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.
Ben,
I’ve got no idea of his schedule but I am wondering if the imposter did. And you know if you’ve been paying attention I used to post as just “anon” (as did others) until one particular new “anon” appeared and I didn’t want to associate with that handle and prepended the “Alc”.7
Jon actually suggested I should register a gravatar to make my historical posts stand out. I have considered getting my postcode, phone-number, National Insurance No., Passport No and old UCCA number tattooed on my behind and uploading a pic of that. Luckily there wasn’t room 🙂
@ AlcAnon
“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?”
_________________
Impeccable, watertight reasoning there.
You and your buddies know perfectly well that the post at 17h36 wasn’t from me, so stop pretending.
Good decision AA; There are far too many ‘anons’ and far too many suspicions. It’s sad, really.
FFS Habbabkuk – I’ve already said I don’t believe it was from you. I don’t speak for anyone else.
“You and your buddies know perfectly well that the post at 17h36 wasn’t from me, so stop pretending.”
Jon will determine. If you are absolved, you might consider how you could be so easily ‘socked’ by someone who knows your schedule. You do seem to have regular hours like a salaried employee.
Or do you steal from your employer by posting during unrelated work hours?
@ AlcAnon
I only saw yours of 21h53 after I posted my comment addressed to you and so am happy to exempt you from the pretending charge.
To P(h)illock, who wrote :
“The language certainly sounds like Hab….”
I can only say you must be joking. I recommend a short course in critical reading, with special attention to grammar, syntax and vocabulary.
With a heavy heart, the BBC tonight tells us that any action against Syria is one “that Britain will take no part in.”
What is this – the World Cup? We didn’t qualify for the finals cos of those pesky MPs?
Awww, we no part ah da bombing, we no at da parteeee…
Poor John Simpson won’t be able to liberate Damascus.
I feel for the guy; it’s a blow at his age.
Have you heard the shite coming out of the news rooms in UK?
These warmongering fuckwits ought to be put on trial alongside the likes of Milosevic. The only time the rule of law and will of the people have been relevant and current in UK in a long time by a total accident, these lickspittles are still carrying on their earlier brief of SIS!
What kind of a fucking democracy is it that is getting shoved down our throats?
Obama is pushed from pillar to post, and Kerry is talking about fucking missiles getting fired! Did no one tell the old lanky tosser it is a fucking civil war, and there is shit loads of missiles getting fired, everyday?
WMD has changed its meaning, these days 300 or fifteen hundred dead are classed as Mass Destruction! FFS that figure is a fraction of the millions of Iraqis killed, and there the US did not do “body count”!
The current out of control US is no longer tethered to reality and is in a tail spin steadily nearing a total collapse, as the fiasco of attacks on Syria shows, these fuckwits can no longer organise a piss up in a brewery, yet they seem to be free to go bomb the fuck out of some third word country that is not a threat or danger to anyone!
“You and your buddies know perfectly well that the post at 17h36 wasn’t from me, so stop pretending.”
Hmmmmm.
Don’t like getting bombed for something you didn’t do, eh.
Even habby’s accidents are on topic.
@ various
I’m intrigued by all this talk of my “schedule”. And don’t really know what you mean by it, unless you find ‘proof’ of a schedule in the fact that I post on and off during the day and evening, avoiding very early in the morning or the wee hours or the middle of the night.
As for Ben’s cheap implication that I’m stealing my employer’s time, well, I’m happy to be able to inform him that I don’t need to work. Independent means (and no, I don’t mean a retainer from MI6/CIA/Mossad 🙂 )
Anyway, let’s wait to see what Mod/Jon comes up with – if he can be bothered. It would be nice if he could actually find out who the culprit was, but I suppose that the latter will have managed to hide his tracks somehow.
And that’s the last I’m going to say about this.
Listening to BBC 10pm News now, and a virtual inquest is under way into why the vote went lurching uncontrollably into shit-street last night. John Kerry is being quoted as if he is some Old Testament Prophet with a hotline to God, the implication being that the Mother of Parliaments has gone wildly astray and should be wound up in short order. Much play being made of the potential damage to the “Special Relationship” and GB’s replacement in this by-of all countries-France! Any propaganda machine in any totalitarian state might be impressed. “Expect a mounting barrage of propaganda on the need for action on Syria. This is just the start.” As Craig wrote, so it is.
Fred
“Not when the Nationalist argument is that the dysfunctional Westminster parliament keeps getting us into wars against our will.”
I think that might be a plank of the SNPs argument, but being big in the world is the only thing the UK offers the Scots.
As the UK declines in the world, then you must expect that bits will fall off.
Kerry is an absolute wanker, he should let his arse rest a bit and stop talking out of it so much!
Assad is now killing thousands, fuck that make it hundreds of thousands, hell millions upon millions, and is Hitler and even worst than Saddam Hitler, and hell Iran, North Korea, and Red Indians, Remember the Japanese, pearl harbour and not forgetting the birds of Hitchcock they will all be emboldened and want to make us speak Sharaia and become communists too!
@ Fedup
Are you incapable of doing anything properly?
Even a good rant?
I refer, of course, to the total absence of any obscenity from the 5th paragraph of your post at 22h27.
Same rich French bloke Bernard-Henri Levy who shouted down Tony Benn on CNN last night is now on Newsnight. Is he the only Frenchman allowed on tv right now?
“To add my own tuppence worth, I don’t believe that was the “real” Habbabkuk and thought it fake the moment I read it.”
Me 2. And if he says he didn’t post it, we should take his word for it. Just as Mary’s word was taken that she didn’t post at stormfront.
‘Bout time we dropped that label, Mr/Mrs Porkfright.
“We have a SPECIAL relationship.”
That’s some creepy shit right there.
Responding to Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (Unleaded Version)
“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.”
Thank you. It was unexpected and rather pleasant to be addressed directly. I’ve been giving your question some thought.
I’ve commented before, perhaps some five or six times, I think. Usually I comment only when I believe I have some practical suggestion to assist the forum. Once or twice I may have been sufficiently moved or annoyed by something I have read to put in my two penn’orth. I only comment when I genuinely feel I have something worthwhile to say, which I’m afraid isn’t often. I certainly hold strong opinions about most of the topics I see discussed on this forum. However, I would not want to hang them out for everyone to see without solid, factual backing. When I prepare writings for my workplace, for instance, I say very little that I can’t back up with solid references for precisely why I believe what I do believe. If I commented here I would want to do the same thing, and I simply cannot put in the time and effort required to do that. I hope I am clear-sighted enough to see that my own prejudices and biases (which naturally I think are right, otherwise I wouldn’t hold them) are not interesting to other people unless I can give jolly good reason for them.
Sorry for the length of the post! Hate talking about myself! But I didn’t want to leave you unanswered.
Kind regards,
John
AlcAnon, did you see the wanker?
The cunts like him should be put before the international criminal court and charged with crimes against peace! I look forward to the day that I can jeer the cunt in and out of the court!
=====
Very true.
=====
@ hasbawanker
Fuck you go shove your head into the toilet and flush!
Halfasandwich
John Spencer-Davis 30 Aug, 2013 – 10:51 pm
“I only comment when I genuinely feel I have something worthwhile to say, which I’m afraid isn’t often.”
Ouch. The world and this blog would be a better place if we could all be so. I include myself. Thanks.
Fedup always seems to kick off at pub closing time.
Thanks, Jives (at 10pm today).
@ AlcAnon
You shouldn’t pay too much attention to Bernard-Henri Lévy. He’s a total fraud and has been comprehensively exposed as such by a fellow French intellectual (I forget his name but I reckon you can find it eg in the Wikipedia article on BHL). And, oh! that dark suit and the white shirt unbuttoned half way dow his chest….vulgar, vulgar, vulgar.
The newsnight is making me feel sorry for Cameron!
gavin esler has his head so far up the Yanks arse, it is a fucking miracle his voice can be picked up by the mic.
“Such an inept prime minister” he says, indeed! Cameron should have declared fucking Martial law and sent the navy along to back the Yanks on their bombing jolly!
I want my fucking license money back!!! I don’t need to listen to this kind of an sycophantic propaganda shit, even after the fucking phoney baloney Parliament has voted!
Good riddance to the “special relationship”, a relationship in which we get the shaft without a reach around is not all that special after all, is it?
The Scotsman playing its propagandist lying role as per…
Read the opening paragraph-and then read the full article.
Nowhere does Kerry provide proof,nowhere at all.
Shame on you Scotsman,shame on you.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/us-and-france-set-for-strikes-on-syria-1-3068729
Just one more comment on this impersonation business, now I have caught up with the topic again. Taking Phil’s comment at 10:05 pm:
“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.”
That seems sensible enough to me, but it was not quite the point I was making. If there has been an impersonation then the likelihood is that someone on the forum is responsible. An examination of the address behind the posting might well show not only that Hab was unlikely to be responsible for the posting (not one of his ips) but might catch the joker who was (because identical to the ips of someone else on the forum). In which case I think we ought to know about it, and I think Craig or the moderator should boot the offender off the forum. I don’t like impersonators: doing something like that can be very damaging.
Kind regards,
John
Habby
Right about BHL.
Have you got a fav philosopher, habby?
The British American For The Successor Generation.
Founded 1985.
A who’s who of British media amongst its alumni.
Paxman is but one of their poster boys…
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2007/12/pilger-bap-values-british
hello, everyone. Habbabkuk; without prejudice, could you explain why that post could not have been from you?
thanks