Sunday 9 October 2011

Oh Yeah the Doctor Fox Thing.

Britain's Defence Minister Dr Liam Fox MD is currently at the centre of a political scandal. Apparently he helped a personal friend mis-represent himself as a government advisor in order to win private business contracts and possibly undermined national security in the process.

The important thing to remember about this story is that the British Prime Minister David Cameron is soon expected to re-shuffle his political cabinet and has been told by someone higher up that Dr Fox must go. So this scandal has been created to force Fox to resign to avoid the Prime Minister the embarrassment of actually sacking him and all those difficult questions about why Britain still insists on calling itself a democracy. The reason why Fox has to go is that he is far too close the Sri-Lankens. Both the United Nations and the United States want to see Sri-Lanka investigated for crimes against humanity committed during the final days of their war against the Tamils. Britain of course is fully supported that war and even actively participated in it but obviously Britain would prefer if that support was kept a discreet secret in case the matter does end up with people being prosecuted.

Secondly the story contains lots of elements - doctors, foxes etc - that might give you the impression that it has something to do with my grandmother's current situation. Apart from distracting from the scandal's primary purpose there is a hope that this will provoke people to ask questions about that situation. In turn this puts pressure on me and others to answer those questions and in the process reveal what options may or may not be available to the Brits at this time. All I can think of saying to that is to point out that if you're relying on your opponent to explain to you how to fight them it kind of looks like you've already lost.

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