I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
Grief, it would surely be easy just to shoot down Israel’s rockets or aircraft. Or just for the US to tell them to cool it or lose a big chunk of “military aid”. The utterly obvious strategy is to protect Iran from Israeli attack.
But since when was sanity popular?
Fedup
I really hope your right – but there 25 different countries in that gulf who,between them have a few bob to spend and huge military industries to keep going.Plus the fact that their leaders are sociopathic puppets of course.
If it is the neocons and Zionistas trying to get their man Romney in instead of Obama on the back of all this, the potential problem will only get worse. Either way,plan A could change to plan B at any point. And that would be it;no more ice creams in the park for us commoners
Are you saying the people of Israel are waking up and the israelis regime imploding fedup? I’d love a link if you have any spare ones…
Chris Jones, there have been protests in Israel for months now, but after a bit of media attention they became non-news again. According to Nevermind, net population flow has been away from Israel for the first time in decades, too. And the Hasbara (who are all over the world) seem to be a small fraction as active as they used to be.
It does seem to me that the Israeli government is losing internal and international support. But that’s probably part of the reason they’re starting a war.
@Clark
17 Sep, 2012 – 11:41 pm
While I sympathise with you, Clark, I’m glad you’ve felt it first hand. One cannot post here a simple, passing statement of fact without snarling demands to elaborate to a level of detail that destroys the succinctness of one’s message. Or your message is deconstructed, not for checking validity, but for checking political correctness. You are then branded and subsequent engagements with you are prejudiced on that basis.
Re democratic feedback loops. We could go on to make the general observation that input signals to feedback systems can be non-existent (espionage, secret diplomacy) to weak (foreign policy), normal (domestic policy), or strong (discriminating domestic policy).
the new world order they said it rhemselves.
We are headed over the precipis floating on in the rapids.
Nealy all communication is down.
Who do we think are pulling the strings of the new world order?
Its not zeus and neptune or any of the others.
Creativity cannot, at least for mortals, run day and night. You have to have blanked and away-time. It’s not just the eternal weariness of the contrarian mind.
Was impressed some time back to hear Joni Mitchell say that she needed a second art to make the first one work… proceeding to name painting and poetry, not mentioning the skill of utterance.
Sensitivity, also, does not have boundaries — being sensitive in this but not in that. Being sensitive and tough, and working among toughs, is tough.
technicolour 17 Sep, 2012 – 11:22 pm
“But really, it comes down to whether people are in favour of culling badgers or not.”
Very funny.
Or, in our image age, an ex-pop-star’s Dobsonesque locks vs a farmer’s Charltonesque comb over.
Actually I do think the insane cruelty to animals is an important issue for discussion. Bring on the badger parade!
The Channel 4 video made by Mani, a Frenchman, which is under discussion here plus another of the studio discussion which followed.
http://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-the-syrians-preparing-suicide-belts-and-bombs
I could only catch Rubin’s name.
Enough said here on Wikipedia.
‘Michael Rubin (* 1971) is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School.
A native of Philadelphia, Rubin earned a Ph.D. in history from Yale University in 1999. His dissertation, The Making of Modern Iran, 1858-1909: Communications, Telegraph and Society won Yale’s John Addison Porter Prize.[1] Between 2004 and 2009, he was editor of the Middle East Quarterly. He has received fellowships from the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs.
Rubin has lectured in history at Yale University, Hebrew University, Johns Hopkins University, and worked as visiting lecturer at Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Between 2002 and 2004, Rubin worked as a country director for Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, from which he was seconded to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Rubin currently teaches senior U.S. Army, U.S. Marine, and U.S. Navy leadership prior to their deployment to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan.’
The other two were Syrian, one from Birmingham who supports the FSA and who referred to Assad as a ‘butcher’ in his opening sentence and the other from London who had a broader view of what is happening. I could not catch their names nor were captions shown.
Elderly woman self-immolates in Israel
The wave of unrest and general strikes in isreal are under a an international media blackout, evidently.
Ayan (of elders) Hirsi Lying cheating Ali is working for the American Enterprise Institute the same bunch of tossers who brought you the project for new American century.
Hence to find her now; wanting to go to war with Islam is not all that unexpected, either she is as reactionary as the rest of the neo cons, or there she goes; Kenya and a goat herders life.
She was kicked out of the Netherlands for her lies and deceit as an illegal asylum seeker and had nowhere else to go, when AEI got her a permit to go to US and now we see why?
A ‘third element’ in Syria fighting government forces is al-Qaeda, an faction of death squad thugs trained in explosives, financed by Saudi and facilitated by Britain.
According to my source these fighters are equipped with the modern equivalent of the BID 150 transceiver with frequency diversity and encryption together with new semi-automatic weapons. A NATO operations center on the Turkish/Syrian border near Nusaybin commands these fighters based on USUK intelligence including high resolution satellite images tracking the Syrian army.
http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/swfs/player.swf?file=pressbriefing/2012/brief120518-syria-geneva.mp4&image=http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2012/05/full/brief120518-unog.jpg&autostart=false&controlbar=over&start=0&duration=252&dock=true&stretching=uniform&streamer=rtmp://webcast-flash.un.org/ondemand/
Here’s an blog post you might find interesting while we wait for CM’s promised controversy.
Adam Curtis tells “the story of Britain’s involvement in the government and the security of Bahrain over the past 90 years.”
If You Take My Advice I’d Repress Them
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/05/if_you_take_my_advice_-_id_rep.html
So much for the ‘togetherness’.
Nato curbs Afghan joint patrols over ‘insider’ attacks
Patrols conducted jointly between Afghan and Nato-led forces will no longer happen routinely
Nato says it is restricting operations with Afghan troops following a string of deadly attacks on its personnel by rogue Afghan security forces.
Only large operations will now be conducted jointly, with joint patrols evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19632779
~~
The Daily Mail front page which I spotted on a news stand asks
…. How many more wasted lives?…..
I bet they were not saying this 11 years ago.
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204583/Tom-Wroe-Dead-18-murdered-Afghan-police-Britain-trying-train.html}
“The wave of unrest and general strikes in isreal (sic) are under a an (sic) international media blackout, evidently.”
Eh, I think you need to up your dosage, have a cup of tea and lie down for a while, or stop watching Press TV so much.
1) Although the report is troubling (I thought there was a blackout), a few people self-immolating hardly constitutes a wave of unrest and general strikes does it?
2) More on your laughable ‘international media blackout’;
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/moshe-silman-israel-self-immolations_n_1693151.html)
(http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/363139/20120715/moshe-silman-israel-protest-self-immolation-j14.htm)
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19076254)
(http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/second-israeli-dies-self-immolation-welfare-protest)
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/01/israeli-set-himself-fire-dies)
But don’t let the facts get in the way of your paranoid rant.
Why shouldn’t we like your next post.
Unless it advocates hurting anybody, you should still be as popular as ever.
Dave: It’s probably going to be one of CM’s periodic trashings of lefties, greens, environmentalists and so forth.
I can’t wait, Glenn 😉
I tried, apparently, to ‘smear Clark as a racist’ by directly and unequivocally stating, several times, that I was sure he was not a racist, and gave in one case detailed reasons why I was sure he was not a racist. A strange way to do it. Not so strange that someone who slips an approving comment about the Nazis into his contributions would rejoice in this peculiarly resilient misunderstanding.
Sad that this sort of personal stuff continues. Clark, by the way, I didn’t respond to your earlier apology because I missed it. To go back to that point, thanks, and accepted.
Otherwise of course the population here were and are affected by these wars; of course they are not affected as the victims – blown up, tortured, starved and poisoned – are. Of course the dynamic which saw Blair re-elected, with a pathetic 26 percent of the vote, if I remember rightly, was a tragic combination of self-interest, lack of imagination, and disillusionment with politicians as a whole. And also the failure of a long-term strategy on behalf of the opponents of death and hatred. Labour are 15 points ahead today, apparently. Is a Labour without Blair a different beast?
Phil, yes, I also agree that insane cruelty to animals is a serious issue, and reflects the division that’s been carved between actions and effects into every part of our corporate world. The mindset which allows animals to be mutilated and barbarically slaughtered in private, only to appear as bland plastic-wrapped slabs of protein in public, is not a million miles away from the mindset that invented killer drones, I think.
Cryptonym: interesting debate between Chomsky and someone who agrees with you – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U49fMY3C5tc
(Villager and others btw, thanks for the health tips, spiritual and practical. I do like a bit of Krishnamurti in the morning. And have hastily taken my father off bicarbonate of soda – phew, cheers, Mark.)
I wonder if Craig is going to talk about the con of sustainable development and global warming (now conveniently downgraded to ‘climate change’) Hockey stick graph anyone?
Honestly, I’m with Tony Roma on bicarb – funny I was just reading a naturopathic doctor’s piece on salt:
“All of the hoopla in the media these days about the dangers of salt is a perfect example of why the LAST person you should trust for advice on nutrition is a medical doctor. If your $30,000 automobile started to give you trouble, would you ask your neighbor, who had just read a book on the internal combustion engine, how to fix it? No! You would ask a certified mechanic. It is no different with questions regarding nutrition. NEVER ask your medical doctor what you should and shouldn’t eat to stay healthy. They have no training and no clinical experience with it. Salt is one of the most necessary nutrients to the human body that there is. Salt is involved in thousands of metabolic processes, and, without enough of it you will get sick and then die. One of the most noteworthy salt-related processes of the human body is the production of stomach acid. The molecular structure of salt is NaCl – sodium chloride. The molecular structure of stomach acid is HCl – hydrochloric acid. Your body gets the chloride molecule it needs to keep its stomach acid strong and healthy from salt (calcium is also an important player here). If you don’t have enough salt, your stomach acid will be weak. If your stomach acid is weak, you cannot digest your food completely. If you cannot digest your food completely, you develop nutrient deficiencies. Nutrient deficiencies are the MAIN CAUSE of all chronic disease. Therefore salt is PRETTY IMPORTANT, don’t you think? Last but not least, when your stomach acid is weak (from a lack of salt), guess what happens? You develop heartburn! Heartburn is caused by NOT ENOUGH stomach acid – not too much. Start salting your food to taste and your heartburn will disappear in about 3 weeks.”
http://www.drglidden.com/
While on the subject of bicarb try looking up Dr Simoncini.
Passerby might have been a tad too thick on the media blackout, but to jump down his throat and call his assumption a paranoid rant, make out that he is somewhat needy and on medication, calling his remark laughable, is far beyond someone who would want to debate or discuss, CE.
I suggest you lay of the coffee and stop winding up posters here. If you are bored do some housework or relieve you haste with some pleasure, whatever that takes, its good to up the serotonin levels now and then.
The self immolation of a disabled person, something we might see here soon if the coalition carries on with their cuts to the vulnerable and poor, is a sign that Israel is in tatters, that is has much money for weaponry by is failing those in need.
Israel’s leadership is pretty much isolated in their plans to paint over their internal difficulties, their intransigence to move on their always shifting settler agenda, their apartheid housing policies, rising food prices and rocketing utility costs, all that will be overridden by Netanyahu’s obsession to make his mark in history. He will paint over his inabilities by going to war.
Who knows, if the war is big enough and we take part, agent Cameron might want to stop next years County council elections, just to keep the pals in you see, and because he can if he wants to. Simples, then we have the same situation here.
An unaccountable coalition of two minority party’s staffed with rookies and hooray henries, with a politically inept larger apathetic public, sorry, the above debate seemingly was solely about thinking people who are educated and make their own decisions, so who in this status quo trio will possibly make a fuss about going to war with Syria or Iran? or complain that their elections is postponed till???
Hands up who has any hope in the media asking this coalition of speed daters any uncomfortable questions?
But we must not let the facts get in the way of a good opportunity for starting an argument, must we?
Scouse Billy: Thanks for Dr Simoncini. Resisting urge to dose everyone with bicarb! Certainly works for kidney infections, just that we were continuing to give it after infection cleared up & (from the info on that site) even serious treatment is only for a week or so.
Otherwise tried and tested:
Manuka honey heals external ulcers
Raw garlic is incredibly powerful antibiotic/antiseptic. Applied to hole in tooth, for example, hurts like a demon, but works. Also for stomach infections.
Evening primrose oil for the laideez
Valerian tea for knock out effect
Nevermind, how’s the independent cause?
Paul Flynn MP has been suspended.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204998/Labour-MP-Paul-Flynn-suspended-Commons-blaming-lying-ministers-deaths-British-troops-Afghanistan.html
Why Do They Hate Us?
http://www.mpacuk.org/story/090412/why-do-they-hate-us.html
Thriving in Norfolk, Techni, in touch with the Independent PPC candidate and many others who intend to wrestle some Tory’s seats away from them next year.
This from Reuters today. Iran has launched a submarine…
How dare they? With the greatest ever naval armada assembled in the Persian Gulf for 12 day’s of sun seeking manoeuvres, how could they possibly need any more security..;)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/iran-military-exercises-idUKL5E8KIAKI20120918
The escalating problems between China and Japan are spreading, with today’s Chinese fishing fleet testing Japan’s response.
sorry, meant to add the word ‘history’ after ‘naval armada assembled in’.
Chris,
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Record Low Arctic Sea Ice Cover (previous record smashed)
Technicolour, you did indeed “stat[e], several times, that I was sure he [ie. me] was not a racist”. However, you also directed the following comments at me:
I believe that I’ve also complained about your honesty. Maybe you just can’t see that you’re prepared to break rules in order to look better in argument, at least to onlookers.
@Technicolour, the Shrew –
“Not so strange that someone who slips an approving comment about the Nazis into his contributions would rejoice in this peculiarly resilient misunderstanding”
You are a liar, pure and simple. I have always used the subject of Nazis as a baseline reference for large scale human evil. And then I like to use it to expose the hysterical political correctness in arrogant bullies like you. You’ve been caught out a couple of times for this kind of behaviour. I’m glad Clark can see some of it even tho’ Jon seems to turn a blind eye.
And then you go and compare the normal practice of eating purchased meat with killer drones. Is it the fact that we don’t kill the animals ourselves that irks you? Or is it the mass industrialisation that gives you other affordable consumer goods like leather shoes? I wonder how many you have in your wardrobe. Try wearing grass sandals for a week and get back to us.