The fatter of these two evil ugly bastards is the King of Bahrain. Having invited in foreign armies to crush the pro-democracy protests of his own people, he has immediately let them loose on the demonstrators, who are being viciously attacked by them even as I type.
In classic anschluss fashion, the King has invited his people to “co-operate fully and to welcome” the invaders, as they attack them. He has simmediately declared a state of emergency, made demonstrations illegal, and attacked the protestors. Today they killed two and injured 200, many very seriously.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was in Bahrain the day before the Saudi invasion. The British Embassy issued a first travel advisory for Brits not to travel to Bahrain, also the day before the Saudi invasion. As I reported yesterday, the US agreement to the Saudi military crushing of democracy movements in the Gulf was part of a complex deal which included the surprise Arab League agreement to a no fly zone over Libya. Interestingly, in the BBC report linked above the US admit to advance knowledge of the Saudi invasion, but BBC News is now reporting they are denying it.
There is still absolutely no sign of condemnation from the UK or US of this outrageous crushing of Bahrain’s democracy movement by foreign military forces. The hypocrisy of our governments is breathtakingly audacious.
At least, we now know all the talk about democracy is humbug, so we can stop hyperventilating about the evils of dictatorship in Libya.
And it might be a good idea to set up trial of democracy in some western country before we make any new attempt to inflict it on a third world nation. You know, constituency associations to select their own candidates without being subject to a veto by central office, no corporate donations, beheading for treasonous politicians taking money from Con/Lib/Lab/Nazi Friends of Israel, etc.
This is only anecdotal, but still rather interesting. This morning I was down on the beach with my little radio listenting to the BBC World Service. There was a report about Bahrain and the speaker in the studio indicated that we were now going to hear from a Bahraini government spokesman. Imagine my joy when I heard a plea for help from a representative of the pro-democracy movement saying that Bahrain had been invaded and the people were being crushed, whoops!
It didn't last long, and afterwards there was an embarrassed remark that this was obviously not a representative of the Bahraini government! Though, as it was early in the morning, I might possibly have still been dreaming.
Thanks for these posts, Craig, depressing though they are. We need something to hold up against the cynically selective heart-string pulling engaged in by US and UK governments.
The hypocrisy of Cameron yesterday, trying to look statesman like with his deafening silence on Saudi Arabia and Bahrain while wielding his moral outrage over Libya. Aljazeera are reporting 1000 injured over the past 3 days. There will be no intervention from the west over this. History repeats itself
This is only anecdotal, but still rather interesting. This morning I was down on the beach with my little radio listenting to the BBC World Service. There was a report about Bahrain and the speaker in the studio indicated that we were now going to hear from a Bahraini government spokesman. Imagine my joy when I heard a plea for help from a representative of the pro-democracy movement saying that Bahrain had been invaded and the people were being crushed, whoops!
It is depressing to notice the King of Bahrain has declared the state of emergency just after the arrival of foreign troops to support him; that gives very little weight to the call for dialogue.
"The Obama administration seems to be no different than it's predecessors in it's lack of any concern for democracy abroad"
Lack of concern for democracy, period.
January 21, 2010: the [US] Supreme Court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that had previously prohibited corporations and unions from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads.
The US Supreme Court has struck down a major portion of a 2002 campaign-finance reform law, saying it violates the free-speech right of corporations to engage in public debate of political issues.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0121/Su…
Corporations and unions are now free to use as much money as they like from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads.
True Obarmy criticized the decision, calling it a "“major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
But what will he do about it? Nothing, obviously.
Well on that issue there was nothing he could do about it. If the Supreme Court makes a decision on a legal matter, no-one can over-turn it except the Supreme Court. Obama's only influence would be through appointing new justices to it – and that would take decades to have any effect.
"Obama's only influence would be through appointing new justices to it"
Directly, the president can do nothing, but he can and should (if he is a democrat), recommends legislation to Congress and use his influence with the Democratic caucus to get the legislation passed.
But that he won't do because the $billion he expects to raise for the next election comes largely from the corporations just empowered by the Supreme Court.
I agree with you there. He should have pushed harder for a more comprehensive healthcare reform and didn't. Obama is like Clinton – his primary aim is to stay popular enough to get re-elected and he'll compromise in order to look more "reasonable" than the right of the Republican party to get re-elected.
Which is odd, considering that he could appear on global television with a traffic-cone on his head and still appear more reasonable than the alternatives.
"Obama is like Clinton – his primary aim is to stay popular enough to get re-elected "
Yeah, or more exactly, he seeks positions that maintain his popularity while serving the interests of his financial backers, a process that Clinton strategist, Dick Morris, aptly called "triangulation."
No. You don't get it. The legislature can't overturn the Supreme Court under such circumstances, if not any circumstance.
You don't quite understand how the rule of law works in America. He really can't do anything about it.
(That was in response to CanSpeccy suggesting that Obama "do something" about the decision of the Supreme Court)
I didn't say he should do anything about the decision of the supreme court, which merely interprets the law. I said he should recommend to Congress legislation limiting the "free speech" of corporate entities. And if they don't like that, then he should recommend legislation abolishing the personhood of corporations.
"which is why they're willing to die for those freedoms"
What shred of evidence do you have that the rebels are "willing to die for freedom".
Rebellions and civil wars long antedate the era of so-called democracy.
I very much doubt if the leaders of the rebellion in Libya will be anxious to die for the people's liberty. If it looks as though Benghazi is about to fall, and if it does, what odds will you give me against Abdel Jalil and co. slipping over the border with Egypt to retire to a comfortable haven in the US or Europe while awaiting a better shot at overthrowing Gaddafi and ruling Libya in a way that changes little if anything to the benefit of Libyans?
In fact, what the western powers want, is not democracy, but what we have in the west, a simulation of democracy which conceals the rule of an oligarchy operating through bought "democratic" institutions. It is more satisfactory than autocracy, which depends on the whim of a single individual or family who may be essential clueless about what it takes to run a modern economy and maximize profits.
Your claim that "We still have far more freedoms even in our flawed democracies than Libyans or Saudis or Egyptians or Bahrainis" is debatable. How much freedom did 3000 people who died on 90/11 have, or the dozens who died on 7/7? Or the 60 million who died during WWII?
What about all the hundreds of millions who can vote in or out governments? What about your ability to type what you like and go to what internet sites you like? Do you seriously believe you'd have that right in Libya under Gaddafi or Saudi under the House of Saud?
I agree there are lots of flaws in our democracies and the drift back towards plutocracy is the biggest one, but it's ridiculous to pretend we don't have more freedoms than Saudis or Libyans do. When British people protest at worst they get hit with police batons (and even that is relatively rare, as bad as it is – i've been to several demonstrations and never seen anyone hit by police). Protest in Bahrain or Libya, you get shot. So don't pretend there's no difference – that's as ridiculous and caricatured as it would be to pretend we have perfect democracy in the UK or Canada.
Hey Duncan,
On the whole, I'd prefer to live here in Canada than in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis still practice slavery don't they? And make women dress like letter boxes in public — something of which I cannot approve. But just as Saudis and Libyans take for granted the restraints on their freedoms, so do we. How many times a day is the average Brit caught on a spy cam, 300 is it?– and some cameras are equipped with microphones, some with speakers to tell you how to behave? And how many people realize how political correctness negates their freedom of speech?
More fundamental, though, is the right to life and dignity. In the West, we tend to think we are so much better off than people in non-western societies, but if you consider that Africa's population has grown by 400 million in the last 30 years whereas all the European nations, like Japan, are undergoing a population implosion, you have to ask: what theory of human welfare must one adopt to conclude that we are so much better off than the rest of the World?
If western civilization is an economic system that sucks people in from the periphery, while humiliating and destroying so many of them, what kind of freedom is that? Twenty percent unemployment in the US, 40 million plus people dependent on food stamps, tens of millions losing their homes due to bankster mortgage scams — one in four homes in some cities in mortgage forclosure.
In contrast, Libyans have a birthrate twice that of Britain, a comparable life expectancy, a better than 80% literacy rate and probably no surveillance cams at all. What is more, if Gaddafi's system of justice (administered until very recently by rebel leader Abdel Jalil) leaves something to be desired according to our standards, it is probably no worse than that experienced under Italian colonial rule when over 100,000 Libyans were held in concentration camps (http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2011/03/libya-bitter-fruits-of-italian.html), or under the Ottomans. So the idea that they are all desperate for Western democracy — to have abortion on demand, to outsource as much of their industry as possible, etc. — seems most unlikely to me. That they want it so much that they want us to bomb them, as Cameroon would have you believe, seems totally preposterous.
Anyway, if folks are so keen to bomb non-white people to bring them western freedoms, there are surely better places to start than Libya, Rwanda, for example (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363166/Forget-Gaddafi-Blairs-NEW-best-friend-despot-guilty-bloodier-slaughter.html).
I'll take CCTV cameras covering public places any day over the secret police jailing or disappearing you if you criticise the government.
Africans' high birth rate is down to the extreme poverty they live in and lack of clean water, unemployment benefit, pensions and any income security at all. So they have lots of children because most of those children won't survive to adulthood – and because they rely on their children to support them if they become too ill or old to work because there's no welfare state. So most Africans are much worse off than us – and our low birth rate is partly down to our much higher standard of living and our welfare states.
Yes the "developed" countries exploit people in the "developing world". How is that an argument for denying the people of the periphery the democracy we have? The periphery is kept exploited largely by dictatorships that are happy to sell out the majority of their people for a cut of the profits – dictatorships mostly supported by the developed world governments. So that's an argument for helping the rebels against Gaddafi – and for stopping supporting the Bahraini and Saudi protesters against their dictatorships.
Do you think that wealth in the US would be more evenly distributed if they were a dictatorship? Unlikely.
The fact that Gaddafi has provided fairly well for the majority of his population in material terms does not mean his dictatorship, repression of free speech or jailing or disappearing of his critics is justifiable and makes Libyans better off than we are. I am not arguing for a return to Italian colonial rule or a western puppet government in Libya.
As for "starting with Rwanda" that's as illogical as "starting with Iraq" was in 2002 or 2003. There is no war in Rwanda currently, nor any prospect of massacres. There is a war in Libya currently – an armed rebellion against the dictatorship – likely to be followed with massacres when it's defeated as in Iraq at the end of the 1991 war. So providing air support to the rebels could save lives and even allow the dictatorship to be overthrown. Starting a war in Rwanda when there is no conflict currently would be bound to cost far more lives than it could save, just as in Iraq in 2003.
"I'll take CCTV cameras covering public places any day over the secret police jailing or disappearing you if you criticise the government. "
Ha, but in the States at least you'd have both. Since Obama can have you rendered and tortured or simply assassinated.
What you say about Africans birthrate is rubbish. The point is that the African population is exploding. That is not a sign of poverty, but the reverse. In the next 50 years Africa will add another billion people to its population.
As for "our low birth rate is partly down to our much higher standard of living and our welfare states", is that suppose to make everyone complacent over the fact that their population is collapsing.
We're talking about progressive extirpation of the European peoples. Italy: fertility rate 1.1, Germany: fertility rate 1.3, Britain: fertility rate 1.6 including the huge highly philoprogenitive and youthful immigrant population. Of course Europe will always be there and it will always be populated. it just won't be populated by moronic Brits and other pathetic indigenous European peoples who have psyched themselves out with their wonderful welfare state their big brother system of surveillance and political correctness and who can't figure it out that they're being ethnically cleansed.
Oh well, a good thing I suppose. When all the stupid Brits and Italians and all the rest have become an insignificant residual aboriginal population like the Ainu in Japan, It will no doubt mean a slight increase in the average IQ of the human population as a whole.
No, what i say about African birth rates is not rubbish. They're higher because their infant mortality rates are 25 to over 50 times higher than developed countries infant mortality rates are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by…
and because most have almost no welfare state so they're reliant on their children to support them due to lack of unemployment benefit and pensions.
The countries with the highest birth rates also have the highest death rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_st…
If you look at the percentage of their populations living on under $2 a day (based on purchasing power parity) you'll also see that your belief that their high birth rates prove they have it easy is daft too. You'll also see that the countries with the highest absolute poverty rates are the ones with the highest birth rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by…
So if you want to reduce immigration from Africa to Europe or Canada or the US the best way to do it would be to buy fair trade products and allow African countries to protect their economies from imports as "developed" countries did till they had built up their own industries
As for claiming immigration equals ethnic cleansing that takes hyperbole to new heights. Are these immigrants invading with armed forces, killing people and driving the rest out? No. Don't be ridiculous.
I have cousins whose father was black. They're as Scottish as anyone else in language and culture. The fact you're so worried about African immigrants in particular suggests that race is your real problem.
In France when they had a 35 hour week the birth rate rose significantly. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2664041.s…
Stress and overwork are far bigger causes of low birth rates than immigration is.
"your belief that their high birth rates prove they have it easy is daft too"
I did not say that Africans have it easy, I said that the fact that Africa's population is exploding, increasing by 400 million in the last 30 years and expected to increase by a further billion in the next fifty years or so, is "not a sign of poverty but the reverse."
This is just elementary population biology. Normally, population rises until constrained by the carrying capacity. The rise in Africa's population is evidence of an increase in the carrying capacity of the continent — the result mainly of the application of western technology to agriculture.
"So if you want to reduce immigration from Africa to Europe or Canada or the US the best way to do it would be to buy fair trade products"
You may think that is the best way, but in a democracy one would expect the will of the vast majority (about 65% in Britain) would be determinative, leading to control of borders and legal limitations. But it isn't because "our democracy" that you mentioned is a farce and delusion.
I said nothing about reducing immigration to Canada. I suspect that a referendum on immigration would yield results in Canada quite different to those in most European countries, for fairly obvious reasons. Canada is larger than the whole of Western Europe but has only 33 million people. There is much to be said for increasing that number rapidly by any means in order to maintain control of the territory.
"Are these immigrants invading with armed forces, killing people and driving the rest out?"
No, but why do you ask? Does ethnic cleansing necessarily imply violence? If it does, then for the term "ethnic cleansing" I will substitute the phrase "made the victims of genocide," since Raphael Lemkin who coined the term explicitly stated that violence was not necessary to effect genocide. But in any case, whatever you would be prepared to call it, the fact is that policies that have been followed over the last several decaded have made the indigenous population a minority in an increasing number of British communities and will make them a minority in their own country within a generation.
"I have cousins whose father was black. They're as Scottish as anyone else in language and culture. The fact you're so worried about African immigrants in particular suggests that race is your real problem."
Here we have the usual liberal standby, "you must be a racist." What has your cousins African ancestry got to do with the question of whether or not the British are being made a minority in their own homeland? And why would a racist emigrate, as I did, to a multi-racial country?
"In France when they had a 35 hour week the birth rate rose significantly. Stress and overwork are far bigger causes of low birth rates than immigration is."
But you overlook two facts, which negate your conclusion. The birthrate of the indigenous French is only about half that of the immigrant population, so we can infer nothing about the viability of the indigenous French population from the gross birth rate. Second, the fact that stress lowers birthrates confirms the detrimental effect of mass immigration to Britain on the indigenous population, since it is acknowledged by studies commissioned by, but kept secret by the Labor government, that immigration lowered employment among the indigenous British and also lowered wages.
Africa can have increased it's population due to improved agriculture while still being hell on earth to live in for most of it's inhabitants. If you want to reduce immigration from Africa, focus your efforts on trying to improve living conditions in Africa, not on completely ineffectual immigration policies in the countries they're migrating to because that's where people don't die like flies and have some kind of democracy. EU states immigration policies on non-EU immigration have become harsher and harsher over the decades, without making any significant difference to immigration levels (partly because immigration within the EU is completely unrestricted).
So it's strange that your focus is on Africa when the vast majority of immigration into EU countries is from other EU countries.
Even if we take your ridiculously generalised definition of genocide, which does not involve killing anyone, there is no genocide going on as a result of immigration to EU countries, because the culture and language and identity and states and nationality of the "indigenous" inhabitants is not being destroyed.
It's being modified as it always has been since the Celts and the Belgae and the vikings and the Romans and the Scots-Irish and the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes and the Normans invaded – with actual violence, theft and killing involved. So the unchanging "indigenous" British culture that you claim is being destroyed has never, ever existed.
If this isn't about race then you can't now argue that viking and Norman and Saxon and Jute DNA was similar to the DNA of those they were making their subjects by force, because of course, you're not a racist are you and this isn't about race but culture and language?
"But in any case, whatever you would be prepared to call it, the fact is that policies that have been followed over the last several decaded have made the indigenous population a minority in an increasing number of British communities and will make them a minority in their own country within a generation."
Except that immigration has always happened across Europe and the only thing that's changed is the rate of it and the distance the immigrants are coming from. The immigrants will continue to be as much influenced in culture and language by those who were born here as those born here are influenced by immigrants (in fact generally the immigrants are more influenced by the native population than vice versa)
"focus your efforts on trying to improve living conditions in Africa, not on completely ineffectual immigration policies"
Come on, Duncan, this is nuts. The British empire is long gone. Britain's feeble and largely corrupt, not to say corrupting, aid programs can have a negligible impact on the standard of living of Africa's eight hundred million people. Britain is a cash-strapped, de-industrializing country with a a falling GDP: she is simply not a factor of any real importance in the World.
As for "completely ineffectual immigration policies" they are only ineffectual if governments make them so.
Canada, a country of immigrants, has very strict control of its borders, indicating that in this respect at least, Canada is a more democratic country than Britain — people here accept immigration as generally desirable, but they demand that immigration serve Canadian needs not those of people elsewhere who may want to come and live here, and our immigration laws are strictly policed.
But we know that NuLabor deliberately accelerated immigration to get a larger immigrant vote and to "rub the conservatives noses in multi-culturalism".
Sorry you find the definition of "genocide" that I use ridiculous. But it happens to correspond with the definition provided by, Raphael Lemkin, a scholar and legal expert who wrote the book on the subject of genocide.
But too much else here to deal with. And nothing ever changes the mind of a liberal. Fortunately, the world is never ruled by liberals, only by hard-nosed realists who, in a pseudo-democracy such as that enjoyed by Britain, may profess high-minded liberal intentions when about to bomb brown people at the behest of their imperial masters in Washington.
If Britain was as cash strapped as that there's no way the Conservatives could have cut corporation tax significantly for every single company operating here. They did, because they could. Britain has the 20th highest GDP per capita out of 194 countries. As soon as it's economy starts growing again (which admittedly will be longer due to the stupidity of cutting public sector employment and spending just as we were about to come out of recession) it's cash problems will rapidly fade – at least for the government.
Even taking Lemkin's definition of genocide immigration to the UK most definitely does not count, because immigrants are not forcing anyone to give up their language or background or culture. So give up on the ridiculous claim that immigration to the UK equals genocide or ethnic cleansing.
New Labour did not accelerate immigration. Only the Daily Mail and the Telegraph will tell you they did – and they have no editorial standards whatsoever. The only immigration that increased under Labour was from other EU countries, on a like for like basis, with a million British migrant workers working in other EU countries at any one time.
Immigration has risen at a similar rate under Labour and Conservative governments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Foreignborn.jpg
Whatever you are i'm afraid you're no realist as you ignore the facts constantly.
"Britain has the 20th highest GDP per capita out of 194 countries"
Yes, and in 1900 Britain accounted for 40% of World GDP. From the greatest power the world has ever seen to 20th after a mere 110 years of "our democracy" which you want to force down everyone's throat by aerial bombardment. LOL.
Actually Britain hasn't fallen quite so far — yet. It ranks sixth or eighth in nominal GDP and in GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity, respectively.
What I love about your kind of democracy is that it won't allow the public to decide anything.
Sixty five percent are dead against mass immigration but you insist that they're simply racists who must be ignored.
About the same proportion of the public want capital punishment for murder and treason, but tender liberal consciences insist that the public's brutal wishes must be ignored.
Just about everyone thinks the government should do something to cut unemployment but you howl when the government cuts taxes on jobs, including the corporation taxes.
Liberalism must be a sort of obsessive mental disorder, which prevents people from thinking logically about anything.
"Yes, and in 1900 Britain accounted for 40% of World GDP. From the greatest power the world has ever seen to 20th after a mere 110 years of "our democracy""
That's because in 1900 the UK was still an imperial power occupying half the globe by military force and exploiting it's colonies ruthlessly. Of course it's not as well off after it's colonies have all got their independence. That and free trade with sweatshop one party states like China which can produce at a fraction of the cost of British industries by oppressing their people and allowing no independent trade unions.Neither has anything to do with your obsession with immigration.
""our democracy" which you want to force down everyone's throat by aerial bombardment. LOL."
I want nothing of the kind. In one case in which there's a popular rebellion asking for air support i back giving them it as an alternative to them being massacred the way the Iraqi shia were in 1991. In every other case i've been against military intervention.
"What I love about your kind of democracy is that it won't allow the public to decide anything."
I have never argued that Britain has perfect democracy – completely the opposite – our voting system is outdated and unfair, our media is mostly owned by big firms and billionaires or controlled by the government, the PM has far too much power – and i'm in favour on having referenda on issues like going to war.
What i don't pretend is that there isn't far greater democracy for UK citizens who can vote governments in or out and have free speech and the right to protest, than there is in Libya or Bahrain where if you call for the head of the government to go, you get jailed or shot dead. By pretending there's just as much democracy under dictatorships as there is under democracies you show you have a cartoon view of reality.
"Sixty five percent are dead against mass immigration but you insist that they're simply racists who must be ignored."
No source here. You haven't said who conducted the poll or what the question was. Until you do this is just a figure you made up.
Even if it was true, peoples' opinions on immigration in the UK are mostly based on ignorance and false claims churned out by billionaire owned tabloids and the leaders of political parties to distract attention from the fact that billionaires and big firms are the ones taking their money, not immigrants or welfare claimants. When given the facts, the majority against immigration becomes a minority.
e.g BBC 3rd February "Asked to estimate the proportion of foreign-born people living in the UK, the average guess is 29.4%. The true figure according to OECD data is 10.8%, lower than Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada and the USA. When informed of that, the proportion of British respondents thinking it was "too many" fell from 59% to 46%" http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeasto…
"About the same proportion of the public want capital punishment for murder and treason, but tender liberal consciences insist that the public's brutal wishes must be ignored."
Fine. Let's have a referendum with pro and anti campaigns where we discuss the fact that the police and the courts frequently convict innocent people, so we'll end up executing innocent people over and over again – before finding out ten or twenty years too late that someone else was the real killer – as would have happened with e.g Colin Stagg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Nickell_murde…
"Just about everyone thinks the government should do something to cut unemployment but you howl when the government cuts taxes on jobs, including the corporation taxes."
When it says it has no option but to make cuts in public spending, but then cuts taxes on the biggest companies and banks in the country, some of which are already paying only 1% of their profits in tax, while low income taxpayers are paying 20% of their income. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/18/ba…
When it fails to even collect the taxes already owed to it from biggest firms http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/14/co…
When it sacks public sector employees by the hundred thousand while the economy is just about coming out of recession, thus reducing demand in the economy and so putting private sector employees out of jobs as well, which is tipping is back into another recession.
Has unemployment gone down? No – it's gone up – what a surprise http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/16/un…
Soon we'll have got to over 3 million unemployed again, as we did after Thatcher came in and claimed she'd cut it by cutting taxes on the rich and sacking public sector workers.
"Liberalism must be a sort of obsessive mental disorder, which prevents people from thinking logically about anything."
Empty insults are certainly a good filler when have no good arguments and no facts or sources to back them up.
The people who died on 911 enjoyed plenty of freedoms before they were killed by Muslim terrorists. The same can be said for the innocent victims of 7/7.
But not afterwards. Pity George Bush didn't value their freedom enough to take note of the warnings of the impending attack that were provided by multiple foreign intelligence services. Pity also that Dick Cheney personally supervised the attack on the Pentagon preventing the incoming hijacked plane from being downed.
As for the innocent victims of 7/7, it's a pity that having lost they right to life, they were not even honored by a judicial inquiry into the cause of their deaths.
This is a most interesting article, as was your previous related report from a UNSC source.
However, IMO the title of this article is silly in the extreme. Two events – the political union of Germany and Austria in 1938 and the importation of foreign troops to prop up an Arab potentate in Bahrain, 2011 – both took place on the same planet within the last century. That's about as far as the comparison goes.
I wish you'd dump these regular sops to the Zionist narrative of history, Craig. They win you no real affection from that quarter, while cheapening your output from the perspective of people who actually care about truth and historical accuracy.
Good journalism Craig, and Louise Gallagher's phrase 'cynically selective heart-string pulling' is bang on.
More like tristrangulation, I wonder how much power Ms. Clinton is actually chipping of Obama's block, sometimes it feels as if he's merely the nodding donkey to her jetstream diplomacy.
Apologies for off topic but talking of evil bastards did anyone see this? http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philminshull/2011/03/g…
Do you think we can sens a football manager to Bahrain?