I am pleased that Simon Ostrovsky has been released. He is a decent journalist, who back on 30 October 2007 did a very good piece on Newsnight about the terrible child slavery compelled by the state in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan. They had done some secret filming in Uzbekistan, which took much courage.
There was however one strange thing about Ostrovsky’s film. I was called in to the Newsnight studio in the morning to do a pre-record piece on what I had witnessed of this terrible system of cruel forced labour. I also recounted how I had reported it to government while I was Ambassador there from 2002 to 2004, but the British government had refused to take any action, as had the EU.
But none of my interview was shown in the programme, nor was I mentioned. Instead a New Labour minister was interviewed and he was allowed to say, unchallenged, that the film was absolutely shocking and the British government had no prior idea this was happening; they would now look into it etc. Needless to say they still did nothing, nor has anything ever been done to have child slave cotton banned from the UK. Why do you think Primark is so cheap?
I do not know whether Ostrovsky had any editorial control over the decision to cut the interview which proved the New Labour minister was lying through his teeth.
There’s no stopping him. I thought he would be in Rome watching all those old men in frocks.
This Sunday on Meet The Press:
http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_17/401891/blair_3246d0a6f84dae2df3de59d5deea8bd7.nbcnews-ux-600-600.jpg
EXCLUSIVE: Tony Blair
U.S. soldiers arrived in Poland on Wednesday as part of an effort to reassure European allies worried about Russian troops posted on the Ukrainian border. What’s President Obama’s next move in the dance with Russian President Putin as the deal between Ukraine, Russia, the European Union, and the U.S. looks to be falling apart. David Gregory talks with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the President’s approach to foreign policy and how to tackle Islamic extremism, which Blair believes is the biggest threat facing the world.
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/meet-the-press-24-7/sunday-mtp-view-white-house-tony-blair-more-n90076
A meteoric rise to power for Psaki.
At the age of 33, she heads the PR outfit, Global Security Group. Look at the client list of individuals and corporations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Strategy_Group
Then back to Obama. Where next Jen?
Mary.
“Where next Jen?”
If you like this kind of black comedy there’s plenty more on youtube.
Jen Psaki PR genius, some favourite phrases,
“We don’t see how it’s possibly true…
I want to be as transparent as possible…
I don’t think I need to go into more detail from here…
I have no more for you on this…
Er… Ah…
I think we’re ready to move on.
Next question”
‘There was no Israeli expansionism (and no convenient excuse for it)between 1948/9 and the Six Day War’
Israeli expansionism was alive and well in the mind of Ben Gurion at the time of Suez, Habba; only the failure of that escapade postponed its realization-
‘Ben-Gurion opened the discussion by listing his military, political and moral considerations against ‘the English plan’. His main objection was that Israel would be branded as the aggressor while Britain and France would pose as peace-makers but he was also exceedingly apprehensive about exposing Israeli cities to attack by the Egyptian Air Force. Instead he presented a comprehensive plan, which he himself called ‘fantastic’, for the reorganization of the Middle East. Jordan, he observed, was not viable as an independent state and should therefore be divided. Iraq would get the East Bank in return for a promise to settle the Palestinian refugees there and to make peace with Israel while the West Bank would be attached to Israel as a semi-autonomous region. Lebanon suffered from having a large Muslim population which was concentrated in the south. The problem could be solved by Israel’s expansion up to the Litani River, thereby helping to turn Lebanon into a more compact Christian state. The Suez Canal area should be given an international status while the Straits of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba should come under Israeli control to ensure freedom of navigation.’
Avi Shlaim’s monograph on the Sevres Protocol,and the discussions that preceded it, can be found it full here-
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Protocol%20of%20Sevres%201956%20Anatomy%20of%20a%20War%20Plot.html
It is heartening to be in the company of John Pilger over the crisis in Ukraine. It is doubtful even the best journalists in the world can penetrate some skulls and numbskulls who promote US propaganda as fact on this hallowed blog.
“In February, the US mounted one of its proxy “colour” coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly antisemitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler’s Nazis, who were supported by the infamous Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA) which was responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, of which the UPA was the military wing, inspires today’s Svoboda party.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/17/nato-ukraine-dr-strangelove-china-us
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
26 Apr, 2014 – 6:01 pm
“From a Continental French language newspaper yesterday (my translation)…”
Come on Habbabkuk, give us the title of the newspaper and the link.
Then we can check it for ourselves.
Mr Scorgie
Don’t fret, it’s a true translation and I didn’t make up or abridge the excerpt I furnished.
Any comments on the position of the Hamas spokesman?
Mr Scorgie
I’ll give it again in case you’ve forgottten it and couldn’t “be arsed to look it up”:
““Israel suspends the peace process.
………..Finally, a Fatah heavyweight Jibril Rajoub declared that he was “confident that the peace talks would continue because Hamas has changed and accepts the existence of Israel within its pre-Six Day War borders (June 1967). An affirmation denied by the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Issam El Bardawil, according to whom his organization “will never accept the Zionist entity, will not deal with it and will not be part of a government which will accept it.”……..”
“In February, the US mounted one of its proxy “colour” coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists.”
Yep all the colour coups were US mounted coups and only fascists were behind the change in the Ukraine – and it must be true because John Pilger and John Goss say so. And Putin is a good guy and a bastion against the evil US, its puppets in the UK and the EU and behind it all the Rothschilds pulling the strings. 9/11, 7/7, Malaysian Airlines flight 310 and possibly the Korean Ferry were false flag operations, there is no such thing as an Islamist terrorist, Bashar, Ghadaffi and Saddam were all wonderful people who would hurt a fly etc. etc. etc. And anyone who says otherwise is a skull or a numskull.
Anything else you would like to add to your political philosophy John Goss (aged 67 and three quarters)
“it must be true because John Pilger and John Goss say so.”
At last a semblance of sense. My crest rises to be named alongside the man who took on Distillers over thalidomide on behalf of the victims.
Gaddafi was killed as a process of the land and natural resources grab of your heroes with a bayonet up his backside which probably caused a lot of pain and involuntary soiling, as your friend who tacitly supports torture would like to see happen to me. Your allies across the Atlantic could not abide seeing a country that was successful and served its people succeed, nor its leader have a fair trial, any more than Saddam Hussein, because extra-judicial justice is the way of the Yanks and its allies. Instead they have turned Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya into failed states. These are the people supporting your NAZI friends running the illegal interim government based in Kiev.
And another thing, RD, if you really cared for the descendants of your in-laws still living in Ukraine you would not want to see it turned into a failed state. It is not Russia that has been causing failed states but the United ‘failed state’ of America and its NATO allies.
John Goss
My in laws live in Russia, hence my rather better understanding than yourself of the game that Putin is playing. I have no Nazi friends. You are just plain ignorant and driven by prejudice, especially if you really believe that Ghaddafi and Saddam managed successful states that served their people- we could talk about the Ba’athists links to Nazism if you were up to it.
You still haven’t answered by questions on the previous draft – 4th request.
“My in laws live in Russia, hence my rather better understanding than yourself of the game that Putin is playing.”
It’s no criterion where you live. You live in the UK and have no idea what’s going on here or abroad as far as I can see. Anyway, if your in-laws live in Russia they are very much in a minority because 80% of Russians are right behind Putin, but I guess the referendum in Crimea was fixed too. Your ignorance on Crimea and the troops already stationed there, along with some reporters of the MSM, have been adequately exposed by Sofia, but you choose to keep your head in the sand.
“Your ignorance on Crimea and the troops already stationed there, along with some reporters of the MSM, have been adequately exposed by Sofia, but you choose to keep your head in the sand.”
Where? – especially bearing in mind that Putin announced earlier this week that the troops in balaclavas without insignia in the Crimea were Russian troops – a complete contradiction of his earlier lies.
And what was happening to Putin’s popularity in Russia before he whipped up his latest nationalist storm?
The referendum result in the Crimea was clearly fixed – although I have no doubt that the vote would have been won by Putin without having resorting to do so – but old habits die hard.
You have no shame whatsoever – and you still haven’t answered my questions – 5th request.
Little quiz for our resident ersatz socialists. Who said:
“Our society must understand that a minority – a certain category of people – must be paid very well by the state, so they can secure the living standards for the majority. When will we finally understand this? Our people aren’t stupid. It just hasn’t been explained the right way”
“Where? – especially bearing in mind that Putin announced earlier this week that the troops in balaclavas without insignia in the Crimea were Russian troops – a complete contradiction of his earlier lies.”
Sorry, don’t understand this without a link. Nor this.
“You have no shame whatsoever – and you still haven’t answered my questions – 5th request.”
Somewhat off topic, but I think the US could teach Birmingham a thing or two about how to demolish high-rise structures. Not often I have much praise for the Yanks. But they certainly got the twin towers right.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-27179021
I ought to add that although the Aston University tower fell rather askew, at least they had emptied it first – so something in their favour.
Rather sick disgusting joke from Mr Goss.
If it was a joke, RD, I would have put a smiley face after it. 🙂
Some journalists who supported the Iraq war regret how they reported it.
http://www.newsweek.com/newsweek-rewind-war-iraq-11-years-later-232584
‘As for that master narrative? Now it’s apparent, he says: “It was a complete fiasco.”
“It was one of the greatest disasters in American history,” he added.’
“I was fortunate that exhaustion and journalistic burnout,” Liu said, “had shielded me from the big lie of the Iraq war.”
RD/ELSO etc
“My in laws live in Russia, hence my rather better understanding than yourself (John) of the game that Putin is playing.”
Some images here of the human cost of the gift of US intervention.
You don’t like those in laws very much do you?
RD/ELSO etc
Since you brought up your family links to Russia I’ll ask you again. You disappeared last time I asked.
How do you explain the differing outcomes in terms of numbers of dead and injured, amounts of high explosives detonated and subsequent social order and cost to their own tax-payers when the US helps to spread democracy and bring freedom in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or any of the dozens of other lucky countries that have rerceived the gift of US help compared to the disgraceful and illegal, bloodless “Russian Invasion” of Crimea?
It’s easy to moan about Putin (Prince of Darkness) and denigrate other posters here but just imagine for a moment you have family in a place, which kind of help would you really choose? And why?
Sofia, perhaps ESLO will help RD out if he’s struggling for an answer.
Mr Goss
“…as your friend who tacitly supports torture would like to see happen to me.”
___________________
It’s all very Stalinist, isn’t it.
Despite repeated requests for him to do so, Mr John (“Sorry, don’t understand this without a link”) Goss still hasn’t furnished a quotation to back up his claim that I support torture. Instead, he now extends the accusation to saying that I should like to see him tortured. I must, therefore, ask him to provide quotations backing up that new claim as well as the old one.
******************
“Life has become better, life has become merrier!” (J. Stalin, ca. 1934)
Mr Goss
“– and you still haven’t answered my questions – 5th request.”
_________________
And a 2nd request from me that you should finally answer Resident Dissident’s questions.
C’mon, Mr Goss – you can use Habbabreak as an excuse for ignoring my questions, but I see that you’re not using it for Resident Dissident’s posts. So where are your answers?
John.
I must be a magician!
Here is my spell to make RD/ELSO etc disappear… “Just imagine for a moment you have family in a place, which kind of help would you really choose?”
I know I posted it before but I think this cartoon is worth a thousand words.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BhzN4VTCcAA4ycQ.jpg
Sofia, and all done without using Habbabreak, which really is a useful tool to deal with a useless fool.
Sofia, in years to come, when we’ve all moved on the historians will be illustrating their histories with cartoons like that one depicting the ghost of Old Father Time as Uncle Sam, having cut down the good and bad of all nations until it came to confront the Big Brown Bear protecting Ukraine.
John Goss,
it is amusing how BBC has been lately digging into problems relating to demolitions of high rise buildings. Few days ago, I listened to the BBC world service radio about skyscrapers in the middle east and elsewhere where the presenter opined how incredibly difficult it will be to demolish them and believe it or not that their construction is as expensive as any attempt “to pull” them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34XrI2Fm6I) to use Silverstein’s vocabulary. I felt like writing them a letter with a suggestion to use two airplanes to effortlessly knock down two plus one, the third at no extra cost. Those facing such problems could ask the golden boy Larry Silverstein to be their adviser and split the money from the insurance. Perhaps Halibabacus or other dissidents should write to the BBC pointing out this simple and ecological option, rather than wasting their time barking at innocent souls of this blog.