Watching askance from Europe, we note the wild allegations of "socialism" being thrown around in the US and the apparent inability of many Americans to recognise that capitalism, to succeed, requires rules just as much as football! And that it was lack of up-to-date rules, taking into account new forms of credit, that led to the current "meltdown". This was predicted by leading investors such as George Soros, but no one listened: the music played - "let the good times roll".

This return to laissez-faire capitalism by the neo-Republicans (who ditched the moral concerns of traditional Republicans) and not a few Democrats, not only promoted deregulation, but also involved denying the work of Keynes and others about the need for government to "prime the pump" at the beginning of a recession. A confusion of Keynsianism with socialism.

So now there is a panic about how "capitalism has failed us" when really it is the laissez-faire neo-Republican crowd who have failed capitalism!

Capitalism will come to the rescue if society knows what it wants of it. One obvious thing is alternative energy. There is much else too, that we need to meet the immense challenges humanity faces.

"Prime the pump", set the rules, and make it worthwhile for the captains of industry to undertake the great works the world needs - jobs will appear, demand will revive. And a chastened banking/investment sector will perform its traditional role (like non-toxic mortgages without the disastrous derivative frills that brought it low.

More than anything what the world needs is a sense of direction - without that capitalism will wander off to find profit in what is unprofitable for society. Capitalism is the most effective tool for getting what it is you want done. But our leaders must make clear what that is!

The present Obama lead is still precarious given what he is up against with racism and perceived Democrat suppport for "politicial correctness" destructive of America's traditional values - two handicaps I keep drawing attention to when Obama's supporters show signs of over-confidence. It's still a nail-biter for us Europeans whose future will be decided by an American electorate who brought us G W Bush not once but twice.

This election is still very much about national security as well as the economy.

There is still the danger that near the last moment al Qaeda or some other enemy will pull off some major attack or security challenge - maybe something we're not even thinking about - in an attempt to help Senator McCain who is far the most likely to follow GW Bush in (unwittingly) giving al Qaeda and other enemies all they want as he has done to date. (See reports of what they're threatening now on restricted access terrorist sites).

This means that during these last days before 4 November it is important to keep crying out loudly that "experience" is no automatic qualification to be Commander-in-Chief!

As I keep saying, the simple point is that no one had as many years of "hands on" experience in national security/military affairs as Cheney and Rumsfeld: but their astonishing bad judgement got us all into the Iraq war with its calamitous (for "the West") consequences.

And Senator McCain - despite all his Vietnam experience and his years in the Senate - himself demonstrated appalling bad judgement by voting for the invasion of Iraq which risked bringing and has indeed brought not one but two more "Vietnams" - Iraq and Afghanistan: when to leave, how to leave without leaving behind a trail of disaster far worse than after the fall of Saigon.

Yet seemingly near half of intended voters will vote for him and Mme Pailin (who has a 1 in 7, we are told, actuarial likelihood of becoming president within the next four years if Senator McCain wins)

Ye - these are truly nail biting days for us Europeans whose fate will be decided on 4 November.

For much more about these criticla days please see my consultancy's website www.dipconsult.eu

Senator McCain, with his Vietnam and senatorial experience, was perhaps the one US politician who might have stopped the Iraq adventure.

We Cassandras foresaw in 2002 (and went on public record) that just one of the major reasons why the US and UK must not invade Iraq was precisely because that would risk not one, but two more "Vietnams" ("Can't stay, can't leave" situations) - one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

If McCain, claiming to be the "experienced" presidential candidate, didn't see that obvious risk (although many of us life-long diplomatic and military experts were shouting about it) then his "experience" is so stymied by bad judgement that it counts for nothing.

As for Afghanistan, leaving it as G W Bush's unfinished business, to go into the Iraq maelstrom, alienated that wide 2002 international backing on whose money and support any hope of giving Afghanistan a chance to recover from the Soviet and Taliban years, was lost.

For what Afghanistan needed while the Taliban were quiescent licking their wounds was a realistic world-backed development plan to rebuild, continue the Taliban's no opium policy, and make Afghanistan a reasonably none- too-poor society - much as I saw it in 1970.

Yes - I'm afraid it's too late now. But then as Sweden's brilliant Count Oxenstierna told his would-be diplomat son in 1648 - "Do you not realise, my son, with what little wisdom the world is governed?" Especially with the Bush/Blair team in charge!

Obama, though, has the pragmatism, high intelligence, and common sense to work hard to mitigate the catastrophic folly of President G.W.Bush. He's the only one who could possibly handle this double "Vietnam" challenge.

For more on the current US electoral situation see our www.dipconsult.eu

This Axis of Evil speech was a tragedy for US, Iran and the world.

Just when Al Qaeda had brought the US and Iran closer and the time had come for renewing relations after the overthrow of the Taliban, G W Bush went into Iraq, so putting US forces to the West as well as to the East of Iran. Any Iranian Government would have been obliged to assert its influence over its "near West", and especially after their equivalent (casualty-wise) of World War I in Saddam Hussein's (West-supported) Iraq/Iran war.

That immense G W Bush (and Cheney) error meant the roll back of the "reformers" (slowly succeeding under President Khatami) and soon, the emergence of a hard line president - Ahmedinajad.

Fortunately Obama sees that a new US president who was against "Iraq" may be able to reopen a US/Iran dialogue albeit in less favourable negotiating conditions for the US than at end 2002.

AS Obama also sees, success with Iran will depend on China and Russia supporting the return of Iran as a "normal" country on conditions (no "Nukes") - for that is in their interest and that of many other, especially Arab, countries.

With a return to normality, the reformists would be able to re-start humanising the regime. It is not monolithic - watch for example Rafsanjani.

But all depends on "unconscious racism" not depriving Obama of his hard-earned victory.

We Europeans - with no vote - watch askance this momentous US election because it is so obvious that only a comparatively young, dynamic, highly intelligent, quick to learn internationally minded president has any chance at all of getting America off the disastrous (for us & the world) Bushian track of confrontation and onto the track of cooperation.

That's utterly essential not only to resolve America's wars and financial meltdown, but also to tackle the vast challenges of global warming, nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, epidemics, etc. etc. - existential threats to humanity.

And our principal fear is that RACE and political genius dirty trickster ROVE are what stand in the way of Barack Obama.

But we have little confidence in American voters who elected so obviously unsuitable a candidate as G W Bush (with a little help from the Supreme Court) in 2000 - and then re-elected him again in 2004 although by then his financial and war policies were already proving disasrous.

Of course a lifelong Republican beyond three score and ten who voted for that calamitous Iraq war can't possibly bring about real change to get on that cooperation track! How absurd even to think so!

For more, see our www.dipconsult.eu
This is beyond left & right, Rep or Dem, Lab or Con - so this consultancy is working full time to try to help Obama. Whatever his faults he may indeed be able to make a real change. McCain and Madame Palin can't. And - given McCain's age and health record - imagine Mme Palin deciding our lives and those of our children! Actuarially it seems she has a 1 in 7 chance of becoming president in the next 4 years. And McCain has a far greater chance of falling ill on the job or simply being physically overwhelmed!

Yes - McCain with his Vietnam experience and time in the senate was the US politician best placed to oppose, perhaps even stop, the Iraq war where there was obviously a grave risk that to vote for it - a second war leaving Afghanistan perilous unfinished business - was to risk at the same time not only a second "Vietnam" in Iraq, but a third "Vietnam" in Afghanistan.

The first security job of the next president will be to try to avoid both these new potential "Vietnams". How can McCain, let alone the totally inexperienced Mme Palin (with, we are told, a one in seven actuarial chance of being president by 2012) possibly succeed in this?

No - experience does not automatically qualify. Look at Cheney and Rumsfeld with perhaps more hands-on experience of security and defence maatters than anyone else. They got us into the worldwide catastrophe of Iraq. Not just military, but financial.

Curious that the overall cost of "Iraq" to date is around $700bn, financed by borrow-all-the-way: the same figure as is now assessed as needed to resolve the financial meltdown. The financial demands of "Iraq" are to a large extent responsible for this financial crisis.

For more of our work at JP Diplomatic Consultancy, France, please see our www.dipconsult.eu

The vast majority of us Europeans are apalled at the possibility that American voters will choose McCain/Palin as our leaders (we have have no united voice in the world).

It's not a question of left or right, Rep. of Dem. - for us Europeans it's plain (Palin?) fear: American voters elected the obviously unqualified G W Bush and the well known neo-conservative Cheney in 2000. AND did the same again in 2004 when the full worldwide disaster of Iraq was already becoming apparent.

America's voters, now once again about even in the polls, are quite likely to show their dangerous ignorance a third time and give us 72 yr old past sell-by-date McCain and even more dangerous and utterly unqualified Palin with her good actuarial chance of "running the world".

KEY POINT - McCain's whole campaign depends on bragging that his 'experience' automatically qualifies him to be Commander-in-Chief. But of course experience does not in itself qualify!

Cheney and Rumsfeld had far more experience (executive not just Senatorial) but they manufactured the Iraq war that has proved far more disastrous financially as well as militarily, than ever did the Vietnam war.

And McCain, despite all that boasted "experience" in Vietnam and the Senate, backed and enthusiastically supported Cheney/Rumsfeld - thereby risking a second "Vietnam" in Iraq (Gen. Petraeus himself insists the temporary improvement is extremely fragile and could disappear as the US draws down: i.e the same "can't stay,can't leave" situation as in Vietnam).

Indeed, as a direct result of "Iraq", there's maybe even another "Vietnam" looming in Afghanistan!

Yet he - McCain - was the one US politician who might have made Bush think twice about the invasion had he - with his "experience" - come out against it!

Obama really must deliver this knockout blow: "experience" is NOT qualification - bad judgement nullifies it! And McCain voted for the worldwide catastrophe for the U.S. of "Iraq"
On all this please see my: www.dipconsult.eu

Posted by: dipconsult on Sep 18, 2008
In reply to oped listing the many disadvantages a 'black' faces in the US:

Yes, the vast majority of us in Europe are appalled that the one man who could bring real change cleaning up the worldwide G W Bush mess in warfare and finance, could well lose this election for the sole reason that he is half 'Caucasian' (as you Americans put it) and half African. Had he been 'white' his ratings would be around, say, 60% - a sure victor.

Yes, we too, have quite enough racism in Europe but, for example, even in the 1960s the president of the French Assembly was a person of colour.

And today, by a huge majority we Europeans would vote for Senator Obama - not because we are 'Obamamaniacs' as some of your American media codescendingly dub us, but because we see in this brilliant, well informed, well organised man who opposed the Iraq war (whose military and financial consequences have severely damaged not only the US but our European position in the world) the one person who could indeed turn the page.

From his clearly stated policies, he could indeed lead the world away from the Bush era of sterile confrontation to a new era - made possible by the end of the Cold War - of international cooperation to face the grim challenges not just for the US but for every country. Indeed for humanity. (For more see our website dipconsult.eu )

September 17th, 2008. From the advice we have given:

"Left" and "Right" are not the categories for those who regard capitalism as (usually) the most efficient way to get something done, but yet hold that to be successful - as in sport so in capitalism - there must be strictly enforced rules. Otherwise the honest go to the wall and the system collapses.

Keynesianism and the New Deal are not anti-capitalist.
Regulation is not anti-capitalist. Neither are 'leftie' or 'socialist'.

Indeed, most destructive of capitalism has been the ideologically inspired deregulation which really got going under Reagan and was carried on under Clinton (who signed the Republican majority Congress' "Financial Services Modernisation Act". Deregulation then roared ahead under G W Bush.

McCain has has not understood this basic fact. He has been ambivalent over regulation. But Obama has already made clear that regulation must be restored - as he said, not the old regulation, but new regulation by fewer authorities to meet today's new economic and financial requirements.

Not only is Obama far more intelligent and energetic (at 46 in the prime of politiical life) but his whole background makes him most likely to push for fairplay - i.e effective regulation.

From John Pedler, JP Diplomatic Consultancy, France: dipconsult.eu dipconsult@hotmail.com

Your excellent (and so amusing) piece in the IHT today could be (suitably translated!) the basis of the statesmanlike speech that Obama ought now to be making to rise above pig & lipstick pettiness.

Surely it is vital to get across to American voters your point that it is both Bush’s Iraq war and his financial ineptitude, that have TOGETHER brought such economic distress to American voters and such a collapse of America’s power and prestige?.

Can’t American voters, even now, be brought to see that real ‘change’ can only be brought by a president who was against the Iraq war? None other can credibly turn this page of disaster and make a new start at home and abroad.

And if Americans AND the outside world both see a new era of cooperation on the way, it will be possible to start cleaning up the Bush mess both from inside and the world outside.

But how persuade Obama - the only hope - to take on the mantle of statesmanship he can merit? So many Americans (and we Europeans) are waiting for just that. It would galvanize Obama’s support across the board. On that level McCain/Palin cannot compete.

Though urged to do so, Kerry never made that world-encompassing speech - and faded out in petty swift-boatery. We Europeans are alarmed such could happen again.

I hope this helps!

Best wishes for your cheering work, John Pedler

From here in Europe we see Obama as having two large handicaps - no doubt explaining why he had no 'surge' after the remarkable Democrat Convention, while McCain had a big one after the down-beat Republican one.

1. he is 'black' and racism in America is far more powerful than here in Europe,
2. the Democratic party is widely perceived as 'progressive', 'liberal', 'politically correct' - meaning to many, especially in the 'red' states, that Democrats are out to bury the traditional moral values of the US.

So it would seem sensible - as people like Mark J. Penn (ex-election fixer for the Clintons) advise - for Obama to distance himself from this part of the Democratic party's image.

But after Mrs Palin's electrification of the Republican image (thanks to Karl Rove's genius) Obama must equally electrify his campaign.

Three suggestions -

1. present himself in a major speech and in the debates with McCain as the statesman he really is: warn that not just the US but the whole world is right now at a crossroads. Will America go on down the G W Bush road of confrontation to the Pentagon vision of eternal war - or will America take a turn and lead towards the era of cooperation made possible by the end of the Cold War? Only taking that road will make possible solving the immense problems all countries face. (Something on those lines?)

2. Make sure everyone understands that the economic & financial woes of ordinary voters stem directly from G W Bush going to an immensely expensive war on a tax cut for the rich, coupled with his right wing ideology of de-regulation in the financial sector. Something McCain "doesn't get".

3. And inspire us all with that promise to set up a programme to find other sources of energy than oil within ten years. (What happened to that vote-catcher?)

For more - please see our site at www.dipconsult.eu

US Presidents by convention (only bucked by Roosevelt) may only have two terms in office - but this is the third term for Karl Rove as fixer of the US presidency.

Yes - to the horror of most of us Europeans it does now seem possible that, thanks to the political genius of Karl Rove, McCain will be your US President in 2009 and quite likely Palin ("actuarially") in 2011/12. Catastrophe for us, you Americans, and for the world.

We urged in 2004 that Kerry make a big, statesmanlike speech about Iraq, the disaster to US standing it caused throughout the world, and how he would start to clear up the mess GW Bush had made, but Kerry stuck to old fashioned politicking and sank from swift boaters.

Obama seems to be equally reluctant to make that sober world-encompassing speech pointing out that, as GW Bush has proved by his failed unipolar policy "the world is not susceptible to US domination - but without US leadership not much can be achieved" (Brent Scowcroft's words)

For us in Europe this is the crossroads - the next president must shed GW Bush's Cheney/neocon ethos of confrontation and lead the world towards the era of cooperation made possible by the end of the cold war.

The alternative is the doctrine of "perpetual war". The State Department must replace the Pentagon as the lead force in the next administration. The alternative is the road to perdition.

Obama and his handlers know all this - he has only a couple of weeks now to don the mantle of statesmanship before the debates with McRove.

[please see dipconsult.eu where we give full details supporting the above].

The media worldwide (and here in Europe) naturally relish presenting Obama as "young" or "youthful". No harm - it helps the image of 'hope' and 'change' he offers.

But McCain now talks of Obama's 'youth' deliberately to discredit Obama's experience in contrast to his.

Obama is 47, McCain 72. McCain can't get away from being 'old' (60 +). But Obama is NOT young - although he looks refreshingly youthful. He is middle-aged (40 - 60) and in the prime of life for a political leader who must undertake the heaviest of responsibilities towards the US and the world. Let's remember J. F. Kennedy was 44, 3 years younger than Obama, when he became US president.

True, old people tend to see the middle-aged as young. But in McCain's case his references to his opponent as 'young' are, it now appears, barbs deliberately to belittle Obama's experience compared with his own.

I suggest it is important to counter this. The age gap is between the indisputably old - more than the biblical span of 'three score years and ten', and a man in the prime of life.

Some people retain their intellectual acuity into their eighties or more - like the present pope or Gladstone, the 19th century prime minister. But for most there is
slow deterioration of memory and other faculties. and of course of the physical capacity to bear long working hours.

In previous US presidential elections health has been a major media interest. It is to be hoped that both Senator McCain and Senator Obama will divulge the necessary medical information (psychological as well as physical)for specialists to guide the public on the health question.

After listening to Mrs Palin's acceptance speech, I am, as a European, very worried. Karl Rove is a political genius and one guesses at his master hand behind the choice of this woman: she's an excellent orator and preaches just the sort of family plus tough-girl message that appeals to the least educated who vote what's nearest their gut feelings - not policy issues.

37% of Americans still support G W Bush. Around 30% apparenlty still believe Cheney's claim that Saddam was in league with Bin Laden. Some 30% believe Obama is a Muslim. Most of these 30% groups are doubtless the same people - but enough to swing the election for McCain.

The fact that the hugely impressive Obama who actually understands the issues (see for example his masterly foreign policy piece in Foreign Affairs Aug 2007, see for example his Kennedy-like ambitious plan to provide the means to find energy alternatives to end "oil addiction") is "black" means he has an appalling handicap given the immutable racism of so many Americans - (the same 30% again?)

AND he has the possibly equally great handicap of standing as a Democrat when that party is so widely perceived as "politically correct" favouring abortion on demand, gay marriage, sex at will, and the desire to force such values on others by legislation. Seems to us onlookers that maybe this revulsion is shared by many others than just those 30percenters.

Many of us here in Europe see with dismay that this election - absolutely key for us - will be determined by irrational gut prejudices and not by rational considerations.

Yet is is essential that the US renounce confrontation and lead towards an era of international cooperation that became possible with the end of the Cold War.

For more about the way we see things please visit our website at dipconsult.eu

Here in France we have perhaps the best health care system in the world - though there are poor regional patches. I know because my family and I have had the benefit of it for nearly five years. True, the British system (which way back post WWII the French studied to their advantage) has become inefficient and excessively expensive mirroring the sad decline of British administrative standards under successive governments.

But there is no need to tolerate bad administration. The French don't. And America should not.

Mrs Clinton does seem, from what we know, to be the US politician with the most knowledge (ever since her health care work during her husband's presidency) and by far the best proposals about establishing an effective US health care system.

My suggestion both to get universal health care in the US and to help Obama's still all too uncertain chances of winning the November election: he should announce (of course after asking her!) that Mme Clinton will be his health czar with full powers if he is elected.

How many voters don't want universal health care as in almost all other advanced countries? And what a wonderful way of appeasing disgruntled Hilary supporters! What chance would Mrs Palin then have of winnning their votes for McCain?

Ex-diplomat John Pedler says that American Catholics face an agonising decision this November
22 August 2008

America's Catholic voters may have tipped the balance ensuring George W Bush's election to the presidency in both 2000 and 2004. Of course, without the support of any one of several other groups of voters, both those Bush campaigns could have failed. Nevertheless it remains true that Catholic votes could possibly determine the outcome this November.

As a former diplomat and for the last 20 years a diplomatic consultant working in a number of countries and advising on the world scene, I am convinced that in Europe's interest, in America's interest and in the interest of the world, it is essential that the next President leads America towards the new era of international cooperation that was promised when the Cold War ended more than a decade and a half ago.

Though the eagle's wings have been clipped both militarily and financially, the United States remains by far the major world power. Europe has still not found its voice and other powers, including Russia and China, are largely reactive to America. Having had working contacts with the Clinton administration, most of whose principal foreign affairs advisers are now supporting Barack Obama, I am convinced that the one hope for a real change in US policy towards international cooperation lies in Obama's election.

But despite the hoo-hah surrounding his campaign, Obama's election is far from a foregone conclusion, as those in his entourage admit. Anyone who has lived among both black and white Americans cannot but be struck by the deep-seated, all but invincible, racial prejudice of many white Americans - and for, that matter, many black Americans. As the pollsters well know, they cannot rely on respondents' denials of such prejudice and assurances of support for Obama to translate into actual votes in the privacy of the voting booth. I believe it to be more than ever important that American Catholics - who, of course should have no such racist prejudice - think particularly carefully about their vote for both President and Congress this November.

In a homily before Britain's last general election our dear and holy parish priest told us we should not vote for any politician who supported abortion. Many American priests have given, and are giving, the same advice. The so-called "pro-choice" issue has determined many a vote - not just of Catholics but of many others with an "old-fashioned" moral sense. The Church teaches that abortion is a grave social and moral evil. George W Bush has greatly benefitted from this. Whereas Senator Obama, the Democrats' candidate, supports "choice".

Then there is political correctness, perhaps an even greater determinant for Catholic voters. Having lived for a time in a red (Republican) state I can understand why so many humble people, like check-out girls in supermarkets, vote for the Republicans, the party of the well-to-do, against their own financial interests. I am impressed by their sure moral compass. Democrats are perceived as progressives who, in the name of political correctness, have jettisoned the traditional Christian morality that these people, Catholic and Protestant, live by. In these central states, far from the madding world, there is typically little interest in foreign affairs. There is also woeful ignorance: more than once I was asked if Britain was an island!

The Republican party is widely seen, rightly or wrongly, as the upholder of this moral tradition, once the generally accepted morality of the United States. Indeed, not only in the red states but even on the coasts there are many who deplore such politically correct policies as same-sex marriage, gay adoption, ever easier divorce and abortion "on demand". Many feel their own freedoms imperilled by the penalisation of those who, loyal to American and Christian tradition, oppose these things. They feel threatened by the concomitant downgrading of the family and the disastrous fragmentation of society that results. They feel isolated and abandoned in their attempts to bring up their own children in the way of life their forbears brought with them when they emigrated to America, the supposed land of decency and religious freedom.

A wise old priest once told me that we each have the choice to live holy lives, to strive for perfection, because our Lord does not ask us to "be a jolly good fellow because I am a jolly good fellow" but to "be perfect, even as I am perfect". But he added that in our dealings with the world we often have only a choice between one evil and a lesser one. It falls to us to decide which is which.

This is surely the nub of the matter for the Catholic voter in America. On the one hand, abortion is evil and political correctness, of which Obama is tolerant, is also an evil threatening the foundations of society.

But on the other hand, "all war is hell", as General Sherman, destroyer of the South in the Civil War, famously remarked. Though Christians may bear arms and wage a just war, an unjust war is an insupportable evil. The death and suffering of millions and an America on the wrong international track must surely be weighed against abortion and political correctness. The latter can be confronted later.

Obama predicted of the disastrous worldwide consequences of an effectively unilateral US invasion of Iraq. Now the West is faced with the possible loss of two wars - there and in Afghanistan - and is, at the same time, suffering a grave setback in countering international terrorism. The Pentagon talks of continuous war while the world economy is on the brink of a recession characterised by immense profits for the indestructibly rich. And all the while the great problems facing mankind - climate change, depletion of resources such as oil and water, epidemics, extinctions, and so on - are marginalised. We surely must try not to have to fight over these.

Our times call for international cooperation for, great and small, all countries face these same vast threats. The present interim period of confrontation must give way to a return to the cooperation that was promised at the end of the Cold War. Obama has recognised this imperative.

There is another point weighing for Obama as "the lesser evil" from a Catholic viewpoint: he wants to mitigate the "clash of civilisations" - Christian and Muslim - that has been exacerbated by both the G W Bush administration and al-Qaeda and co. Brought up partly in Indonesia, Obama has lived in a Muslim majority country. He knows the difficulties for Christians in the Islamic world. He recognises that the crude Bush response to Islamic terrorism has been a disaster for Christians in Muslim countries and that American policies have brought on persecution.

This "clash" of religions, exacerbated by American and al-Qaeda policies, must be mitigated (as our present Pope and his predecessor have striven to do) by promoting tolerance and mutual understanding.

Let us hope American Catholics will weigh these considerations before deciding their vote and will choose "the lesser evil", whichever they consider it to be.

Many of us here in Europe are deeply concerned

- a) that so many Americans are so racist that Obama ("our [secular] hope for years to come") has such a huge handicap to overcome. After the disaster for all of us of the G W Bush years he is only level pegging with so obviously unsuitable, even dangerous, opponent as McCain.

- b) that so many Americans are fed up with 'political correctness" and "progressives" which they see as Democrat liberalism eating away at their traditional family values (e.g gay marriage, sex on demand, abortion on demand, etc. etc.) and pro government intrusion to force such values on everyone. So they will vote Republican believing, incorrectly, that a Republican candidate will uphold their traditional values.

Obama himself has been wisely cautious about identifying himself too closely with such 'political correctness' to the point that many of his 'liberal' supporters have chided him for not supporting their values.

We in Europe (the great majority I believe it fair to say) fear that these two factors mean that, no matter how unsuitable a Republican candidate may be, he has at least a fifty per cent chance of winning the presidency and so determining our future as well as America's. (G W Bush has so split Europe with his Iraq war and concomitant US thrust towards unipolarism - Amerika uber alles in der Welt - that the EU has almost no voice at all internationally).

For more details see our JP Diplomatic Consultancy's URL: dipconsult.eu

The brilliant Mr. Rove may well have telling reasons for backing Senator McCain's choice of Governor Palin as a way of getting the Republican candidate elected.

But, after only a quick ring round, I find that many of us observers in Europe are appalled by McCain's choice of this lady as his running mate. Didn't I agree that this decision should finally disqualify McCain himself as President and Commander-in-Chief?

For - as has so widely been pointed out - this election partner whom he so exuberantly presented to the world has virtually no qualifations to lead the US, the West, let alone the world, either as United States President or as Commander-in-Chief. She has virtually no experience of Washington, or of foreign and defence matters.

Yet if Senator McCain - 72 and not in the best of health - should die, be assassinated, or otherwise be incapacitated, it is Mrs. Palin who would be in charge of your American and our European future. (Our EU has no voice - it has been more severely divided than ever by President G W Bush and his Iraq war, which was supposed to guarantee that the 21st would be the New American Century of US unipolarism).

This choice of a neophyte shows more clearly than anything McCain's maverick unpredictability in which he so prides. But a cool head and consistency are surely what is required of a leader.

More importantly it demonstrates that Senator McCain is focussed uniquely on his own hoped for tenure as President and Commander-in-Chief. His election is everything for him (as his goals have been since he ceased being a POW). He clearly believes Mrs. Palin on the ballot will secure him the Presidency. He clearly doesn't bother about the future of the West if he is no longer around.

So yes, the sheer irresponsibility and selfishness of his choice of Vice President should indeed disqualify Senator McCain from the Presidency and post of Commander-in-Chief.

Senator McCain's weakness: Seeks the presidency as a Vietnam POW but he supported a second 'Vietnam'

By John Pedler, former diplomat now a diplomatic consultant.

(This item is taken from advice to clients of JP Diplomatic Consultancy)

Senator McCain claims he has the experience to be President citing on pretty well every opportunity that having been a prisoner of war in Vietnam and having backed the war in Iraq, he's the one with the qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces.

But being a Vietnam veteran and consistently backing the war in Iraq just don't go together. They're incompatible.

Anyone - especially a 'vet' - familiar with that war an its disastrous end (I myself was there twice in 1968 the year of the Tet, and again in 1970) must surely have wanted at all costs to avoid a second 'Vietnam' style disaster. Yet that is precisely what Americans and we British have got by invading Iraq. With the US position in the world now seriously diminished, how best can we get out?

Yet it was not hard for us Cassandras to warn in 2002 that another 'Vietnam' was just what the US and the UK were likely to get by going it virtually alone to Baghdad. Let's look at what anyone who wanted to could readily have known by September 2002:

1. Obviously it would split US allies - the UK siding with the US, and France and Germany joining Russia in opposing. And so a split in NATO too: the one sure politico/military link binding the US and Canada to the EU.

2. It was also obvious that a Rumsfeld 'lite' invasion force and a shoe-string budget would not suffice, given the fissiparous nature of Iraq, to ensure a swift replacement of Saddam by a strong Iraqi government. Shi'ites were still fretting at their terrible losses after President G H W Bush failed to support them after calling on them to rise against Saddam; Sunnis would be out to preserve their supremacy without Saddam; Kurds would be seeking independence - and so on for the smaller ethnic groups.

3. There was the equally obvious folly of putting US forces to the west of Iran in Iraq well as to the east of it in Afghanistan (what would the US have done with Chinese forces in both Canada and Mexico?) That would end Iran's initial cooperation with the US in removing the Taliban (its enemy, in Afghanistan). And an Islamic revolutionary Iran striving to ensure its influence in its western neighbour (which, under Saddam, had waged the atrocious Iraq/Iran war) clearly bode ill for any US occupation of Iraq.

4. Invading a second Islamic country would also, equally predictably, add gasoline to the worldwide 'clash of cultures' al Qaeda had deliberately ignited with 9/11. That would redound on the 'War on terror'. Saddam, brute though he was, was doing America's work for it in keeping Al Qaeda out of Iraq. Leading Republican national security guru Brent Scowcroft warned (Wall Street Journal, 15 Aug. 2002) 'An attack on Iraq at this time could seriously, prejudice, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken'.

5. Then there was yet another clear folly in giving Iraq military and financial priority over Afghanistan - G W Bush's perilous unfinished business. Downgraded, anyone could see that Afghanistan with its history of ejecting mighty invaders, could go so badly as to threaten another 'Vietnam' there too.

6. The war in Iraq was supposed to be about WMD. But it was ridiculous to invade a country that experts agreed had no nuclear weapons but might have them one day, when Russia, China, Japan and S. Korea were counting on America staying with them to oblige N Korea to give up the nuclear bomb it already had!

7. Above all, there was the lack - pointed out by the UK in mid 2002 - of clear plans for the swift replacement of Saddam, and an early exit from Iraq. Clearly, if ever there was one, a second 'Vietnam' threatened in Iraq. A 'Vietnam' likely to have far worse worldwide consequences than the US defeat in Vietnam in the '70s.

Anyone - particularly a Vietnam vet anxious to avoid another debacle - could have found out all this far more easily than we Cassandas did. We now know that both the State Department and the Foreign Office were issuing warnings for the White House and No 10. These were available to members of the Senate and the House of Commons. But McCain, like so many senators and UK Members of Parliament, evidently failed to take the trouble to brief himself on the secret information he could have had. Yet because of his experience he was the one senator who could and should have known all this and made a memorable speech in protest at G W Bush's call to war.

To sum up - to have had experience of war, and to have had years of indirect influence as a lawmaker over foreign affairs, does not in itself qualify someone to be President and Commander-in-Chief. McCain has had no 'hands on' experience of major command to judge him by. Only votes, speeches and influence. So the question is - do these demonstrate good judgment giving confidence that he would make a good Commander-in-Chief? In the light of the above, the answer has to be a clear 'No'.

There is one more point to make:

When I arrived in Vietnam in 1968 the Vietnamese colonel, who was liaison officer between President Khieu and the US Ambassador, told me that I would find that everyone from his boss Khieu to the woman in the paddy field to be anti-American. Rather an exaggeration, but, alas, I found it basically true. Why - because of the US use of 'hyper-power' on the ground (remember My Lai and several similar incidents?) and even more indiscriminately from the air.

From Vietnam I went Cambodia and found the same broad based anti-American sentiments due to the massive American bombing which was not confined to the 'Ho Chi Minh trail'. As is generally known, the backlash of hatred in the countryside gave the formerly barely significant Khmer Rouge the support it needed to achieve its auto-genocidal revolution.

In Phnom Penh, I interviewed the High Representative of North Vietnam. I asked him how he explained the large numbers who rallied to the communist cause. He told me: "If I kill your mother, brother, child you'll want to kill me. So the Americans are our recruiting sergeants. These people just want to fight them. Sometimes it worries me for none of them are communists".

Was Senator McCain so isolated in his prison cell that he never had knowledge of the war in which he fought and why it was lost? If so, he should surely have troubled to find out the facts from other veterans. What was the result of the near indiscriminate air war of which he was part? Did he not see that, faced with almost certain civil unrest in Iraq and insufficient boots on the ground, the US could once again find itself relying on massive fire power and air power in a war with large numbers of civilian casualties so causing the sort of anti-Americanism that occurred in Vietnam?

John McCain, with his experience of war and years monitoring foreign policy was perhaps the best qualified senator to speak out against an invasion of Iraq - at least until Afghanistan had been been secured and Al Qaeda denied its recruiting sergeant by resolving the Israel/Palestine running sore. But instead he supported President G W Bush and the neo-conservatives who were hoping to achieve such dominance in the Middle East that their goal of a 'New American Century' would come by establishing the 'unipolarism' they sought for the US.

And age does count - over seventy, energy inevitably dilutes, in most some memory problems set in: from some of his statements it seems this may be happening to him already And keeping up to date in a swiftly changing world becomes more difficult with age. The burden American presidents have to bear of being at once Head of State and head of government is heavy at any time. In the present grave world crisis it would challenge a much younger man. The problem - almost too late in the day - is to shift the major powers from Bush style confronation to an era of cooperation made possible by the end of the Cold War.

Let us look now at Barack Obama. Famously he opposed the Iraq war: a sign of good judgment particularly when most Senators and Representatives approved it.

Secondly what is it that makes good Commander- in-Chief? Eisenhower had been an overall commander, so had Grant, but Lincoln had never commanded a major unit, nor had F D Roosevelt - nor had G W Bush. Nor has McCain or Barack Obama. Pitt the Younger - who became UK Prime Minister at the age of 24 in the midst of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars had only had a bare year in government as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Yet he was a great success.

The qualities required? Exceptional intelligence and memory, pragmatism, readiness to learn (especially from mistakes), ability to lead the public and the Administration, ability to delegate and to choose the right cadres for the different tasks, capacity to work long hours when needed, incorruptability, calm in the face of setbacks, sincerity, loyalty, and almost above all profound common sense. Obama from his record, his writings, and his well run campaign appears to have many of these qualities. So he is by far the best bet to restore America' damaged image, and to do everything possible, after eight years of Bush confrontation, to usher in that so badly needed era of international cooperation.