Goggle Box

Thursday nights seems to be the best TV night so far. Started from "Dragon's Den - Where are they now", Extras, and Mitchell and Webb all the way to "This Week" which is back now the wheels of democracy are rolling again after the summer break.

Question Time was quite amusing as Jack Straw spent a lot of his time reeling of statistics about how much better Manchester has gotten over the last 10 years. He has some justification, Manchester has been coming on leaps and bounds as a major regional city in the North West. I magnanimous enough to let the government have some of the credit for the chunks of cash we got post the IRA bomb. However continuous arguments about funding for our public transport takes the shine off it a little.

He did come a little unstuck on War in Iraq after some impressive barracking from the audience. Although I thought removing Saddam on humanitarian grounds was appropriate justification back at the start of this debacle it become clear some time ago that we were rushed into this war. His argument that by being the USA's closest ally we at least got another UN resolution rang a little hollow. However who knows what would of happened if we would of let the weapon inspectors finish and gotten a second resolution? We may well of still had the war but probably with a little more thought and the support of the international community. One thing that is painfully clear is how hard it is to build a nation without the support of the rest of the world.

I've noticed the anti-war protesters have conflated both Afghanistan and Iraq in one great "anti-Islam" war we should be getting out of. Unfortunately this is where I'll have to disagree with the popular consensus. Firstly I don't buy the war against Islam rhetoric. It certainly hasn't helped relations but it seems the west never gets credit for it's (admittedly belated) intervention in Bosnia. Secondly the war in Afghanistan was perfectly justifiable as a police action. It was a direct and valid response to 9/11 which was effectively launched from the country. The tragedy of Afghanistan was in the rush to get into Iraq we didn't consolidate our position, something we shall be paying for for a while.