Blair just said “You would be hard pressed to find anyone who in September 2002 doubted that Saddam had WMD”.
It wouldn’t have been that hard. If he had asked members of the Near East and North Africa Department of the FCO, the Middle East experts in the FCO’s Research Analysts, or in the Defence Intelligence Service, he would have found absolutely no shortage of people who doubted it, whatever position No 10 was forcing on their institutions.
One of the many failures of this Inquiry has been a failure to ask individual witnesses before it whether they personally had believed in the existence of any significant Iraqi WMD programme. I know for certain that would have drawn some extremely enlightening answers from among the FCO and probably MOD participants.
Sir Martin Gilbert allowed Blair to conflate Iran, Iraq, Al-Qaida, WMD and terrorism in a completely unjustified way. When Straw tried exactly the same trick, Rod Lyne did not allow him to get away with it.
A further stark contrast with Straw is that both Blair and Straw were asked about the failure of the UK to secure movement in the Middle East peace process by using our role in Iraq to influence the USA. A major, detailed and fascinating part of Straw’s answer was that Israel’s – and specifically Netanyahu’s – political influence in the USA had prevented progress.
By contrast, Blair did not even mention Israel in response to the questions on the failure to achieve progress in the Middle East. He solely blamed the Palestinian Intafada. He has been anxious to widen the discussion beyond Iraq at every opportunity, and frequently referred to destabilising factors in the Middle East, and again and again pointed to a growing threat from Iran and Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, and to Palestinian terrorism (including Saddam Hussein’s past sponsorship of it).
He has made not one single comment about Israel’s behaviour as a contributing factor in Middle East instability. Given Blair’s official position as Middle East envoy, this lack of any bare pretence at impartiality is most revealing.
Some people commenting here (like Anno) could make lots of dosh writing for that once fine German newspaper called “Der Sturmer”. Fortunately it went out of production in 1945. How very sad this must feel for people like Anno.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Sturmer
31 January 2010
“Ex-MI6 chief likely to give evidence to Chilcot inquiry behind closed doors”…
http://tinyurl.com/y9r6pkp
Just got home from Africa in case anyone missed me. Now I am going to sleep. 🙂
From the bones of the oppressed comes an angel.
Craig,
welcome back. I missed you, particularly at the Chilcot demo, where I hoped you were going to speak. But thanks for attending to your blog even while you were away.
Technicolour,
“Zionists” seems to have been used as a label for those who expand Israel at whatever cost, though I did recently notice a brief debate on this site about different types of Zionist. I hope the nomenclature doesn’t become even more complicated.
I don’t know enough history to comment on those aspects of Anno’s post – I do know that history records the actions of millions of people, and that consequently different people may have different outlooks and interpretations; different people know of different things that happened.
——– POWER ———-
“It would never occur to Tony Blair that there might be more respect for a Prime-Minister who had the courage to say NO to someone as powerful as the President of the US. Tony, is programmed to respect power, not to rebel against it.
Psychologically he is ill equipped to repeat Howard Wilson’s refusal of US demands for British troops in Vietnam.
“I am certain the real reason he went to war[in Iraq] is he found it easier to resist the public opinion of Britain, than a request from the US President.”
Robin Cook MP
‘The Point of Departure’
Its now absolutely clear to anyone that we have appointed a warmongering unrepentent sly and obfusecating dog as our middle east peace envoy.
I am not surprised of the influence that is brought to the inquiry, I think Gilberts interview on Israels radio and his complaint about british newspaper articles questioning his and Mr. freemans part in this ‘lovey sextett’, was merely to prepare us fro Tony’s diversion of the subject.
I think comments unrelated to the issue, after all Dr. kelly’s demise, directly related to the issue was not allowed, should be errased from the protocols.
Finally I would not be surprised, should his perverse comments not be scrapped from records, if they will one day be used to justify an attack on Iran.
Why should taxpayers want to waste good money and time on scoundrels such as him?
Should one take a leaf out of his book when we think about his punishment?, after all, he supports and furthers Israels machinations, the Gaza concentration camp stalemate,the East Jerusalem and west bank land steal and Israels war aims, which includes assasinations of Hamas opponents, even in other countries.
What Anno said is actually the words of religious Jews. If you want conformation of this do a search for Neturei Karta etc.
What he said is so smiler to what I myself heard a Orthodox Rabbi saying, Anno might have been quoting him word for word.
The punishment and the reward of God is something all religions believe in, including Judaism.
Zionism is an atheist creed, that has no connection to Judaism what so ever. The founder was an open atheist who attempted to divorce Jews from Judaism and turn them in to a pseudo ethnic group. So you can say Zionism and Israel are an attempt to call Jews away from believing in God and their scripture and in to uniting on the bases of Racism against the other.
When this ideology was first created Rabbis openly stated that the punishment of God will soon follow. After the Holocaust some Jews abandoned Judaism and embarrassed Zionism while others abandoned the Zionists and embraced Judaism to a greater degree.
Crypto Jews are the followers of Sabbatai Zevi.
The old testament states that a Messiah will come. Muslims and Jews believe that Messiah has already come and he was Jesus(May peace be upon him).
Many people have claimed this title. And Jews have always been split on each of them. Except for Sabbatai Zevi. He was universally accepted by all Jews as the Promised Messiah. That was until he converted to Islam. When that happened there was international confusion in the world’s Jews. Some Jews rejected him, and these are the ancestors of today’s Jews. Others followed suit and converted to Islam, and these have assimilated in to the wider Muslim community. While a third group continued to believe he was the promised messiah, and believed he only pretended to convert to Islam, and they followed and pretended to convert while secretly practicing Judaism. It wasn’t a secret that such people had only fained conversion because they only married amongst themselves so they were not accepted by Muslims as Muslims, instead they were called Dunma. And because the wider Jewish community had rejected Sabbatai Zevi, they weren’t accepted as Jews Either. Over time this religion evolved in to an amalgamation of Islam and Judaism.
The Most famous follower of this Religion was Mustafa Kemal Attaturk the founder of Modern Turkey.
What Anno meant was Mustafa Kemal destroyed the Khilafah. After which he set about secularising Turkey.
Islom Karamov the man who boils Muslims alive in Uzbeckistan is also Dunma.
Sorry mistake. I meant Muslims and Christians believe the Messiah was Jesus.
Sorry
Clark: complicated nomenclature for complex situations, I think.
To take just one example in anno’s ‘history’, if you really think the African slave trade *might* have been the fault of light-skinned Arab speaking ‘crypto jews’, words fail me.
Mark – Did Robin Cook really refer to ‘Howard’ Wilson ?
As eddie points, Blair invited us to “think about 2010 and a world where Saddam and his sons were still in power”. Eddie however is clearly too seduced and bamboozled by Blair’s ‘accomplished’ performance to point out also that military action to achieve regime change is also prohibited under international law.
It is obvious that the actual purpose of the invasion was the occupation of Iraq and the control of its territory, people and resources. As countless examples demonstrate, there are far subtler ways of achieving regime change if that is all that’s required.
Behind Blair’s blatant dissembling and obfuscation seems to be an attempt to debase and marginalise the very notion of international law itself. His was a rallying call to aggressive, imperialist powers to invade their target countries with impunity. All they need to do is come up with some unctuous, self-serving post de facto rationalisation of their actions; international law be damned.
Saddam was a very bad man, but the American occupation which has now replaced him is even worse, while the puppets who the Americans have choosen to take over the occupation are worse still!
“For Iraqi women: Life better under Saddam”…
http://tinyurl.com/36pdwg
“Life ‘better’ for gay Iraqis under Saddam Hussein.”…
tinyurl.com/mbhe4q
Well said Ingo.
and by the way ‘the fascist Berlusconi’ (quoted above) is about to visit Israel.
Another matter – Sir Lawrence Freedman left a note dated 18th January on the Iraq Inquiry website, addressed to Chilcot, saying that he had taken part in the composition of Blair’s Chicago speech. (Under the heading ‘News’).
If you read Peter Wilby’s reviews of some Blair biographies in 2007, he quotes Kampfner –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/05/biography.politicalbooks
As Kampfner puts it, “he had demonstrated his instincts, but he had yet to fashion them into a coherent vision”. A long-standing engagement to speak in Chicago provided the opportunity. The military historian Lawrence Freedman was invited, according to Kampfner, to craft, within two days, “a philosophy that Blair could call his own”, complete with benchmarks as to when countries should intervene in others’ affairs. Freedman obliged, thinking he was one of several people being consulted, and was amazed to read a speech that relied almost entirely on his proposals. Blair had announced “a new doctrine of international community” and proclaimed “we are all internationalists now”.
But Kosovo created a new Blair image: not a man, as Stephens puts it, “tossed to and fro in the winds of public opinion”, but one firm of purpose and resilient in adversity. The admiring Rawnsley writes: “He took a stance and, as others scurried for cover, he held to it.” In his insistence on stepping up the war and introducing ground troops, he was largely isolated both in the Western Alliance and in his government. The outcome, writes Seldon, “further increased his reliance on and trust in the small circle around him”. It also “ingrained in Blair that he was the bridge between the United States and Europe, and that he uniquely could explain the one to the other”.
The road to Baghdad therefore led directly from Pristina where, after the Kosovo war, Blair was acclaimed as a hero. All the evidence produced by his biographers suggests that, after Kosovo, Blair was itching to implement once more the newly minted philosophy revealed in Chicago. According to Kampfner, Blair’s concern about the election of George W Bush in 2000 was that this would be “a stay-at-home president”. He told Mandelson that “we’ve got to turn these people into internationalists”.
9/11 did exactly that, after a fashion. But there remained a crucial difference between Blair and Bush. The latter would act when he saw a threat to American national security. America was strong enough to protect herself. Allies were not essential, but welcome, and not even that in some neoconservative quarters. But as Stephens explains, Blair wanted a new “global architecture” in which the leading nations took continuing responsibility for peace-making and nation-building. To him, how Saddam was overthrown mattered as much as whether he was overthrown.
For the war in Afghanistan, he was able to help construct the necessary alliance. In the three months after 9/11, reports Kampfner, Blair “worked the phones and travelled”, meeting the leaders of more than 70 countries to put together a coalition not just for military action, but also to work with America for a new world order.
a~~
That is the crux, the new world order and the PNAC.. both Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Kagan and the rest. The United Nations have been disempowered by the waging of an illegal war on Iraq a sovereign country. The powweful now own the law.
Would you not agree that Freedman’s eligibility to be on this panel (however much it is just a theatrical piece) is called into question?
Arsalan, you made my jaw drop. A group of Jewish people who pretend to be Muslims but who ‘practice’ Judaism secretly, but who do it so badly that everyone knows they are Jewish, really? And who were rejected by the wider Jewish community, but are still considered Jewish?
Good luck with it.
Ataturk, apparently, said the following: “I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.”
Karimov was apparently born in an orphanage; I can’t find any source for his religion.
Still, Zevi’s story is fascinating, it is true. Do you know what else is fascinating? Some Christians believe that Christ was rescued from the cross and escaped to Kashmir.
Otherwise your distinction between Zionism and Judaism fails to include the people who do practice the Jewish faith, which involves loving-kindness, and who currently live in Israel. But you may feel they are of no account.
Arsalan – “After the Holocaust some Jews abandoned Judaism and embarrassed Zionism”
*giggle*
I’m sorry, I’m a sucker for a neat misspelling. I’m guessing you meant ’embraced’.
The Sabbatai Zevi story looks interesting, I hadn’t heard it before. Another thing to chase after, some time. Thanks.
DEATH SQUADS ON THE INCREASE IN IRAQ – FAMILIES TOO FRIGHTENED TO RETURN
The number of armed contractors in Iraq is rising. Last year, Blackwater executive thugs realised a golden opportunity for mercenary companies with the prospect of US forces being withdrawn or reduced in Iraq by President Obama.
Chief death monger, Schmitz said, “There is a scenario where we could as a government, the United States, could pull back the military footprint and there would then be more of a need for private contractors to go in.”
Schmitz, a high Blackwater executive priest, was right and ‘Rob’ working for a British security company out of Dubai has confirmed an increase, certainly in mercenaries.
Triple Canopy, the successor to Blackwater (renamed company?) work on State Department contracts and according to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with President Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 29% increase in the number of “Private Security Contractors” working for the Department of Defense in Iraq.
Overall, contractors (armed and unarmed) now make up approximately 50% of the “total force in Centcom AOR [Area of Responsibility].” That is 242,657 contractors working on the US war in Iraq and US/UK war in Afghanistan.
At present there are 162,610 British and American mercenaries in Iraq and 108,197 in Afghanistan. The American report notes that while the deployment of security contractors in Iraq is increasing, there was an 22% decrease in re-building contractors in Iraq from the first quarter of 2009 due to the “ongoing efforts to reduce the contractor footprint in Iraq.”
http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/PS/hot_topics.html
P.S.
New World Order
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a9Syi12RJo
Thanks, Mark. Not good. When was the last time you were out there?
Technicolour, this is an intriguing area. There are indeed possible allusions to old Jewish communities in both Afghanistan and Kashmir, the remnants of customs, place-names, etc. Of course, the various Persian Empires, in which many Jews lived, extended to some of these areas, there were many Jewish communities in the states to the north – Uzbekistan, for example – and also to the south in what is now Pakistan, so it’s entirely plausible that either the people or the customs or both point to interesting histories.
Actually, I drew on a lot of this kind of material for my novel, ‘Joseph’s Box’. The Joseph of the title refers to the Biblical/ Quranic Joseph/ Yusuf, who is the dream interpreter and symbol of perfect spiritual human beauty, something for which we may only strive.
The Greeks were there, too, for several hundred years around 300 BC to 100 AD and the Greeks became Buddhist missionaries and spread Buddhism to Sri Lanka and possibly also China. There are cities in northern Pakistan which are Graeco-Buddhist and Taxila Museum is filled with syncretic statuary.
The Solomon Sisters were the top pop music act in Pakistan during the 1940s and 1950s and Barbara Sharif was a top movie star there during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. All of these people were/ are Jewish Pakistanis. There was a thriving community in Karachi, of which only a few people are left; idiotic anti-semitic attitudes abound, and have been fertilised constantly by the Saudi-financed mental idiocy that makes people behave more like they’re part of a cult than a religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Pakistan
I like to bring all of this type of thing to the fore, partly because it’s absolutely fascinating and also because it debunks the utter bellowing stupidity which crowds out thought, humanity and indeed, spirituality today and which is iterated, blasphemously, in the name of this or that deity. The take-home message? Here it is:
We are all descended from, and related to, one another. To kill or degrade someone else is to kill or degrade a part of ourselves.
that was to Mark Golding.
mark with a small m: I am not defending the panel, though I look forward to its conclusions. But taking it on its own terms, one could argue that Freedman, someone who had obliged with a hypothetical scenario only to have it implemented, might well be horrified at the result. The report you quote suggests as much. As does the fact that Freedman was the only member of the panel to refer in any direct way to the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Suhayl, am inclined to agree.
And what a privilege it is to learn such things. Am looking forward to both Anno’s and Arsalan’s responses.
Craig – I think we should donate to George Monbiot’s website http://www.arrestblair.org. I will be sending some money this week. Based on your devastating analysis, I am going to recommend that GM includes Jack Straw as a target for citizen’s arrest.
It will take take time but we will nail these SOBs.
Who is the President?
http://tinyurl.com/Israeli-war-party
MJ: I agree. What a sight to see the UK government disposing itself of international law like that. As well as the fact that our ‘Middle East Peace Envoy’ is now apparently calling for war against Iran. How can he?
I think we need to support someone sensible, who will not end up a crazed warmonger and the public face of Louis Vuitton. As far as leaders go, I have some hopes of Nick Clegg, together with the fact that, unlike the USA, we already have a functioning third party. Does anything know anything terrible about the Lib Dems which, in the absence of a stonking independent candidate, would prevent people voting for them?
Njegos
Thank-you.
Your link is most welcome. I will donate. Is this on Facebook?
Anno,
Arsalan,
Suhayl Saadi,
thank you all. I had never heard of any of this.
Technicolour,
LibDems?
I addressed my local party on Iraq and they cheered me!
I have much respect for Vince, I believe he would make a good Chanceller and we all know the Libs were against the Iraq massacre. Yes please friends – vote LibDem and bring honour back to Great Britain or at the very least secure a ‘hung’ Parliament.