The threat of Islamic fundamentalism rising up in and pouring out from Central Asia, is a popular theme of those who design Western security – or hydrocarbon – strategies. It is in order to exagerrate the threat from Central Asia that the US and UK use the Karimov regime to torture “Confessions” out of Central Asian “Al-Qaida” members.
Al-Jazeera has this week been running a feature documentary by Michael Andersen, a Danish journalist who really does know Central Asia, It should be required viewing for anyone with an interest in the “War on Terror”. You can still catch it on Al-Jazeera today and tomorrow, or throught this link.
“Other than the health care coverage issue, what does this have to do with whether or not America has been taken over by corporate interests?”
Put simply, spending on sensible social projects such as health and education is squeezed to allow for an obscenely huge “defence” budget, which is of genuine benefit only to the arms industry.
“So will EVERY modern conspiracy theory eventually show up on Craig Murray’s blog?”
The history, status and role of the Fed is well-documented. Not quite sure what you’re getting at here.
MJ,
Once again, I think someone here should refrain from American right-wing populist conspiracy theories:
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/flaherty/flaherty8.html
Larry,
I suspect you know me from WaPo – I have many American friends – spent a long time working in Harvard Conn.
I appreciated the amazing hospitality – feel sorry for majority of Americans who live in fear, in a police state. I am saying that with benevolence, not with malicious overtones.
I also say BEWARE to us Brits all this is on the horizon.
Americans complain of zero-tolerance rules in our schools. A young girl was kicked out of school because her Tweetie Bird key chain was deemed a weapon; is that just a bit rigid? Or expelling an Eagle Scout who inadvertently came to school with his Boy Scout axe in the trunk of his car after a Scout meeting the previous night?
In adulthood Americans are faced with Republican Sen. Rick Santorum’s expressed belief that the nuances of their sex lives ought to be subject to government regulation based on majority rule! In some states ?” Alabama, for instance ?” the “improper” use of a battery-operated device could land you in the pokey!
Then we arrive at the sanctity of home. The Brits castle, that has been the subject of a recent discussion on intruders and ‘reasonable force.’ In Covington, Ga., you are required by law to submit to government inspections of your home. They even measure the temperature inside your refrigerator! If you resist the inspection, you will be arrested and jailed while the government inspectors prowl through your stuff.
In government colleges and universities across the nation, students are subject to disciplinary action if they utter an “offensive” or “insensitive” thought.
The level of taxation burdening the average American family in 2003 is higher than that imposed by the British Crown in pre-revolutionary war America. Many Americans work into the month of June without earning one single penny for themselves. Americans are forced to “contribute” almost 15 percent of their earnings into a bankrupt income redistribution /vote-buying scheme that is sold to us as a retirement and insurance plan. The American government goes to extreme measures to make it as difficult as possible for folks to provide for the health-care needs of their families, preferring instead to build dependence on employers and government.
The American government can pry into your bank accounts without your knowledge or permission, and just recently tried to enact a program that would require bank or credit union to notify the government in the event folks engage in any economic activity that doesn’t track with your past behavior.
Remember, also, the forfeiture regulations. A U.S. senator introduced legislation that, if it had become law, would have permitted any local or federal law enforcement officer to seize your cash if he happened to find you carrying more than 10 grand in an airport, bus station, interstate highway or most other public places. No arrest, no questions, no charges … just take the money. The legislation failed, but police agencies seize cash from hapless citizens just the same.
Americans find evidence of government rigidity and oppression in their political lives too. Just try to get a third party on a ballot in almost any state. It’s difficult to impossible. Gerrymandering voters into congressional districts shaped like drunken tapeworms denies many voters an effective voice in Congress. And let’s not forget the Democrats’ efforts in 2000 to wipe out the votes of Americans serving abroad in the uniform of our armed forces.
Finally, what about the definition’s reference to “secret police?” Consider the IRS, the DEA and the ATF. The IRS, for instance, pays your neighbor or co-worker to spy on your economic and social behaviour.
All this from my American mates – Us Brits would hit the streets and sit down or someone would shout ‘Rubbish’ in Parliament. Magna Carta – curb the power of the King in favour of the people – and that is wot ‘Brit’ stands for!! So yes I feel soo sorry, truly sorrow for my America.
Mark,
That was just a big babble of British exceptionalist bullshit.
You got pretty much everything wrong.
“I suspect you know me from WaPo – I have many American friends – spent a long time working in Harvard Conn.”
No, you nutjob British nationalist, I don’t know you from WaPo.
What the hell is “Harvard Conn.”?
“In adulthood Americans are faced with Republican Sen. Rick Santorum’s expressed belief that the nuances of their sex lives ought to be subject to government regulation based on majority rule!”
Santorum was famously voted out. He’s no longer in office, you moron. (thanks for making this easy)
Plus, his beliefs would never have become legislation.
“Then we arrive at the sanctity of home. The Brits castle, that has been the subject of a recent discussion on intruders and ‘reasonable force.’ In Covington, Ga., you are required by law to submit to government inspections of your home. They even measure the temperature inside your refrigerator! If you resist the inspection, you will be arrested and jailed while the government inspectors prowl through your stuff.”
Yeah, I slightly remember some idiots on Fox News causing a stink about this a while ago. Not sure what it had to do with. I think it was just a matter of right-wing paranoia. Sound boring and stupid and Alex Jones-ish.
And again with the British nationalism!
“feel sorry for majority of Americans who live in fear, in a police state.”
If you’re a right-wing racial separatist living in an enclave in Montana, then you probably live in fear.
Otherwise it’s generally business as usual.
And by the way, Brits – what’s it like to have cameras breathing down your necks all the time?
“The IRS, for instance, pays your neighbor or co-worker to spy on your economic and social behaviour.”
Mark, are some of them lizard people?
Once again, you’re getting all of your information about America from right-wing American nuts. These people voted for Bush, but didn’t really want to, because he wasn’t right-wing enough. And again, these are your comrades-in-arms!
Mark, you know we have Google, right? I just googled one of your paragraphs (the “us” word tipped me off) and it’s been revealed that you plagiarized, without even bothering to change whole paragraphs, from World Net Daily.
Yep, right-wing loons and you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you realize those people probably wanted more bombs to rain down on Iraq?
As I said all this emailed from America so all lies then eh?
Mark, any thinking person can see that you’re a liar. Those weren’t emailed from your “American mates.”
You stole almost verbatim from http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32543
And Mark, it wouldn’t reflect badly on me if other Americans are telling lies. I’m not a nationalist like you. Your mind is really stuck in the 19th century, isn’t it?
Mark, the following are Wikipedia summaries of some of the views of Neal Boortz, the writer from whom you plagiarized:
“Boortz tends to advocate Conservative platforms. Boortz’s post-9/11 politics include support for the US-led War on Terror, a more aggressive foreign policy,[27] and the USA Patriot Act.”
and
“Boortz has expressed a negative opinion about the lack of Muslim outrage for the actions of Muslim Terrorists and the riots that erupted in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.[40] Media Matters reported that Boortz called the Islamic prophet Muhammad “just a phony rag-picker” and said it was “praiseworthy to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins.””
BWWWWAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
Yes I found the report from Neal Boortz. It says and I quote, ‘is an author and nationally syndicated libertarian talk-show host. Full disclosure compels him to reveal that he is also a “reformed” attorney who is being paid massive amounts of money in exchange for his promise not to actually practice law any more.
No right wing loon,
No – that’s not right-wing at all, is it, Mark?
Tell me – what else have you plagiarized lately and passed of as your work or the work of your “American mates”?
“I can say with confidence that most Americans are taught that the Irish Troubles were the result of political and ethnic differences. In fact, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the warring sides tended to have opposing religions.”
Larry, Catholics and Protestants have the same religion (christianity? I should think there’s a wiki).
Of course, as you say, vicious men with guns or unscrupulous politicians, on both sides, use these labels to cause even more division. A habit easy to fall into, I see.
dreoilin; hope you’re wrong. Not sure you are, but think they’re concentrating on crime rather than sectarianism at the moment. Honestly, why don’t we lock all these stupid sad lost thugs – Irish, English, Welsh, Scottish, the lot – into Wembley stadium, and make them slug it out with marrows. The last one standing would win a ticket to an ashram in India, and the rest would be forcibly retrained as reflexologists.
PS Richard’s idea for transforming Afghanistan is growing on me.
Larry I would be proud if he were my cousin!
Anyway, that link you gave me doesn’t work in the UK.
This link works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DabIO_gwRgo
“Larry, Catholics and Protestants have the same religion (christianity? I should think there’s a wiki).”
Dear god, what dumb assholes inhabit this blog. You’re intending to be clever but you’re not that clever.
Larry,
Right wing but no loon – looks like the piece was a powerful example from the right that presents a solid true picture of a corporate run country, especially from a man who tries to justify the actions of Bush and the Iraq war. Perhaps my American friends really had their finger on the button when they sent me that piece.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=21150
“The “Threat” From Central Asia”
November 2, 2009
“Destabilizing Baluchistan, Fracturing Pakistan”
“The Triangle of Jundallah, the Taliban, and Sipah-e-Sahaba”…
http://tinyurl.com/y8mvvr9
By the way, are we finished with American right-wing conspiracies for the day?
Does anyone want to argue that Obama was born in Kenya?
Mark’s source (which he somehow turned into his “American mates”) – the World Net Daily – certainly pushed that story.
“Right wing but no loon – looks like the piece was a powerful example from the right that presents a solid true picture of a corporate run country, especially from a man who tries to justify the actions of Bush and the Iraq war. Perhaps my American friends really had their finger on the button when they sent me that piece.”
What an unbelievable loon you are!
Your American friends don’t exist!
You stole that text verbatim from the article at the World Net Daily!
And you don’t realize that there’s such a thing as the Google Machine!
BWWWWAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Larry here is more from the man you call my cousin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MIeLoTJO8Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbBjLAE9WBQ&feature=related
Arsalan, just wondering – you previously displayed the name “Goldberg” – is that your actual last name?
(I don’t usually ask for people’s names, but you did have yourself identified as such).
Mark,
Whilst that was a pretty harsh description of the typical American way of life, I have read an even stronger critique from an American, who couldn’t take it any more and emigrated.
He wasn’t talking about the poorest in society, but about the much better off corporate worker.
He was quoting how poorly paid they were in real terms, the long hours they work such that on the few days holiday they get a year, few can even afford to travel outside of the State where they live, and how incredibly ignorant they were of the world outside of their little domain.
I replied, well the company I worked for gave me 34 paid holidays a year + 8 other national holidays + full company paid pension and it was normal for almost everyone in the UK to go away on holiday, to a foreign country at least once a year.
And so I never quite understood if America is the richest country in the World, how is it that Americans get treated worse than people in every other Developed country.
But the most devastating critique, comes from English people who travel independently and discover the difference between the richest and the poorest. The gap is enormous, probably as great as India, and that much of America is a third world nation even poorer than India in real terms of quality of life.
Tony
Larry,
Scan-Optics Inc Harvard Connecticut – USA
UK division – Capscan Limited Victoria LONDON
MD Mr Ronii Lewin my Jewish boss
Engineering Mark Golding
Now apologize to me or take your ball and leave!
Mark,
So, “Harvard Conn.” (where you claim to have worked) is Harvard, Connecticut?
There is no Harvard, Connecticut.
Why the fuck does it matter that your boss was Jewish? And why are you mentioning your non-existent Jewish boss at a non-existent company in a non-existent city?