Wednesday, August 16, 2006

What a Week in News

Well we started last week with the Primary contest in which Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic Nomination but then decided to run as an Independent, in effect the Republican Candidate in the State, the actual Republican candidate is nowhere in the field. As this is about Iraq, the Republicans are supporting Joe Lieberman. Then we had Lebanon, would there be a ceasefire and would it hold, but after the arrests of what could have been Britain’s 9/11 or as some papers using an American expression, 8/10. Lebanon might as well have not as existed in the rolling news of that day, Israel missed a chance, with the world’s eyes on London it really could have smashed Hizbollah, but in the end agreed to a cease fire as demanded by most of the World. An interesting article in today’s London Times, reports on Germany’s decision to send troops as part of the peace keeping force, considering its past history this is a major move by the new German Government under the Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel. But it should be noted that the German Air Force played an active part in the NATO action in Bosnia. This action of placing German troops to protect Israel would also place the past in the past, not forgotten but also looking to the future. The writers of the article, Roger Boyes and Richard Beeston write the following, ‘German soldiers might give the Israelis the benefit of the doubt. ’ should the cease fire fail, in essence Germany would have no choice but to support Israel, the past would be a ‘ Foreign Country’ as today’s alliances would be based on, in some respects the past but also the present democratic nature of Israel and Germany compared to those on the opposite side.

It is interesting as we are discussing war, the news wires have reports that the government is about to present a bill to Parliament that would give a pardon to those shot at dawn by the army during the First World War. Although today we appreciate the suffering of those that got through War does that give us the right to change history. Let it be plain I support the move but can we change history, an example, do we pass a bill to say the Titanic did not sink, World War did not start in 1914, the Battle of the Somme did not happen, no Russian Revolution thus no Lenin or Stalin. History only happens once, we can empathise we can understand it but we are not Time Lords.