WASHED AND READY TO EAT

The Guardian newspaper claims to have uncovered a whole load of emails from Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. The threads reveal little at a political level we couldn't already guess, but they do shine a light on the Russian-backed dictator's lifestyle and tastes. While his troops are bombing Syrian civilians to hell, Assad is downloading stuff on iTunes. Like Harry Potter movies and tributes to Cliff Richard. He's also sending round quick messages to aides with links to YouTube videos. One of his favourites depicts the rapidly deteriorating situation in Homs through toy cars and biscuits. Say what you like about the bloke. Deep down, he's just like us. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he likes to dip into Washed and Ready every now again.

Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry over the proposal from the Taliban for a joint commission with NATO to investigate civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Would this be the same Taliban which recently stoned a couple to death for alleged adultery? The same bunch of fundamentalist extremists who deny education to girls, stop people listening to music and who previously acted as minders for Osama bin Laden? Unbelievably, The Guardian reports that the cynical propaganda ploy is actually being taken seriously by the western military forces in the region. What a pathetic and contemptible concession. Perhaps we should have teamed up with the Nazis in World War II to see whether we'd bombed some of their cities a little bit too hard? When will we ever learn? We get nowhere by appeasing people who have a complete disregard for human rights. If we don't think we can beat the Taliban and want to concede defeat, by all means let's bring our troops home. But let's not shame ours...