians tried to get a resolution through the UN Security Council calling on Ossetia and Georgia to renounce the use of force. The U.S., Britain, and Saakashvili torpedoed it. Why? Might the U.S. have snookered the Georgians into making an attack Washington knew would end in disaster?

Political commentator Robert Scheer suggests the war was a neocon election ploy aimed at getting John McCain elected president... Is the Georgia War the “October surprise”? The Republicans need a crisis so they can argue that only McCain has the experience to handle it. The Iran bugaboo is wearing thin, and the polls show overwhelming opposition to a war with Teheran. China is playing nice, and, in any case, it is not a good idea to pick a fight with someone who can call in its loans and bankrupt you. But there is always the big, bad Russian bear. [More]

Ultimately, people will make choices which harm themselves, whether they involve diet, smoking, drinking, lack of exercise, sexual activity or pursuit of extreme sports. In all these instances, the Government rightly takes the line that if these activities are to be pursued, society will ensure that those who pursue them have access to accurate information about the risks; can access assistance to change their harmful habits should they so wish; are protected by a legal standards regime; are taxed accordingly; and – crucially – do not harm other people. Only in the field of drugs does the Government take a different line.

The case is overwhelming. But I fear that policy will not catch up with the facts any time soon. It would take a mature society to accept that some individuals may hurt, or even kill themselves, as a result of a policy change, even if the evidence suggested that fewer people died or were harmed as a result. It would take a brave government to face down the tabloid fury in the face of anecdotes about middle-class children who bought drugs legally and came to grief. [More]

Julian Critchley was the former director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-Ordination Unit.

Russia deployed its tanks and troops to South Ossetia to save the lives of civilians and to reestablish the peace. Period. It has no interest in annexing the former-Soviet country or in expanding its present borders. Now that the Georgian army has been routed, Russian president Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin have expressed a willingness to settle the dispute through normal diplomatic channels at the UN. Neither leader is under any illusions about Washington's involvement in the hostilities. They know that Georgian President Mikail Saakashvili is an American stooge who came to power in a CIA-backed coup, the so-called "Rose Revolution", and would never order a major military operation without explicit instructions from his White House puppetmasters.

The Georgian army had no chance of winning a war with Russia or any intention of occupying the territory they captured. The real aim was to lure the Russian army into a trap. US planners hope to do what they did so skillfully in Afghanistan; lure their Russian prey into a long and bloody Chechnya-type fiasco that will pit their Russia troops against guerrilla forces armed and trained by U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The war will be waged in the name of liberating Georgia from Russian imperialism and stopping Putin from achieving his alleged ambition to control critical western-owned pipelines around the Caspian Basin. [More]