I have a guilty political secret. I do not detest Gordon Brown. That is such an unfashionable opinion that I don’t really expect any comments at all to agree with it. And yes, I do realise that he went along with the Iraq War and all the other horrors of the Blair era. Interestingly, I don’t remember the question of what Gordon Brown really thought about Iraq ever being discussed; he deserves condemnation for having not tried to stop it, and perhaps he was indeed an enthusiast. And I am well aware that the Private Finance Initiative is a terrible disaster, and that he oversaw creeping privatisation in the health services, and – worst of all – the introduction of tuition fees.
And yet I cannot dislike him. Probably because I just know too many people who have known him through decades, who are themselves good people, and who like him. Around Edinburgh and Fife you will find it hard to find people who actually know him who share the hatred and contempt he seems to arouse among the political and media classes of London.
As a general rule I do not like or dislike people according to their politics, but rather according to the sincerity of their political beliefs and the goodwill with which they hold them. I am sure Anders Breivik is sincere in his political beliefs, but those are lacking in goodwill. Sincerity is not enough – humanity and inclusiveness are also important.
There are one nation Tories who seem to me perfectly decent people, genuinely trying to do good. I don’t hate them because their political conclusions on the best way to do good are different to mine. Gordon Brown I put rather in the same category – I feel he was trying to do good for ordinary people, he just got it wrong.
Blair is in a whole different category again – insincere, absolutely focused on attaining personal power, and with a Messianic belief that what is good for him must be good for the World. The Guardian is publishing some emails around the Blair Brown rivalry this week. I don’t care and won’t read them. But while I see Blair as quite properly damned for eternity to the seventh pit of hell, I don’t think Brown deserves anything worse than North Queensferry.
I have been in Ghana the last 20 days living in a house with no internet connection and working (extremely hard) in an office with virtually no internet connection – not enough to load WordPress. I hope to get more chance to blog shortly.
Jon, no need to be defensive, micro-manage how and what people comment, or be intimidated by a ‘heavy atmosphere’, such that you should feel you want to hang someone without warning or a concession to appeal.
As for Craig’s busy-ness and lack of engagement, with respect, i suspect it has more to do with his reliance upon you and the possible lack of your briefing him on your contentious extreme step in his absence.
And i must say i find the latter part of your above sentence, “rather than sitting around doing deafening silences!” to be incredibly childish. Habbabkuk took with him whatever little humour there was on this now dreary blog. As i said, one-trick ponies.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
“WMD In My Backyard”
http://whitedeercafe.blogspot.de/2008/04/wmd-in-my-backyard.html
Very cosy.
Israel’s Mossad guarded President Uhuru in his UK visit
May 13, 2013 · 6 Comments
JAMBONEWSPOT.COM can now reliably confirm that Israel’s security unit Mossad played a huge role providing security to President Uhuru Kenyatta during his UK visit earlier this month.
Mossad is an intelligence community in Israel that reports directly to Prime Minister Benjamin “BIBI” Netanyahu. The group whose name means “The Institute” is responsible for covert operations, intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism.
Further, sources confirm that President Uhuru was highly mistrusted British Security and hence decided to go a step further to beef his security entourage to include the hawk-eyed operatives.
Providing more details were a number of Kenyans in the UK who also noticed that the men who were frisking them at the entrance of the Intercontinental Hotel Parklane, did not resemble UK security.
The Israeli intelligence unit is said to have been thorough at the entrance and this is one of the reasons that Kenyans experienced slow moving lines at the entrance as well as a delay in the start of the programme.
The unit was also very visible in the meeting inside the hotel.
Many Kenyans also had questions as to why British PM David Cameron suddenly invited President Uhuru for the UK trip. Though this may not necessarily be anything to raise alarm bells, a number of Kenyans were baffled by the sudden turnaround by the UK government who had categorically insisted that they would only have “minimal contact” with President Uhuru should he be elected.
Sources also reveal that UK ambassador to Kenya went to great lengths to secure a meeting with President Uhuru at State House Nairobi.
When the Israeli Defence Forces” IDF” staged the Entebbe Raid in 1976, they acted on intelligence provided by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
http://www.jambonewspot.com/israels-mossad-guarded-president-uhuru-in-his-uk-visit/
Mary
It is a fact of life in many countries that people leave explosives on public transport and in public places or even turn public transport into explosives – perhaps we should place the blame on those who perpetrate these acts rather than those who warn us to be vigilant against terrorism. I have two friends who have lost a relative and a housemate to such episodes – try explaining that to a child as I had to do so in one of those cases.
@Villager try the following “ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”
Your the one making it dreary keep talking about trolls.
Let it go man.
“ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”
Jon, i should add, thank you for engaging directly with me. But you do appear reluctant to engage with loyal Mary who can’t seem to present her constant copy-pastes in block quotes or inverted commas, and thereby gloss-over your standards. While you’re at it, you might request her to keep ’em brief and provide the link to minimise the effect of unhinged interjections.
Expat what do you want to let go? What is the it? You may answer, with or without your hypnosis.
@at resdis
I thought we were getting a break from you? what do owe this pleasure?
“If you want to reduce terrorism – don’t participate in it”
Noam Chomsky
Le uve sono acida quest’anno
La vita non e bella
********************$
Or words to that effect!
“to muzzle one of the greater intellectuals here”
RIP HAZ-BEEN!
Oh, oh. There’s speculation, and that’s all it is at this point, that some of the Kenyan mall terrorists are American citizens.
Does that not give the Kenyan government the absolute right under current international law to target suspected Minnesotans with drones? Does Kenya have any drones?
What utter nonsense and bollox?
Throughout the IRA bombing campaigns, there were no such “public announcements”. Just how many terror attacks have been taken place in UK?
There are more people who have drowned in their bath waters, fallen to their deaths climbing stairs, ….. As yet there are no warning on the staircases, or side of the bathtubs. There are no wars on staircases and even less wars on the bathtubs.
Your agenda of fearmongering, has less and less buyers.
BTW did you explain to the child in the example that due to the illegal occupation, and oppression of vast swaths of people, and disenfranchising the said people to the degrees that their recourse to violence was the only expression left for these to engage in any political actions/dissent?
Although we the people are not allowed/permitted/approved/authorized/licensed to even hint at such realities, after all, injustice is akin to chlamydia; it spreads indiscriminately and pretty fast.
No Palestinian child needed any explanations as to why his dad/brother/sister/mother was shot dead by a supremacist vigilante thug in uniform! No Palestinian child is ever explained to why the sonic boom of the free fighter jets (paid for by the US tax payers funds) under the command of the said supremacist vigilante in uniform is frighting the wits out of them? There again Palestinians are just “insects and cockroaches”.
“US Government Protection of Al-Qaeda Terrorists and the US-Saudi Black Hole”
Peter Dale Scott
http://japanfocus.org/site/view/3971
Is it true that Muslims in the Westgate mall in Nairobi are questioning people to find out whether they are Muslims, and killing the non-Muslims?
Or is it a lie, like the lie that the group holding the prisoners at Entebbe in 1976 separated Jews from non-Jews?
That lie, by the way, was exposed 35 years later.
So if it’s a lie in Nairobi, maybe we’ll hear the truth by 2048?
Certainly most Muslims in the West aren’t Christophobes; and most followers of the Jewish religion are. But perhaps some Muslims in Africa are too?
Villager, at 8:28pm, today, on the mass murder of Christian Pakistanis in Peshawar today.
One of my acquaintances – a journalist based in Pakistan – has just lost two relatives in that blast today. Two lives, just blotted out.
There are two Jundullahs. Jundullah – the group that has claimed responsibility for this church massacre – is a different lot of Islamist paramilitary bastards from the Jundullah funded and supported by the USA, UK and ISI. That US/UK/ISI-sponsored theocratic death squad is based in Baluchistan, Pakistan and Balochistan, Iran and southern Afghanistan. The theocratic death squad that claims responsibility for this mass murder of Christian Pakistanis is based in Pakhtunwala (the old NWFP) and are likely to be funded/sponsored/armed by Pakistan’s ISI. Oh, and both are likely to be funded/supported by Saudi Arabia.
Whodunnit? I mean, who ordered their paramilitary Islamist bastards to do this?
“An assault of such scale and audacity could be a turning point for Sharif after months of inconclusive efforts to engage the Pakistani Taliban in talks, offering him a cue to give in to the tougher approach backed by the military.
The army, which keeps thousands of troops in the tribal belt, an area where insurgents are based, opposes talks with the Pakistani Taliban, saying previous attempts to bring the militants to the negotiating table yielded no results.” [from Reuters article]
But the Army/hard state are also the sponsors of these same “militants”. A double game. The army are telling the civilian politicians: ‘You won’t be able to move without our say-so; don’t get ideas above your station. Those Jihadist whores are our whores, not your whores.’
So, it may simply be one faction in the ruling junta (or their paramilitary whores) leveraging their position in relation to another. It’s just a game to them all. Two lives, blotted out. Seventy-eight lives, blotted out. There will be more and more of this. Nothing will change.
http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/WhoisSupportingJundullahsTerrorCampaignandWhy_BChandramohan_061109
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/22/us-pakistan-blast-idUSBRE98L02K20130922
Good thing Dave Rhodes managed to get his ne’er-do-well little brother Benny a job! Benny is perfect for it: wouldn’t know UN Charter Article 2(4) from a bar of soap, so he can explain how illegal threats of force achieve some bewildering word salad that is good. Maybe Benny got taught to write but he didn’t learn to read. He can’t read the agreement that Kerry signed, and that helps him make shit up!
Little Benny’s CIA ventriloquists even get him to piss on the UN Charter with an ‘option’ of breaching jus cogens, which Benny thinks is a kind of roast beef, with aggression, the crime that comprehends all others. “And again even as we are pursuing that course of action through the U.N., we’ve made clear that given our concerns about chemical weapons, we are not forsaking the option of the United States and our allies taking military action in support of the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons.”
A spokesmodel like this, flying high on nepotism and Dunning-Kruger, is just the kind of chump you set up to take the fall in the international criminal tribunal in case you lose one too many wars.
Witness the pity and terror of a guy in way far over his head:
http://www.officialwire.com/pr/ben-rhodes-deputy-national-security-advisor-for-strategic-communications-on-the-presidents-trip-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly/
@fedup: “Your agenda of fearmongering, has less and less buyers.”
Ever since the gas attacks in Syria the old media in the US has been in despair, lamenting Americans were for the first time unmoved by vids of dying children, sad that Americans are just tired of war.
Now there are repeated warnings that we must not believe ex-Commie, ex-KGB agent Putin who is an autocratic, lying tyrant, or Assad who is a ruthless, lying despot, or Rouhani who, like all wily Iranians, might be less than sincere.
On a parallel track these same old-timers are distraught and outraged that the Navy Yard shootings, or gang shootings in Chicago, have not incensed citizens to demand more and better gun laws, with people now accepting such killings as mundane.
President Obama appeared at a memorial for the Navy Yard victims and he paid lip-service, demanding something must be done, more to satisfy his leftist base, than with any conviction it will be.
N_, you have hit a genre of the story that seems to be reinforced by the bombings in Pakistan. Although from the track record of the “Tayyyrrroorists”, these seem to be not so good in organising a knees up in brewery (fucking hell I am getting polite these days, fucking knees up, wheeehhey), or as Sofia used to say; to manage a barbecue in a herd of goats. The synchronism is uncanny.
Far too organised won’t you agree?
Suhaly, can you be more specific about Pakhtunwala?
BTW my condolences to the poor bastard who lost his friends. It is really disgusting the way the al saud pederasts are wreaking havoc in the area, without much difficulties. These bastards seem to be at the roots of all the carnage unfolding in the central Asia, and the mid east.
Also it should helpful if you verify jundullah means “army of god”. Further, as we all know ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) has connection to the CIA, although the stories of the rouge generals seems to be designed to keep a lid on the simmering Pakistani public resentments. What do you think?
Also the two Jundullahs you mentioned, clearly shows there is a a degree of rivalry between these factions, can you further elaborate on this?
Suhayl, sorry to hear of your friend’s loss. I agree with your analysis. Its a very despearte sad state of affairs and, yes, eventually PAKMIL is duplicitously at the centre of it. You would have heard that Baradar was released too last week. There seems to be a sense of desperation building up as the US draws down. And thank you also for raising the Saudi connection.
I sense and empathise with your frustration — its such a sorry state of affairs for the ordinary folk of Pakistan, they really do deserve our deepest sympathies but it won’t be forthcoming from our Eminent one-trick ponies. But God bless you for educating the ignorant.
PS Jon, note engagement of real dialogue initiated well before your encouragement. Deeply sad as the circumstances are, its good to be spreading our compassion. I wonder if the saudis had focussed more on Palestine whether they could not have helped their Palestinian brothers to a solution yonks ago.
“Suhaly, can you be more specific about Pakhtunwala?”
How does that line in Sound of Music go: “Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start”
And that 12 years after the start of the Afghan War? Unbelievable! Confirmation that i am right about the one-trick ponies here.
Btw you might get Suhayl’s name right. You’re not one of those that struggles with ‘foreign’ names are you?
@ Nevermind,
Q: (like any other island mentality challenged nation)
R: Ya, what’s with that? The inhabitants of both small and big islands have these treats of ‘us’ versus ‘they/them/you’ mentality [broadly/generally spoken].
I dunno if you’ve watched South Park’s ‘Going Native’ episode [season 16, episode 11], but it was ff-ng hilarious and reminds me of some fellow forum
predatorsmembers’ mind set and attitude.Nobody feels joy when people die [well, at least ordinary folks or idiots like you and me don’t, I guess], so, when a mudslide happens and destroys homes and lives, we should figure out why it happened, how it happened and how to either prevent it from happening again or if we can’t, figure out a way to stay out of harm’s way, as simple as that.
Some individuals’ actions here do remind me of the ‘minders’ who ‘helped’ me out in countries where truth is seen as a pure and evil venom. Therefore, in actuality, those ‘free’ tours led nowhere. It’s so easy to cut through the facades of instilled fear that it becomes sickening to watch people trying to inject it into the minds of others in what’s supposed to be the ‘free world.’ No ff-ing difference.
“Why did I join this forum? Because I want to discuss s*** with a Moderator. Ha!” – Anonymous.
And Expat, you too when you’re out of your lazy stupor are permitted to return mindfully and pay your respects to the Peshawar victims and families affected by this mindless carnage.
And you demean the Om by dragging it in here while hallucinating on trolls. You’re not one of those New Agers whose paid a few bucks for your TM mantra are you?
Villager, you seem quite incapable of discussing something without some new rudeness or hostility, against me or others here. It’s not only unnecessary, it’s counterproductive. I’ve no idea what you believe you might achieve by it.
For all the unpleasantness directed at me personally, I’ve been more than patient – and you will have noticed I don’t retaliate with rudeness in return. For the time being, I will stop responding to you, since it plainly does not serve any purpose for me to do so.
Suhayl, sorry to hear of your friend’s loss
And to the same Root financier’s, as all the rest of the evils,
Jon, as a right thinking person, i am naturally peeved by the way you have handled your moderation. Shortly before you axed Habby i pointed out to you the villagec*** stuff but you left it standing and instead feigned that it was difficult and unpleasant for you to wade thru shit 24/7, which i appreciate. But, why, when this disgraceful crap was pointed out did you not take any action? Whenever these sort of pointed inactions are raised, you choose to avoid them, but then come around later and complain as you are now. You may be right from your prism, but I find my communication with you is dysfunctional and not ‘at the level’ and undermined by the fact that you have the ‘power’.
Please accept your unfortunate ‘tricycling triumvirate’ remark was out of order, especially in your role as as an objective moderator. Engage with the darned thing for once and get on with life. As for the Habby issue, i (and some others) think you were too hasty and reactive. The right thing to do would be to consult with Craig and with dignity for all rescind this EXTREME step. I doubt very much that Craig would’ve taken that step himself, so in my judgment of his liberal standards this should take two-minutes to resolve….it need not be a long agonising decision. Habby was merely trying to make a point, an argument — he had no record of any animosity toward A Node who was in fact being very anal towards Kempe if i remember correctly.
As for engaging, i invited you to do so above as follows: “Jon, …. Deeply sad as the circumstances are, its good to be spreading our compassion. I wonder if the saudis had focussed more on Palestine whether they could not have helped their Palestinian brothers to a solution yonks ago.” You chose not to respond.
If there is something unfair i have alleged, let’s engage with it specifically, unlike your last comment with very broad brushes which leave me unable to deal with or respond to the strands in any intelligible way. I promise to do so pleasantly if we are talking at the level if you see what i mean. Meantime, you’ll forgive me if i call a spade a spade unlike some who are caught at the ‘fuckwit’ level. Pleasant evening…
The advocate general and the moaner in chief now turns to correction stasi!
WTF is it to you? Are you fucking called Suhaly?
“One trick pony” projections galore you are filling the fucking thread with utter shite and moans. Funny as fuck the transactions go;
Then “One trick pony” whines;
There is more;
Still not finished with moaning and snipping;
Hang on! It was all a warm up act so far;
Bitching even more, now comes the blog owners turn
Still there is more;
In walks Mod, supplicating;
What happens next?
More snipping just to be sure, to be sure;
But hang on! There is more snipping to be done;
The tireless whiner and moaning tosser goes on;
But there is still more snipping and sarcastic venom;
Not worn out yet, on goes the whining;
PMSL, then Mod interjects;
[Mod: para removed, abusive]
Why do we need to put up with these sorts around this blog?
[Mod: para removed; I understand the sentiment, but please don’t escalate into a war. Thanks]
One got to love Gordon Brown for being an “Israel Firster”.
It was Prime Minister Gordon Brown who gave birth to the plan to stop the issue of arrest warrants for foreign officials such as Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and other Israeli war criminals who were forced to cancel planned trips to London after arrest warrants were issued against them. Under Brown’s proposals, the Crown Prosecution Service will take over responsibility for prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law. Currently magistrates have to consider the case for an arrest warrant to be issued.
http://rehmat1.com/2010/05/13/hague-i-will-fight-iran-for-israel/
The Kenyan Mall, like hotel Paradise Mumbasa, is owned by Israeli company. On November 22, 2002, the hotel was attacked by a group of terrorists and the phony Al-Qaeda was blamed by the Zionist-controlled mainstream media to hide Israeli involvement.
On October 14, 2005, Israeli journalist Omri Hasenheim wrote from Kenya: “In hotel Paradise Mombassa, crew members were humiliated by the Israeli tourists. It’s no surprise that even after the 2002 terror attack on the hotel, they refuse to forgive, not Al-Qa’eda but rather us (the Israelis).”
http://rehmat1.com/2012/08/29/mombasa-mossad-strikes-again/
“Riga Talk about Spies, Whistleblowers and the Media”
http://anniemachon.ch/annie_machon/2013/09/riga-talk-about-spies-whistleblowers-and-the-media.html