Why are so many right-wing commentators so touchy?

Gosh, such fuss about a bust of a foreign political leader! Or rather, why should the presence or otherwise of a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office really say so much about the future of United States/United Kingdom relations? Indeed, does it say anything other than the new President wanted to decorate it with things that mean more to him?

Yes, that's one of the things that is exercising right-wing commentators this week. Rather than address the fact that the United Kingdom has one of the worst death rates from Covid-19 in the world, or that we borrowed £31.6 billion in November to deal with a crisis made so much worse by the Government's dithering and desperate need to feel loved, they prefer to create a manufactured outrage about a foreigner's interior design choices.

It is, I'm afraid, all rather sad and pathetic. So much, it seems, for the idea of taking back control, being independent, standing tall in the world. No, apparently, we should feel slighted by the decision of the most powerful man in the free world to change the decor in his office. That really does send out a message to the world, albeit possibly not the one intended.

But then, they'd pinned so much on Donald Trump and the prospect of a beneficial trade agreement. Why that should be was anyone's guess, given his actions in withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership, renegotiating NAFTA to benefit the United States rather more than it had previously done and using tariffs as a stick to beat anyone who didn't worship at his altar. It could not have been more naïve to believe that a Trump administration was going to come to the rescue of the Brexiteers.

Now that we have an administration that is more minded to support the framework of free trade agreements, it's hard to credit that their priority isn't going to be the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union - that's where the big money is. What, exactly, do we offer the Americans that they can't get elsewhere? And given that English is widely spoken across our continent, language isn't really a barrier in the way it was before.

But it acts as a reminder that, for all the talk of British influence and pride, so many on the political right turn "snowflake" about things that aren't actually of any great significance, get all moody when called on it, and would rather misdirect their readers rather than admit that there might be some negative impacts from their beloved project. Admittedly, those negative impacts almost certainly won't impact on them, and they almost certainly don't care about the people they're attempting to stir to anger, which is perhaps the point. They want you to believe that it's never their fault, and their judgement is without flaw.

And, the longer and harder they fight a culture war, the more likely it is that their victims will hopefully forget what it is they've had done to them, and look for someone to blame other than the people who got them into this mess in the first place. The bust of Churchill is merely another arrow in their quiver of outrage, an attempt to distract us from asking them why their friends are making such a mess of things.

How do you solve a problem like Donald, Theresa?

It has been a bit of a train wreck so far, hasn't it? However, whilst the air of chaos that surrounds the new incumbent in the White House shows no signs of abating, he is getting a worrying amount done. And, if you're a European or even British, what he has done so far is cause for some perturbation.

On trade, whilst there are perhaps grounds for axing the Trans Pacific Partnership, in doing so the way he has, he has undermined key relationships in a volatile region, where China seeks to maximise its power, soft and hard. If the Japanese and the South Koreans, in particular, sense that America is not engaged, they will be obliged to take a more respectful stance towards China. And, from the perspective of his near neighbourhood, his ruthless jettisoning of TPP, and the attempts to bully Mexico, spell trouble for NAFTA.

It does not augur well for a UK/US trade agreement, does it?

Now I accept that Trump has expressed a desire to do a deal, and heaven only knows that the Brexiteers desperately want to believe that he means it, but the problem is that he has a history of making deals that end badly for the other party and, more worryingly, for a bunch of innocent bystanders too. If he can bully the other side, he will, especially when they're desperate. And boy, are we going to be desperate.

It is already becoming apparent that a number of key potential partners, India, China, Australia, for example, are happy to do deals, but that relative freedom of movement comes with any such arrangements. Can Theresa May get over her hang-ups over migration figures, and even if she can, what will those who voted Brexit to cut migration think about being poorer AND having a bunch of foreigners coming into the country?

So, 'white' countries it will have to be. An all encompassing deal with the 'evil' European Union seems unlikely, and Australia and New Zealand are relatively small economies far away. That only really leaves the America Firsters, led by a man with a hair trigger ego advised by a man who wants to bring everything down. That's certainly not a negotiation I would enter with confidence and, to make matters worse, we already run a trade surplus with the US. Donald won't like that.

Oh yes, we could cut a deal with the rather sclerotic Japanese economy, or try to sell agricultural goods to the Koreans, but you can see our options withering away unless we're willing to compromise. And that, it seems, the Brexiteers are uncomfortable with.

It does, potentially, get worse. If the trend towards regional blocs continues, being outside of them all may make you nimbler, but it also makes you lonely and vulnerable to protectionism. And, you may have to sacrifice parts of your social model if national wealth diminishes in real terms, or grows less strongly than it might otherwise have done. There'll be plenty of people who voted for Brexit who won't like that either.

Now, is Theresa lying awake at night worrying about this? I suspect not. The more charitable might suggest that, as she is a woman of principle, doing what she believes to be the right thing, she has no reason to worry. In any event, the Opposition are insipid, or fragmented, or too few in number to really hurt her. I have a nasty feeling that she doesn't have the imagination to work out how badly this could (and I emphasise could) end up. If she did, she certainly wouldn't be able to sleep easily at night.

No, a combination of the Administration's apparent retreat from the strong dollar, a headstrong President and his belief that deals should favour America, leaves the British trade team with a potentially very challenging assignment. And we're fielding Liam Fox.

We're doomed, aren't we?...

Once is unfortunate, but three times?

The recent accusations that an American unit massacred a group of twenty-four innocent civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha have come to the forefront due to the actions of US Congressman Jon Murtha from Pennsylvania. Murtha is a Democrat but, more importantly, he is a distinguished veteran and something of a hawk.

Normally, you would expect the Bush Administration to repeat its standard tactic of playing the man not the ball but in this instance, the evidence now appears overwhelming. A Pentagon official, commenting anonymously, confirmed that an initial investigation found evidence that Marines had killed the civilians and that forensic reports of bullet wounds contradict the troops' statement that fifteen of the dead were killed by an insurgent bomb.

Parallels with the infamous 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam are unavoidable and if there are any neutrals in America on the subject of the Iraq war, I imagine that many of them will be making their minds up now. Of course, I had a close up look at that a few days ago in Ho Chi Minh City and now I find that there is a third incident, one that took place in a small Korean town called No Gun Ri in 1951, which is still being denied by the United States despite growing evidence.

It is not denied that a number of Korean civilians were shot dead as they approached a part of the frontline defended by the 7th US Cavalry Division. The official explanation was that panicked soldiers opened fire for fear that the approaching civilians could conceal enemy troops. And yet, veterans of the 7th US Cavalry Division claim that they were simply following orders to fire on refugees.

The issue has rumbled on and in 2001, the Pentagon issued a report which concluded that the shooting of Korean refugees was "not a deliberate killing". Unfortunately, amongst the microfilms reviewed as part of the process of producing that report, there now emerges a copy of a letter from the then US Ambassador to South Korea, John J Murcio, to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk, stating that "refugees will be shot" if they advance towards American soldiers. Murcio said that he was informing Rusk "in view of the possibility of repercussions in the United States" from the implementation of the policy. Clearly, he thought that the policy was wrong, even if others didn't.

So, a coverup? Shoddy research? A combination of the two? Maybe, but it doesn't show up the US military in a good light and this in a country which is one of the most loyal allies the United States has...