There is no obvious reason why the Western powers should care whether it was the friends or the family of Mohammed which took over the leadership of his movement upon his death. However there is plainly an agenda led by the USA to support the Sunnis in their spiralling regional conflict with the Shia.
This is not hard to rationalise. The ultra wealthy members of the Gulf regimes continue to act as the West’s proxies in the region and provide harbour to its neo-imperialist armed forces, while at the same time maintaining themselves a obscurantist version of Islam which would have horrified Mohammed and breaks virtually every precept of the Koran, particularly as regards treatment of women and of minority religions within their territory.
In Bahrain the large Shia majority is brutally repressed with active western collusion; in Saudi Arabia the Shia minority in the East is degraded. Iran is the great Shia bogey, and the West is so determined to maintain it as “the enemy” that they refuse the most basic diplomatic openings. The UK turned down an invitation to be represented at the inauguration of a new more moderate President and hold initial conversations. Meanwhile, Shia groups have mustered the only effective military resistance to Israeli aggression, and in Syria a Shia friendly regime is under intense pressure from the West and its Gulf allies. Peculiarly, in Iraq Western invasion resulted in the installation of a Shia regime, but that was only one of the entirely unforeseen consequences of that most stupid of invasions, and the Western response is to try to split up the country and fuel multiple insurgencies.
Meantime the CIA have now got a controlled and pro-Israeli military dictatorship back in power in Egypt, while the extraordinary complicity of the mainstream media and entire political class in the United States has never been more evident than in the acceptance that the military coup will not be designated a military coup. The manipulation of Western public opinion in the Syrian chemical weapons episode has, rarely, been too blatant to work. But events in Turkey and Egypt have shown that western public opinion is easily manipulated by the “secularist” angle. No matter how ugly political forces are – and in Turkey the Kemalists are very ugly – call them “secularist” and hide the rest, and you can attempt to topple elected governments in their favour with the full throated support of the media cheerleaders.
Last night’s vote in the Commons is welcome, but a blip. It owes more to political tribalism than to principle. Miliband and New Labour did not oppose military action, they merely wanted to be seen to be dictating the terms. As neither Tories nor Labour were prepared to accept the other’s terms for military action, the anti war minority could combine with the tribalists of each to make sure everything got defeated. Good but fortuitous.
The media are still in full war cry. Ashdown has never been so ashamed, apparently. He is not ashamed by extraordinary rendition and our torturing people. He is not ashamed of our responsibility for the death of hundreds of thousands in Iraq, with 2,000 people a day still meeting terrible deaths. He is ashamed that we don’t respond to the deaths of children by chemical weapons, we don’t really know at whose hands, by blasting to pieces a lot more children. Well, Paddy, you are a merciless fool who thinks a spiral of death is the answer, and I have never been more ashamed that I was for most of my adult life a member of the Liberal Democrats.
Ashdown did say bitterly that there was now no point in having such large armed forces. Hallelujah! The danger to the establishment that people might realise that spending more on weapons systems than on hospitals is a poor choice, is one reason this is not over. Much is at stake for the security state. Expect a mounting barrage of propaganda on the need for action in Syria. This is just the start.
That is easy! Scotty beamed them up or down depending on the frame of reference etc.
The clip of the supposedly burned “school kids” milling around in a room. It was a scene of the night of the Zombies movie. Panorama has long ceased to be anything but utter shite! There should be law passed for making crap, crude propaganda movies. Missing from these packages, is the labels “Goodies”, and “Baddies” so that the potential audiences know when to hiss and boo or when to whistle and clap!
Panorama reminds me of the movie Le Pétomane when in the last scenes he goes to fart and shits himself. Fact that the chap was actually a nice stand up anti war fellow aside, but his demise of crapping himself is akin to the panorama shitting on the screens in peoples living rooms all in the name of “current affairs”.
My favourite is the “Syrian Dr.” who cannot string two sentences together, and is interviewed and goes on ; “it is like we don’t ma’er”! I am convinced the highly educated Syrian Dr. taking Street in the middle of a “war zone”.
Phil/Juteman,
Age old Scottish vernacular you probably know anyway re Paxman/Kerry document/Panorama riff:
If ma auntie had baws she’d be ma uncle….
🙂
“Well, at least a decline in UK’s position in the world does augur rather better for Scots independence.”
Not when the Nationalist argument is that the dysfunctional Westminster parliament keeps getting us into wars against our will.
Could explain the air of disappointment around here today.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
Someone @ 7:56
I saw this comment on Wired this morning wrt NSA/Snowden and thought it appropos.
“A colleague of mine was recruited pretty heavily by the NSA after he published his Post-doc thesis on some obscure topic involving twisted hessian curves doubling and weaknesses within elliptic curve cryptography algorithms. When I asked him why he turned the position down he stated that he was unnerved by the fact that he would be required to undergo an additional 3 years of education at a “private NSA run institution” for cryptographic analysis.
He decided to specialize away from cryptography after that having inferred that his research was probably 50-100 years behind what was probably classified.”
@Anon. 3 45pm
”There seems to be a palpable air of disappointment among many of the Murrayistas over the lack of intervention in Syria…blah…secretly hoping…hrumpf…confirm their prejudices…gruurk…has left Murrayistas clinging to the…groan…continual castigating of one’s own country…”
So, I confess, I added the “…blah…hrumpf…gruurk…and…groan…, but it still didn’t make much sense!
Anon, can you kindly provide some examples please.
The new evidence for Syrian WMD found on file
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/30/carter-urging-political-solution-opposes-strike-on-syria/
Angry Bibibird.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://niqnaq.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/arie-yampuler.jpg&imgrefurl=http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/the-great-bibi-bomb-photo-caption-contest/&h=720&w=960&sz=88&tbnid=BoAP7PUtn1BiEM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/search%3Fq%3DBibi%2Bbomb%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=Bibi+bomb&usg=__S95onKa5tv95dTsS46dUoKVpli4=&docid=d0G4PulDpaSCmM&sa=X&ei=cvcgUqXCGcqGjAL1koH4Ag&ved=0CDYQ9QEwAw&dur=1899
Ben you old stick you have found the secret files and now we know why the Syrians need to be bombed the heck out of. Oh the humanity, have you seen that Bird? It is even worse than, worse than the Big Bird in Sesame Street!!!
Don’t be disappointed Fred.
I’m sure your beloved British State will join in soon.
Cameron has shown his listening side, and Not Red Ed has shown he is tough.
If only those fascist Scottish Nationalist had voted with the Tories, we could be firing missiles now.
Selfish fascist bastards.
@ MOD/JON
Not my post at 17h36. Would you please delete. Thanks
[Mod: agreed, done. Ta]
Phil: please let me know or your opinion on this website, so I can similarly disregard it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-27/meet-saudi-arabias-bandar-bin-sultan-puppetmaster-behind-syrian-war
@ Mary
“This revolting offensive and disgustingly cruel comment should be taken down.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/08/30358/#comment-
426413″
_______________________
I quite agree. And while you’re at it, you might also condemn people posting and pretending to be me? Obviously a regular on this blog.
Habbabkuk,
Curious – within 20 mins of a real post from yourself someone posts pretending to be you and you don’t notice for about 4 hours. Could whoever pretended to be you know your schedule and that it would be hours before you could respond to a fake post?
@Juteman
I’m not disappointed. I’m overjoyed that the parliamentary process actually worked as it should. I’m glad sanity triumphed over propaganda, I’m delighted my country will not be dropping bombs on anyone without legal justification.
I don’t believe the world is out of the bout of post 2001 insanity yet but we should rejoice at any signs of recovery, all steps in the right direction.
LULZ – Kerry’s insane, glowing chandelier hat. Marie Antoinette at Versailles. And only ally is French socialist. One thing Reagan’s crew did well was presidential optics.
Former peacenik/hippie, now senile missile-rattler Kerry, in testimony before Congress:
“[My fellow American troops] told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”
Has Jane Fonda come out in favour of bombing something, anything, in Syria.
Another senile fart drags out this trope:
“Obama is exposed to intelligence that average Americans will NEVER learn. Furthermore, I am SURE Mr. Obama is not taking this decision lightly. Until more facts are known, I am giving the President the benefit of the doubt.”
I’ve seen posts on other forums by one person pretending to be another. And they got found out, by some kind of examination of ISP addresses, something like that. Anyone more technically-minded than I able to advise on this? Isn’t it possible to look behind the e-mail at the actual computer address it was sent from?
Of course if things are sent from public access computers it won’t help. But it might be worth a try?
Kind regards,
John
@Fred.
Do you really believe the Cammy and Ed show was real?
It was nothing more than a sop to those that think parliamentary democracy is dead.
Oh look, they have different views!
Please.
Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!) 30 Aug, 2013 – 9:22 pm
“you might also condemn people posting and pretending to be me”
We do not need to guess who wrote that comment. Jon the mod has before deleted comments that were impersonating the writer before, which suggests he has a consistent ip address. If someone is impersonating the writer then no doubt jon will delete it again.
@Jon., sorry to call upon you but please assess this. The language certainly sounds like Hab so please just do not delete it because he now regrets it.
John Kerry reads tea leaves and not very well. He read them in 1972 and got lucky. He read them in 2004 and got it wrong. He’s still reading the 2004 war brew with 1972 leaves. He leaves me without comment.
Phil: I’m not sure how accurate the countermeasures for Jon are. I say if there is a scintilla of doubt about the source, let it stand. There is nothing inconsistent.
To add my own tuppence worth, I don’t believe that was the “real” Habbabkuk and thought it fake the moment I read it.
TFS 30 Aug, 2013 – 9:20 pm
“Phil: please let me know or your opinion on this website [zerohedge]”
I don’t really have a view on zerohedge. I am happy to discuss alex jones or the slog if you want.
John Spencer Davis; I know there are folks out there who do not comment. Obviously you watch with some attention. Please let me ask; why do you not comment more often? Just curious.
AA; sorry to be so inquisitive…how is it you are familiar with his schedule? I had thought you were a newcomer.
Ben,
Only Suhayl is the MC of the Tea.
Kerry is an amateur by comparison….:-)
@Juteman
I told you exactly what I thought, I’m glad we won’t be dropping any bombs on innocent Syrian civilians for now. I don’t think that needs any explanation.
Maybe you should be explaining why you aren’t.
Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version) 30 Aug, 2013 – 9:53 pm
“Phil: I’m not sure how accurate the countermeasures for Jon are.”
Maybe jon will be able to tell by ip address. I am only going on the fact that jon quickly and confidently deleted a comment that he deemed impersonating hab before. So I am guessing hab uses consistent ip(s). In which case jon might be able to say wether the offending comment comes from hab’s normal ip or not. If it does come from one of habs ips then case over. If it doesn’t then, in my opinion, it is only fair the comment is deleted.