A Quiet Saturday Night

This is one of those days where i don't have any one particular issue i want to write about but there are a bunch of smaller things i want to cover, i'll warn you in advance if you find a coherent link between them all, it's purely accidental.

• Forest today guaranteed a two legged showdown with Swansea in the Championship Play Offs with a supremely comfortable 3-0 win over a Crystal Palace side who knew they had nothing to play for. It was a good win and will hopefully see us go into the Play Offs full of confidence; something i can't quite manage to share. I have a pretty intense love/hate relationship with the end of season competition; i love it for the adrenaline that the games cause to flow through me, i hate them for the seemingly inevitable disappointment they cause. I am fully aware even as i type this that for many people what i'm about to write will seem idiotic and bizarre, that's because it is both things, but i am so much more nervous about the Play Off matches than i am about my impending second year exams. It's the power football holds over me and i'm just hoping that for once that they pan out a little better this year than last.
• I want to congratulate QPR on their promotion to the Premiership, they deserved it for how consistent they have been throughout the season and though the FA have handled the whole inquest incredibly badly, i'm glad they haven't had a points deduction. My one objection is that if it's clear they're in the wrong which seems to be the case as they've been found guilty on two charges, the fine of £850,000 is a bit redundant seeing as they're owned by one of the richest men in English football and have just won a promotion which will bring in millions of pounds; that size fine is fairly meaningless to them. A 5 point deduction earlier in the year, when QPR would still have had time to recover in footballing terms would have been a much more satisfactory outcome, but once they took so long to organise and carry out the inquest any points deduction at this stage would have just seemed cruel on the fans.
• There's a rumour going around on Twitter that one of the pieces of information to come from the Osama Bin Laden raid is that he is a fan of the sitcom 'The IT Crowd'. Now i am 99% certain that there is absolutely no truth to this, but it's a brilliant rumour for someone to have made up and if he wasn't a fan, he was missing out. It's a great show and i'm very glad they've been commissioned for a fifth series.
• One definite positive to come out of the Local Council elections this week, a positive that got kind of ignored amidst all the focus on the Liberal Democrat collapse and the rejection of AV is that the BNP only managed to win 2 of the 268 elections they were contesting, a huge drop in the support they had in 2007 and lost all 5 of the seats they had previously held in Stoke-on-Trent.
• I'm loving Fleet Foxes new album right now, heard it for the first time earlier this week and it has grown on me even in such a short space of time; it's maintained the beautiful harmonies and atmospheric instrumentation of the first album but there's a more mature sound to their songs and a greater freedom to experiment on show, now that they know they have an audience who will listen to them. 'The Shrine/An Argument' is a great example of this, 8 minutes which alternate between typical Fleet Foxes delicate melodies, intense vocals, aggressive guitars and strange, almost proggy, little moments which should seem out of place yet somehow fit perfectly. It's not as easy a listen as the first album but i don't mean that as a criticism; yes it looses a little of the soothing quality that made the first album a favourite, but i'd rather they try something a bit new rather than simply reproducing the same sound over and over again. Like any great band they've grown up a little following their debut album and it shows on this effort.
• I watched 'Doomsday' this afternoon. Directed by Neil Marshall who brought the world 'Dog Soldiers' and 'The Descent', two of the best British horror/thrillers of the past few years, this 2008 effort lacks the level of quality and control that the other two showed. It's a tale of a post apocalyptic Britain where Scotland has been sealed off by a modern day Hadrian's wall after the outbreak of a killer disease called the 'reaper virus' in Glasgow. The main part of the film takes place nearly 30 years after the initial outbreak and Scotland is believed to be deserted after the people were left to die out, but when an outbreak is discovered in London an elite squad is sent to Scotland to try and find a cure after it's revealed that survivors have been spotted via satellite. So far so genre, but it's an opening packed with potential. Sadly the rest of the film is a confusing mess, entertaining definitely, but it flits from one set piece to the next, encountering an urban gang of cannibal-punks in Glasgow and a society which has regressed to medieval standards in the moorlands, both of whom are immune, without a strong enough plot or deep enough characterisation to make the story particularly involving. You watch it pass you by and at several points are drawn in by a fight or a car chase, but despite some strong elements and ideas it doesn't work particularly well as a whole. Marshall is a director who clearly has a lot of talent but Doomsday feels self-indulgent, as if he's living out a range of fantasies without justifying them. At most i can give it 2/5 and that's mainly because i wasn't bored throughout, i just wouldn't watch it again.
• To finish this post i'm going to choose a mash-up done by a Sheffield band who i've mentioned on here before, The Gentlemen. Now i've not been to one of their gigs for about a year, and not seen them much at all since i left Sheffield for university, but i still keep an eye out for any new music they make, seeing as i spent a lot of time at their gigs during the couple of years before i moved to Leicester. It's a mash up of two songs i wouldn't have imagined working together; precisely the kind of mash up i tend to love.

You Have To Laugh Or You'd Cry

So the country has voted quite overwhelmingly against AV. I'm disappointed because i don't believe we'll get another chance to change the way our governments are elected for a long time and that means being stuck with the terrible First Past The Post system and predominantly right of centre politics for the foreseeable future. But the country has spoken and we'll get the politics we deserve on that basis.

This blog's been a bit depressing for the past week or so, very much focussed on political issues which though important hardly make for cheery contemplation so today's blog is going to be both shorter and more light hearted.

First up i stumbled across these two websites via Charlie Brooker's twitter and on a day when England's politics hasn't exactly left me in the greatest of moods, these made me laugh. The first is a superb collection of photos of Nick Clegg looking sad with some amusingly harsh captions. The second is in a similar vein but is mocking the times when David Cameron tries to seem more in touch with the average citizen than he or the majority of the Westminster politicians are. It reminded me of a video i've posted on here before, made during the lead up to the 2010 General Election adapting Pulp's "Common People" to comic effect. As it still makes me chuckle i'll post it again here:

Now moving the political satire focus across the Atlantic there's been a music video posted on Youtube of an alternative speech to the one broadcast all over the world of President Obama announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden. There's even references to Charlie Sheen, Rebecca Black and the attention seeking Donald Trump.

So there you go, a mini-rant and a healthy dose of political satire. To finish today's blog i'm going to post a song that i know i've posted at least once before, but it's a beautiful song and on a sunny day like this it feels kind of perfect. It's off Elbow's most recent album, "Build A Rocket Boys" and if you haven't already checked it out i'd advise you do so.

A World's Worth Of News

So there's been the Local Elections and a vote on AV, the results of which we'll know by tomorrow probably. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Two wealthy people have enjoyed a week of marriage. You'd be forgiven for thinking that that is all that has happened in the past 7 days. Rightfully (in the case of the first two) and inevitably (in the last one's) those 3 stories have dominated all news coverage for a week. All three are potentially historic moments and it's understandable that people have focussed on them, but i thought i'd use this blog to give mentions/links to a few of the other very important news stories which have been shoved down the news agenda, both in the UK and abroad.

1. Bahrain & Syria - The crackdown on the protests in Bahrain continues and the international response has highlighted the double standards in terms of condemnation and intervention. What is taking place in Bahrain is incredibly serious as news comes of 4 protester's being sentenced to death by firing squad and in some ways more tellingly the attacks, arrests and intimidation of medical staff in the country intensifies.

The authorities in the country have confirmed that 47 doctors will face prosecution, on spurious grounds, for what in reality was simply maintaining their principles and treating people regardless of the circumstance of their injury. Medical professionals in the country face threats, random arrests, detention without cause or any sort of due process and with no promise of release and physical attacks.

The protests in Bahrain currently are not on the scale of the uprisings in Egypt or Libya, partly because of the intervention of Saudi troops to back up the Bahraini authorities. In that sentence lies, in my belief, one of the main reasons why the West has been comparatively muted in their criticism of the Gulf state; Saudi Arabia doesn't want any protests there to be successful and seeing as the Saudi's are economic, military and political friends with the UK and US it's hardly surprising the response has been less dramatic than when Gadaffi attempted to crush the democratic aspirations of his people, we would have lost more than we gained in the Bahrain. The US also has a military air base in the Bahrain and the risk of a government less interested in accommodating a US presence on their soil is hardly one the US will want to embrace.

In Syria the southern city of Deraa has seen a 10 day military operation to crush the growing pro-democracy protests. The city is under siege and their are serious concerns about a humanitarian crisis developing if aid isn't brought in soon. Elsewhere in the country, especially in the capital Damascus, a high military presence and mass arrests are limiting the ability of the revolutionary movement to make any real progress.

There's been more condemnation of the government response in Syria though as of yet it's unclear whether that will come to anything or if the history books will look on it as the West making meaningless noises while political repression carried on.

It's depressing to see that as the UK bickers over which voting system is the most democratic, there are people across the world fighting and dying simply for the opportunity to have a fair vote. It puts the AV argument into context; i'll be sad if the referendum comes down on the side of NO as seems likely, a continuation of a system that only worked when there were just two parties that got 95% or so of the popular vote. The reality is that FPTP will guarantee centre right governments for the foreseeable future and we're unlikely to get another chance to be this involved in shaping our country. Regardless though, compared to the people in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and a number of other countries, i am grateful even for FPTP, because at least i get to vote without fear of violence or corruption.

2.Libya - There were two major developments in Libya this week. Overall the situation seems to have stagnated into a situation of civil war where neither force has the capability to oust the other. The exception to this is the battle still raging around Misrata. In previous weeks the rebels managed to drive Gaddafi's forces out of the city and are a testament to the spirit and determination of the revolutionary movement. However they are still under siege and Gaddafi has proven in the last 48 hours yet again why it is so important he is not allowed to retake either Misrata or Benghazi; his forces bombarded a humanitarian ship attempting to extract refugees and injured citizens. It also highlighted that though the UN intervention may have saved Benghazi, it hasn't defeated Gaddafi and the UN now faces the question of whether to do more to intervene or to let the Libyan leader gradually defeat the people of Misrata through bombardment and starvation.

Now my gut reaction is that we should do more; it'd be a true tragedy if in a months time i was reading about the fall of Misrata and the subsequent brutal response by Gaddafi's forces to the people who defied him for so long. However international politics can't be ruled by gut feelings and i have to concede i do not have the answers. All i do know is that Gaddafi is as much of a brutal dictator as Saddam Hussein and has as little regard for human life as Osama Bin Laden and one day in the not too distant future, people will have to stop arguing about the legality of Bin Laden's killing and consider the reality of the situation in Libya; if we do nothing more we might have the blood of those revolutionaries on our hands, if we intervene does it mean we're committing to another lengthy war with no clear exit plan and more condemnation from much of the world. It's decisions like that that make me VERY glad i'm never likely to be a politician on the international stage. There's no right or wrong answer; they'll be damned if they do and damned if they don't.

3. Ivory Coast - The democratically elected president Allasane Ouattara's forces have finally defeated the remaining forces loyal to ousted leader Laurent Gbagbo in the commercial capital Abidjan. It is suspected that many of the troops were mercenaries from neighbouring Liberia and they've been holding out for the past three weeks, ever since Gbagbo himself was captured in a bunker and arrested.

Once military operations are truly over for Ouattara the next big challenge of his leadership begins; his victory came at least partly due to the co-operation and military strength of a number of warlords who will now all want their share of the spoils. Ouattara will have to try and strike a balance between keeping those same warlords on his side (the last thing the Ivory Coast needs is more conflict) and avoiding being beholden to them to the extent that he struggles to achieve a strong and effective rule over the country.

4. Palestine - This week saw a reconciliation pact between the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas who control the Gaza Strip and are considered by Israel to be a terrorist organisation and a threat to them and Fatah who control the West Bank. Now for me this is good news; any move towards communication and peaceful negotiation between these two groups who only a few years ago were engaged in a bloody power struggle is progress. In my opinion the only way there can ever be meaningful progress towards peace in that region (total peace is a pipe dream but there can be improvements made there) is if the different factions in Palestine are united behind a cause of peaceful interaction with the international community. Divided they're easy to pick apart for the many groups that i believe have little real interest in the peace process, including if i'm honest, a lot of important figures in the Israeli government. United they can put pressure on the UN and in some ways more crucially the US, to in turn but pressure on Israel to come to the table with real intentions of finding a solution.

The move has been met with hostility from Israel and distrust by the US, which is hardly surprising, but i really hope the potential for genuine political progress is embraced rather than shut down as has happened so many times before. Israel will claim that they refuse to deal with a terrorist organisation but they, and the international community as a whole, need to ask themselves how they've allowed the situation in the Gaza Strip to reach the point where a group like Hamas could be democratically elected. I hope Israel responds well to any negotiation offers that this new agreement could lead to, but even after only 6 or so years of paying attention to the situation over there, i'm highly cynical because i quite simply believe there are powerful factions in Israel and abroad who view a unified and democratic Palestine as a major threat.

5. WW1 Veteran - Today saw the confirmation that the last known veteran of World War 1, Claude Stanley Choules, had passed away aged 110. Within a blog post where i've written about people's efforts to protect and attain democracy, it seems a fitting tribute to praise a man who fought in both World Wars. Now i have no idea what kind of man Mr Choules was, i only have the testimony of his family and friends, but the sentimental side of me means that i'd like to think he was a good man. I'd like to think that all the hate and death he must have seen will have influenced him to be a better person, someone who made the world a happier place. In the end though, almost regardless of the kind of person he was, he deserves respect simply for serving during both wars, for raising a family and for living to the ripe old age of 110. I never know what to say as an end to an obituary seeing as i'm not religious but i guess a fitting final statement would be:

"May my generation never have to know the kind of sacrifice your generation went through twice."

6. Ian Tomlinson - Finally, this week an inquest jury ruled that Ian Tomlinson was "unlawfully killed". Now for anyone not familiar with Ian Tomlinson's story he was a newspaper seller in London who on the 1st of April 2009, at the time of the G20 protests, was walking home through London when this happened:

As the video states, Mr. Tomlinson died from the injuries suffered at the hands of that Police officer. Now i'm not claiming for a minute that the officer intended to kill the man, but it highlights, just as many incidents at the student protests have, that brutal, misdirected and unjustified violence are not the sole reserve of the protesters. The fact is that Ian Tomlinson had his hands in his pockets and his back to the police officers when he was assaulted. It is a disgrace that it has taken this long for his family to even get the relatively small concession from the authorities that it was an "unlawful killing" and i hope the Crown Prosecution Service takes this opportunity to prosecute the officer responsible.

It doesn't deal with either the institutionalised violence amongst riot police officers or the corruption and collective arse-covering which followed Mr Tomlinson's death and saw lie after lie presented to the public in defence of the actions. Both elements will go unpunished even if the police constable, Simon Harwood, faces criminal charges, but it will at least be a warning to police at other protests in the future that they are not immune from prosecution and that violence towards people offering no threat to them will not be tolerated. It's a message that is crucially important in the current climate.

That's just a sample of the other important news stories which have been kind of buried under the whole Will & Kate, Osama V Obama and Yes/No coverage but i hope i gave a decent amount of coverage to a number of important issues that i'd advise if you're interested you go and read more on. The official media coverage is there, you just need to dig a little deeper than usual.

This has turned into a really long post so i'll end it here with a song from the upcoming new Friendly Fires album:

Vote Yes Or Vote No, Just Make Sure You Vote

I hope anyone in England who reads this goes out and votes tomorrow. Obviously there's things and parties i'd rather you did or did not vote for but in the end the most important thing is that you vote. I found this advert i remembered from last summer and it's still very relevant now:

If you don't get involved in politics, at least on election days, through apathy or laziness, then you're missing out on a big piece of what being a citizen is about and to a certain extent it limits how much you should really complain when things in this country don't go your way.

Now as for the AV referendum i posted a few of my views on the tactics used by the 'No' campaign and in writing it i realised to an extent where i stood on the matter. I'm going to vote Yes tomorrow, for a whole variety of reasons. I feel this is the best, and possibly the only opportunity we are going to get as a country to reform a voting system that i simply don't believe works. AV isn't the system i'd have chosen but compared to First Past The Post i believe it's a massive improvement; a No vote will inevitably seen and used as a vote for FPTP and a vote against change. Maybe it shouldn't be that way but you only have to have a look at the way both sides have conducted their campaigns to know that whatever the outcome of tomorrow's referendum, the result will be used as a justification in arguments that have little if anything to do with the Alternative Vote system.

A victory for the NO campaign will be seen as a criticism of Clegg, Milliband and both their parties, it will as i said be seen as an endorsement of FPTP and to dampen any other campaigns for political reform. A victory for the YES campaign will be used as a criticism of Cameron and his party, it's importance will be over-stated as a indictment of the current political systems and participators.

So basically, whichever way you vote tomorrow, be prepared to hear your vote being used to justify a whole lot of stuff you never intended it to mean when you put an X in a box about which voting system you wanted, because that's just politics.

Three points relating to that original post i wrote; firstly i want to repost this video:

I feel it sums up how the AV system works quite simply and effectively; a counter-point to all those claims by the NO campaign that AV is too complicated. I can't help but feel a lot of the media from both sides of the vote has been really quite patronising.

The second point is that in the original article i argued that the sports metaphor the NO campaign used in that leaflet was inappropriate as sport and politics are hugely different and shouldn't be compared. To a degree i still agree with that but i'll offer a sports metaphor of my own.

It's beginning of the season and two football fans are talking in a pub. The first fan asks the second, "So who do you want to win the league this season?" The second fan is a Manchester United fan, he replies, "Well obviously i'd like United, but i guess if they don't i'd rather Chelsea or Arsenal win it than Man City or Liverpool."

Now if this fan got to vote on the outcome under AV, and votes counted as points in the League table he could put a 1 by Man U, a 2 by Chelsea and a 3 by Arsenal, leaving the City and Liverpool boxes blank. So if Man U got the least points, they would be eliminated and the Man U fan's vote would be transferred to Chelsea's tally. If that brought Chelsea up to the point where they had a majority of points then they would have won and the Man U fan would have his second favourite option as champion.

Now that's a crass over simplification and a painfully poor metaphor, but so is this race one:

The third point i want to make is not a point for or against AV as a system but a comment on how this whole referendum debate has been handled. The tone of much of the discussion has been depressing; it's been patronising, petty and at times vile. A decision about which vote system should be used as our central electoral process for quite possibly the next century has been hijacked by party political bickering. I had a discussion with another student on the same course as me, who is planning to vote NO tomorrow and we both agreed that though neither campaign has dealt with the debate well, the key difference is that for the most part the YES campaign has been inept whereas the NO campaign has been malicious.

AV has been described as a "miserable little compromise", by one of the leading figures in the YES campaign, Nick Clegg, no less, but i am of the opinion that a compromise, even a miserable one, is better than a system that doesn't work.

So to round off i'm probably going to vote YES tomorrow but i will definitely vote and i hope you will too.

The song today is the first song off the new Frank Turner album, to be released this summer, and i definitely like it. Anyone who knows me will know that i'm more than a little fond of Frank Turner and his music so it's hardly a surprise i'm excited by the prospect of new music from him.

A Death That Will Spawn A Thousand Articles

Yesterday i looked at a particular element of the reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death, and though i still agree with what i wrote, it's not exactly one of my favourite bits of writing with a days hindsight. I guess it's one of the issues with trying to update this blog every day; sometimes in the pursuit of writing something topical i might not give myself the time to do that issue justice. I feel like i could have expressed myself much more clearly and if i'm honest i could have done with another day to think about what had happened, soak up some of the coverage and form a more rounded opinion of what had took place.

So today's blog post is going to be a collection of thoughts on the Osama issue, hopefully giving a bit more depth to my take on such a historic event approaching the issue from an angle of challenging some of the conspiracy theories already emerging.

With any event like this conspiracy theories are inevitable. The man's been evading capture for years, been suspected dead several times and is believed to have a number of convincing doubles. Then there's the actual events of May 1st; a late night raid on a compound in Pakistan, near a military base, a body disposed of at sea, no photos or proof available to the public. There's so much material there for conspiracy theorists, they'll either claim he was already dead, or is still alive and the reality that almost certainly what happened a bit under 48 hours ago was the real deal will be dismissed by them as naive idiocy.

For my part i believe that the assault and death took place as the American authorities claim. There's a number of reasons for this belief; firstly the damage it would do to Obama's presidency if it comes out that it was in some way false far outweighs the potential gain drawn from Bin Laden's death. Until now it's been in al-Qaida's interest to let there be ambiguity about their symbolic leader's health, but now the reverse is true; to be able to release some definitive proof (and expect their to be attempts by them to claim he is still alive) of his continued survival would be an incredible victory for them over the US. It's why, no matter how bad the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were going, George W. Bush never claimed to have caught Osama or tried to fabricate evidence to that effect, the exposure of such a deceit would have been the final straw for him and would quite possibly have seen calls for him to be impeached, much as would happen for Obama were this latest development to be proven false, either through deliberate misleading by the President or trickery from al-Qaeda.

The second element in debunking the conspiracy theorists relates to how the body was buried at sea. This denies the public the opportunity to see his body on their cable news channels and so adds to the cause of those who want to argue that it wasn't Osama or that the whole mission was a fake. I understand the decision to bury him at sea, as well as apparently observing traditional Islamic burial rituals to some extent. The American's have learnt from what happened in Iraq with Saddam Hussein's sons where photos of their dead bodies were spread over TV shows and the internet and their bodies went unburied for several days (it is traditional that a Muslim should be buried as soon as possible after their death, once the proper rituals have been observed such as washing the body). This treatment provoked anger across the Islamic world as it was considered hugely disrespectful; the burial at sea within hours of the attack made sure those mistakes were not repeated. It also made sure that, unlike if the body had been buried on land anywhere in the world, there wasn't one location where his supporters could rally round or draw inspiration from. Any burial ground would have been hugely contested and once the Saudi government made it clear they didn't want anything to do with the body Obama made the right call in my opinion by ordering the sea burial.

So overall i believe that Osama Bin Laden is definitely dead and that the conspiracy theories will carry on with little notice paid to any facts that are released.

As for the circumstances of his death and whether he Bin Laden could not have perhaps been captured rather than killed, the issues become a little less clear cut. The latest briefing from the White House says that although the Navy Seals who carried out the mission encountered violent resistance from people within the compound, Bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot in the chest and face. They've also debunked the myth that was already beginning to spread that the terrorist leader had hidden behind his wife, using her as a human shield; she was apparently shot in the calf but wasn't in the way when Osama was shot. The US authorities are still maintaining that Bin Laden was offering resistance which is why he was killed, but i can't help but wonder how effective any resistance an unarmed 54 year old man could offer a team of extremely highly trained Navy Seals could be.

However i wasn't there, nor am i likely to ever experience any scenario like the one those US soldiers were placed in during that raid; i can't begin to understand what the adrenaline of a situation like that does to your instincts, the degree to which personal feelings can be controlled when you are involved in a mission to take down such a hated figure or even know exactly how the events unfolded in that compound. Unless the entire tape of the raid is released which, barring a Wikileaks exposé, seems certain not to happen, no one who wasn't involved in the raid will really know categorically what happened, nor whether more could have been done to capture him alive. Even the video itself would fail to communicate the emotions and split second decisions involved in such a mission.

It has been noted that by killing him rather than trying him for his crimes the US has been saved from the airing of some pretty dirty laundry; Osama could have testified about the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the 80's and 90's and how that helped/hindered al-Qaeda, he could have exposed damaging holes in the US security network and their efforts to track him down. It's pretty much beyond doubt that there are some secrets important people in the US are not sad to have been taken to his grave by Bin Laden.

Before you interpret this as me claiming he was killed deliberately to silence him and the Seals were told to kill rather than make any effort to capture, i will point out the counter argument that Osama Bin Laden would have preferred to be made a martyr in a fire fight with U.S troops than be paraded on American television as a prisoner, go through a lengthy trial process and rely on the U.S for whatever healthcare etc. he needed (it's unclear whether he actually was on a dialysis machine for kidney failure as many reports over the years have claimed), before being executed on foreign soil with what would have been a minimum of ceremony but a maximum of media coverage. His martyrdom is more use to his message of hatred and armed attacks on targets across the world than his capture would have been and the flip side of that is that it would have suited the U.S argument of 'justice' being served to have put him on trial for his crimes.

His death in a military environment is also a boost to al-Qaeda in some ways as it seeks to regain the influence many people believe it has lost in the wake of the Arab spring and the pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East; it has been argued that al-Qaeda's message is looking increasingly irrelevant when in countries like Eqypt Muslims and Christians have joined together to overthrow dictators without needing the influence or involvement of al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's death can be argued to have two potential outcomes for the terrorist group; one, that his death leads to a bloody power struggle from within which even further reduces their ability to stage large scale attacks or influence developments around the world, or two, that it raises the profile of a flagging group and gives them a martyr figure to rally around. Only time will tell with that and quite possibly it will be a combination of the two.

Only a select few at the top of the U.S government and those Navy Seals will likely ever know the entire truth of what was the ideal desired outcome of the assault. I'm not sure it matters all that much either way; arguments over the decisions made by those Seals will go on, but the noise from them will be, figuratively speaking, drowned out by the celebrations and back-patting that is following the simple fact that Bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist on Earth, is no longer defying the U.S and the rest of the world.

It is the tragic reality of humanity that even someone like me, who is moderately pacifist, has to concede that their are some people whose deaths make the world a better rather than lesser place, and though i may not celebrate his death particularly,

To finish this part of the blog (and i intent to write about something other than Osama Bin Laden tomorrow) i want to post links to three articles written by one of my favourite journalists, Robert Fisk. He writes for 'The Independent' and has lived in Lebanon from 1976, becoming one of the most respected Middle East correspondents around. He is one of the most appropriate journalists to source here as he is one of the few Western journalists to interview Osama Bin Laden, speaking to him three times between 1993 and 1997. This is his response to Bin Laden's death, published today - http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-was-he-betrayed-of-course-pakistan-knew-bin-ladens-hiding-place-all-along-2278028.html , and these are the accounts of two of the times he met Bin Laden http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-a-close-encounter-with-the-man-who-shook-the-world-2278035.html / http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-my-deadliest-moment-with-the-worlds-most-dangerous-men-2278036.html .

So, that's my take on the death of a figure who is regrettably, one of the iconic people of my lifetime.

To finish today i'm going to post a song i find uplifting, because writing, and for that matter reading, about a man like Osama Bin Laden is a depressing experience, so i want to cheer myself up and i suspect anyone who's read through to the end may want to be cheered up to.

A Bad Man Died Today

Well there is only one topic i can write about today as a politics student and that is of course the death of Osama Bin laden.

After 10 years the man behind the decade defining terrorist attack of 9/11 was finally tracked down and during a firefight killed by American soldiers.

Now any suggestion that al-Qaida will just give up now he's dead, or that it's likely to make any noticeable difference to international politics or terrorism is more than a little short sighted and naive.

That doesn't take away from the importance of today or make the celebrations in America less justified. Now while i may not believe that flag waving, street parties and patriotic chanting are the best way to deal with the news of a death, even the death of a person like Bin Laden; i hesitate to use the word evil, because i don't believe people are either good or evil, our actions may be but people aren't inherently one or the other. However when it comes to Bin Laden i'm tempted to make an exception.

Anyway, as i was saying, it might not be the most productive way to move on from his death in my opinion, but the scenes in Washington, New York and i'm sure all over the States are understandable.

As an outsider looking in, someone who pays a lot of attention to American politics and who also enjoys a lot of the US's cultural exports, the blow 9/11 inflicted on the nation's collective psyche was abundantly clear to see. For a country which prides itself on it's strength; political, economic, military and technological; the attacks on the Twin Towers and the costly, drawn out wars that followed, have appeared to shake their previous certainty. Since that September day, every day, week, month and year that passed with Bin Laden alive and free was a further blow; his continued defiance was an issue both for the US as a whole, but also more specifically to the families of the victims of 9/11 who had to live with the fact that the person responsible was still out there, still plotting ways to commit atrocious acts.

That's why so much of the coverage has focused on the idea of his death granting American's closure. The 'War on Terror' isn't over, though perhaps it will be possible for Obama to tone down the rhetoric and military involvement now. The families of victims will still have to live with their grief. The men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan's deaths haven't become any more or less necessary. But perhaps for a lot of Americans there will be a sense that Bin Laden has been brought to justice for his crimes, perhaps for some it will be the less pretty, but just as understandable, desire for vengeance which will be satisfied. Either way it could just be a small step towards some kind of collective healing for a nation that still seems in some ways to be in shock from the attacks a decade ago.

So it may not be my way of dealing with the news, but if it helps people then who am i to judge, especially considering that as an Englishman i can't truly understand what many Americans or more specifically New Yorkers felt and still feel every day when they think about Osama Bin Laden. Who am i to begrudge them their moment of celebration, however short lived it may be, why should i act with disdain towards people from a nation exorcising some personal and national demons in a public way.

Whether it leads to a noticeable change in the levels of violence around the world, whether there's successful revenge attacks or not, it doesn't change the fact that an unequivocally bad human being died today, so surely the world can't really be worse off for that?

I think an appropriate quote to put as the penultimate element of this blog post is one attributed to Mark Twain that i have seen several times today on Twitter.

"I have never wished a man dead, but i have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

Now picking a song to finish today's blog is hard, finding an appropriate or relevant song, but i've eventually settled on this. It's a song written by a very politicised American band, telling the story of an Iraq War veteran. The war in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Iraq are the legacy of Osama Bin Laden, 9/11 and the American response to the new feelings of vulnerability.

The End Is Nigh

Today's post is going to be kind of a follow up piece to yesterdays. I'm going to take a more of an overall look at the Championship with the majority of teams now only having 1 game left to play.

At the top QPR are, for the next 5 days at least, champions and i have to concede that they've earned the promotion. They've been by far the most consistent team in the division and in Taarabt have one of the most talented players. The FA have handled the whole issue of the disciplinary hearing for QPR fielding midfielder Faurlin while he was owned by a third party, which is illegal, almost farcically badly. I just can't understand why they've let it drag on to the point where the hearing is only being held in the final week of the season. If they'd dealt with it in March they could have handed out a judgement without it seeming calculated around how it affects the final league standings. A serious points deduction, especially if it is anything near the 15 points the Sun claim (i have zero faith in the truth of their report) then QPR could slip into the play offs. Now much as i love anything that pisses off Neil Warnock, it wouldn't be fair or right to deny them the championship.

It is kind of ironic that after spending so long complaining that a fine isn't a worthy punishment for fielding an illegible player (the whole Tevez-West Ham-Sheffield United saga) he could fall foul of laws partly introduced because of it.

It's hard to comment on the fight for second place as both Cardiff and Norwich play tomorrow and those results will be hugely telling as to who gets that last automatic spot. I'd prefer it to be Norwich for two reasons; firstly i feel they've been the marginally better team over the last 44 games and play some really good football, secondly because Forest have done the double over Cardiff this year already so i'd rather meet them in the Play Offs than Norwich.

Barring a dramatic collapse by Forest and an even more stunning win by Leeds on the final day it seems that the other teams in the Play Offs will be Forest, Swansea and Reading. I don't see much point making predictions as to who will get promotion via the play offs as they have a habit of confounding pundits and fans alike.

At the bottom it's all over for Scunthorpe, Preston and Sheffield United. Preston were relegated last week but the other two's resistance finally ended on Saturday. I'm personally a little sad to see Sheffield United relegated; i don't reckon Forest will get promotion this year and i always enjoy the games against Sheffield teams so it'll be dull to be in the Championship without either local team, although at least i'll have bragging rights for a year at least.

Today's song is one which i associate with Championship football for two reasons. Firstly because it's played at the City Ground every game about 10 minutes before kick off so it's intrinsically linked to my love for Forest and some of the best memories i have. Secondly because it was used on a highlights show for a couple of seasons.