Word: britains
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...allies have clearly recognized that those now fighting for the Taliban will be in Afghanistan long after Western armies leave. Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband, in a speech to NATO July 27, called on the Afghan government "to separate hard-line ideologues, who are essentially irreconcilable and violent and who must be pursued relentlessly, from those who can be drawn into domestic political processes." He was quickly followed by U.S. Afghanistan-Pakistan Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, who told a BBC interviewer that "there is room in Afghan society for all those fighting with the Taliban who renounce al-Qaeda...
...middle-aged sense of history and hardwired American hopefulness make me more optimistic than pessimistic - but just barely - about the present reset. I suppose it wouldn't be a catastrophe if my children, when they reach middle age, are living in an America that has become a supersized Britain. But I'd prefer to think of them growing old in a country that's still unequivocally great and grand. And the choices we're making right now will determine the legacy we leave...
...idea of historical cycles can be reassuring: what comes down must go up. However, great nations can shrivel and empires do come to an end. And America in 2009 also looks as if it could rhyme, uncomfortably, with Great Britain circa 1909. A hundred years ago, the British were coming off a proud century as the most important nation on earth. But during the 30 years between the beginning of World War I and the end of World War II, the United States emerged as the unequivocal world leader, and Britain became an admirable also-ran. Applying that template...
...House of Lords, Britain's highest court, delivered a landmark ruling on July 30 when it said that the nation's assisted-suicide law must be clarified to spell out the circumstances under which authorities will prosecute someone who helps another person end their life...
According to Britain's Suicide Act of 1961, "a person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another" faces up to 14 years in prison. To get around the law, more than 100 British citizens have traveled to Switzerland to end their lives at Dignitas, an assisted-suicide clinic in Forch, near Zurich. But so far, no one who has accompanied a person to Dignitas has faced prosecution after returning to the U.K. The vagueness of the law pushed Debbie Purdy, a British woman suffering from multiple sclerosis who plans to end her life at the clinic...