Dollev

You can compete in the Tour without using dope

After the confession of Bjarne Riis, it is pretty plausible that the whole Telekom team was riding on dope during the the mid 90's. Riis is now manager of the CSC team. Ivan Basso used to ride for them. Basso won't be doing some competetive cycling for quite some time. He too confessed to have been using dope. And i still remember teams like Festina and TVM. Who will be next?

Our troops respect human rights

When the Abu Ghraib scandal came up i was furious. Now it turns out that Dutch soldiers also breached human rights in Iraq. What makes it worse, is that the troops that were stationed there were on peace keeping mission under the flag of the U.N. It remains to be seen what exactly has happened and how bad it was. The question is if our current government is willing to find that out. Until now, it has refused to investigate our own role in the war. Even if the Dutch didn't participate in the invasion itself and only sent troops afterwards at the request of the U.N., "we" did give it "our" political support.

At this point the Netherlands still has troops in Afghanistan. Their mission is not limited at keeping the peace and help civilians, but also to fight the Taliban. I do not have the illusion that we will get out of that mess without news about Dutch razzia's of civilian neighbourhoods, the occassional "oops sorry" killings of innocent people and the wielding of electric prods to get out the truth out of a terrorist, a word that nowadays seem to qualify for anyone who is muslim and seriously pissed off with the west.

I wish i could simply yell something like "bring our troops home!" and feel good about it. But we have a responsibility towards both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Dutch government supported an invasion in Iraq that was both illegal and disastrous. Afghanistan is still suffering the consequences of what we like to call the Cold War.

So i sincerely hope that the Dutch won't pull out of Afghanistan when their tour of duty is done. The Dutch should stay, but only on their terms. And if i may make a few suggestions: Our prelonged stay will be no longer under the flag of NATO but the U.N. Secondly, no more destruction of popy crops. Instead we buy them and put them to good use or just buy and burn them. And instead of just fighting the Taliban, we talk with them too and try to find a lasting peace solution that we will actively monitor and protect for several decades.
Iraq is a mess and i can't see any solution until the U.S. seriously change their attitude and accept their ownership in this. I would love to see people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz face an international court, but at the very least the U.S. should make it clear that the legacy of both Bush administrations falls under the "never again" category. Then and only then would it be sensible for the Dutch or any other member of the international community to step in and try to help out.

Then again, it is more likely that there will be a clean Tour de France in my lifetime, than a prosperous Afghanistan, or a peaceful and democratic Iraq. And the Dutch people who are responsible for what happened in Iraq? They should face an international court. If we are unable to do the right thing, we should at least show that we are really sorry.

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