Albion’s Alchemist

Sois Musulman et tais tois! You cheese eating surrender Muslims…

Ooh, controversial!

In may of nineteen sixty eight the students of France, almost as one man, went on the warpath. No two people will ever agree on what exactly they were angry about, generally things like the Vietnam War and anti-fascist ideologies are cited and then the respectable historians move on to something more fun. So far as we are concerned the causes don’t really matter.

The recent riots in France are generally blamed on the poor conditions in which immigrant Muslims live. Commentators cite low income, unemployment and racism.
The Poosh makes a good point when he says that these privations are suffered by people who are neither immigrants, nor Muslims, yet they do not riot. In fact one imagines they are rioting, but they did not start the riot, and this is the good point.

France’s reaction to the riots has been execrable. In ’68 de Gaul reacted by laying down the law. He set up a military counter-riot office, and he authorised the police to use all necessary force. The riots nearly cost him his office (in fact they may have, but not immediately), but he crushed them swiftly enough. He prevented the sort of death and carnage which would have grown even greater had he pussy-footed around like the current administration.

Where are the water cannons? Where are the legions of armoured riot police? Where is the flash and staccato rhythm of sub-machineguns felling the unassimilated Mohammedan horde? I’ll tell you. Nowhere. Y’see Chirac has looked at the past, oh yes, and seen that de Gaul’s more, er, robust, response to the rioters made him unpopular with the left wing. Now the left wing are a powerful bunch in France today, and Chirac will not risk his les than sound position by doing his job.

In short, Chirac would rather people die than loose his job, and the left wing (not to mention the larger part of the global media) would rather see people die than see poor immigrant brown people made to abbey the law.

Actually, that’s not true, because of course the media, and the left wing, and most everyone else will not see anybody die. That don’t mean there will not be any death, just that the media will turn a blind eye, and no-one else will look.

This is the essence of the matter, regardless of the privations one might suffer, nothing grants the right to riot, to steal, to burn or to kill. If a man riots, then the Alchemist for one will look upon his plight with less, rather than more sympathy.

Today’s post is sparked by an email from Alchemy correspondent in Germany, Fräulein Merci H. She believes she has formulated a solution for France’s current problems.

At it’s most basic level it does involve foreign soldiers marching down the Champs Elise. Fräulein H forces the Alchemist to admit that this has done France a power of good in the past, and that said soldiers would be far more orderly than the current rif raf who are rioting nightly. Now typically the flaw in plans such as this is Albion – give us a few years and we can generally drive the invaders out of France. Therefore Fräulein H has charged me with rallying my countrymen to her side, and the glorious cause of sorting Marcel out once and for all. We’ll cross the channel at the start of December, the French will surrender after a fortnight and we’ll meet the Germans in Paris for Christmas. We could play football - that was fun last time.

Now, in case you cannot tell, Fräulein H and I are joking. We both of us think it is a very fine thing that we can make jokes about this sort of thing.

It is November, the month when we ought remember that millions have died for us, for our right to make cheep little jokes. I’d like to offer some thoughts not about those who have given their lives for us – I’m far to poor a wordsmith to do the least of them justice – so instead I will talk about the organization which represents them and their dependants.

The Royal British Legion is quite simply, one of the most magnificent institutions which has appeared in our age of the world.

Many years ago I decided that as far as charity goes, one can either give a little to everyone, or give all one can spare to one charity. I choose the latter, and I chose the Royal British Legion. Animals and children have many charities but what the devil have animals and children done for The Alchemist? I might donate to the Earth-lobby, but they are a pack of soap-dogging weirdoes and the Earth is big and old enough to look after herself. After decades of pouring money into Africa where has that got us, I will not put my donations into the African black hole. As for the homeless, well I have been known to buy lunch for one particular vagrant, but she is a friend so it is not proper charity.

No, as far as I am concerned the only people worthy of my money are those who have done something for me.
The Royal British Legion represent those people. People who have had the courage to make MY safety their personal responsibility. People who have DIED for me. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I know there are uncountable millions who have spent the only life they will ever have, just to secure a little peace and safety for your author.

When you see a politician wearing a poppy, he is only wearing it for appearance sake, after ordering British and Commonwealth soldiers to die in some god-forsaken Iraqi sandpit more than likely.

When I wear it, it is real.

Let’s look at the Royal British Legion.

It was founded in 1921 to support veterans and their families and to make sure that we do not forget those who have sacrificed themselves for us.

The Legion is almost the UK ’s largest membership organisation, with 519,000 members (including the Women’s Section this total is 589,000). twenty percent of people in the UK are eligible for it’s help in some way, 5.5 million ex-service people and 7.5 million dependants.
In total it spends more than £50 million a year but the poppy appeal raises less than half of that. the rest comes from year-round donations.

The 38 million poppies, 98,000 wreaths and sprays, 730,000 Remembrance Crosses are all made in a factory in Surrey. The factory, owned by the Legion employs about 60 people more than half of whom suffer from serious disabilities or illnesses as a result of their work, defending you and I around the world. It was designed to offer such people jobs and it always will.
Which is good when you consider that There has only been one year since the Second World War when a British Service person hasn’t been killed on active service, and that was 1968. There has not been any year since the inception of the United Kingdom when no British service person has not been injured.

So read this, and then, when Children in need or Live aid or comic relief or any of these other big-impact high-fat television extravaganzas ask you for money say no. Give Geldof a dose of his own foul language and damn Pudsey’s remaining eye.

Instead think about those who have died for you, and who are remembered not with a night of television fun, or a star studded concert, but with a simple paper flower, and give your money to the Royal British Legion.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Now I don’t want to cause alarm, but there are certain aspects of the Iranian nuclear programme which really could bare closer inspection.

I suspect you are alarmed now, most likely you are thinking ‘oh god he’s going to talk about Iranian nuclear ambitions and I know slightly less than zilch on the subject.’ That’s ok, I know you have enough to do just keeping up with Big Brother, that’s exactly why I am going to talk about it. That, and it actually is important.

Ali Larijani is the man to watch, he is the right hand of Khamenei and he has been badgering Albion, Germany and France recently over our views on Iranian atomic development.

Specifically we (the UK, Germany and France, acting on behalf of the EU) have expressed concerns over plans to build one or more Westinghouse type breeders, and hexafluoride centrifuges to generate enriched uranium for ‘peaceful purposes’. Larijani insists that Iran has the right to do these things, and as far as right goes, he probably is. Our quibble is the eventual use to which enriched uranium might be put.

From an unbiased perspective one can see why Iran desires nuclear weapons. Believe me every time I watch the ten o’clock news I start desiring a bomb or two m’self, it is an unsafe world and deterrents are tempting, nay necessary.

Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad – Iranian president and world-beating scrabble score insists that the only goal is energy, but he would, and as I say, we can hardly blame Iran for wanting a nuclear deterrent. However, the operative word is ‘deterrent’.

Larijani has threatened to go over the EU’s head straight to the International Atomic Energy Association, but that ain’t going to happen because the US dominates the IAEA and there’s no way on god’s green that the States will let Iran have nukes (they no-longer arm their future enemies, lesson learned, eh brother Jonathan). Alternatively, Iran may enter negotiations with South Africa, but it is difficult to see why, when there is so little to gain, and so much to loose should they snub the EU.

Besides which Larijani actually used the phrase ‘Nuclear Apartheid’ in a speech and that’s not they way to win the South African’s friendship.

The earlier threatened economic sanctions seem unlikely at this stage of the game and it is difficult to discount the internet rumour to the effect that France and Germany (Albion too, if not our leaders) actually want Iran to have a deterrent with which to deter the big friendly dog across the pond.

You’ll call me a cynic, but such a policy would work, and better than ‘diplomacy’, no?

In any event, at least you know a little about Iran now, my work here is done…

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has said he is confident that the country’s politicians will reach an agreement on a new constitution.

-BBC website

Yup, the Alchemist is confident too. Specifically I am confident every man jack of ‘em will agree it is worthless. You will recall my making one post intermissio reference to the Iraqi Constitution last month (Alchemy Passim). I predicted that the three main groups would all bitch about it and I have been proved right, haven’t I just?

The damned document hasn’t even been finalised and the Iraqi powers that be are already falling into the patterns of dispute which I assigned to them. Hell but I wish I could be wrong from time to time.

Humam Hammoudi, the johny in charge of drafting the constitution has said the three-day extension just granted will not be enough. If he gets his extra time, and let’s face it, there is not a real alternative, then the arguments will, I suppose, expand to fill the time allowed, this being the nature of politics, especially Arab politics. I said that a September referendum was unlikely, and it grows more unlikely still as the date approaches.

The Sunnis are digging their heels in because the constitution threatens their already precarious position in the incestuous and rickety oil-ministry. Since the allied Shi’ahs/Kurds outnumber the Sunnis the Constitution could be forced through against Sunni wishes, however if this were to occur one can envision the Sunnis picking up their ball and going home, which in political terms spells instability on an Arabic scale.

If’ee were to ask the Alchemist (why thank you) I’d have to side with the Sunnis. Not that I care for their precious oil, but simply because I cannot see a federal Iraq as a good thing. God knows there is enough potential violence in that land to be getting on with – the idea of splitting it into separate battlin’ cantons seems lunacy. A ready made civil war waiting to happen, and I’ll give you three guesses as to who will have to clear up that mess, but the second two don’t count.

Incidentaly although it will fall to us to sort out this putative civil war, it will be the Sunnis who come of worse. Y’see the Kurds want to keep their little patch of the country to the north, and the Shi’ahs want to set up their own canton in the south part of the country so the Sunnis will end up between them, and although the Kurds and Shi’ahs are friends now (sort of) there’s certainly no love lost and it hasn’t been so many years since they were shooting the hell out of each other now has it?

Naturally al-Jaafari is in favour of federalism since the only thing that appeals to a Shi’ah more than carving out their own patch of Iraq is getting one over on the godamn heretic Sunnis.

When Operation Lightning was unveiled the official line was that it would be the coalition’s final major operation in Iraq. The Alchemist said that he would believe that when he saw it, and of course, he has not seen it yet. Nevertheless General George Casey (Alchemy ante-intermissio) has stated his belief that, should certain conditions be met, American troop numbers will start to fall in the early part of next year. (He means that the numbers will fall because they are coming home, rather than the more traditional method of reducing troop numbers, to whit, death).

His preconditions are that the Iraqi Government (the which I like to call ‘Denethor’) and security forces (‘Canute’) prove themselves to be competent. I’ll believe that when I etc…

Old hands will recall my having discussed the Iraqi Government on more than one occasion, beginning during their elections. I for one look forward to the next elections coming in five months time. These are intended to follow the delivery of a draft constitution next month, though the chances of this draft being on-time are somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘comical’ at the moment.

Current Iraqi bossman Al-Jaafari has of course never made a secret of his desire to be rid of the foreign troops who installed him, though no two commentators will agree why – certainly his job will become significantly harder once he is on his own, fortunately that will not be within a decade though. Al-Jaafari has said he does not want to be surprised, and I think there is slim chance of that.

Once the Constitution is drafted, and has been comprehensively argued about by every man and woman who has seen it, it will be put to a plebiscite. This is slated for September, and I suppose it might actually occur then, but don’t bet the family silver.

You will recall that the Sunnis pulled out of the drafting process for a time, and even now their delegation is under strength. Because of this the document, when it is finally produced will be most contentious. The powerful Sunni community will claim it is unfair to them because the were not as well represented during the drafting as the other factions. The Kurds will oppose the Sunnis for the sheer devilment of it, and the Shi’ahs will oppose the Kurds because they are ideal positioned to stick the knife in the Kurd’s back, also there is that whole oil-ministry thing which never sat right between the Shi’ahs and the Kurds.

If you will forgive me for dragging your mind back so far, I once said that I found the idea of a group of Arabs sitting in a room arguing about how to run a country whilst foreign troops march the streets funny, and a while later I said that I no longer found it funny because the novelty had worn off. Today I cannot decide whether a group of Arabs trying to write a constitution whilst foreign troops march the streets is funny or not. On the face of it, it seems ridiculous enough, but when we bare in mind that each of the three main factions writing the document want nothing so much as to grind the others into dust, and that any place not marched by foreign troops suffers attacks on a scale not seen since the summer ’03 (during the actual war) I for one suddenly feel less inclined to humour.