He Is Not Dead, But Sleeping 121

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In Florianapolis, Brazil. I am fit and well and very busy. I have neither retired from the fight nor am I sulking in my tent. Simply so much is happening in my life at the moment and I am in a crucial period for my long term ability to earn a living for myself and my family. I am also devoting an extraordinary amount of time – many thousands of hours – to research on the Burnes book. So just now I cannot find the resources to blog well. I apologise to my readers and commenters for the intermission, which was unplanned and a result of things piling up on me. But I will be back, and the pressures on me are of a positive rather than negative nature.

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121 thoughts on “He Is Not Dead, But Sleeping”

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  • Clark

    Komodo, yes, I had noticed Blair’s substitution of “you” for “I”. A useful linguistic trick, simultaneously (1) inducing the listener to identify with the poor, stressed decision-maker and (2) evading excessive personal responsibility for Blair. Has Blair ever thought about this linguistic trick, or does it just happen, without self reflection? I don’t see how the PR coaches could miss it, which suggests that it is a deliberate ploy at some level.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq Association

    Mary,
    .
    I did enjoy your piece on the Sri-Lanka Tamil conflict. I sponsored a Tamil family in the ’80’s and secured political asylum for Sumithran and his mother and sister. They had fled from Elephant Pass before government (Sinhalese) forces smashed their village. I had no idea at the time of Mossad-Israel intelligence involvement. Sumithran is a loyal and treasured friend who paid a dedicated role in helping research the dreadful aftermath of the illegal Iraq war. Thank-you.

  • Komodo

    Blair acquired this from his heroine, Thatcher (who may have been given the disease by “Lord” Bell of Pottinger). As time went on and she became increasingly dotty, the habit took increasing charge of her, too. But with Blair it’s pathological now: his universe is narrowing down to two figures – his own unpleasant persona and the “you” which has nothing to do with you out there…

  • Mary

    Leveson looked more shaken than Bliar when the protester appeared from the curtain behind Leveson. Fancy Leveson apologizing to the war criminal.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18232204
    .
    Jack Thomas from Liverpool emails: Well done to that protester, Blair is trying to come across as a nice sort of guy when in fact he bears part of the responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

    .
    The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson has written a blog in which he says Tony Blair opened his evidence to the Leveson inquiry with a guilty plea, but in doing so was really preparing to declare himself innocent on a much more serious charge.

    .Simon from Leeds texts: Blair handles the intrusion with super composure, and even addresses his points.

    .
    1223: This is the dramatic moment that an unidentified protester, dressed in a white shirt, briefly disrupted the proceedings

    .
    1220: The protester was a man in a white shirt who began his court interruption by saying “Excuse me.” His politeness ended there, however, as he then began shouting that Mr Blair was a “war criminal” and made further accusations that the former PM had been paid off.
    .
    The protester continued to make further accusations, while clinging on to a desk with both hands. He has to do this because a security guard had both arms wrapped round his chest and was desperately trying to drag him away. In the end, he was pushed out the room by three guards.
    .
    Lord Leveson is now quietly but firmly asking how the protester managed to get into the courtroom, “through what is supposed to be a secure corridor”.
    /…

  • Mary

    Add:
    1242: One more point about the protester – Mr Blair denied all the claims the man shouted out in court, saying that “for the record” were “completely and totally untrue”. A sympathetic Lord Leveson said that the former PM did not need to give any response at all and apologised for the disruption.

    .

  • Mary

    Lisa O’Carroll Guardian tweets

    .

    Here’s the background on Leveson protestor…presumably he’s being held till police arrive at court. http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/?p=559

    .

    Anti war protester’s name is David Lawley Wakelin from Alternative Iraq Enquiry. He been taken by security into East block of High Court.

  • wendy

    loving the replay of the anti war protester. a very timely reminder. and an insight into blairs cold calculating persona.
    .
    one has to remind others that this man sought to deceive and that there were and are many willing in the media to assist him and continue to do so til this day.
    .

  • Komodo

    Blair denied the protestor’s allegation that he’d taken £6M from JP Morgan Chase (whose CEO is currently facing some embarrassing questions about subprime risks and the absence of $2Bn).
    .
    This is at odds with the Telegraph’s report at the time of Blair’s ascension to corporate heaven (2008) –
    .
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/1575247/Tony-Blair-to-earn-2m-as-JP-Morgan-adviser.html
    .
    £2M annually for 3 years looks like £6m to me. But what do I know?
    .
    I am sure Blair could avoid snags like this if he reported his financial position openly. And if what he earned didn’t go through Windrush #1, #2, #3 and Firerush #1, #2 and #3, his personal maze of financial obfuscation “companies”

  • Clark

    Komodo, substitution of “you” for “I” is very common; many people do it. I’ve consciously caught myself doing it, and reflected upon my motive. I know that I do this when I want my listener to empathise; that I use my presupposition (that my listener would have done the same thing in my circumstances) to increase the likelihood of their approval of my actions or opinions.
    .
    Such ploys propagate unconsciously due to their utility, but prime ministers doing it is different. They’re supported by media experts who are paid to be aware of such matters, and either correct them or modify them, or let them pass.
    .
    Maybe the power structures should be regarded as entities in themselves, and the likes of Blair as mere cells of those bodies. The structure doesn’t care whether Blair or Thatcher go insane, in fact, it’s quite useful if they do. There are plenty of replacements available to the system, so the cult of personality politics is an excellent distraction, because it draws observers to inspect the structure at too small a scale.
    .
    The political arm of the system will keep any punishments light, because it doesn’t wish to stem the flow of morally deficient people into the system.

  • DonnyDarko

    Blair says he has never had a relationship with JP Morgan, but he didn’t deny being a war criminal.
    This interruption must make him think tho’.. what if the guy had been armed with more than the truth ?

  • Komodo

    Good thinking, Clark. And it is evident from the way he is answering the questions, that the disposable cell known as Blair, in protecting itself from the environment, inevitably protects the rest of the larger organism.
    .
    What us groundlings need to invent is a virus.

  • Mary

    There is no show without Punch.
    .
    Louise Mensch MP tweets: Lord Justice #Leveson dealt with protestor with great dignity. As a nation we do need to beef up our security arrangements at these things.

  • Mary

    DonnyDarko He has 8 bodyguards, two of whom are now in the body of the court. One is sitting next to a BBC reporter. I only hope to God that we, the idiot taxpayers, are not paying their salaries.

  • Mary

    We do apparently. This is from Dec 2010.
    .
    Britain pays for the former ­premier’s 24-hour six-man security detail of detectives. Details of the watchdog investigations emerged only months after it was revealed Mr Blair’s bodyguards cost the public purse £250,000 a year in expenses alone.
    The latest revelations raised fresh questions about whether wealthy individuals – Mr Blair has an estimated £20million fortune – should contribute to their security costs.
    As well as holidays, police officers accompanied the former premier on more than 21 international trips in the first four months of this year.
    .
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1335570/Blairs-bodyguards-bought-rocket-launcher-expenses-protect-Gaza.html

  • Mary

    I was looking to see if Leveson and the Blairs know one another and/or socialize as Leveson and the Matthew Freuds did. Of course they must know each other. She’s a judge too isn’t she and he was a barrister.

    .

    See this from http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/leveson-inquiry-lord-leveson-prepares-the-way-for-the-cancellation-of-part-2/
    .

    Politicians and Judges
    .
    A senior judge is above political direction or collusion you say? Sadly no. To begin with there is no proper separation of powers in Britain between the executive and the judiciary. British politicians have their hands on the justice system in a very intimate way. Three members of the government act as law officers – the Secretary of State for Justice now (combined with the office of Lord Chancellor) who sits in the cabinet; the Attorney-General (who on occasion attends cabinet meetings) and the Solicitor-General have considerable influence on the operation of the justice system in England and Wales, including in the case of the Lord Chancellor, the oversight of judges’ behaviour and roles in the appointment of judges and the dismissal of all but the most senior judges, despite these powers being reduced substantially by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 {http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-03792.pdf}.

    .

    To these very direct hands on the justice tiller is added the fact that Parliament – both Lords and Commons – is heavily littered with lawyers, most of them barristers with a good sprinkling of QCs. This is important because the legal world from which judges are drawn is a very small one. The vast majority of judges were barristers before their elevation (the most senior judges are all barristers) and they are in practice drawn from a pool of just a few thousand . There are around 15,000 barristers working in the UK, but only a thousand or two at any one time would possess the experience to have even a theoretical chance of being appointed to the bench at any level {http://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/Articles/197} .

    .

    The upshot is that judges, and especially senior judges, will almost certainly know socially many of the barristers in Parliament and will quite probably have had a social relationship with one or more of the Government’s law officers. The re is a fair chance they will have also have socialised with politicians who are not lawyers. Moreover, a senior judge will almost certainly have a sense of unconscious class solidarity with Government ministers because judges and politicians often share a broadly similar social background. This social familiarity provides any government with ample opportunity to appoint someone who is judged to be well enough known to members of the Government for them to be sure in their own minds that someone appointed to an official Inquiry will not do anything to rock the establishment boat .

    .

    There is also the normal human response to the powerful in play. Powerful men do not have to spell out what they want done. Often circumstances can be relied on to suggest what behaviour is required of those subordinate to him. Where the circumstantial prod is deemed insufficient by the powerful, they will let their views be known either by stating them publicly or through intermediaries.

    .

    All these forces acting on a judge appointed to a public inquiry will almost invariably ensure that whatever evidence comes out the conclusions drawn by the Inquiry it will be favourable to the Government’s position – provided the government which commissioned it is still in power when the Inquiry report is published. The Hutton Inquiry into Dr David Kelly’s death is a prime example of how an Inquiry can come to conclusions which are utterly at odds with the available evidence. The Inquiry unearthed much which suggested an unnatural death, but produced a report which concluded exactly what the Blair Government wanted it to conclude, namely, that Kelly had committed suicide.
    ~~

    Praise the Lord. He’s gone now, back to which one of his six houses in a black 4×4 accompanied by another one following in the rear. Disgusting creature.

  • Guest

    At last, the truth is coming out at the Leveson inquiry. Well done and said David Lawley-Wakelin.

  • Översätt

    It will be very interesting to see what comes out of Mr. Bair.
    .
    [Mod: commercial link removed]

  • guano

    Mike
    The reason for not believing the story about Assad’s aggression in Houla is that the BBC have Hollywoodised its unfolding and the United Nations has rubber-stamped it. It reeks of W.Hague fumbling with his military joystick when to start the aerial conquest and where to invest the backhanders senior politicians have come to expect as their right for doing the will of IS.
    I am certain that the British-trained Islamic mercenaries funded by Saudi and Qatar and shielded by Turkey are capable of delivering a massacre to order to their Zionist paymasters, and I am sure that Assad is equally capable of the atrocities with an ally like Putin and his record in Grozny, Chechnya.

    What really made me puke was UK and Us politicians condemning the atrocities as a war crime, as if, we hadn’t done any war-mongering with our weaponry over the last few years. As prophecied in the Gospels, there will be wars and rumours of wars at the approach of the Day of Judgement. We the public are the gullible onlookers so that Whague can have his side-kicks.
    If I was looking for somewhere to make jihad, I would choose White City, the Bollywood where war is dramatised for us fools.
    Cui bono Syria erupts into war? IS and IP- political Islam.
    The United Nations should hold its fire and we our judgement until the people of Syria decide their own future. IP hates democracy more than anything because it renders deceptions like Houla useless. They are gambling that the media will start an airstrike before democracy can get hold.

  • Mary

    Nothing new under the sun. These were the plans for Syria. Snake pits with snakes of many stripes –
    .
    “The only prospect that holds hope for us is the carving up of Syria… It is our task to prepare for that prospect. All else is a purposeless waste of time.”
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    Zionist militant Zeév Jabotinsky, From “We and Turkey” in Di Tribune, November 30, 1915
    .

    “We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Muslim regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan, and Syria will fall to us.”
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    David Ben-Gurion, From “Ben-Gurion, A Biography” by Michael Ben-Zohar, May 1948
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    “It is obvious that the above military assumptions, and the whole plan too, depend also on the Arabs continuing to be even more divided than they are now, and on the lack of any truly mass movement among them… Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking Iraq up into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon… Syria will fall apart.”
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    Oded Yinon, 1982. From “The Zionist Plan for the Middle East”
    .
    “Regime change is, of course, our goal both in Lebanon and Syria. We wrote long ago that there are three ways to achieve it- the dictator chooses to change; he falls before his own unhappy people; or if he poses a threat to the outside, the outside takes him out…”
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    -Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), From strategy paper #474 “Priorities in Lebanon & Syria”, March 2, 2005
    .

    Cakewalks, Forgeries and Smoking Guns

    The Salvador Option in Beirut
    .
    By Trish Schuh

    February 8 2007
    .

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31438.htm
    .
    Guano I expect you read that the BBC used a photo from Iraq in their recent coverage of Syria. See Medialens.
    .
    Their reporter Jim Muir is speaking from Lebanon too. I expect the gullible swallow his words easily.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq Association

    “I am certain that the British-trained Islamic mercenaries funded by Saudi and Qatar and shielded by Turkey are capable of delivering a massacre to order to their Zionist paymasters.”
    .
    Spot-on Guano, according to one of these ‘trainers’ working out of Dubai who has provided reliable information in the past.
    .
    He has assured me it is part of the same Western backed al-Qaeda fighters from Iraq who were assembling bombs in Hama, one of which exploded as the detonator was wired, killing 70 people. The BBC reported this to be a ‘scud’ missile:
    .
    {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17851122}
    .
    Reuters have reported these assembly factories for bomb parts smuggled through Turkey:
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    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/30/us-syria-bombs-idUSBRE83T0XY20120430
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    The phony ‘Houla Massacre’ was backed by Western intelligent which produced the required mainstream media coverage.
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    The terrorists silently killed about 50 or 60 families, including women and children with knives after entering key position dwellings.
    .
    The Syrian army were ‘drawn in’ with mortar-fire from these key positions and responded with heavy artillery and rocket fire hitting some people fleeing from the massacre.
    .
    I have been consistently reporting this relentless western effort to takeover Syria for months now. How can educated people fail to learn lessons from Libya? We just cannot fall for it all over again.

    Cui bono? Who benefits… from another civilian massacre? Clearly not the Syrian government. But western-backed terrorist groups who have been working to destabilize the country for over one year now, do clearly benefit.

  • Mary

    He was packed off to Moscow by his masters Mark.
    .
    William Hague calls on Russians to help punish Syrian regime
    British foreign secretary visits Moscow and says he will seek support in wake of Houla massacre blamed on Assad forces
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/28/william-hague-russia-syrian-regime
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    I find it paerticularly offensive that female reporters seem to be worse than the males for putting out the lies on Syria and Libya. Emma Hurd, Alex Crawford and Lisa Holland Sky, Olga Guerin and Lyse Doucet BBC, etc.
    .
    Alex Crawford is nowhere near Syria yet she tweets this from ‘Abdul Aziz Al-Sibaai
    Muslim! Half Homsi and Half Latakian. Tweets dedicated to the 14,000+ martyred and the tens of thousands detained by the Assad regime. #Pray4Syria’

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    Alex Crawford‏@AlexCrawfordSky
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    “@AAzizAlSibaai Just pointed out that the no. of UN observers in Syria is less than the no. of people killed in Syria in 1 day. #Syria”

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