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Roger Warren Evans
Roger Warren Evans
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You are in the company
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Roger Warren Evans |
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item0022D 526,527 526 13 November 2002 Disarmed Services All the talk of war-on-Iraq seems to have swamped an incredible speech last week from Scotland’s very own (Lord) George Robertson, now the Secretary-General of NATO. I found it reported in the Daily Telegraph… Speaking in Brussels ahead of next week’s NATO summit in Prague, he was scathing about the military investment programmes of NATO members. The problem, he claimed, was that NATO troops were not action-ready. They were neither organised nor equipped for rapid deployment.
This is an authoritative and damning indictment. Readers will know that, although a peaceable chap by nature (and organiser every Saturday of the Swansea Peace Vigil against attacking Iraq), I am not a pacifist. I do consider that the deployment of armed force may be necessary, both for “policing” purposes and for defence against aggressive attack. It follows that I am appalled by George Robertson’s disclosures. These reports do reveal grievous waste of taxpayers’ money, throughout the whole of Europe. And Robertson is ideally placed to know what is going on.
What do you think? Drop me a line
527 18 November 2002 No fool like an old fool… … and Valery Giscard D’Estaing is certainly an old fool. His remarks about the exclusion of Turkey from the European Union prove his foolishness, beyond a peradventure. Because, although he is right about Turkey, he wrong about the European Union. I have never visited Turkey. My impression is of a young, turbulent country with “European” aspirations, but with strong Middle East roots. Constantinople was a European name, derived from the Greek. Istanbul is not. That ambivalence is of very long standing indeed. So Giscard has got his cultural analysis right. But that is all. The European Union is merely a political association of contiguous states, to which cultural homogeneity is not a necessary component. Giscard is making the same mistake as De Gaulle made, in ruling out UK membership in 1992. That was a fateful and destructive “Non”, which has dominated the course of European politics every since. Britain was not “European”, thought Mongeneral, because it was an island. And island folk differ from continental folk, do they not? They should not be allowed to join the Continental Culture Club. That is not the way to conduct international politics. “Europe” is a powerful geographical expression, but no more. The European Union should not be allowed to become a narrow, inward-looking cultural fortress. Multi-cultural forms of society are extending rapidly, throughout its member states. And our political traditions are strong enough to generate a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic network of states, where Turkey would be at home, and to which Turkey should be made welcome. I agree with Peter Preston, who was forthright on this issue, writing in The Guardian. What do you think? Drop me a line
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