Vote early, and....

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Lars]

Well, soon the Bush cabal will be gone and there will no one to blame and kick around except the Democrats and Obama. I expect the Republicans and conservatives will get plenty of practice criticizing and undercutting the new administration over the next 4 years. It remains to be seen if this "change we can believe in" can overcome the reluctance of the other side to taking part in any change at all.

Always nice to see somebody being magnanimous in victory.

[Sergei]

GJK

Oh yes Iraq numero uno world threat. How many billions has it cost so far? how many lives? Seems to me his idea was pretty smart compared to the alternative.

But then Saddam would still be threatening the world with his WMD and have all those Al Qaeda training camps!

Let's not forget what the war was about, okay?

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[dieseltaylor]

i dont't know this guy from adam but here goesSome concerns --

- if the recession has been caused by credit expansion via artificially low interest rates (created in themselves by continuous expansion of the money supply), does another 700bn injection risk making things much worse?

No. Its where you use the money that makes the difference. Using loose credit to buy depreciating assets like chinese goods, cars and, in this case, houses does not actually give much gain. Putting liquidity into the system so Banks will honour the overdraft agreements etc for firms employing workers is definitely good use.

- does a tax cut to "95% of working families" have a better chance of increasing *production* in capital goods than a cut in corporate tax?

If you believe a cut in corporate tax will increase business investment in capital goods in this climate I think you are being hopeful. It may for a few companies but I suspect most co.'s will defer capital investment until they are aware of the capacity required in the future economy. Now if there were big write-offs available for 2008 and 2009 only that might work for a few more companies.

A reduction in tax for 95% ot taxpayers is obviously unfocused as to effect - but if you think the national psyche is important to peoples view on life and propensity to spend ....

- is an increase in the capital gains tax going to have a positive effect on anything? (you get the same "tax" by increasing the money supply, but it's less obvious...)

No. But the government might earn a few extra dollars that it can use strategically. You cannot rely on the tax donors to invest as wisely ! : )

- is now the time to be making an overhaul of the energy sector, particularly with respect to environmental concerns?

Certainly yes. This economic downturn will give a brief respite from power shortage and should be grasped firmly by the throat. Whilst the Govt. is at it the highways and the bridges need a good going over also. These actions should prime the pump a bit.

- what affect will Obama have on Iraq and Pakistan?

Name a lot of babies Obama?

Obama seems intelligent and more importantly pragmatic so its probably a case of suck it and see - leaving Iraq for sure. Pakistan and Iran are interesting. Afghanistan will have to be left also as an unwinnable war - sorry unwinnable at a reasonable price. When I say that I mean in Afghan lives not US.

However I hope the Allies have taken the opportunity to subvert sufficient Afghans that our intelligence will be first rate. It may be that given it is such a tribal country that we make use of tribal areas rather than the nonsense entity of Afghanistan. If we can do that the differential living standards over time may do the trick.

[Andreas]

What if an energy panel presented solid evidence to Bush that a massive energy crisis was looming in the next 20 years or so? What if the option was to invade Iraq or risk Russia becoming redominant or a third world war inevitable with them? The US may have a fair bit of reserves, but Europe sure doesn't. I guess I'm just trying to say that we don't really know what they might be dealing with. Maybe Iraq is cake compared to the alternatives. Maybe Andreas would be able to paint a picture of the energy situation for us.

I am not a good painter, so I restrict myself to saying that I can see no picture of the energy future in which the Iraq war, even had it gone well, would look like a good idea compared to the readily available alternatives (just use less of the stuff and produce more from renewables/domestic sources) - from an energy perspective.

Consider the money spent on Iraq by the USA and what this could have done for domestic energy production, energy efficiency, and renewables, had it been invested there.

All the best

Andreas

[gunnergoz]

Always nice to see somebody being magnanimous in victory.

Right, I'm not A DAMN BIT BITTER over the last 8 years of someone systematically disemboweling the America I knew.

[dieseltaylor]

I wonder what you could have done with 1.9trillion dollars

Biomass for Power - NS - a few highlights

...........................

It's telling that Canada, with over 400 million wooded hectares, has no healthy forest to devote to biopower. The lumber and paper industries monopolise it and, as Kumar suggests, biopower can succeed only by feeding on their scraps. This problem is even more apparent elsewhere. In the US, biopower has become the single largest provider of renewable electricity, thanks primarily to waste biomass from the paper industry. That resource is now fully exploited, though, and the US Department of Energy estimates that future biopower growth will slow, providing around 1.7 per cent of the country's electricity by 2030.

So where can we find biomass to feed the power stations? Fortunately, untapped resources exist in many parts of the world, including waste from sugar-cane processing in Brazil and waste palm oil and rice hulls in Asia. In the US, livestock produce over 1 billion tonnes of manure annually, most of which is left to rot. Why not collect the stuff, convert it to methane in anaerobic digesters and use it in power stations? Michael Webber at the University of Texas in Austin calculates that US manure could generate 68 million megawatt-hours each year - almost 2 per cent of the annual US electricity demand (Environmental Research Letters, vol 3, p 034002). The infrastructure to collect and transport manure would incur its own costs, so local-scale operations might be key to maximising profits.

With that in mind, plans by Finnish company Wärtsilä to build small combined heat and power plants attached to two breweries in the north of England could be a sign of things to come. Using spent grain from the brewing process to generate power, their output will be modest - around 3.1 MW of electricity each. That's plenty to power the breweries' operations, though, and any excess will be sold to the grid..

Wind Power

The time and money being spent on wind power is perhaps not surprising when you consider that, based on global average annual wind speeds, worldwide there is the potential to generate 106 million gigawatt-hours of electricity per year from wind - five times the total amount of electricity generated globally today. Recent estimates put the cost of generating electricity from wind at €0.04 to 0.08 per kilowatt-hour, comparable with nuclear power, and electricity from gas turbines with natural gas at today's prices.

The dramatic increase in the length of turbine blades - mostly for offshore wind farms - mirrors the rapid expansion of wind farms worldwide. Between 2006 and 2007 global capacity leapt by over 25 per cent to 94 gigawatts (GW) - equivalent to around 90 average-sized coal-fired power stations - that's a ninefold increase on the 10.2 GW generated from wind just 10 years ago. By comparison, total global electricty generation from all sources increased by just 30 per cent.

All indications are that this booming growth in wind energy capacity will continue. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), based in Brussels, Belgium, predicts that the global wind market will grow by over 15 per cent from its current size to reach 240 GW of total installed capacity by the year 2012. By then, wind energy will be producing more than half a million gigawatt-hours of electricity a year, pushing its share of the global total from 1 per cent in 2007 to 3 per cent. How has wind gone from being a quaint afterthought to such a significant contributor to global electricity generation in such a short space of time?

The biggest influence on wind generation has been the huge investment in a few key European countries that are rich in wind resource and driven by ambitious targets to cut CO2 emissions. Germany leads the world, with 19,460 turbines in 2007 capable of generating 22.25 GW, which can supply 7 per cent of the country's electricity. To encourage the shift to renewables, all suppliers of electricity from renewable sources are paid a premium "feed-in" tariff for the first five years they supply power to the grid.

But Germany may soon be toppled from its wind power throne. The GWEC predicts that in 2009 the US will overtake it and become the world's biggest producer of wind-powered electricity. China, which has succeeded in doubling its capacity every year since 2004, is not far behind. The Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association forecasts it will reach around 50 GW by 2015.

Geothermal

AT FIRST glance, geothermal energy seems almost too good to be true. It's clean, inexhaustible, provides predictable 24-hour power and you can get it just about anywhere. A 2006 report by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that there is enough geothermal energy in the US alone to meet the country's energy needs 2000 times over. According to the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA), based in Washington DC, the best sites can generate electricity for as little as 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 8 or 9 cents per kilowatt-hour for natural gas plants.

There is a snag, however. Outside of geologically blessed places like Iceland, Japan and New Zealand, where volcanically active rocks are close to the surface, the Earth's heat is locked away under several kilometres of rock. Now, though, new developments are making these depths easier and more cost-effective to reach, and the world is beginning to realise the potential of geothermal energy.

The key to tapping this resource is a relatively recent technology called enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), which can create a geothermal hotspot pretty much anywhere. The process involves fracturing hot rocks, then injecting water, which heats up as it circulates through them. It is then pumped back to the surface and passed through a heat exchanger, which drives a turbine, generating electricity.

A number of EGS projects have recently come online. The world's first commercial plant in Landau, Germany, was commissioned in 2007 and already produces 22 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. A 1.5-megawatt (MW) pilot plant in Soultz, France, began operating this June and a test plant at Groß Schönebeck, Germany, should be online by the end of next year. In southern Australia, a 1-MW demonstration plant should be producing electricity by January.

In the US, meanwhile, the Department of Energy has invested over $5 million to add an EGS system to a conventional geothermal well - where water is pumped through naturally hot rocks - east of Reno, Nevada, in the hope of increasing its productivity.

....

Tidal

WELCOME to the Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada, home to the highest tides in the world. Here, 100 billion tonnes of Atlantic seawater flow in and out of the 270-kilometre-long bay every day. The sea level at Fundy rises by an average of 11 metres, reaching a maximum of 17 metres at the narrowest point, twice a day without fail, thanks to the moon's gravitational pull. Could this tidal movement be used to generate power?

The unwavering predictability and scale of the tides in some parts of the world make them an attractive renewable energy source. The World Energy Council estimates that Fundy's tides alone could generate 17,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy per year. Some estimates put the energy in the world's tides at as much as 1 million GWh per year, or about 5 per cent of the electricity generated worldwide, though only a fraction of this is likely to be exploited due to practical constraints.

Sunny side up

There's much more to solar power than photovoltaic cells

Photovoltaic cells are currently the fastest growing energy technology, with production increasing by around 48 per cent each year. By 2015 the price of electricity from PV cells is expected to match that of conventional energy generators. (For a detailed account of the state of the art in photovoltaic cells see New Scientist, 8 December 2007, p 32.)

But photovoltaic cells aren't the only way to capture the power of the sun. Large-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) systems are all the rage in the energy-hungry US. Last June, the 64-megawatt (MW) Nevada Solar One CSP plant switched on near Boulder City. Since then, over 1.6 gigawatts of new CSP capacity have been announced in neighbouring California.

In the past year or so, the US Bureau of Land Management has received more than 30 planning requests to develop large-scale CSP plants across the US. The situation is similar in Europe, where around a dozen plants are under construction with at least 24 more proposed in Spain alone.

Sound economics lie behind this enthusiasm. At the moment, electricity generated by large-scale solar concentrator systems costs around 12 US cents per kilowatt-hour. Though this is around four times the price of electricity from a coal-fired power station, it's half the price of electricity produced by photovoltaic cells. What's more, this technology offers an advantage that could prove decisive in the longer term: the ability to store energy for hours or days at a stretch.

Rather than converting sunlight directly into electricity, a CSP system uses arrays of mirrors to focus sunlight onto tubes filled with water or oil. The fluid is heated under pressure to around 400 °C and is then circulated to a steam turbine to generate electricity. By replacing the water or oil with molten salts, typically a mix of sodium nitrate (NaNO3) and potassium nitrate (KNO3), and storing this hot mixture in insulated tanks, it is possible to use energy collected during daylight hours to generate electricity at times of peak demand - day or night.

"With this system you can make electricity when you want," says Massimo Falchetta, an engineer at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment, in Rome. That means the energy can be sold for a higher price than stuff from wind generators or PV cells.

Solar concentrators are nothing new. The Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) plant has been operating in California's Mojave desert since 1985. Made up of nine energy farms capable of generating a total of 354 MW, SEGS is the largest solar concentrator system in the world.

During the 1980s and 1990s, US engineers tested various designs, including power towers - mirrors arranged around a vertical pipe system - and systems with molten salts. However, the US Department of Energy halted research in 2000 after the US National Research Council suggested that any further gains in performance would be insignificant.

Development continued in Europe, and later this year the first commercial molten salt-based solar collector system is due to be switched on at Guadix in Andalusia, Spain. Andasol-1 has over 500,000 square metres of parabolic mirrors and will generate 50 MW of power. With large storage tanks for the salt solution, it will be able to continue generating electricity for more than 7 hours after sunset.

In April, the Electric Power Research Institute in California released a report suggesting that adding up to 9 hours of energy storage with molten salts to a solar concentrator plant can reduce the cost of its electricity by up to 13 per cent.

This cost could fall further if new experimental fluids containing nanoparticles outperform salts, says Mark Mehos, who manages the solar thermal power programme at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado. "It's early days but this has the potential to be revolutionary," he says.

AND WHAT IS GOING ON CURRENTLY

One of the first towns to adopt a predominantly renewable supply, without compromising on its wealthy residents' modern lifestyle, was Three Rivers in Oregon. "We have everything - the internet, satellite TV, a washer and dryer - there is nothing I do without," says Elaine Budden, who has lived in Three Rivers for 12 years.

Ever since the mid 1980s, when the town's first permanent houses were built, Three Rivers has used solar power. The nearest power lines are several kilometres away and extending the grid would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So instead, Three Rivers residents decided to purchase their own photovoltaic panels and battery storage packs. The panels provide up to 2 kilowatts (kW) of power, enough for 80 to 95 per cent of each household's electricity needs. The rest is supplied by propane or diesel generators.

One community in Italy has got around the intermittent nature of solar power without the help of fossil fuels. In 2002, Varese Ligure, a village of 2400 people in northern Italy, became the first municipality in Europe to get all its electricity from renewable energy. Instead of relying entirely on one source, it uses a mix of solar, wind and small-scale hydropower. Four wind turbines on a ridge above the village provide 3.2 megawatts of electricity, 141 solar panels on the roofs of the town hall and the primary school provide 17 kW, and a small hydro station on a nearby river provides an additional 6 kW. Together, these sources now provide more than three times the community's electricity needs.

If renewable energy is going to play a significant role worldwide, however, it will need to be employed on a much larger scale. Gussing, a town of 4000 in eastern Austria, recently went 100 per cent renewable in electricity production with a highly efficient 8-megawatt biomass gasification plant fuelled by the region's oak trees. By 2010, Gussing plans to use biomass to provide electricity to the rest of the district's 27,000 inhabitants.

Meanwhile, larger communities are also beginning to make the switch. Freiburg, a city of 200,000 in south-west Germany has invested €43 million in photovoltaics in the past 20 years and has set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions to 25 per cent below 1992 levels by 2010. And if all goes well, Masdar City, a planned development in Abu Dhabi that will be home to 50,000 people, will get all its electricity from the sun, wind and composted food waste when it is completed in 2016.

New Zealand, which like Iceland also relies heavily on geothermal energy and hydropower, now gets 70 per cent of its electricity from renewables and, with the help of additional wind power, aims to increase this figure to 90 per cent by 2025.

[GJK]

GJK

Oh yes Iraq numero uno world threat. How many billions has it cost so far? how many lives? Seems to me his idea was pretty smart compared to the alternative.

Some ideas here from Wiki

• Financial costs with approximately $474 billion spent as of 12/07 the CBO has estimated the total cost of the war in Iraq to U.S. taxpayers will be around $1.9 trillion.[267]
  
• The 2006 Lancet survey of casualties of the Iraq War estimated 654,965 Iraqi deaths (range of 392,979-942,636) from March 2003 to the end of June 2006.[27][28] That total number of deaths (all Iraqis) includes all excess deaths due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc, and includes civilians, military deaths and insurgent deaths. 601,027 were violent deaths (31% attributed to Coalition, 24% to others, 46% unknown.) A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion of the reported deaths (92 per cent of surveyed households produced one.)[27][252] The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56%), car bomb (13%), other explosion/ordnance (14%), air strike (13%), accident (2%), unknown (2%.) The survey results have been criticized as "ridiculous" and "extreme and improbable" by various critics such as the Iraqi government and Iraq Body Count project.[253][53][254] However, in a letter to The Age, published Oct. 21, 2006, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously."
  
• An Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,220,580 violent deaths due to the Iraq War (range of 733,158 to 1,446,063.) Out of a national sample of 1,499 Iraqi adults, 22% had one or more members of their household killed due to the Iraq War (poll accuracy +/-2.4%.)[255] ORB reported that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from car bombs, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. It is the highest estimate given so far of civilian deaths in Iraq and is consistent with the Lancet study.[256][53] On January 28, 2008, ORB published an update based on additional work carried out in rural areas of Iraq. Some 600 additional interviews were undertaken and as a result of this the death estimate was revised to 1,033,000 with a given range of 946,000 to 1,120,000.[26]

If Saddam had lived he would have been 70 this year - so how many lives are worth expediting regime change? The near $2trillion dollars could have built some pretty fine renewable energy plants and paid for Detroit to learn how to build frugal cars.

We're really not going to argue whether or not Iraq was a good or bad thing are we? That had no impact on this election aside from the fact that Obama wants to drop the white flag and run just as we have most of the country secured and stable and in a democracy.

[GJK]

Er, I beg to differ, but this is a tired old rehash of the initial GOP argument of "who?", as if Obama suddenly transported into this dimension from another one. He was hardly a dark horse candidate (no pun intended.) Obama's written about himself, his life and bio details are well known, his history as a community worker and later involvement in politics are all part of the public record. I'd suggest that if somebody claims that nothing is known about the man, then they haven't bothered looking very deep.

Willful ignorance of a factual record is not much of an argument, is it?

Ok, we *think* we know who he is - let me be specific, how about his policies? Do YOU know any of his policies and how he plans to make them work. Tax-cuts for 95% of the people with over a trillion dollars in proposed new spending; really?

[GJK]

Wow. Maybe someone should tell Obama that Saddam is - you know - dead now. His plan has no chance of working.

You're eavesdropping on somebody else's conversation and thus don't know that you're supplying totally useless drivel. Go back and re-read my conversation to see how/why Saddam came up.

[JonS]

GJK,

What preconditions specifically need to be met in your view to speak to your enemies?

Well, Palin set exactly zero preconditions when she sat down for a gushy chat with Sarkozy. Granted she wasn't VP at the time, but it's an interesting insight to the ® approach to foreign policy.

This is fun too

[JonS]

Gary - you're foaming at the mouth. Go calm down a bit before you pop something important. Obama isn't the devil incarnate, and he isn't going to turn the US into Albania, m'kay?

[Stalins Organ]

There's got to be at least one pre-condition for talking to your enemies.....they have to be your enemies!!

I reckon it's always a good idea to have some ability to communicate - how else are you going to know when they give in?

however any dialogue stands in stark contrast to "We don't talk to evil" that condemned the world to 5 more years of Iranian support for Hezballah et all.....it could have ben finished in 2003 with a little less blinkered ideology from the White House.

Hence almost anything Obama does, or can do, is likely to be rational by comparison.

[Sergei]

We're really not going to argue whether or not Iraq was a good or bad thing are we?

I dunno how others read it, but I honestly interpreted that when you said "[Obama] opposed the war in Iraq but offers no solutions of his own aside from leaving Saddam in power", you wanted to argue about that? Otherwise it's a confusing sentence, because Saddam is not in power.

But if Iraq is now a peaceful stable democracy, like you say, then isn't pulling out of there the right thing to do? Everything's done that can be done?

[JonS]

Sergei, you're only confused because you're eavesdropping. Apparently, if you go read Obama's website it clearly states that that is Obama's policy towards Iraq. According to Gary.

The chain (page 7):

From SO: "[Obama] has a few bits & pieces [on foreign policy] at his webpage - heck - you might even want to go and read it"

From GJK:

"Been there and read it:

1. He opposed the war in Iraq but offers no solutions of his own aside from leaving Saddam in power."

As an aside, I wasn't aware that it was even possible to 'eavesdrop' on a public forum. Learn something new everyday, I guess.

[JonS]

In watching the campaign, convention and acceptance speeches I have really been intrigued by just how little substance there is in them. Both candidates are guilty, but Obama definitely more so. When you strip away the pretty language and the poetic phrases, they are usually saying nothing at all. Just variations of "We are Americans and Americans rock because we can elect our government."

It's just utter fluff.

What do you expect though?

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat

First Speech as Prime Minister

May 13, 1940

to House of Commons

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the formation of a Government representing the united and inflexible resolve of the nation to prosecute the war with Germany to a victorious conclusion.

On Friday evening last I received His Majesty's commission to form a new Administration. It as the evident wish and will of Parliament and the nation that this should be conceived on the broadest possible basis and that it should include all parties, both those who supported the late Government and also the parties of the Opposition. I have completed the most important part of this task. A War Cabinet has been formed of five Members, representing, with the Opposition Liberals, the unity of the nation. The three party Leaders have agreed to serve, either in the War Cabinet or in high executive office. The three Fighting Services have been filled. It was necessary that this should be done in one single day, on account of the extreme urgency and rigour of events. A number of other positions, key positions, were filled yesterday, and I am submitting a further list to His Majesty to-night. I hope to complete the appointment of the principal Ministers during to-morrow. the appointment of the other Ministers usually takes a little longer, but I trust that, when Parliament meets again, this part of my task will be completed, and that the administration will be complete in all respects.

I considered it in the public interest to suggest that the House should be summoned to meet today. Mr. Speaker agreed, and took the necessary steps, in accordance with the powers conferred upon him by the Resolution of the House. At the end of the proceedings today, the Adjournment of the House will be proposed until Tuesday, 21st May, with, of course, provision for earlier meeting, if need be. The business to be considered during that week will be notified to Members at the earliest opportunity. I now invite the House, by the Motion which stands in my name, to record its approval of the steps taken and to declare its confidence in the new Government.

To form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious undertaking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many other points in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations, such as have been indicated by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

Not a lot of substance there. Pretty much "There's going to be more of the same. Sorry".

Their Finest Hour

June 18, 1940

House of Commons

I spoke the other day of the colossal military disaster which occurred when the French High Command failed to withdraw the northern Armies from Belgium at the moment when they knew that the French front was decisively broken at Sedan and on the Meuse. This delay entailed the loss of fifteen or sixteen French divisions and threw out of action for the critical period the whole of the British Expeditionary Force. Our Army and 120,000 French troops were indeed rescued by the British Navy from Dunkirk but only with the loss of their cannon, vehicles and modern equipment. This loss inevitably took some weeks to repair, and in the first two of those weeks the battle in France has been lost. When we consider the heroic resistance made by the French Army against heavy odds in this battle, the enormous losses inflicted upon the enemy and the evident exhaustion of the enemy, it may well be the thought that these 25 divisions of the best-trained and best-equipped troops might have turned the scale. However, General Weygand had to fight without them. Only three British divisions or their equivalent were able to stand in the line with their French comrades. They have suffered severely, but they have fought well. We sent every man we could to France as fast as we could re-equip and transport their formations.

I am not reciting these facts for the purpose of recrimination. That I judge to be utterly futile and even harmful. We cannot afford it. I recite them in order to explain why it was we did not have, as we could have had, between twelve and fourteen British divisions fighting in the line in this great battle instead of only three. Now I put all this aside. I put it on the shelf, from which the historians, when they have time, will select their documents to tell their stories. We have to think of the future and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to our own affairs at home. There are many who would hold an inquest in the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments-and of Parliaments, for they are in it, too-during the years which led up to this catastrophe. They seek to indict those who were responsible for the guidance of our affairs. This also would be a foolish and pernicious process. There are too many in it. Let each man search his conscience and search his speeches. I frequently search mine.

Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. Therefore, I cannot accept the drawing of any distinctions between Members of the present Government. It was formed at a moment of crisis in order to unite all the Parties and all sections of opinion. It has received the almost unanimous support of both Houses of Parliament. Its Members are going to stand together, and, subject to the authority of the House of Commons, we are going to govern the country and fight the war. It is absolutely necessary at a time like this that every Minister who tries each day to do his duty shall be respected; and their subordinates must know that their chiefs are not threatened men, men who are here today and gone tomorrow, but that their directions must be punctually and faithfully obeyed. Without this concentrated power we cannot face what lies before us. I should not think it would be very advantageous for the House to prolong this Debate this afternoon under conditions of public stress. Many facts are not clear that will be clear in a short time. We are to have a secret Session on Thursday, and I should think that would be a better opportunity for the many earnest expressions of opinion which Members will desire to make and for the House to discuss vital matters without having everything read the next morning by our dangerous foes.

The disastrous military events which have happened during the past fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise. Indeed, I indicated a fortnight ago as clearly as I could to the House that the worst possibilities were open; and I made it perfectly clear then that whatever happened in France would make no difference to the resolve of Britain and the British Empire to fight on, 'if necessary for years, if necessary alone." During the last few days we have successfully brought off the great majority of the troops we had on the line of communication in France; and seven-eighths of the troops we have sent to France since the beginning of the war-that is to say, about 350,000 out of 400,000 men-are safely back in this country. Others are still fighting with the French, and fighting with considerable success in their local encounters against the enemy. We have also brought back a great mass of stores, rifles and munitions of all kinds which had been accumulated in France during the last nine months.

We have, therefore, in this Island today a very large and powerful military force. This force comprises all our best-trained and our finest troops, including scores of thousands of those who have already measured their quality against the Germans and found themselves at no disadvantage. We have under arms at the present time in this Island over a million and a quarter men. Behind these we have the Local Defense Volunteers, numbering half a million, only a portion of whom, however, are yet armed with rifles or other firearms. We have incorporated into our Defense Forces every man for whom we have a weapon. We expect very large additions to our weapons in the near future, and in preparation for this we intend forthwith to call up, drill and train further large numbers. Those who are not called up, or else are employed during the vast business of munitions production in all its branches-and their ramifications are innumerable-will serve their country best by remaining at their ordinary work until they receive their summons. We have also over here Dominions armies. The Canadians had actually landed in France, but have now been safely withdrawn, much disappointed, but in perfect order, with all their artillery and equipment. And these very high-class forces from the Dominions will now take part in the defense of the Mother Country.

Lest the account which I have given of these large forces should raise the question: Why did they not take part in the great battle in France? I must make it clear that, apart from the divisions training and organizing at home, only 12 divisions were equipped to fight upon a scale which justified their being sent abroad. And this was fully up to the number which the French had been led to expect would be available in France at the ninth month of the war. The rest of our forces at home have a fighting value for home defense which will, of course, steadily increase every week that passes. Thus, the invasion of Great Britain would at this time require the transportation across the sea of hostile armies on a very large scale, and after they had been so transported they would have to be continually maintained with all the masses of munitions and supplies which are required for continuous battle-as continuous battle it will surely be.

Here is where we come to the Navy-and after all, we have a Navy. Some people seem to forget that we have a Navy. We must remind them. For the last thirty years I have been concerned in discussions about the possibilities of oversea invasion, and I took the responsibility on behalf of the Admiralty, at the beginning of the last war, of allowing all regular troops to be sent out of the country. That was a very serious step to take, because our Territorials had only just been called up and were quite untrained. Therefore, this Island was for several months particularly denuded of fighting troops. The Admiralty had confidence at that time in their ability to prevent a mass invasion even though at that time the Germans had a magnificent battle fleet in the proportion of 10 to 16, even though they were capable of fighting a general engagement every day and any day, whereas now they have only a couple of heavy ships worth speaking of-the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. We are also told that the Italian Navy is to come out and gain sea superiority in these waters. If they seriously intend it, I shall only say that we shall be delighted to offer Signor Mussolini a free and safeguarded passage through the Strait of Gibraltar in order that he may play the part to which he aspires. There is a general curiosity in the British Fleet to find out whether the Italians are up to the level they were at in the last war or whether they have fallen off at all.

Therefore, it seems to me that as far as sea-borne invasion on a great scale is concerned, we are far more capable of meeting it today than we were at many periods in the last war and during the early months of this war, before our other troops were trained, and while the B.E.F. had proceeded abroad. Now, the Navy have never pretended to be able to prevent raids by bodies of 5,000 or 10,000 men flung suddenly across and thrown ashore at several points on the coast some dark night or foggy morning. The efficacy of sea power, especially under modern conditions, depends upon the invading force being of large size; It has to be of large size, in view of our military strength, to be of any use. If it is of large size, then the Navy have something they can find and meet and, as it were, bite on. Now, we must remember that even five divisions, however lightly equipped, would require 200 to 250 ships, and with modern air reconnaissance and photography it would not be easy to collect such an armada, marshal it, and conduct it across the sea without any powerful naval forces to escort it; and there would be very great possibilities, to put it mildly, that this armada would be intercepted long before it reached the coast, and all the men drowned in the sea or, at the worst blown to pieces with their equipment while they were trying to land. We also have a great system of minefields, recently strongly reinforced, through which we alone know the channels. If the enemy tries to sweep passages through these minefields, it will be the task of the Navy to destroy the mine-sweepers and any other forces employed to protect them. There should be no difficulty in this, owing to our great superiority at sea.

Those are the regular, well-tested, well-proved arguments on which we have relied during many years in peace and war. But the question is whether there are any new methods by which those solid assurances can be circumvented. Odd as it may seem, some attention has been given to this by the Admiralty, whose prime duty and responsibility is to destroy any large sea-borne expedition before it reaches, or at the moment when it reaches, these shores. It would not be a good thing for me to go into details of this. It might suggest ideas to other people which they have not thought of, and they would not be likely to give us any of their ideas in exchange. All I will say is that untiring vigilance and mind-searching must be devoted to the subject, because the enemy is crafty and cunning and full of novel treacheries and stratagems. The House may be assured that the utmost ingenuity is being displayed and imagination is being evoked from large numbers of competent officers, well-trained in tactics and thoroughly up to date, to measure and counterwork novel possibilities. Untiring vigilance and untiring searching of the mind is being, and must be, devoted to the subject, because, remember, the enemy is crafty and there is no dirty trick he will not do.

Some people will ask why, then, was it that the British Navy was not able to prevent the movement of a large army from Germany into Norway across the Skagerrak? But the conditions in the Channel and in the North Sea are in no way like those which prevail in the Skagerrak. In the Skagerrak, because of the distance, we could give no air support to our surface ships, and consequently, lying as we did close to the enemy's main air power, we were compelled to use only our submarines. We could not enforce the decisive blockade or interruption which is possible from surface vessels. Our submarines took a heavy toll but could not, by themselves, prevent the invasion of Norway. In the Channel and in the North Sea, on the other hand, our superior naval surface forces, aided by our submarines, will operate with close and effective air assistance.

This brings me, naturally, to the great question of invasion from the air, and of the impending struggle between the British and German Air Forces. It seems quite clear that no invasion on a scale beyond the capacity of our land forces to crush speedily is likely to take place from the air until our Air Force has been definitely overpowered. In the meantime, there may be raids by parachute troops and attempted descents of airborne soldiers. We should be able to give those gentry a warm reception both in the air and on the ground, if they reach it in any condition to continue the dispute. But the great question is: Can we break Hitler's air weapon? Now, of course, it is a very great pity that we have not got an Air Force at least equal to that of the most powerful enemy within striking distance of these shores. But we have a very powerful Air Force which has proved itself far superior in quality, both in men and in many types of machine, to what we have met so far in the numerous and fierce air battles which have been fought with the Germans. In France, where we were at a considerable disadvantage and lost many machines on the ground when they were standing round the aerodromes, we were accustomed to inflict in the air losses of as much as two and two-and-a-half to one. In the fighting over Dunkirk, which was a sort of no-man's-land, we undoubtedly beat the German Air Force, and gained the mastery of the local air, inflicting here a loss of three or four to one day after day. Anyone who looks at the photographs which were published a week or so ago of the re-embarkation, showing the masses of troops assembled on the beach and forming an ideal target for hours at a time, must realize that this re-embarkation would not have been possible unless the enemy had resigned all hope of recovering air superiority at that time and at that place.

In the defense of this Island the advantages to the defenders will be much greater than they were in the fighting around Dunkirk. We hope to improve on the rate of three or four to one which was realized at Dunkirk; and in addition all our injured machines and their crews which get down safely-and, surprisingly, a very great many injured machines and men do get down safely in modern air fighting-all of these will fall, in an attack upon these Islands, on friendly. soil and live to fight another day; whereas all the injured enemy machines and their complements will be total losses as far as the war is concerned.

During the great battle in France, we gave very powerful and continuous aid to. the French Army, both by fighters and bombers; but in spite of every kind of pressure we never would allow the entire metropolitan fighter strength of the Air Force to be consumed. This decision was painful, but it was also right, because the fortunes of the battle in France could not have been decisively affected even if we had thrown in our entire fighter force. That battle was lost by the unfortunate strategical opening, by the extraordinary and unforseen power of the armored columns, and by the great preponderance of the German Army in numbers. Our fighter Air Force might easily have been exhausted as a mere accident in that great struggle, and then we should have found ourselves at the present time in a very serious plight. But as it is, I am happy to inform the House that our fighter strength is stronger at the present time relatively to the Germans, who have suffered terrible losses, than it has ever been; and consequently we believe ourselves possessed of the capacity to continue the war in the air under better conditions than we have ever experienced before. I look forward confidently to the exploits of our fighter pilots-these splendid men, this brilliant youth-who will have the glory of saving their native land, their island home, and all they love, from the most deadly of all attacks.

There remains, of course, the danger of bombing attacks, which will certainly be made very soon upon us by the bomber forces of the enemy. It is true that the German bomber force is superior in numbers to ours; but we have a very large bomber force also, which we shall use to strike at military targets in Germany without intermission. I do not at all underrate the severity of the ordeal which lies before us; but I believe our countrymen will show themselves capable of standing up to it, like the brave men of Barcelona, and will be able to stand up to it, and carry on in spite of it, at least as well as any other people in the world. Much will depend upon this; every man and every woman will have the chance to show the finest qualities of their race, and render the highest service to their cause. For all of us, at this time, whatever our sphere, our station, our occupation or our duties, it will be a help to remember the famous lines: He nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene.

I have thought it right upon this occasion to give the House and the country some indication of the solid, practical grounds upon which we base our inflexible resolve to continue the war. There are a good many people who say, "Never mind. Win or lose, sink or swim, better die than submit to tyranny-and such a tyranny." And I do not dissociate myself from them. But I can assure them that our professional advisers of the three Services unitedly advise that we should carry on the war, and that there are good and reasonable hopes of final victory. We have fully informed and consulted all the self-governing Dominions, these great communities far beyond the oceans who have been built up on our laws and on our civilization, and who are absolutely free to choose their course, but are absolutely devoted to the ancient Motherland, and who feel themselves inspired by the same emotions which lead me to stake our all upon duty and honor. We have fully consulted them, and I have received from their Prime Ministers, Mr. Mackenzie King of Canada, Mr. Menzies of Australia, Mr. Fraser of New Zealand, and General Smuts of South Africa-that wonderful man, with his immense profound mind, and his eye watching from a distance the whole panorama of European affairs-I have received from all these eminent men, who all have Governments behind them elected on wide franchises, who are all there because they represent the will of their people, messages couched in the most moving terms in which they endorse our decision to fight on, and declare themselves ready to share our fortunes and to persevere to the end. That is what we are going to do.

We may now ask ourselves: In what way has our position worsened since the beginning of the war? It has worsened by the fact that the Germans have conquered a large part of the coast line of Western Europe, and many small countries have been overrun by them. This aggravates the possibilities of air attack and adds to our naval preoccupations. It in no way diminishes, but on the contrary definitely increases, the power of our long-distance blockade. Similarly, the entrance of Italy into the war increases the power of our long-distance blockade. We have stopped the worst leak by that. We do not know whether military resistance will come to an end in France or not, but should it do so, then of course the Germans will be able to concentrate their forces, both military and industrial, upon us. But for the reasons I have given to the House these will not be found so easy to apply. If invasion has become more imminent, as no doubt it has, we, being relieved from the task of maintaining a large army in France, have far larger and more efficient forces to meet it.

If Hitler can bring under his despotic control the industries of the countries he has conquered, this will add greatly to his already vast armament output. On the other hand, this will not happen immediately, and we are now assured of immense, continuous and increasing support in supplies and munitions of all kinds from the United States; and especially of aeroplanes and pilots from the Dominions and across the oceans coming from regions which are beyond the reach of enemy bombers.

I do not see how any of these factors can operate to our detriment on balance before the winter comes; and the winter will impose a strain upon the Nazi regime, with almost all Europe writhing and starving under its cruel heel, which, for all their ruthlessness, will run them very hard. We must not forget that from the moment when we declared war on the 3rd September it was always possible for Germany to turn all her Air Force upon this country, together with any other devices of invasion she might conceive, and that France could have done little or nothing to prevent her doing so. We have, therefore, lived under this danger, in principle and in a slightly modified form, during all these m6nths. In the meanwhile, however, we have enormously improved our methods of defense, and we have learned what we had no right to assume at the beginning, namely, that the individual aircraft and the individual British pilot have a sure and definite superiority. Therefore, in casting up this dread balancesheet and contemplating our dangers with a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair.

During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment. That was our constant fear: one blow after another, terrible losses, frightful dangers. Everything miscarried. And yet at the end of those four years the morale of the Allies was higher than that of the Germans, who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another, and who stood everywhere triumphant invaders of the lands into which they had broken. During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves the question: How are we going to win? and no one was able ever to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible foe collapsed before us, and we were so glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it away.

We do not yet know what will happen in France or whether the French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the war in accordance with their Treaty obligations, from which we have not felt able to release them. The House will have read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many Frenchmen-and of our own hearts-we have proclaimed our willingness at the darkest hour in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this struggle. However matters may go in France or with the French Government, or other French Governments, we in this Island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. All these shall be restored.

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

Not much there either ... "It's going to get worse, but we'll get a nice obituary."

"GIVE US THE TOOLS"

February 9, 1941. Broadcast, London

Five months have passed since I spoke to the British nation and the Empire on the broadcast. In wartime there is a lot to be said for the motto: "Deeds, not words." All the same, it is a good thing to look around from time to time and take stock, and certainly our affairs have prospered in several directions during these last four or five months, far better than most of us would have ventured to hope.

We stood our ground and faced the two Dictators in the hour of what seemed their overwhelming triumph, and we have shown ourselves capable, so far, of standing up against them alone. After the heavy defeats of the German air force by our fighters in August and September, Herr Hitler did not dare attempt the invasion of this Island, although he had every need to do so and although he had made vast preparations. Baffled in this mighty project, he sought to break the spirit of the British nation by the bombing, first of London, and afterwards of our great cities. It has now been proved, to the admiration of the world, and of our friends in the United States, that this form of blackmail by murder and terrorism, so far from weakening the spirit of the British nation, has only roused it to a more intense and universal flame than was ever seen before in any modern community.

The whole British Empire has been proud of the Mother Country, and they long to be with us over here in even larger numbers. We have been deeply conscious of the love for us which has flowed from the Dominions of the Crown across the broad ocean spaces. There is the first of our war aims: to be worthy of that love, and to preserve it.

All through these dark winter months the enemy has had the power to drop three or four tons of bombs upon us for every ton we could send to Germany in return. We are arranging so that presently this will be rather the other way round; but, meanwhile. Londonand our big cities have had to stand their pounding. They remind me of the British squares at Waterloo. They are not squares of soldiers; they do not wear scarlet coats. They are just ordinary English Scottish and Welsh folk men, women and children-standing steadfastly together. But their spirit is the same, their glory is the same; and, in the end, their victory will be greater than far-famed Waterloo.

All honor to the Civil Defense Services of all kinds-emergency and regular, volunteer and professional who have helped our people through this formidable ordeal, the like of which no civilized community has ever been called upon to undergo. If I mention only one of these services here, namely the Police, it is because many tributes have been paid already to the others. But the Police have been in it everywhere, all the time, and as a working woman wrote to me: "What gentlemen they are!"

More than two-thirds of the winter has now gone, and so far we have had no serious epidemic; indeed, there is no increase of illness in spite of the improvised conditions of the shelters. That is most creditable to our local, medical and sanitary authorities, to our devoted nursing staff, and to the Ministry of Health, whose head, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, is now going to Canada in the important office of High Commissioner.

There is another thing which surprised me when I asked about it. In spite of all these new war-time offenses and prosecutions of all kinds; in spite of all the opportunities for looting and disorder, there has been less crime this winter and there are now fewer prisoners in our jails than in the years of peace.

We have broken the back of the winter. The daylight grows. The Royal Air Force grows, and is already certainly master of the daylight air. The attacks may be sharper, but they will be shorter; there will be more opportunities for work and service of all kinds; more opportunities for life. So, if our first victory was the repulse of the invader, our second was the frustration of his acts of terror and torture against our people at home.

Meanwhile, abroad, in October, a wonderful thing happened. One of the two Dictators - the crafty, cold-blooded, blackhearted Italian, who had thought to gain an Empire on the cheap by stabbing fallen France in the back - got into trouble. Without the slightest provocation, spurred on by lust of power and brutish greed, Mussolini attacked and invaded Greece, only to be hurled back ignominiously by the heroic Greek Army; who, I will say, with your consent, have revived before our eyes the glories which, from the classic age, gild their native land.

While Signor Mussolini was writhing and smarting under the Greek lash in Albania, Generals Wavell and Wilson, who were charged with the defense of Egypt and of the Suez Canal in accordance with our treaty obligations, whose task seemed at one time so difficult, had received very powerful reinforcements of men, cannon, equipment and. above all, tanks, which we had sent from our Island in spite of the invasion threat. Large numbers of troops from India, Australia and New Zealand had also reached them. Forthwith began that series of victories in Libya which have broken irretrievably the Italian military power on the African Continent. We have all been entertained, and I trust edified, by the exposure and humiliation of another of what Byron called

"Those Pagod things of sabre sway

With fronts of brass and feet of clay."

Here then, in Libya, is the third considerable event upon which we may dwell with some satisfaction. It is just exactly two months ago, to a day, that I was waiting anxiously, but also eagerly, for the news of the great counter-stroke which had been planned against the Italian invaders of Egypt. The secret had been well kept. The preparations had been well made. But to leap across those seventy miles of desert, and attack an army of ten or eleven divisions, equipped with all the appliances of modern war, who had been fortifying themselves for three months - that was a most hazardous adventure.

When the brilliant decisive victory at Sidi Barrani, with its tens of thousands of prisoners, proved that we had quality, maneuvering power and weapons superior to the enemy, who had boasted so much of his virility and his military virtues, it was evident that all the other Italian forces in eastern Libyawere in great danger. They could not easily beat a retreat along the coastal road without running the risk of being caught in the open of our armored divisions and brigades ranging far out into the desert in tremendous swoops and scoops. They had to expose themselves to being attacked piecemeal.

General Wavell – nay, all our leaders, and all their lithe, active, ardent men, British, Australian, Indian, in the Imperial Army - saw their opportunity. At that time I ventured to draw General Wavell's attention to the seventh chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, at the seventh verse, where, as you all know-or ought to know- it is written: "Ask, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The Army of the Nile has asked, and it was given; they sought, and they have found; they knocked, and it has been opened unto them. In barely eight weeks, by a campaign which will long be studied as a model of the military art.

An advance of over 400 miles has been made. The whole Italian Army in the east of Libya, which was reputed to exceed 150,000 men, has been captured or destroyed. The entire province of Cyrenaica - nearly as big as Englandand Wales - has been conquered. The unhappy Arab tribes, who have for thirty years suffered from the cruelty of Italian rule, carried in some cases to the point of methodical extermination, these Bedouin survivors have at last seen their oppressors in disorderly flight, or led off in endless droves as prisoners of war.

Egypt and the Suez Canal are safe, and the port, the base and the airfields of Benghazi constitute a strategic point of high consequence to the whole of the war in the Eastern Mediterranean .

This is the time, I think, to speak of the leaders who, at the head of their brave troops, have rendered this distinguished service to the King. The first and foremost, General Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of all the Armies in the Middle East has proved himself a master of war, sage, painstaking, daring and tireless. But General Wavell has repeatedly asked that others should share his fame.

General Wilson, who actually commands the Army of the Nile, was reputed to be one of our finest tacticians -and few will now deny that quality. General O'Connor, commanding the 13th Corps, with General Mackay, commanding the splendid Australians, and General Creagh, who trained and commanded the various armored divisions which were employed these three men executed the complicated and astoundingly rapid movements which were made, and fought the actions which occurred. I have just seen a telegram from General Wavell in which he says that the success at Benghazi was due to the outstanding leadership and resolution of O'Connor and Creagh, ably backed by Wilson.

I must not forget here to point out the amazing mechanical feats of the British tanks, whose design and workmanship have beaten all records and stood up to all trials; and show us how closely and directly the work in the factories at home is linked with the victories abroad.

Of course, none of our plans would have succeeded had not our pilots, under Air Chief Marshal Longmore, wrested the control of the air from a far more numerous enemy. Nor would the campaign itself have been possible if the British Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Cunningham, had not chased the Italian Navy into its harbors and sustained every forward surge of the Army with all the flexible resources of sea power.

How far-reaching these resources are we can see from what happened at dawn this morning, when our Western Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Somerville, entered the Gulf of Genoa and bombarded in a shattering manner the naval base from which perhaps a Nazi German expedition might soon have sailed to attack General Weygand in Algeria or Tunis. It is right that the Italian people should be made to feel the sorry plight into which they have been dragged by Dictator Mussolini, and if the cannonade of Genoa, rolling along the coast, reverberating in the mountains, reached the ears of our French comrades in their grief and misery, it might cheer them with the feeling that friends-active friends-are near and that Britannia rules the waves.

The events in Libya are only part of the story: they are only part of the story of the decline and fall of the Italian Empire that will not take a future Gibbon so long to write as the original work. Fifteen hundred miles away to the southward a strong British and Indian army, having driven the invaders out of the Sudan, is marching steadily forward through the Italian Colony of Eritrea, thus seeking to complete the isolation of all the Italian troops in Abyssinia. Other British forces are entering Abyssinia from the west, while the army gathered in Kenya in the van of which we may discern the powerful forces of the Union of South Africa, organized by General Smuts is striking northward along the whole enormous front.

Lastly, the Ethiopian patriots, whose independence was stolen five years ago, have risen in arms; and their Emperor, so recently an exile in England, is in their midst to fight for their freedom and his throne. Here, then, we see the beginnings of a process of reparation, and of the chastisement of wrongdoing, which reminds us that, though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small.

While these auspicious events have been carrying us stride by stride from what many people though! a forlorn position, and was certainly a very grave position in May and June, to one which permits us to speak with sober confidence of our power to discharge our duty, heavy though it be in the future while this has been happening, a mighty tide of sympathy, of good will and of effective aid, has begun to flow across the Atlantic in support of the world cause which is at stake. Distinguished Americans have come over to see things here at the front, and to find out how the United States can help us best and soonest.

In Mr. Hopkins who has been my frequent companion during the last three weeks, we have the Envoy of the President, a President who has been newly re-elected to his august office. In Mr. Wendell Willkie we have welcomed the champion of the great Republican Party. We may be sure that they will both tell the truth about what they have seen over here, and more than that we do not ask. The rest we leave with good confidence to the judgment of the President the Congress and the people of the United States .

I have been so very careful, since I have been Prime Minister, not to encourage false hopes or prophesy smooth and easy things, and yet the tale that I have to tell today is one which must justly and rightly give us cause for deep thankfulness, and also, I think, for strong comfort and even rejoicing. But now I must dwell upon the more serious, darker and more dangerous aspects of the vast scene of the war. We must all of us have been asking ourselves: What has that wicked man whose crime-stained regime and system are at bay and in the toils what has he been preparing during these winter months? What new devilry is he planning? What new small country will he overrun or strike down? What fresh form of assault will he make upon our Island home and fortress; which let there be no mistake about it is all that stands between him and the dominion of the world?

We may be sure that the war is soon going to enter upon a phase of greater violence. Hitler's confederate, Mussolini, has reeled back in Albania, but the Nazis- having absorbed Hungary and driven Rumania into a frightful internal convulsion- are now already upon the Black Sea. A considerable Nazi German army and air force is being built up in Rumania, and its forward tentacles have already penetrated Bulgaria.

With - we must suppose - the acquiescence of the Bulgarian Government, airfields are being occupied by German ground personnel numbering thousands, so as to enable the German air force to come into action from Bulgaria. Many preparations have been made for the movement of German troops into or through Bulgaria, and perhaps this southward movement has already begun.

We saw what happened last May in the Low Countries , how they hoped for the best: how they clung to their neutrality: how woefully they were deceived, overwhelmed, plundered, enslaved and since starved. We know how we and the French suffered when, at the last moment, at the urgent belated appeal of the King of the Belgians, we went to his aid. Of course, if all the Balkan people stood together and acted together, aided by Britain and Turkey, it would be many months before a German army and air force of sufficient strength to overcome them could be assembled in the southeast of Europe. And in those months much might happen.

Much will certainly happen as American aid becomes effective, as our air power grows, as we become a well-armed nation, and as our armies in the East increase in strength. But nothing is more certain than that, if the countries of southeastern Europe allow themselves to be pulled to pieces one by one, they will share the fate of Denmark, Holland and Belgium. And none can tell how long it will be before the hour of their deliverance strikes.

One of our difficulties is to convince some of these neutral countries in Europe that we are going to win. We think it astonishing that they should be so dense as not to see it as clearly as we do ourselves. I remember in the last war, in July, 1915, we began to think that Bulgaria was going wrong, so Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, Sir F. E. Smith and I asked the Bulgarian Minister to dinner to explain to him what a fool King Ferdinand would make of himself if he were to go in on the losing side. It was no use. The poor man simply could not believe it, or could not make his Government believe it.

So Bulgaria, against the wishes of her peasant population, against all her interests, fell in al the Kaiser's tail and got sadly carved up and punished when the victory was won. I trust that Bulgaria is not going to make the same mistake again. If they do, the Bulgarian peasantry and people, for whom there has been much regard, both in Great Britain and in the United States, will for the third time in thirty years have been made to embark upon a needless and disastrous war.

In the Central Mediterranean the Italian Quisling, who is called Mussolini, and the French Quisling, commonly called Laval, are both in their different ways trying to make their countries into doormats for Hitler and his New Order, in the hope of being able to keep, or get the Nazi Gestapo and Prussian bayonets to enforce, their rule upon their fellow countrymen. I cannot tell how the matter will go, but at any rate we shall do our best to fight for the Central Mediterranean.

I dare say you will have noticed the very significant air action which was fought over Malta a fortnight ago. The Germans sent an entire Geschwader of dive-bombers to Sicily. They seriously injured our new aircraft-carrier Illustrious, and then, as this wounded ship was sheltering in Malta harbor, they concentrated upon her all their force so as to beat her to pieces. But they were met by the batteries of Malta, which is one of the strongest defended fortresses in the world against air attack; they were met by the Fleet Air Arm and by the Royal Air Force, and. in two or three days, they had lost, out of a hundred and fifty dive-bombers, upwards of ninety, fifty of which were destroyed in the air and forty on the ground. Although the Illustrious, in her damaged condition, was one of the great prizes of the air and naval war, the German Geschwader accepted the defeat; they would not come any more. All the necessary repairs were made to the Illustrious in Malta harbor, and she steamed safely off to Alexandria under her own power at 23 knots. I dwell upon this incident, not at all because I think it disposes of the danger in the Central Mediterranean , but in order to show you that there, as elsewhere, we intend to give a good account of ourselves.

But after all, the fate of this war is going to be settled by what happens on the oceans, in the air, and - above all - in this Island. It seems now to be certain that the Government and people of the United States intend to supply us with all that is necessary for victory. In the last war the United States sent two million men across the Atlantic. But this is not a war of vast armies, firing immense masses of shells at one another. We do not need the gallant armies which are forming throughout the American Union. We do not need them this year, nor next year; nor any year that I can foresee. But we do need most urgently an immense and continuous supply of war materials and technical apparatus of all kinds. We need them here and we need to bring them here. We shall need a great mass of shipping in 1942, far more than we can build ourselves, if we are to maintain and augment our war effort in the West and in the East.

These facts are, of course, all well known to the enemy, and we must therefore expect that Herr Hitler will do his utmost to prey upon our shipping and to reduce the volume of American supplies entering these Islands. Having conquered France and Norway, his clutching fingers reach out on both sides of us into the ocean. I have never underrated this danger, and you know I have never concealed it from you. Therefore, I hope you will believe me when I say that I have complete confidence in the Royal Navy, aided by the Air Force of the Coastal Command, and that in one way or another I am sure they will be able to meet every changing phase of this truly mortal struggle, and that sustained by the courage of our merchant seamen, and of the dockers and workmen of all our ports, we shall outwit, outmaneuver, outfight and outlast the worst that the enemy's malice and ingenuity can contrive.

I have left the greatest issue to the end. You will have seen that Sir John Dill, our principal military adviser, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, has warned us all that Hitler may be forced, by the strategic, economic and political stresses in Europe, to try to invade these Islands in the near future. That is a warning which no one should disregard. Naturally, we are working night and day to have everything ready. Of course, we are far stronger than we ever were before, incomparably stronger than we were in July, August and September. Our Navy is more powerful, our flotillas are more numerous; we are far stronger, actually and relatively, in the air above these Islands, than we were when our Fighter Command beat off and beat down the Nazi attack last autumn. Our Army is more numerous, more mobile and far better equipped and trained than in September, and still more than in July.

I have the greatest confidence in our Commander-in-Chief. General Brooke, and in the generals of proved ability who, under him, guard the different quarters of our land. But most of all I put my faith in the simple unaffected resolve to conquer or die which will animate and inspire nearly four million Britons with serviceable weapons in their hands. It is not an easy military operation to invade an island like Great Britain, without the command of the sea and without the command of the air, and then to face what will be waiting for the invader here.

But I must drop one word of caution; for, next to cowardice and treachery, overconfidence, leading to neglect or slothfulness, is the worst of martial crimes. Therefore, I drop one word of caution. A Nazi invasion of Great Britain last autumn would have been a more or less improvised affair. Hitler took it for granted that when France gave in we should give in; but we did not give in. And he had to think again. An invasion now will be supported by a much more carefully prepared tackle and equipment of landing craft and other apparatus, all of which will have been planned and manufactured in the winter months. We must all be prepared to meet gas attacks, parachute attacks, and glider attacks, with constancy, forethought and practiced skill.

I must again emphasize what General Dill has said, and what I pointed out myself last year. In order to win the war Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States; he may tear great provinces out of Russia, he may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spend his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire-nay, in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world- will be on his track, bearing with them the swords of justice.

The other day, President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late Presidential Election [Mr. Wendell Willkie] a letter of introduction to me, and in it he wrote out a verse, in his own handwriting, from Longfellow, which he said, "applies to you people as it does to us." Here is the verse:

. . .Sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

What is the answer that I shall give, in your name, to this great man, the thrice-chosen head of a nation of a hundred and thirty millions? Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt: Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well.

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

Nope. not much there either other than "Can we have some free stuff? We won't bolix it again. Promise."

They're speeches, for goodness sakes. If you're expecting detailed policy discussions and descriptions you're looking in the wrong place. Still, people sem to think well enough of them.

[Stalins Organ]

I dunno how others read it, but I honestly interpreted that when you said "[Obama] opposed the war in Iraq but offers no solutions of his own aside from leaving Saddam in power", you wanted to argue about that? Otherwise it's a confusing sentence, because Saddam is not in power.

I'm glad someone else noticed that!!

Perhaps he's confused with this point from Obama's Iraq policy:

Obama and Biden will press Iraq's leaders to take responsibility for their future and to substantially spend their oil revenues on their own reconstruction.

I can see how he'd think that meant keeping Saddam Hussein in power...pffftt...

But if Iraq is now a peaceful stable democracy, like you say, then isn't pulling out of there the right thing to do? Everything's done that can be done?

and apparently this counted agaisnt McCain - he wanted to "stay the course".....but lots of people think exactly what you wrote here - if the surge worked, and violence is down, and the Iraqi's are capable of handling their own security, then why would we want to stay longer?

[Sgt Joch]

Regarding Iraq, I think it is a safe bet that the Obama administration will declare victory and get the troops out as fast as possible. Thats what Eisenhower did in Korea.

Staying in is politically dangerous. At this stage, his options, both domestically and in Iraq are extremely limited and will not affect the outcome. In addition, as Nixon found out, if you wait too long, it becomes your war.

Obama is too smart a politician not to realize this.

[Sgt Joch]

to expand.

Eisenhower bugged out in six months in '53 and had no domestic blowback.

Ideally, you would want to keep some bases in country so your troops could intervene quickly if there is a crisis, much like the US kept troops for a long time in Germany, Japan and Korea.

Alternatively or concurrently, establish a no-fly zone over the entire country so you can "suppress" any problem from the air.

If all else fails, we can keep watch over the whole country with satellites. The USAF and USN can intervene within hours and we can keep troops on standby in Kuwait.

...with all of these decisions being made by a 47 year old former university professor.........

[Sergei]

Alternatively or concurrently, establish a no-fly zone over the entire country so you can "suppress" any problem from the air.

Certainly the Iraqi government, military, businessmen, tourism industry and everybody else with interest to military or civilian aviation would find that a convenient and friendly gesture. You still might first want to ask their opinion about it, just as a matter of formality.

[Sgt Joch]

Certainly the Iraqi government, military, businessmen, tourism industry and everybody else with interest to military or civilian aviation would find that a convenient and friendly gesture. You still might first want to ask their opinion about it, just as a matter of formality.

That why I said "if all else fails", obviously if the Iraqis wont let the US have the bases, I doubt they will grant overfly right.

[ironbar]

to expand.

Alternatively or concurrently, establish a no-fly zone over the entire country so you can "suppress" any problem from the air.

If all else fails, we can keep watch over the whole country with satellites. The USAF and USN can intervene within hours and we can keep troops on standby in Kuwait.

I'm afraid you may be right; Status quo ante bellum, all the turmoil, pain and casualities(some of them close friends) to see one tin pot A-hole swinging at the end of a rope.

[Bigduke6]

Iraqi government just said they think the Obama plan (all troops out in 16 months, no US bases) is just peachy. And strangely, they just can't bring themselves to approve the Bush plan, every time they get close to signing off on it there are all these unexpected complications.

The real question is what kind of build-up the new administration is planning in Afghanistan. My guess is, the general policy will be money and the UN, not many US troops.

IOW, war's pretty much over dude.

[Sergei]

IOW, war's pretty much over dude.

Don't underestimate War. He's got a penchant for surprise comebacks.