“The Ambassador was called in to see Prime Minister Wickremesinghe on the afternoon of Saturday, January 10. Milinda Moragoda was also present. The meeting began with the participants exchanging thoughts on the books they had read over the Christmas/New Year’s lull, with the PM noting in particular a biography of Franklin Roosevelt.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.
The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The “Confidential” cable was signed by the US Ambassador to Colombo Jeffrey J. Lunstead on January 12, 2004.
The US Embassy wrote; “As the Ambassador left, the PM commented again on his vacation reading. He said that one thing he had learned from the Franklin Roosevelt biography was that for a lot of the time ‘Roosevelt just did nothing.’ That might be the wrong inspiration to take from that book.”
gamini / December 26, 2013
‘Just do Nothing’ is much better than ‘Robbing the Nation’. After all Patience is a virtue only the Intelligent are blessed with. Those who do not have patience, burn out before they even get started. Slow and steady will win the race in the end.
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Ben Hurling / December 26, 2013
Gamini,
You have rock solid faith in Ranil. You also seem to know a lot about his background.
I want our post Rajapassa leadership to adhere to highest standards of Human Rights. Meaning cleaning up violent abusses by Police, Military & other evil people in positions of power.
Can Ranil deliver in this area? I would like to know.
As we know UNP’s HR record is hardly any better than Rajapassa’s. Ranil himself is often implicated in Batalanda torture stories.
Shed some light on this Gamini. For the benefit of our country.
Cheers!
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Silva / December 26, 2013
Ben Hurling,
There you are again! The incessant senseless chatter of your own mind within the walls of the prison you have created for yourself and encaged yourself. Your endless chattering and gossiping have endlessly betrayed your trivial soul and worth. You have asked this rubbish question for the umpteenth time now and still not satisfied nor found answers and hence “not doing nothing” all the time!
You should attend a kindergarten and learn the basic things because we do not have time to waste teaching you abc in politics. However, since you have asked this let me write something on it. Batalanda fiasco is not an isolated incident but an essential outcome of a complex political, societal, ideological and economic conflict in post independent SL. The whole political, clerical, racial and intellectual cross section of the entire country is responsible for it. This rotten, envious, exploitory, violent and greedy society brought it about through their ignorance and hate. There was societal inequality, class caste and creed differences, affluence and poverty, the elites versus the underdogs and underprivileged, the educated and the uneducated…all the imaginable societal conflicts and frictions. So how did the JVP and the youths went about changing all that? By Salmon Tin Bombs, Galkatas and chit! What do you say an elected government should do? Hand over and step down? Show me an example in the entire world throughout the whole time man existed on earth! This is not to justify the horrendous crimes that were committed by the people who wielded power and guns-they are punishable crimes. But how do you implicate Ranil for all those murders and put responsibility on him and call for excuses? Ranil is but a single cog in this whole societal and political mechanism. There are many many other key players whom he could not have influenced handled. Batalanda has to be understood against this back ground.
Now having said that, doing nothing is a rare commodity and a sign of intelligence! Mahinda Rajapaksha is doing everything possible and all the time as well-from Weliveriya agitation to ongoing Badulla hospital closure protest, from Indian premier England through Cameran to US Obama skinning, from museum sword to jungle and tip of the country treasure trove, from village tavern to urban highway…Mahinda is doing everything very proactively! But alas! What has he achieved and delivered? Nothing except plunging the country to abysmal! The only thing this bugger could boast of was the savage war against LTTE but look what has happened now. He has hauled the country on to the Bank Ki Moon’s table and the whole world is moving towards carving out the next country out of North of Sri Lanka!
Contrastingly on the other hand, behold what Ranil has achieved. Peace negotiations and accord with LTTE without shedding a single drop of blood turning the sympathy towards the LTTE away from them and supporting us in their liquidation, splinter of LTTE, weakening LTTE by causing the LTTE cadres to migrate overseas, justifying the self-protective measures of Sri Lanka in the eyes of the international community, reversing the negative economy of Chandrikas government and laying the foundation within a short time for the Regaining Sri Lanka Project which if succeeded would have turned this country into a Singapore like developed state. All these were achieved not by “doing extraordinary extravaganzas” but by simple, scientific, logical, legal and correct measures any normal and progressive state and leader would follow.
So Ben Hurling, before you regurgitate and chew your favorite chewing-cum next time think twice about asking the right question because if you ask the wrong question you would not get the right answer. Then you would only peril and struggle in the meaningless empting ranting, boasting bickering and quarrelling with which the pro-regime hired writers in these forums are very notorious. Get a life and be a man if you can.
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Ben Hurling / December 27, 2013
Silva
Despite the unwarranted personal attack on me, I appreciate your indepth response very much.
Crux of the matter is current family run, cruel & corrupt regime must be changed. Let there be no doubt.
The new regime must be sincere & honest. New guys must have integrity & be trustworthy. Can the UNP deliver those qualities?
Tone of your response is arrogant & unrepentant. Rather explaining simple answers away with jargon. Classic problem of our elected reps.
Your response proves none of the core problems that plague Sri Lanka will go away by merely replacing Rajapassa clan members with UNP monkeys.
UNP’s track record is blood soaked, lawless & oppressive. Infact UNP’s reputation is only beaten by even worse Rajapassa brothers. Luckily for your Silva.
For the sake of my country I hope UNP will change. And rise to its’ historical obligations. My criticism is only well meant. I have nothing personal against the UNP or Ranil. It is upto UNP to win my vote and not vice versa.
Cheers!
PS: Silva, consider taking a course in “modesty & humility” before thinking about governing Sri Lanka.
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Silva / December 27, 2013
Mr. Ben Hurling,
The tone of your response does not warrant all that sharp scathing criticisms I hurled at you. I am very sorry about it and apologize to you. But there are countless other Rajapaksha bootlickers posing this silly question and my answer would deflect off of you and hit them at their throats. Indeed as you say UNP had lot of monkeys and that is why we are still stranded in the wilderness.
These words of you must continue to resound in any intelligent man’s mind: “..For the sake of my country I hope UNP will change. And rise to its’ historical obligations. My criticism is only well meant. I have nothing personal against the UNP or Ranil. It is upto UNP to win my vote and not vice versa..” This question of “change” is a very complex problem. Almost all human beings are by nature corruptible. So are the constituents of UNP then! There would never be a perfect unblemished political party, its members or followership. What we can only opt for is the least bad of them. Any political party in a country is the reflection of the moral, ethical, ideological, cultural, religious, societal and sensitive collective character of that society. The greed, ambition, hate, violence, ignorance, conceit and vanity and reflected in that party. If the people are intelligent, morally correct, caring, sensitive, incorruptible etc. those traits too get reflected in that party. This is not a question of we selecting a few agents to represent us politically in all our problems and when finding solutions and hoping they will do every thing on our behalf in governance but the whole collective political, societal, moral and value system of the citizenry has to undergo a positive transformation. And this is exactly what the Rajapakshas are calculatedly, consciously and precisely blocking from happening. The eyes, ears and language of mass consciousness is the media. But as has happened now when the media is compromised and made servile to the tyrant, the collective consciousness and intelligence get obfuscated, bewildered, blind-folded and erratic. Their thinking is rendered confused by such statements as Batalanda because the Rajapaksha Goebbels tactics border on reality control to suit to their familial project. My attack on you goes far beyond the face value of your statement cutting through a broader spectrum of Rajapaksha manifestations. That is exactly why I am in a position to apologize to you when you find yourself “societal-friendlyware” in the face of the unleashed “Gobbles clean tool”.
The “total-man-(woman too)” in Sri Lanka today is totally engrossed in a quagmire of ignorance and surrender. We cannot expect perfect and clean prototypes to take over to make us feel all right to vote for them. We have to take a plunge in to this sea of Rajapaksha maze and hysteria and carve out an opening to the only open escape route out of this hell which is UNP under Ranil. People can argue endlessly, pros and cons, whether Ranil has a backbone, testicles bla bla but at the end of the day when all contenders, possibilities, precedents, combinations and dangers are considered and calculated there is only one “reset” button which is Ranil. I would love to have someone better may be another JR, DSS, a Mandela or something but the reality is that we only have this phoenix who continue to rise from the ashes and still protects this historical party, though the party had monkeys in the past and still continue to have them.
But think of the possibilities Ranil has made available to us: the Leadership Council embracing the foe as well as the friend, The priest as well as the layman; the common opposition which is open to any political party to come together to collectively launch a synchronous deadly blow to the regime and yet each entity being free to remain un-allied preserving their political identity; the proposed constitutional amendments and invitations to citizens and the intelligent to contribute to this endeavor-these are all signs of a good leader. The written amount is only a drop from a reservoir of aspirations and possibilities. I hope would see beyond my words and touch upon practical aspects. And I hope you will use your vote intelligently and not gamble with the future of this country.
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gamini / December 27, 2013
Ben your assumptions, ‘UNP’s HR record is hardly any better than Rajapassa’s. You are dead right. How did the UNP become a violent Political Party? Thanks to the riff raff like Premadasa, Sirisena Cooray, Gamini Lokuge, Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi, Cyril Mathew, Wijepala Mendis, MH Mohamed type, to mention a few who hijacked the UNP, there was hardly anything Ranil Wickremasinghe could do. There was once an incident where Premadasa in a threatening manner at a Cabinet Meeting admonished RW suspecting that he was leaking Cabinet information, which was not the case. RW had sat patiently through. When Premadasa tried to intimidate Gamini and Lalith they retorted and what happened afterwards is History.
So RW after securing leadership of the UNP has instilled discipline in the UNP and have very strongly eschewed Confrontational Politics. Ben have you ever seen RW in foul mood, behaving like a rowdy gesticulating or shouting at his opponent, not allowing to speak? Have you seen RW looking for media publicity snatching children from the mothers posing for cameras, while slapping increased duties on infant milk food and allowing Lamborghinis Duty Free?
There is one thing that every one can be certain, when RW assumes power, is that there will be Law and Order. RW will never favour or persecute any, but will sllow the Law to take its course. RW will not even safeguard his best friend, unlike MR, where he openly safeguard Murderers, Drug pedlars, Rapists and Rogues. This is why most shun RW knowing that they will have no place. Hence they like the present corrupt system, to feel important that they can get anything done. The present system benefits only a small percentage of the masses, whereas a system under RW will benefit the majority of the population.
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Sirimal / January 2, 2014
Not only Gamini, any right thinking would consider him to be the best leader if they are thoughtful about the past of this country. Ranil would no means abuse the nations. All the storied that he was about to support LTTERs were stories by Raja in order him to abuse the nation.
In srilanka, they the idiots can do all harms through state media. MR holds speech of palatable and popular kind again and again, but has he fulfilled any of what he promised before coming to power. I mean for example – abolishing EP- which he can do right now with their 2/3 mandate today. But the bugger would not even take minute to utter a single word about that. Why ? That alone says his style of governance.
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Sirimal / January 2, 2014
it is so stupid to put the blame on Ranil for all the evils that premadasa regime carried out.
Can we attack GLP for all these problems that have been deliberately creating by MR clan ? NO right.. so how can you and the others those who repatedly attack RW, should know you guys are not at all fair.
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NAK / January 4, 2014
Just recall chewing gum, bracelets, denims etc. you’ll know how good Ranil is.
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gamini / January 4, 2014
NAK, tell this forum frankly what is wrong in promising the Public making them affordable to buy chewing gum, gold bracelets or to be dressed well in Denims? For that matter the Public was made to starve and eat off dustbins, dress in Kerosine smelling cloth with no money in hand, let alone bracelets, even to buy the basic food before?
For your information Ranil has not robbed the Nation as your CBK and MR has done quite well at the expense of the masses. Nor has Ranil murdered people like CBK and MR has done, not even the Tamils or the LTTE for that matter.
NAK leave alone a Gold Bracelet, can you even afford a Silver Bracelet today? Possibly an Imitation for Imitation People like you.
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Abhaya / December 26, 2013
still doing nothing
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Fathima Fukushima / December 26, 2013
Well done Ranil!
Sometimes it is better not to worsen the situation.
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Thondamanaru / December 26, 2013
tHEN LETS HAVE HIM AS THE pRESIDENT…… Then nothing will get worse from the existing situation………
We can experience a lull period or to be more civilised a Static situation.
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Diasporadas Devadas / December 26, 2013
Perhaps a strong believer of the concept ” Dont trouble Trouble, until Trouble troubles you”!!!!! Too much of gentleman to take the “Bulls By the Horn” and bring them all to naught!!! patience my friend……………definitely it will pay for you, us and the country……..what goes arounf will come around……..the ” wheel of change” ought to take place GOD IS GREAT!!!!
Diasporadas Devadas
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Tamil from the north / December 27, 2013
Anytime I see this [Edited out], he has the same pose. A finger stuck on his face.
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Robert Ryan / December 27, 2013
Ranil has found his favourite dictum,”do nothing”. When the whole country has gone through blood bath Ranil has no opinion. When 70,000 civilians were killed,Ranil looks the other way.When 5 years after war, the occupying army is still harassing the entire population of the North, Ranil has nothing to say about this. Please do not give credit to Ranil for the peace accord with Tigers. It was brought about by the Norwegian peace makers. Ranil is as is in Rajapakse’s payroll.There cannot be any other explanation for his behaviour.
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Silva / December 27, 2013
Robert Ryan,
“..There cannot be any other explanation for his behaviour. ..”
Whose behavior? Yours? The simple explanation for your ass kissing behavior of MARA is your [Edited out]
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Lalitha / January 1, 2014
Doing something is better than doing nothing. We don’t need a President “doing nothing”.
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gamini / January 2, 2014
Yes you have a President doing everything from Killing to Robbing. So be satisfied.
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Sirimal / January 2, 2014
Gamini@,
it will take years for these stupid folks (villages across the country, and other pundits that lag being unable to distinquish good from bad) to grasp it.
But then MR clans would have finished their missions that is nothing else than looting the masses to the core.
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