The BBC believes that Kate Middleton’s tits are a more important story than western diplomats in danger of their lives all over the Middle East. Says it all about today’s BBC, really.
Killing people is not the solution to the World’s problems. Killing diplomats is particularly heinous as they are guests in a country, and are charged with keeping open the lines of peaceful communication between nations. Almost certainly Ambassador Stevens and his staff deplored the making and distribution of hate videos, and absolutely certainly they had nothing to do with it. Nor do the diplomats under seige today in Yemen, Sudan and Egypt.
Oliver Miles, the extremely sensible former British Ambassador to Libya, while deploring attacks on Embassies and their staff, made the obvious point on Sky News yesterday that America’s unflinching support for an expansionist Israel was the root cause of hostile attitudes to the USA acroos the Middle East. His interview was instantly terminated.
Miles’ observation is true, as it is true that direct and killing intervention by the US in Libya and Yemen has caused the situations that are now blowing back – often with US supplied or at least encouraged weaponry. But yet again, none of that justifies the racist attacks on westerners. Just as all Muslims were not responsible for Islamic terrorists, so all westerners are not responsible for the far right purveyors of anti-Muslim hatred.
All decent people must despair at the prospect of yet another cycle of violence. Powerful interests both in the West and in the Middle East are not amongst those decent people.
Of all the signals the West could send out to try to end the horrors wrought by the promoters of the “Clash of civilisations”, the most powerful would be to arraign Bush and Blair for war crimes. This is not a deluded hope of idealists; it is an essential step if the world is ever to heal.
Wonderful post. Herald the day when Bush and Blair are made to pay for their crimes. Getting them to the Hague is not going to be easy.
The Duchess’s bosoms are the nourishment of the next monarch but two.
I wonder: can a private prosecution be brought for war crimes, say in the UK? If so, I should think the contributions to a fund would be substantial, and would come from a number of countries’ budgets, and not just private pockets. As you say, it would do much for future world security, and might even encourage Obama to quell his drone assassinations.
Pepe Esobar on what is really happening: http://counterpsyops.com/2012/09/14/mr-blowback-rising-in-benghazi/
If you want Bush and Blair arrested for war crimes then argue it on the basis that they are war criminals. Don’t advocate it to appease lunatics or it just makes you look like a coward! This is the typical twaddle of someone who has made up his mind about what everyone is and should be angry about and thinks that that is what they ARE angry about.
And there I was slapped down by Angrysoba yesterday for suggesting that this beasty and heinous video could possibly have the same impact than another terror ‘event’.
The financial backers of this idiocy, which cannot be compared, for example, to the forthcoming depiction of Jesus as a child of rape by Paul Verhoeven, clearly an adaption and art film that will attract the usual Christian zealots, but as an idiotic piece of simple anti islamic propaganda designed to be understood by the least educated viewers,
these backers should be named, publicly shamed and held responsible for the damage their pathetic dubbing over and beasting of the actors comments have achieved.
Angrysoba
Of course they are war criminals, as you know I have argued that continually for years. I am not suggesting we put random people up for war crimes.
I’m not sure that these qualify as “racist attacks on westerners.”
The victims, whose passing we lament as we do those of the Aleppo postmen, the people of fallujah and jenin, Colonel Ghadaffi,and, in fact, all who lose their lives, were involved in the promotion of civil war, the arming of gangs of torturers and murderers and the vicious suppression of Libyan patriots resisting foreign rule.
Blowback? Certainly, but any racism or religious bigotry was incidental: like that which undoubtedly informs the warmongering of Parliamentarians and Congressmen.
Sudan and Lebanon too.
Anti-Islam film: German and UK embassies in Sudan attacked
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19602177
ANTI-ISLAM FILM:ANTI-ISLAM FILM:One person killed in clashes between protesters and security forces in Lebanese city of Tripoli
the fact the diplomat story gets 2nd billing to paparazi pictures is very suspect. as is the instant and unquestioned advancement of US military to those countries, ostensibly to protect embassies… with drones.. and fucking navy ships.
and lets not even get started on the failure of the media to report the most significant facts about the france shooting.. 2 nuclear energy experts, iraq connections etc.. oh no, it’s obviously a family dispute over property.. ffs..
i expect our media to be utterly full of shit these days. at least it’s a better place to start from than assuming they have anything approaching objectivity.
kate+topless produces About 79,000,000 results (0.12 seconds I am sure that there aren’t actually 79m but all the first page links are to the so called MSM outfits with their pretend outrage.
Craig, why connect the two issues as though putting Bush and Blair on trial is going to stop people going crazy over You Tube postings?
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Besides, the German embassy was also attacked in Sudan and Germany opposed the war in Iraq.
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Now, in Lebanon it is KFC’s turn. Don’t the protesters know that Harlan Sanders was never a real colonel?
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http://liveblog.egyptindependent.com/content/photos-protesters-burn-down-kfc-tripoli-lebanon
@angrysoba – I’d wager there are two of you. You spend a great deal of time putting forward considered and reasonable posts elsewhere, and then occasionally come out with nonsense, as above. You make it sound like sending Bush and Blair to the Hague is a novel idea, and hasn’t yet been suggested before.
There may well be “lunatics” hereabouts on a recent thread, but don’t let them wind you up. As you know, parts of the left have been calling for a war crimes tribunal, with much justification, for years.
Angrysoba,
So long as western leaders launch devastating illegal wars on muslim nations with impunity, Muslims aren’t going to like us very much. It is not a difficult argument to grasp.
According to the BBC it’s not blowback at all, it’s rank ingratitude on the part of the people of the Middle East. Or at least that’s how I understood their commentary when they showed footage of burning embassies with the VO ‘this is the thanks they get…’
Honestly! After all they’ve done for those people…
To be fair to the Beeb, the embassy situation is the top story on their website now (hasn’t been all day of course).
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Your point on the broader context, well indeed. In the cases of Libya and Egypt and Yemen, anti-US sentiment is fuelled significantly by (I would argue even more than the Israel issue) by the ways the US colluded with past dictators. Just last week there was a large Human Rights Watch report into Libya under Qaddafi, and how the West delivered him dissidents to torture; to say there are some open wounds that could have contributed to the attack on the US consulate is hardly controversial.
Tut tut. Those naughty German Bauers being so disrespectful to members of our (German) royal family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_Media_Group
@Jon 14 Sep, 2012 – 2:04 pm
“I wonder: can a private prosecution be brought for war crimes, say in the UK? If so, I should think the contributions to a fund would be substantial”
You can contribute to a fund to arrest Blair here:
http://www.arrestblair.org/
I don’t suppose the perpetrators were trying to make a reasoned point, Craig. I think they were partly just killing the nearest Americans they could find, and partly trying to inflame and enrage the USA to entice it into further ruinous foreign entanglements.
Say what you will, the USA’s reactions to 9/11 were a powerful incentive to anyone who wanted to repeat the provocation. It is doubtful if history has any record of a more ridiculous and self-destructive (not to say inhuman) overreaction.
I don’t remember Germany launching any illegal wars for about 70 years, what excuse can we find to ‘understand’ the religious zealots in this instance?
I’m no expert on the issue, thus my question: Who exactly would be able to charge a Bush or Blair with war crimes?
It seems there are different versions of Closer.
Not the naughty Bauers, but the mischievous Silvio. Perhaps it’s his way of getting back after he got the boot from his position of power, a move no doubt aided by British City bankers amongst all the others in control of the Euro.
Closer magazine in France belongs to Mondadori, owned by Italy’s former president Silvio Berlusconi’s holding company Fininvest – not the same company as the British title.
Closer magazine UK, published by Bauer Consumer Media, said in a statement: “Closer magazine UK would like to make it clear that the two publications make entirely independent editorial decisions.
http://www.ynaija.com/ticker-french-magazine-closer-publishes-kate-middletons-topless-photos/
Leon,
Some states can try war crimes internally. For a trial at the Hague, the case must be referred by a state. That is the major flaw in the process.
Please do entertain us, CE, what wars are illegal and which are not?
in your opinion, regardless of what the UN, Geneva Conventions, Verdun or any other internationally agreed statutes say on the matter. Just your own personal interpretation.
You don’t have to mention countries, if you like, one would not want to ire one or other people now, would one. Anyway your interpretation can’t possibly have anything to do with a specific nation/tribe or colour, so lets have it CE.
@CE
“I don’t remember Germany launching any illegal wars for about 70 years, what excuse can we find to ‘understand’ the religious zealots in this instance?”
Afghanistan?
Just a guess. I suspect the nuance of “illegal” is irrelevant to their concerns.
And what would happen if North Korea or Iran or so would try to accuse them? Or what if some billionaire bribed a low-fare country like Nauru or so into doing that?
@Craig 14 Sep, 2012 – 3:27 pm
“For a trial at the Hague, the case must be referred by a state. That is the major flaw in the process.”
Major flaw? No, by design. To consider it a flaw presupposes that the Hague is not just another tool of empire. Which it is.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image,29553/
No one murdered because of this image.
This is the second time in less than a month that a high-ranking US official has been targeted in one of the occupied countries. In August, Army chief Martin Dempsey’s plane was hit by a rocket at Bagram airbase.
If this becomes a trend over the next few months it may not be anything to do with “blowback”, at least not in the sense Craig means here. The attack yesterday for instance seemed well-planned and not necessarily connected directly to the demonstration taking place outside the embassy. The demo may only have provided useful cover.
Any more attacks on US officials before the election and I’ll start to think that Obama is having his arm twisted.
To any zio-smirkers here I’d point out that the film is reminiscent of the lurid, anti-Jewish material produced in Germany in the 30s.
@Alan Campbell 14 Sep, 2012 – 3:55 pm
“No one murdered because of this image.”
You seem to be missing the bigger picture. Or are you suggesting the US should bomb Israel, India and Tibet into the dark ages too?
I notice the onion didn’t fuck with the Sikhs.