US President Barack Obama has declared May 7 as National Day of Prayer for his country so I guess he's not perfect after all.

A little background, if I may.

It was Thomas Jefferson who came up with the magnificent concept of "separation of church and state."

The First Amendment to the US Constitution took it further: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Very liberal and reasonably clear. There must be no state religion and religion itself must be free from state interference.

However, it stops half-way. Surely we've learned from the past eight years presided over by an American right-wing, born-again religious zealot (and a whole bunch of foreign, right-wing, born-again religious zealots) that freedom FROM religion is even more important that freedom OF religion.

All of which is why it saddens me that the otherwise splendid new president should have to (apparently, by law) sign a proclamation declaring a National Day of Prayer.

What horrifies me however, is that Obama felt it necessary to authorize his PR flack to announce that he, the president, prays every day. The flack said it twice. Twice!

Shades of those war criminals Nixon and Kissinger down on their bloody knees praying together on the eve of the disgraced president's resignation!


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

I'm inclined to believe that Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela are the two sexiest men in the world.

As a TV journalist and a woman I’m intrigued by Obama, particularly his incredible assurance and charisma. I haven’t seen anything remotely like it since I shook hands with the great Mandela a few years back and tears welled in my eyes and smudged my mascara.

To me, Obama and Mandela — some 44 years between them — are beautiful brothers from another planet. Each has roots deep in his own country yet each seems bigger, finer, more universal than us lesser, ordinary mortals.

Both Obama and Mandela have visited Canada. And at the dramatic moment when each climbed down those airplane steps, breathed fresh Canadian air and shook important Canadian hands, each somehow seemed to take command of the country and its people.

And me.

The same thing happens when the two men go anywhere in the world. They seize ownership of people, offer something nobler than the petty rationalizations dear to the rest of us, epitomize the Obamian chant “Yes We Can.” And with them, we truly believe we can.

It’s as if these two men have transcended age, race and gender. They’re both notably masculine anima-men (Carl Jung’s term for the female side of all of us) who radiate integrity, trustworthiness and decency. They’re strong, yet gentle. Determined, yet sensitive. Powerful, yet generous. Very sexy when you put it all together.

And if you must know, yes I could.

Either or both.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

Barack Obama’s honeymoon is a wondrous thing. In only a couple of months he’s had his way with millions of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and Latin Americans.

But what of the people who changed so much of the world in a few short hours back on 9/11? What of radical Islam and al-Qaeda?

What if -- in spite of the Obama honeymoon and the optimism it spawns -- America and its Western allies have already lost the battle against Al-Qaeda and radical Islam?

And what if the Holy Warriors of the Jihad have already won?

What if?

The American-led attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) were -- publicly at least -- aimed at exporting the delights of democracy to the Muslim world. To win Islamic hearts and minds for Western concepts of freedom.

But they’ve had exactly the opposite result.

Every day the fighting lasts, more and more of the one-and-a-half billion Muslims around the world either volunteer to fight the Western infidels or organize jihadist cells in their own countries. Every day more Muslims are persuaded that the wars are simply a 21st. century version of traditional Western imperialism. That the so-called War on Terror is actually a War on Islam. That resistance against America and its allies is an apocalyptic battle for Islamic holy rights. That holy warriors, righteous believers, are fighting godless infidel crusaders to defend God-given sacred land.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and the US missiles slamming into Pakistan) have turned out to be the perfect recruiting agent for militant Islam. And the holy warriors are making converts -- winning hearts and minds to global jihad -- faster than the mighty armies of the West can kill them.

One reason for all this new radicalism is the Internet, the planet’s most powerful and effective communications system.

It’s flooded with jihadist networks. Thousands of them. Specializing in radicalizing Muslims around the world. Turning them, in the name of Allah, against the corrupt and feeble West. The sites are virtual guerilla training camps teaching how to organize revolutionary cells and kill infidels. Allahu Akbar (God is Great) they say piously and endlessly.

So what happens next?

Over the next couple of years the American pull out of Iraq and the likelihood is that "the cradle of civilization" will fall into even more chaos as ancient blood and religious scores are settled.

Over the same time, the Americans reinforce their battalions to "save" Afghanistan (a corrupt, failed, female-fearing narco-state) and step up attacks on north-west Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Taliban and Qaeda prove again and again that you can neither introduce or enforce democracy with the gun and NATO allies try to sneak off home without being noticed.

If the Americans are actually defeated in Afghanistan -- which is increasingly likely -- all hell will break loose in the Muslim and Arab worlds. Neighbouring Pakistan is already a rapidly failing Bomb-owning state ripe for Islamic revolution and needs no more than a little push. The fragile autocratic regimes of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will fall like dominoes and radical Islamic Middle East political groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Moslem Brotherhood will seize power. Then -- the ultimate irony -- the united  jihadists will turn on America’s only real friend in the region, Israel.

Right now there are only two alternatives for America in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One is to take the chance of alienating more and more Muslims and keep fighting these unwinnable wars while desperately hoping for a miracle.

The other is to do the unthinkable, the unmentionable -- and sue for peace.

Fortunately, Barack Obama can likely get away with offering an olive branch. His honeymoon remains incredibly powerful. Even so, as the lawyers warn, time is of the essence. Because honeymoons, as we all know, don’t last.

And the consequences of not using this honeymoon period to act forcefully and generously are too awful to contemplate.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)