Syria and Diplomacy 2917


The problem with the Geneva Communique from the first Geneva round on Syria is that the government of Syria never subscribed to it.  It was jointly chaired by the League of Arab States for Syria, whatever that may mean.  Another problem is that it is, as so many diplomatic documents are, highly ambiguous.  It plainly advocates a power sharing executive formed by some of the current government plus the opposition to oversee a transition to democracy.  But it does not state which elements of the current government, and it does not mention which elements of the opposition, nor does it make plain if President Assad himself is eligible to be part of, or to head, the power-sharing executive, and whether he is eligible to be a candidate in future democratic elections.

Doubtless the British, for example, would argue that the term transition implies that he will go.  The Russians will argue there is no such implication and the text does not exclude anybody from the process.  Doubtless also diplomats on all sides were fully aware of these differing interpretations and the ambiguity is quite deliberate to enable an agreed text. I would say that the text tends much more to the “western” side, and that this reflects the apparently weak military position of the Assad regime at that time and the then extant threat of western military intervention.  There has been a radical shift in those factors against the western side in the interim. Expect Russian interpretations now to get more hardline.

Given the extreme ambiguity of the text, Iran has, as it frequently does, shot itself in the foot diplomatically by refusing to accept the communique as the basis of talks and thus getting excluded from Geneva.  Iran should have accepted the communique, and then at Geneva issued its own interpretation of it.

But that is a minor point.  The farcical thing about the Geneva conference is that it is attempting to promote into power-sharing in Syria “opposition” members who have no democratic credentials and represent a scarcely significant portion of those actually fighting the Assad regime in Syria.  What the West are trying to achieve is what the CIA and Mossad have now achieved in Egypt; replacing the head of the Mubarak regime while keeping all its power structures in place. The West don’t really want democracy in Syria, they just want a less pro-Russian leader of the power structures.

The inability of the British left to understand the Middle East is pathetic.  I recall arguing with commenters on this blog who supported the overthrow of the elected President of Egypt Morsi on the grounds that his overthrow was supporting secularism, judicial independence (missing the entirely obvious fact the Egyptian judiciary are almost all puppets of the military) and would lead to a left wing revolutionary outcome.  Similarly the demonstrations against Erdogan in Istanbul, orchestrated by very similar pro-military forces to those now in charge in Egypt, were also hailed by commenters here.  The word “secularist” seems to obviate all sins when it comes to the Middle East.

Qatar will be present at Geneva, and Qatar has just launched a pre-emptive media offensive by launching a dossier on torture and murder of detainees by the Assad regime, which is being given first headline treatment by the BBC all morning

There would be a good dossier to be issued on torture in detention in Qatar, and the lives of slave workers there, but that is another question.

I do not doubt at all that atrocities have been committed and are being committed by the Assad regime.  It is a very unpleasant regime indeed.  The fact that atrocities are also being committed by various rebel groups does not make Syrian government atrocities any better.

But whether 11,000 people really were murdered in a single detainee camp I am unsure.  What I do know is that the BBC presentation of today’s report has been a disgrace.  The report was commissioned by the government of Qatar who commissioned Carter Ruck to do it.  Both those organisations are infamous suppressors of free speech.  What is reprehensible is that the BBC are presenting the report as though it were produced by neutral experts, whereas the opposite is the case.  It is produced not by anti torture campaigners or by human rights activists, but by lawyers who are doing it purely and simply because they are being paid to do it.

The BBC are showing enormous deference to Sir Desmond De Silva, who is introduced as a former UN war crimes prosecutor.  He is indeed that, but it is not the capacity in which he is now acting.  He is acting as a barrister in private practice.  Before he was a UN prosecutor, he was for decades a criminal defence lawyer and has defended many murderers.  He has since acted to suppress the truth being published about many celebrities, including John Terry.

If the Assad regime and not the government of Qatar had instructed him and paid him, he would now be on our screens arguing the opposite case to that he is putting.  That is his job.  He probably regards that as not reprehensible.  What is reprehensible is that the BBC do not make it plain, but introduce him as a UN war crimes prosecutor as though he were acting in that capacity or out of concern for human rights.  I can find no evidence of his having an especial love for human rights in the abstract, when he is not being paid for it.  He produced an official UK government report into the murder of Pat Finucane, a murder organised by British authorities, which Pat Finucane’s widow described as a “sham”.  He was also put in charge of quietly sweeping the Israeli murders on the Gaza flotilla under the carpet at the UN.

The question any decent journalist should be asking him is “Sir Desmond De Silva, how much did the government of Qatar pay you for your part in preparing this report?  How much did it pay the other experts?  Does your fee from the Government of Qatar include this TV interview, or are you charging separately for your time in giving this interview?  In short how much are you being paid to say this?”

That is what any decent journalist would ask.  Which is why you will never hear those questions on the BBC.

 

 

 


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2,917 thoughts on “Syria and Diplomacy

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  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    John. I’m sorry to have to disappiont you. But, the Shaman says I should keep my head down in Wathafekia for another one and three quarter years to save getting you into big trouble. There’s also the small matter of Komodo. Gone, but never forgtotten. You would’nt want to upset a 91kg reptile with appauling halitosis and a taste for tricyclists….would you?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    John

    What you don’t seem to understand is the following: if around 26.000 people were killed in Dresden and around 260.000 in Germany as a whole, then you must not attempt to mislead by suggesting that the 260.000 figure relates to Dresden only.

    It’s quite simple, isn’t it?

    Or perhaps the lack of clarity demonstrated by some Eminences when posting is contagious?

    _________________________

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Glenn-uk

    “Perhaps you might explain what my personal position on Chinese fossil fuel consumption has to do with the reality of climate change.”

    _________________________

    Glenn, you have obviously overlooked the following from the inimitable Fred:

    “we will now campaign for justice for the people of Palestine.”

    I think you should have a quiet word with him regarding what his personal position on Israel Palestine has to do with the reality of the situation on the ground.

    Ditto with all the other Eminences who find little else to post about here.

  • John Goss

    Sofia, you brought a big crocodile tear to my eye with the mention of the name Komodo. Whatever happened to the scaly-backed creature? A little secret for you: we were close, me and K. It was when he ate one of his own offspring and gave me an invitation to a Bilderberg ritual on Walpurgis night that I thought now is the ‘time to get out’. And I’m still here. There are some that aren’t. 91k. I knew he was big!

    One and three quarter years! My, oh my. I knew your father tried to rule with an iron fist. I can wait.

  • A Node

    Oops sorry everybody, I lit Res diss’s blue touch paper on Friday night then disappeared for the day.

    Resident Dissident.
    You’ve posted a thousand words in twenty posts about Dieudonné’s interview and you haven’t challenged a word he said. All you’re interested in is whether he’s anti-Semitic or not. As though everything he says can be dismissed if you can make the label stick. That’s not reasoned debate, it’s name calling.

    Dieudonné believes that France, the UK, the US and most Western countries are controlled by Zionists. I agree with him. If you’d like to discuss that subject, I’m willing, but I’m not playing your anti-Semitism game.

  • BrianFujisan

    Guano

    I’m beggining to fucking fall in love with you….

    BrianFujisan

    “Lord Lawson took the money helm after Mrs Thatcher created the world of funny money. He importantised it, psychoanalysed it, verrityfied it, sausage-roll-temperature-ised it and commended it to the global financabbial. In other words he knew it was a scam but that it was a good one.”

    Love the use of Newbourne Wordlets…Schmashing Stuff …But methinks Al Gore wins on that Milarrochy bay score…by some B$i££ions …wee Fkn con Artesticle….

    I had a Fkn MISSION of a fkn day…

    i KNOWS there is an Aurora alert on … so i talks two lady friends into a Fkn FIVE hour Fkn drive oot to the Atlantic….so we Gets there and all seems FANBABBYDOZZY…But the the Winds pick up… and Horazontal Fkn Rain n Snow… The Two Birds Flounce off to the Fuckin Shops, whilst i making videos, and Fuck knows where they are ..Wee Fkers…

    Then my pal on ferry cant get aff the Fkn SS Voyager…cos they have an added Mission to take over from the Fkn ss mull ( the Isle of Mull)….Cos the Isle of Mull got her Prop entangled in Some careless cnts Fkn Bhoy n rope….

    So we Fkn waits on him to make the trip to Mull n Back…then he still can’t get off cos the fkn thing has rush against stormy CRAP…to reach South Uist….

    THEN YA GOTTA FKN DRIVE FOR OTHER FKN ROAD USERS…. Full FUKIN Bean on Black Highland roads..get the fkn Katana oot Cnts….

    BUT one has to regard the BRIGHT side…we are all no Naked in the open air Jacuzzi… with a wee Dram….and noo the moon is dancing with clouds..Fkn Bliss….

    Peace n Fkn Love all… That is FREE LOVE..Clark…Pass the Joint man…Fkn pink floyd on too…To the Fkn Troll Fk Em all… But Peace Mind…xxxxx

  • BrianFujisan

    John

    What you don’t seem to understand is the following: if around 26.000 people were killed in Dresden and around 260.000 in Germany as a whole, then you must not attempt to mislead by suggesting that the 260.000 figure relates to Dresden only.

    It’s quite simple, isn’t it?

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella…you are ONE Horrible Little Cunt

    February 13/14 1945: Holocaust over Dresden, known as the Florence of the North. Dresden was a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not one military unit, not one anti-aircraft battery was deployed in the city. Together with the 600.000 refugees from Breslau, Dresden was filled with nearly 1.2 million people. Churchill had asked for “suggestions how to blaze 600.000 refugees”. He wasn’t interested how to target military installations 60 miles outside of Dresden. More than 700.000 phosphorus bombs were dropped on 1.2 million people. One bomb for every 2 people. The temperature in the centre of the city reached 1600 o centigrade. More than 260.000 bodies and residues of bodies were counted. But those who perished in the centre of the city can’t be traced. Approximately 500.000 children, women, the elderly, wounded soldiers and the animals of the zoo were slaughtered in one night.

    Normally, a carnival atmosphere prevailed in Dresden on Shrove Tuesday. In 1945, however, the outlook was rather dismal. Houses everywhere overflowed with refugees, and thousands were forced to camp out in the streets shivering in the bitter cold.

    However, the people felt relatively safe; and although the mood was grim, the circus played to a full house that night as thousands came to forget for a moment the horrors of war. Bands of little girls paraded about in carnival dress in an effort to bolster warning spirits. Half-sad smiles greeted the laughing girls, but spirits were lifted.

    No one realized that in less than 24 hours those same innocent children would die screaming in Churchill’s firestorms. But, of course, no one could know that then. The Russians, to be sure, were savages, but at least the Americans and British were “honorable.”

    What where Churchill’s motives? They appear to have been political, rather than military. Historians unanimously agree that Dresden had no military value. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china.

    But the Yalta Conference was coming up, in which the Soviets and their Western allies would sit down like ghouls to carve up the shattered corpse of Europe. Churchill wanted a trump card–a devastating “thunderclap of Anglo-American annihilation”–with which to “impress” Stalin.

    That card, however, was never played at Yalta, because bad weather delayed the originally scheduled raid. Yet Churchill insisted that the raid be carried out–to “disrupt and confuse” the German civilian population behind the lines.

    Dresden’s citizens barely had time to reach their shelters. The first bomb fell at 10:09 p.m. The attack lasted 24 minutes, leaving the inner city a raging sea of fire. “Precision saturation bombing” had created the desired firestorm.

    A firestorm is caused when hundreds of smaller fires join in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames. Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast of white heat–heat intense enough to melt human flesh.

    One eyewitness who survived told of seeing “young women carrying babies running up and down the streets, their dresses and hair on fire, screaming until they fell down, or the collapsing buildings fell on top of them.”

    There was a three-hour pause between the first and second raids. The lull had been calculated to lure civilians from their shelters into the open again. To escape the flames, tens of thousands of civilians had crowded into the Grosser Garten, a magnificent park nearly one and a half miles square.

    The second raid came at 1:22 a.m. with no warning. Twice as many bombers returned with a massive load of incendiary bombs. The second wave was designed to spread the raging firestorm into the Grosser Garten.

    It was a complete “success.” Within a few minutes a sheet of flame ripped across the grass, uprooting trees and littering the branches of others with everything from bicycles to human limbs. For days afterward, they remained bizarrely strewn about as grim reminders of Allied sadism.

    At the start of the second air assault, many were still huddled in tunnels and cellars, waiting for the fires of the first attack to die down. At 1:30 a.m. an ominous rumble reached the ears of the commander of a Labor Service convoy sent into the city on a rescue mission. He described it this way:

    “The detonation shook the cellar walls. The sound of the explosions mingled with a new, stranger sound which seemed to come closer and closer, the sound of a thundering waterfall; it was the sound of the mighty tornado howling in the inner city.”

    MELTING HUMAN FLESH

    Others hiding below ground died. But they died painlessly–they simply glowed bright orange and blue in the darkness. As the heat intensified, they either disintegrated into cinders or melted into a thick liquid–often three or four feet deep in spots.

    Shortly after 10:30 on the morning of February 14, the last raid swept over the city. American bombers pounded the rubble that had been Dresden for a steady 38 minutes. But this attack was not nearly as heavy as the first two.

    However, what distinguished this raid was the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which it was carried out. U.S. Mustangs appeared low over the city, strafing anything that moved, including a column of rescue vehicles rushing to the city to evacuate survivors. One assault was aimed at the banks of the Elbe River, where refugees had huddled during the horrible night.

    In the last year of the war, Dresden had become a hospital town. During the previous night’s massacre, heroic nurses had dragged thousands of crippled patients to the Elbe. The low-flying Mustangs machine-gunned those helpless patients, as well as thousands of old men, women and children who had escaped the city.

    When the last plane left the sky, Dresden was a scorched ruin, its blackened streets filled with corpses. The city was spared no horror. A flock of vultures escaped from the zoo and fattened on the carnage. Rats swarmed over the piles of corpses.

    A Swiss citizen described his visit to Dresden two weeks after the raid: “I could see torn-off arms and legs, mutilated torsos and heads which had been wrenched from their bodies and rolled away. In places the corpses were still lying so densely that I had to clear a path through them in order not to tread on arms and legs.”

    ****************

    Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden when it was bombed in 1945, and wrote a famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, in 1969.

    In February 1945, Vonnegut was witness to another pretty good imitation of Mt Vesuvius; the firebombing by Allied forces of Dresden, the town in eastern Germany, during the last months of the Second World War. More than 600,000 incen-diary bombs later, the city looked more like the surface of the moon. Returning home to India-napolis after the war, Vonnegut began writing short stories for magazines such as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post, and, seven years later, published his first novel, Player Piano. …

    Finally, in 1969, he tackled the subject of war, recounting his experiences as a POW in Dresden, forced to dig corpses from the rubble. The resulting novel was Slaughterhouse Five. Banned in several US states – and branded a “tool of the devil” in North Dakota – it carried the snappy alternative title: “The Children’s Crusade: A Duly Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, a fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much) who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany – the Florence of the Elbe – a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale: this is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizopfrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamodre, where the flying saucers come from, Peace.” ….

    In December 1944, Vonnegut was captured by the German army and became a prisoner of war. In Slaughterhouse Five, he describes how he narrowly escaped death a few months later in the firebombing of Dresden. “Yes, by your people [the English], may I say,” he insists. “You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. I’m fond of your people, on occasion, but I was just thinking about ‘Bomber Harris, who believed in attacks on civilian populations to make them give up. A hell of a lot of Royal Air Force guys were ashamed of what Harris had made them do. And that’s really sportsmanship and, of course, the Brits are famous for being good sports,” he concedes.

    TThe death toll was staggering. The full extent of the Dresden Holocaust can be more readily grasped if one considers that well over 250,000 — possibly as many as a half a million — persons died within a 14-hour period, whereas estimates of those who died at Hiroshima range from 90,000 to 140,000.*

    Allied apologists for the massacre have often “twinned” Dresden with the English city of Coventry. But the 380 killed in Coventry during the entire war cannot begin to compare with over 1,000 times that number who were slaughtered in 14 hours at Dresden. Moreover, Coventry was a munitions center, a legitimate military target. Dresden, on the other hand, produced only china–and cups and saucers can hardly be considered military hardware!

    It is interesting to further compare the respective damage to London and Dresden, especially when we recall all the Hollywood schmaltz about the “London blitz.” In one night, 1,600 acres of land were destroyed in the Dresden massacre. London escaped with damage to only 600 acres during the entire war.

    In one ironic note, Dresden’s only conceivable military target — its railroad yards — was ignored by Allied bombers. They were too busy concentrating on helpless old men, women and children.

    If ever there was a war crime, then certainly the Dresden Holocaust ranks as the most sordid one of all time. Yet there are no movies made today condemning this fiendish slaughter; nor did any Allied airman–or Sir Winston–sit in the dock at Nuremberg. In fact, the Dresden airmen were actually awarded medals for their role in this mass murder. But, of course, they could not have been tried, because there were “only following orders.”

    This is not to say that the mountains of corpses left in Dresden were ignored by the Nuremberg Tribunal. In one final irony, the prosecution presented photographs of the Dresden dead as “evidence” of alleged National Socialist atrocities against Jewish concentration-camp inmates!

    Churchill, the monster who ordered the Dresden slaughter, was knighted, and the rest is history. The cold-blooded sadism of the massacre, however, is brushed aside by his biographers, who still cannot bring themselves to tell how the desire of one madman to “impress” another one let to the mass murder of up to a half million men, women and children.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    John.

    My Komodo. Sigh!

    Last seen lurking beside the cycle lane beside Long Ditton Cemetary, looking hungry and cross.

    You can both come to my 16th birthday party on Sept 3rd 2015. Bring a bottle of Pinot Grigio (Shaman’s favourite), and a wild bore (NOT Dad!).

    Meanwhile…Breaking the Silence. Israeli soldiers talk about the occupied territories: http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database

    Goodnight all.

  • fred

    “Why do you think the UN won’t admit “Palestine” as a full member?”

    Threats, bulliyng and bribery by Israel and the United States. Same way 181 got passed in the first place.

  • fred

    “What you don’t seem to understand is the following: if around 26.000 people were killed in Dresden and around 260.000 in Germany as a whole, then you must not attempt to mislead by suggesting that the 260.000 figure relates to Dresden only.”

    He didn’t, Presstv did. John did give a warning not to believe everything Presstv says but Res Des selectively quoted it to try and con people he had said the opposite.

    Personally I don’t see any difference between someone who quibbles over the number of Jews killed by Germany and the people who quibble over the number of Germans killed by Britain. Both Holocaust deniers.

  • Mary

    Memo to Herr Schulz President of the EU Parliament

    When you next visit IsraeHell do NOT mention the Occupation!

    February 13, 2014
    When reality becomes hate speech: President of EU Parliament visits Israel
    The facts of the occupation are indisputable – it is the words we use to describe those facts that are now being delegitimized.

    An absurd incident took place in the Knesset Wednesday when members of the Jewish Home party walked out of the plenum during a speech by European Parliament President Martin Schulz of Germany.

    During his visit to Israel, President Schulz did just about everything to ingratiate himself with his right-wing hosts, tirelessly reiterating his commitment to the country and promising that a boycott of Israel will never take place. Yet he did make the mistake of mentioning the occupation on the Knesset floor, referring to the fact that Palestinians in the West Bank don’t have the same access to water as Israelis. Schulz was immediately accused of expressing anti-Israeli bias, hate speech, anti-Semitism and just about every imaginable type of crime against the Jewish people. Prime Minister Netanyahu was slightly more nuanced than his coalition partners, stating, “the chairman, like many Europeans suffers from selective hearing.”

    /..
    http://972mag.com/when-reality-becomes-hate-speech-president-of-eu-parliament-visits-israel/87169/

  • Black jelly

    Sorry to raise this again (on a Sunday morning) but the Holocaust 6m was based on 4m having been “processed” at one particular camp, now that the 4m capacity of that “factory” has now been downgraded to 2.1m means that the new holocaust figure should be 4m, the earlier 6m has in fact been a holohoax all along. Unless they can at this late stage come up with a hitherto unknown Hitlers Diary like maleveloent Butlin that provided another 2m processing capacity! As they say numbers dont speak yiddish and dershowitz steers very clear of them.

  • Resident Dissident

    A node

    And where exactly in his PressTV interview did Dieudonne provide any evidence to support the assertions he made in his interview e.g.

    “Zionists organised all wars and disorders on this planet”
    “The jews were responsible for 90% of the slave trade and all the colonial wars”
    “The Holocaust has replaced Jesus Christ in France”
    “The Stock Market is a Zionist system”
    “Iran has lots of freedom of expression”
    “Iran is the last battle ground for the resistance”
    “Not true that I am an anti-Semite – I have never had an issue with Judaism”

    I am afraid what is said without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

    All I have done is point out a number of a statements and acts by Dieudonne that clearly point, in my eyes at least to the view that he is an anti semite and then asked if others share my view. I don’t think Dieudonne is the first person who has argued that a group is bent on domination when is motivation is driven by hatred and racism towards that group – and I don’t think he will be the last.

  • Mary

    Horticultural info for Anon who must learn to talk out of his mouth and not some other orifice. viz
    ‘Anon
    15 Feb, 2014 – 9:33 pm
    I believe “leafy Surrey” refers to that county’s higher density of tree cover than any other in the UK, as well it’s reputation for affluence.

    Mary is wrong to claim that all trees are leafless from Autumn to Spring, as a glance from her window to the hornbeam hedge would testify. She might also note the bay trees and holm oaks which are popular throughout the county.’

    Surrey is not covered in ‘bay trees or holm oaks’.

    ‘Bay trees’ are shrubs. I have one growing in a pot.
    Bay tree (Laurus nobilis) / Royal Horticultural Society – The bay tree is a popular evergreen shrub suitable for containers or growing in the ground. If planted in a sheltered position it can achieve a height of 23ft.

    Holm Oaks (Quercus Ilex) are not deciduous and are rarely seen in the wild. Horrible things as they drop their leathery leaves the year round. Native to the Mediterranean.

    Hornbeams are deciduous. Like the beech, only juveniles retain their leaves until the Spring when the new leaves appear. The species of Carpinus are deciduous shrubs and trees with attractive foliage and hop-like fruit clusters in late summer and autumn
    C. betulus is a large deciduous tree developing a fluted grey trunk. Leaves 5-8cm long, ovate, conspicuously ribbed, turning yellow in autumn. Catkins open in spring, followed by hop-like fruiting catkins to 8cm.

    I have a wealth of horticultural knowledge that far exceeds Anon’s. This will teach him not to follow on from his best mate’s ….’Mary splutters from leafy Surrey’ meme. The answer lies in the soil. Toodle pip.

    PS I do not have a hornbeam hedge. Anon must have got the wrong address!

    Surrey is NOT affluent. Those who live on their wits in banking, marketing, IT and the like obviously are in the current version of the ‘Great Britain’. Two new food banks have just been opened in Surrey.

    13 million British people are living below the poverty line.
    http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects

  • guano

    Maybe President Schulz felt that since the Ziobanksters had tried very hard to dismantle the EU financially, their political wing in the Knesset would be expecting a small prod in revenge. Israel should try not to damage and manage the world quite so openly itself, if it wanted to avoid being criticised.

    Hear that, oh ye trolls:

    Psalm 150:5
    King James Version (KJV)
    5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

    It was only a cymballic gesture of defiance against Zionist oppression.

    If you kept your foul mouths shut and stopped trying to de-rail truth on the CM website, your brains wouldn’t keep getting zapped by shooting stars and ECT lightning bolts of reality-checks all the time.

    Well done the President for speaking truth to power in the lions’ den.

  • Mary

    ‘Hey, Washington! Do something!’ Russian prisoner in US jail faces….. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_do73iZAmCA

    Published on 14 Feb 2014

    Russia has issued a demarche to the US over the critical health condition of jailed Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was found guilty of drug trafficking. His lawyer says his client has symptoms of a heart attack, but is not getting help.

    Russian authorities have raised the issue of Yaroshekno’s health many times with their US counterparts, but to no avail. With Yaroshenko now apparently in critical condition, the Russian foreign ministry publicly called for US reaction via Facebook, asking followers to repost the urgent message.

    The great American tragedy of Russian pilot
    http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/09-09-2011/119011-konstantin_yaroshenko-0/

  • John Goss

    “John.

    My Komodo. Sigh!

    Last seen lurking beside the cycle lane beside Long Ditton Cemetary, looking hungry and cross.

    You can both come to my 16th birthday party on Sept 3rd 2015. Bring a bottle of Pinot Grigio (Shaman’s favourite), and a wild bore (NOT Dad!).”

    My God Sof. You’re only fourteen! I’ll send my sons to represent me.

    B. F. As to all the 0-16 year olds killed in Bomber Harris’s raids I don’t have the exact figures. The figures though are very important to Anon who could probably conjure something up for you. After all he thought up that really original pseudonym he uses.

  • guano

    I’ve been to two funerals this week. One conducted by a straight Trinitarian C of E vicar, which the English working class (as was) community were brought up on twice a day on Sundays. This one was a lot straighter than the one on Sunday Radio 4 this morning who said the C of E upheld the complete, unconditional love of God, i.e. you can do what you like including dropping phosphor and atom bombs, and other horrible un-biblical acts best not mentioned, connected to salt and pillars and things.

    The other one was delivered by a Unitarian minister, whose considerable faith had brought him to the rocky destination of the Oneness of God, i.e. the Muslim position. But out of deep respect for his audience’s faith-difficulties he was unable to get beyond the after-life that consists of human memories.

    As a Muslim I believe that God has set us many rules, including His own Oneness. I agree with Putin on the wrongness of teaching children non-traditional relationships. Why bend their poor young brains? How has Sochi come to be dominated by Zionist Gay propaganda by the ZBC? I’d have thought snow sports would be a good watch if I had a TV.

  • Mary

    Avoid the comments on that You Tube about the jailed Russian pilot. They are even nastier and more acrid than some of those here.

  • John Goss

    Mary, I have written (FOI) to the foreign office concerning what medical care was being given to Talha Ahsan and what provision was being made for his welfare, and why a model prisoner had been extradited to a supermax prison instead of an ordinary prison, and why he had been sent there at all. Six months later they told me it was the responsibility of the home office. So I’ve written there with the same questions. It is what they do to foreign prisoners that is most disturbing. This is not the US of old. Konstantin Yaroshenko is another example of a man being tortured into a confession of a crime of which he may or may not be guilty. With the US it does not matter that the man is ill and may be dying. That is what they want. If he dies he cannot tell about the torture, and just because his wife says he was tortured will not mean a thing. Waken up world. The Yanks hate you and me and everybody. The US is just as much a police state as Nazi Germany was. Wake up!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Fujisan re. Dresden:

    “More than 260.000 bodies and residues of bodies were counted.”
    _________________

    Confusion IS contagious! I refer you to yesterday’s post from Anon:

    “The PressTV article cites 260,000 dead from the Dresden bombing raids. This figure has been found to have been falsified Nazi propaganda, which you appear to have no qualms buying into. The actual figure, virtually all studies now agree, and which is accepted by Dresden’s own city council, is around 25,000.”

    Now apologise, you twat!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Fred re. Dresden:

    “He (ie, John Goss) didn’t, Presstv did.
    ____________

    That’s what known as the “Mary gambit” : it wozn’t me what said it, gov, it was Presstv, I just quoted from it/linked to it”

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “Personally I don’t see any difference between someone who quibbles over the number of Jews killed by Germany and the people who quibble over the number of Germans killed by Britain. Both Holocaust deniers.”
    ___________________

    Nice straw man there! Th “quibble”, as you choose to call it, is about the number of people killed in the big raid. If you think the difference between 26.000 and 260.000 is a quiblle, then I suggest you return to school to brush yp in your maths.

    You really are brain-dead, aren’t you.

  • Mary

    Thanks John. All terrible. I refer to Amerika as the Evil Empire which seems to aggravate the trolls. Whichever, it is going down, in the same way as all previous empires.

    The prestidigitator Mr Barroso is on Marr discussing the state of the (European) union as it concerns the UK, its desired migration limits, changes to its terms of membership etc. Marr managed to get in a little propaganda against Scottish independence.

    Barroso moved seamlessly from the position of Portugal’s PM to become President of the European Commission. I would not buy a second hand car from the gentleman, as the saying goes!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Barroso He seems to have been around for ever.

    His list of honours and honorary degrees is very revealing.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Barroso#Honours

  • Resident Dissident

    Mary

    Take your Bay tree out of its pot and plant it somewhere sheltered (bays do not like extreme frost) and it will soon shoot up. I know as I did this to one of mine a couple of years back and it is well on the way to leaving shrubdom behind, and unless you really are in Moscow, then I suspect the climate is not too different, although I am on a sandy soil.

  • Mary

    Note the Habbabkuk ‘gambit’. John Goss and I were talking of the jailed Russian pilot so the RI returns to the death toll of Bomber Harris. We will be back to the holocaust shortly.

    Trolls: Please stop altering people’s names. ie Go to Gross. It is SO childish.

  • Mary

    s/be Goss to Gross

    Off out to walk in a forest with leafless trees. The sky is bright blue, there is no wind and the sun is shining. Thank you Gaia.

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