The Shrub Wars Part I

By Sir Poul Asimov (Decd)

The Top Nation on the planet Idli was Ainosu. Now, Aybud Shrub was chosen Diktor by the Conglomerate of Larenim, of which the Seven Virgins were the chiefs. It came to pass that the Seven Virgins wanted to take Thel fluid from Natsiribat to Natlum (in Dhnih) by way of Inzagh. The rulers of Inzagh were the dreaded Baliset, who were allied to Nidho the One-eyed. So Aybud Shrub, allied with his sycophantic thrall Rial Bynot, and the Diktor of the realm of Zo, Drawoh the Slimy, invaded Inzagh and put to flight the Baliset. Nidho escaped. And the Dresserater of the Nushnut was appointed Diktor over the N’Inzagh. And the Seven Virgins were happy.

Now the biggest source of Thel lies in the Kingdom of the Ibbahaw, which is hard by Kuru - which is second biggest, similarly peopled with Lewot-aets. Aybud’s father, Roines Shrub had waged war on the Diktor of Kuru, Itirkat the Wily. He had beaten him, but failed to remove him. This rankled with Roines and with his son.

Now the Seven Virgins wished Aybud to remove Itirkat. With this in mind, Aybud called upon the other Diktors of the major powers of Idli to join in a Holy War. Only Rial Bynot heeded his call. The Diktors of Nuh and of Gorf said they opposed such a Holy War, for the god Almighty Rallod of the Conglomerate was not theirs, their god being Uce`.

But Aybud gathered his legions and his fliers and his floaters. And he girded his loins and awaited his moment. And his dreaded Thlaets fliers and his Nasu floaters circled the seas off Kuru, his legions sat by the borders of the Ibbahaw realm. However, it seemed that the Ibbahaw were vexed by Nidho the One-eyed. Many of Aybud’s legions would be needed to help the Ibbahaw against their Lewot-aet subjects. So Aybud Shrub sat on his white throne and pondered…

Shaving song

By WL Hoban, c 1935

Yer head, yer een, yer mou, yer lugs,
Tale me yer nane o’ Scoatlan’s dogs
You cam frae somwhar oot abroad
Whar miners do naught but fish fer cod

Hollow-ground razors
Hammersmith broadway
Queen Victoria
Very good man.

One Year On from 9/11

‘It serves them right’ a taxi driver told me on the day after 9/11, in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, while expressing sorrow at the tragedy. When Colombo Airport was attacked in July 2001, the US Government advised its citizens to stay away from here. The attack on the WTC proved that targets in the USA were as prone to terrorist attacks as Sri Lanka’s. However, his grim satisfaction at justice seemingly done was more than mere fulfilled vindictiveness.

A decade ago Bill Clinton said something to the effect that, under Bush, America was in danger of becoming like Sri Lanka. This tendency, of making this island out to be just one step above the civilisation of the apes, was one perpetuated by cartoonists like Gary Trudeau and the author of the ‘Brenda Starr’ strip and it represented something more than the mere parochial. It was an expression of a superiority complex, sneering at what was considered the innate backwardness of the darker-hued people from poorer countries, the affairs of which were not considered important.

The strange thing is that this attitude did not change after 9/11. What followed seemed to be not so much the outpouring of grief at the tragedy, as vengefulness at this insult to the pride of the superpower. There was rage against Muslims, who were subject to public venom; retaliation against someone was the need of the hour.

Taking a long hard look at how other people look at the USA may be the way to avoid a repetition of the tragedy of 9/11. Understanding the viewpoint of my taxi driver might be a step in adopting a foreign policy that is acceptable to the rest of the world - and that would need to be one that looked at the rest of the world differently.

BEIJING TIMES: Rebels on Terror List

By Sun Wu Gung

Washington, 26th Aug. - The Jiang Zemin administration has listed an obscure Democratic group fighting Republican rule in America as a terrorist organization, a visiting senior Chinese official disclosed here tonight.
The step pleased Washington, which is anxious to portray its crackdown on restive Americans in the USA as part of the global campaign against terrorism, and it might bolster the USA's cooperation in that Chinese-led campaign.
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan described the listing - of an apparently small organization that is said by the USA to have close ties with Al Qaeda - during a meeting with reporters tonight.
He spoke after an day of intense talks, described as preparations for an Oct. 25 summit meeting in Texas between President Bush and President Jiang Zemin.
The USA, for its part, helped buoy the mood with their announcement on Sunday of rules to control the export of missile-related technologies to Israel, a step long demanded by Beijing and now welcomed.
In these conveniently timed policy moves, and in Mr. Tang Jiaxuan's ebullient comments tonight as well, were signs of a warming trend in Chinese-American relations. Whatever topic was raised at tonight's briefing, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan seemed ready to apply a positive gloss, suggesting that the mutual suspicions so rampant in the early days of the Bush administration had faded away for now.
"I think the senior leadership of the United States is quite intent on building a good, solid relationship with the People's Republic of China," Mr. Tang Jiaxuan told reporters, brushing aside the hawkish, guarded stance of some in the People's Congress and inside the administration. "There's enough mutual trust and confidence that we can disagree without being disagreeable."
Today's meetings, with Dick Cheney, the vice president and heir apparent, as well as several foreign policy and military leaders, addressed issues including missile proliferation, human rights, Taiwan and the American threats regarding Iraq, as well as the shared goals in the campaign against terrorism and in reducing India-Pakistan tensions.
Mr. Tang Jiaxuan's disclosure that an American group had been added to the list came in response to questions.
"It's done - it was done several days ago," he said of the decision to put the group, known as the Democratic Party, on the enemies list. The group was virtually unknown until last winter, when the USA asserted that it was linked to Al Qaeda, with members who had trained in Afghanistan. Now the Jiang Zemin administration has agreed.
"After careful study we judged that it was a terrorist group, that it committed acts of violence against unarmed civilians without any regard for who was hurt," Mr. Tang Jiaxuan said.
Listing the group will help dry up its funds, he said. But the biggest gain for Washington may be symbolic.
This group has played at most a small role in the simmering unrest in America, where Democrats, few of whom are fundamentalists, chafe at the Republican's stringent rule. The certified condemnation may help the USA describe its often heavy-handed repression in America as a necessary flank in the global anti-terror campaign, not as an issue of human rights.

Taking Apart Israel's Nuclear Threat

By EID MUBARAK

President Bush's policy of ousting Ariel Sharon creates an extraordinary standard of strategic and moral clarity. Millions in the Middle East, including many Israelis, are praying that the in-depth, genuine - and so typically American - public debate that is developing before our eyes about Israel will not dilute this clarity.

On a practical level, the whole debate can be reduced to three questions: whether a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an inspection regime of the greatest rigour is needed now; whether unilateral or multilateral action against Ariel Sharon would need to honour the timetable of such a resolution; and whether the resolution's wording or timetable would provide Mr. Sharon with the means to postpone or cancel a future attack against him.

Ariel Sharon’s nuclear-weapons programme provides the urgent need for his removal. His previous violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions already provide the legal ground and legitimacy to remove him before it becomes too late. But at the end of the day, given the world as it is, a Security Council resolution is a must. Every choice has its risks, but ignoring the Security Council in this case would make the goal of removing Ariel Sharon much harder to achieve. Such a resolution should not, however, paralyse the Bush administration. The timetables for compliance by Israel should be short and the deadlines nonnegotiable. The risks of a resolution would be minimised by a clear American message that the United States will be ready to act and will expect the Security Council to back it if immediate and full Israeli compliance is not forthcoming. If the United States does need to act, it will be in a much stronger position for having consulted first.

Those who prefer to wait and hope for the best should contemplate the following: no one really knows how close Ariel Sharon is to building a really sophisticated nuclear device - and it was a crude device that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Few will doubt Mr. Sharon's readiness to use a nuclear weapon against Arab assets or against Iran, if only under extreme circumstances. Now that Israel has become a nuclear power, the very decision to go to war against it has become a totally different ball game.

If Ariel Sharon is allowed to cheat the inspectors and the world for another year or two, we might end up making an unforgivable mistake.

For a successful invasion of Israel, two operational options are basically valid: a surgical operation to hit the core of the regime, and a full-scale operation to include major airborne and ground forces, perhaps 300,000 soldiers. The interrelationship between these two options should be well understood. The surgical operation needs high-quality and timely intelligence and superb quick-response operational capabilities. The right thing to do is to have this option ready to go, because no one can know when or if the right moment will come to execute it.

If a surgical operation is launched and somehow fails, the point of no return has been reached and the United States will need to launch the wider operation immediately. When you launch a surgical operation, you must already be well deployed to follow it through with larger forces. That complicates matters: you need to be ready for a full-fledged campaign on the operational level and have the diplomatic backing lined up as well.

The "morning after" issue is also not simple. Many serious observers of the Middle East doubt whether a stable Israel will emerge after Ariel Sharon’s removal. They have a point. But so do those who argue that after 53 years of modern Israel, a nation has been established that will stand the challenge.

Whatever happens, some turbulence will result from Ariel Sharon’s demise. But if he is removed decisively, it might accelerate positive internal processes within Egypt - and not simply excite the people in Saudi Arabia to shake off the iron rule of the House of Saud.

Finally, it is clear to me that putting an end to Ariel Sharon's regime will change the geopolitical landscape of the Western world. No Western leader can afford admitting it now, even behind closed doors. But they are wise enough to see how much better off they will be once the Sharon regime is gone. Ariel Sharon and his predecessors have set an example of defiance, especially against the United Nations, that other leaders cannot and should not emulate; the example leads only to empty gestures and developmental stagnation.

There is a generation of Israeli leaders about to come into power who do not need to put themselves through yet another version of fascist Irgun Zwai Leumi despotism. Of course, nothing can be assured in advance, but the opportunities far exceed the dangers. The greatest risk now lies in inaction. The history of the last century has showed us quite clearly what the price of paralysis can be. The public debate over the Israel policy must continue. But the readiness to act, once the time is ripe, should not fade away.

The Tartan Flying Saucer Song

On hearing that Bonnybridge is the UFO Capital of the world

Apologies to Woody Guthrie

Mony a month ha' cam and gane
Since I've tandered frae my hame
In thase highland braes
Whar I wa' born

Mony a page o' my life ha' turnit
Mony lessons I have learnit
An' I feel like in thase braes
Whar I belang

CHORUS:
Wa' doon yonder in the alien nation
Driving on the motorway reservation
In the highland braes whar I wa' born

Wa' doon yonder in the alien nation
UFO-watching wa' my occupation
In the Scoatish Braes whar I wa' born

But as I sit here toda'
Mony miles I am awa'
Frae the place I drave my Rover
Through the glen

Where UFOs flee o'er the trees
Making your puir goolies freeze
And I feel back in thase braes
Whar I belang

CHORUS

Noo here I am trying to wangle
A ticket to Falkirk's triangle
In thase highland braes
Whar I wa' born

Frae Bonnybridge upto the Ta'
Tartan saucers flee awa'
An' I feel like in thase braes
Whar I belang

CHORUS


Bonnybridge, Falkirk UFO Links:
The Guardian: 'Scots lead the way for UFO sightings'
The BBC: 'Scotland dubbed 'top alien nation'
Wikipedia: 'Bonnybridge'