Scoundrel days

Reading Gordon Brown's sickening twaddle about Afghanistan today I was reminded of Samuel Johnson's famous quote:

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Brown's statement had me filling with rage that he had the shameless gall to say it:

This is a patriotic duty. Of course people want to know if the action we are taking is the right action. It comes back to terrorism on the streets of Britain. If we were to allow the Taliban to be back in power in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda then to have the freedom of manoeuvre it had before 2001, then we would be less safe as a country.

There is a line of terror - what you might call a chain of terror - that links what's happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain.

A patriotic duty. Isn't that what desperate politicians demand of others?

That 'line of terror' hasn't been followed to it's source. It's not Afghanistan or Pakistan; they are just recruiting and training proxies for a much bigger and influential player.

There's a memorable line in the movie All the President's Men: follow the money. The line of terror money can be followed to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis supplied the money and the hardline Wahabi fundamentalism through sham Islamic charities to replace the indigenous Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This has spread to some of Britain's mosques and helped breed the so called 'homegrown' Islamic terrorists. The July 7th bombers may have been British, but their radicalisation was born in Saudi Arabia.

But the Saudis are untouchable. Tony Blair stepping in to stop an investigation into bribery in the Al Yamamah deal, and Saudi billionaires using our anti free speech libel laws to shut down criticism - all examples of a culture of protection anyone for importance within the Saudi power structure. With Al Yamamah, we are unlikely to know where that slush money went.

We are in grip with Saudi Arabia - they supply oil, we supply weapons. Saudi buys US currency to keep it's value, the USA uses it's military might against anyone who might threaten OPEC's fragile status quo.

Gordon Brown conjures up patriotism to justify British deaths on foreign soil, fighting a proxy war against a proxy enemy. If Brown wants to be really patriotic and not the scumbag scoundrel we know he is, he should be cutting the mutually parasitic relationship we have with Saudi Arabia.