Something occurred to me yesterday. In 1903 British forces were fighting the Boers in Africa. This was a colonial war, fought to spread British ‘civilisation’ across the planet. 101 years later, America, the new imperial power, is fighting a new colonial war, this time in Iraq..

Have we learned nothing in 100 years of the most bloody century in history? after 50 years of diplomacy, bush has seen fit to return to the ways of empire and the sword. That, I suppose, is the exact calibre of this man – the “Shoot first, ask questions later” logic of the halfwit cowboy. He has, as Vladimir Putting points out, wrecked most of the treaties laid down during the cold war.

those treaties kept the giant asleep. If America continues along its current path, and invades Syria or North Korea, It will wake, and fuck knows what will follow.