Sandpit bullies

Did you read the news over the past few days that Uncle Sam’s finest Special Forces Action Men had stormed their way ashore in Libya and Somalia and taking prisoner a so-called leading Al Qaeda operative? 

What did you think?

Did you cheer that another alleged terrorist had been taken out?

Or shrug with indifference? After all it happened in a land so far away and did not seem to involve anyone from This Green and Pleasant Land.

Cicero is quite frankly appalled at such brutish and bullying behaviour and wonders if this sets a good example.

Now let Cicero be clear at the outset.

He is not soft on terrorists. He could never be described as a Bleeding Heart Liberal. And he has only ever read ‘The Grauniad’ once and that was by mistake. So he does not take the line that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

However he does believe that no one and no country is above the law. And he does not think it right that Uncle Sam, or anyone else for that matter who purports to be a stickler for the maintenance of the law and due process, has or should have the right to wade ashore like modern day Milk Tray Men and just kidnap a stranger and whisk him out the country to be water-boarded or whatever.

This just isn’t right.

Surely there is a process for this sort of thing.

And if there is Uncle Sam must learn to use it and not just think it can do whatever it likes, wherever and whenever it likes, excepting of course with Russia, China, North Korea and Syria, where different rules seem to apply.

 Indeed Cicero is reminded that a few generations back the Brits were very good at taking on with their gunboats and Maxims people whose armaments amounted to no more than spears, pebbles and raw fruit. 

Uncle Sam seems to have learnt this doctrine of warfare. Libya and Somalia, yes. China and Syria, no.

Cicero has a vague recollection that Uncle Boris has a running dispute with Uncle Sam’s diplomats over their refusal to pay the Big Smoke’s Congestion Charge. Seemingly they think they are still back in the 1770s and are alleging ‘no taxation without representation’.  It will be tea in the Thames next.

But maybe Uncle Boris should take a leaf out of Uncle Sam’s play book.  

And send across our own Milk Tray Men to storm ashore in Washington and seize the Congestion Charge recidivists and whisk them out of the country before they can say ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’

Would that work?

To right it wouldn’t.

Firstly we in this Green and Pleasant Land play by the rules, at least most of the time and we don’t bully.

Secondly it is doubtful if in these economically straitened times if we could muster enough Milk Tray Men to do the job.

And thirdly Uncle Sam wouldn’t like it. Bullies so hate it when people stand up to them. And should we dare to stand up to Uncle Sam, even if we could, we would never hear those words, ‘The Special Relationship’, again. Although on reflection Hugh Grant did seem to get away with it so it might be worth a try.

But in Cicero’s book those who aspire to export freedom, democracy and the rule of law, must live up to those same standards or perish by them.

Thoughts?

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.