Any port in a storm...

Just spent a couple of days in port, stocking-up on supplies and having me anchor-chain fixed. Although every port has a similar feeling and texture, they are all different and each has its own little delights for the sailing man - some more salacious than others.

Nothing blue on offer at my port of choice apart from the cheese in one of the many delicatessans and cafes, for I rested-up at the ancient Irish town of Howth. Howth is a delight and, these days, a very multicultural delight. There were people from every corner of the globe, mostly fishermen - and great fun, all of them. I played cards, drank rum and told some very tall tales of the sea. Heard a few good ones too. One Spanish trawlerman told me of a night ten years ago when a huge sea-monster sank a vessel by yanking its chain. He says he witnessed this from a ship not half a mile away. I asked him if it might have been a submarine, caught in a fishing net - he swears no! I must say, I don't really believe in sea-monsters, but a life on the briney does leave one with a deep sense that anything is possible where the sea is concerned. So, who knows?

Anyway, I took a couple of pictures, so you can see how lovely a place Howth is.

Didn't catch any monsters on film - but if I do, you'll see it here first. What I hope I did capture is the spirit of adventure and excitement of being on boats - the vast expanse of clouds, the deep blue sea, the crisp sea air. When you're out there, away from everything, with just the sky and the sea for company there is a tremendous sense of calm and peace. Also, though there is a deep-rooted longing for land somewhere in the bottom of every sailor's heart, there is a palpable dread of the return journey. For the sea has a way of making life seem somehow unreal and magical - as though you are in a place out of time. And, although she can be cruel, every man and boy who makes a life at sea trusts the ocean, for we sailors make friends with her and don't like to stray too far from her lilting waters.

Photograph from the past and, perhaps, the future

I came across this photograph while looking at some military history websites. It shows the humiliating evacuation of the US embassy after the fall of Saigon. It is one of the defining images of 1975, and of America's botched overseas adventures.

Why do I get a strong feeling that we will witness something similar when the great "liberators" depart from Baghdad? No doubt, when they finally do evacuate the (ahem) free Iraq, Bush & Co will interpret the gunfire which accompanies the departure as "celebratory".

Where American foreign policy is concerned, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Some Thoughts...

I haven't posted in a bit -- got tired of singing the same old song, and couldn't find the heart to write about other things while the world is in such a mess and so many innocent people continue to die for the shabby cause of American "National Security". Also, I have a profound sense that the facts about what's been going on are clear to all. Even the neo-conservatives have run out of saleable lies - only the absolutely moronic could buy their line. Unfortunately there are enough morons in the world to keep the pot boiling for a little while yet. But not for long, I think. The poor of the USA have figured out that Bush & Co. have decieved them, largely because it is their children arriving home from the middle east in body-bags, or horribly maimed.

Oh, and because Iraqis still live amid chaos, and under occupation.

The tame (read: lame) mainstream US media have run out of positive stories to "spin" events in the middle east and the ordinary American can see the mess they have become mired in. Of course, Bush has no interest in any of this - he will retire soon and concentrate on his Presidential library. I wonder if he will decorate the foyer with photographs of dead Iraqi children? Bottom line - that is his legacy, whatever nonsense he tries to peddle. He can mutter and stumble through as many "freedom is on the march!" speeches as he likes, but the reality is that Americans will have to live with the terrible consequences of his actions for generations to come.

Who could blame the father of an Iraqi child, murdered by US bombs, if he vowed to take revenge? And there are thousands of such people - fathers, brothers, uncles, mothers and sisters. The US propaganda machine can talk about "foreign combatants" until they are blue in the face, but the reality is that many, many thousands of innocent Iraqis who have held the broken bodies of their dead children hate America and Americans more than they ever hated Saddam. And they really hated him.

The hatred of these people is very real and very justified, and they will continue to extract revenge on American and British soldiers until they leave Iraq. And then? Then they will pursue the enemy to its lair: the USA. The terrible truth is that most American people are kind, decent and reasonable. They are the ones who will bear the brunt of any future terrorist activity - not those who visited such violence on the people of the middle east.

The American people may be uneducated and unquestioning, but they were convinced that their elected representatives were acting in their interest. Why? Because they were told terrible and scary things, as were the people of europe - the difference is that the people of europe have a better attitude towards their politicians: they trust them about as far as they could throw them.
This is why even Blair's own party didn't really believe him, never mind the public. And again, the poor, those who join the army, died for Blair and his dodgey dossier.

The reality of all this is terrible, crushing. Yet, the world goes on.

I have been doing a lot of web-surfing lately and there is a lot of wild and wonderful stuff out there. Many people are convinced that there is a world-wide conspiracy involving ancient families and bloodlines. They might be right. Others are convinced that Bush, the Queen and others "at the top" are, in fact reptiles - alien creatures that control the world by "shape-shifting" into human form. I suppose nothing can be ruled out - but I suspect that the truth is far worse: those who have inflicted this terror on us are very human. They just don't act like it.