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758 thoughts on “Cui Bono?”

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  • Tony M

    As Iraq apparently further unravels we now have a stunt to build up the fake ‘anti American’ credentials of re-elected PM Maliki, whilst he still allows near free-for-all exploitation and expropriation of the oil and gas resources by western oil companies, on terms grossly unfair to all of Iraq’s people. The few crumbs given to non-US and UK oil giants to keep the international disquiet down, will be the ones seized or put out of action, unless say China for example were invited by the Iraqi puppets to provide enhanced defences for ‘their’ own few oil sites and pieces of infrastructure.

    We can expect then an incredible, against all odds victory for the Baghdad government forces armed with just some smoke-bombs and a couple of rusty swords in the hands of retired traffic wardens, against a phantom enemy, the ISIL-ISIS jobseeker soldiers, who will melt away, with their attendant battalions of film-crews, make-up artists, life coaches and catering trucks, back to and through the Syrian Golan Heights, running the gauntlet of the well-prepared Syrian military and a justifiably enraged Syrian people, only a surviving few making it back to collect their promised rewards of Saudi and Quatari money from their recruiters and paymasters, with perhaps a grinning William Hague buying them all pints. Will they get their P45s, a bullet in the head, or go on to the next round, their their next star-billing gig, some new but still recognisable variant of the well-honed Chicago gangsters’ extortion racket, in new outfits and with new regalia, could it even be next-stop Ukraine for the terror bandwagon’s big finale?

    The Mob, major organised crime in the US of A has not since the 1920s, been an Italian dominated affair, they are very minor players despite Hollywood’s deliberate and deceptive obsessions with pasta, horse’s heads on pillows and other such Sicilian baloney.

    Maliki nevertheless will go, before his expected term ends, becoming an icon of defiance of the great satan, whose name if not his person reserved for future use, to be replaced by whoever receives his golden touch for the top job, the current Shia majority have privatised, unfavourably, self-flagellatingly the Iraqi oil industry and reserves, the former governing Ba’athist Sunnis, in 1972 nationalised it, monopolising the spoils.

    All the while the oil keeps freely from the Iraqis’ balance sheet, Maliki still serves those foreign oil interests slavishly; to the credulous US TV news victims, the ‘defiant’ brave Maliki will have prevailed, democracy of some quite bizarre sort propped-up and burnished, whilst the terrible terrorist ISIS actors, pose one last time before making it over the county line in the General Lee, the Iraqi Sheriff in hot pursuit foiled again. Obama looks doubly weak and the Republicans can later on pillory him for this ‘mishandling’ of a situation of their own creation, ooze back into power to stoke the fires of the abyss even more provocatively, engulfing all. The problem for the US is that their economy will have tanked so completely by then that such long term planning and psychological operations seem almost irrelevant now, they no longer matter as the macro-conditions for their successful fruition now seem now highly improbable, wishful thinking, America will have fragmented by then and be ungovernable.

  • Ben-LA PACQUTE LO ES TODO

    Tony M: After the US propped up Maliki, out of ostensible parity between Shia and Sunni, now they are prepared to replace him.

    Politics is a game of slow death by carbon-monoxide.

  • Peacewisher

    As the trolls clearly missed my response to John a day or so ago, here’s a reference to RIP Act and Habeus Corpus:

    http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/civil-liberties

    Start reading from:

    “Further concerns about infringement of civil liberties were raised by the passing of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), dubbed the ‘snoopers’ charter’.”

    And encrypting an email is the equivalent of sealing an envelope containing a letter that is sent through the post…

  • Mary

    World Cup ticket prices (overseas fans)
    Source: Fifa.

    Listed in order down from Category 3 > Category 2 >Category 1

    Opening Match
    $495
    $330
    $220

    Group Matches
    $175
    $135
    $90

    Round of 16
    $220
    $165
    $110

    Quarter Finals
    $330
    $220
    $165

    Semi Finals
    $660
    $440
    $275

    3rd / 4th Place Match
    $330
    $220
    $165

    Final
    $990
    $660
    $440

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23377890

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    “….violence meted out by the Nuland Banderite Junta.”
    ________________

    George Orwell would have loved that phrase (cf Politics and the English language).

    Or is the author of it just pulling our leg?

    To believe or not to believe, that is the question.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    “World Cup ticket prices (overseas fans)
    Source: Fifa.”

    etc etc
    ______________________-

    I suspect that the point of Mary’s post was to accuse FIFA of disgracefully high pricing resulting in only the privileged elite being able to afford seats.

    Could Mary please also give us the prices FIFA is charging local Brazilians for tickets?

    Thank you.

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

    Habbabkuk says: start the day with a little misleading, you know it’s the right thing to do!

  • Sofia

    It seems RT must be getting it right in occupied Palestine too…http://rt.com/news/167628-israel-raid-rt-office/

    “The operation was aimed against the Palestinian company, Palmedia. The reason is that it provides services to Al-Aqsa TV, which has propagandist and inflammatory content. That’s why the search was performed there,” the representative of the Israeli military command told RIA-Novosti news agency.

    Palmedia’s offices are in another building. So either we are seeing another attack on journalists or a breakdown in IDF intelligence. I won’t jump to conclusions. Maybe they were just using an out of date telephone directory or something.

    Too bad news continues to leak out of occupied Palestine.

  • ba'al Zevul (Chimp Assassin)

    On a recent trip to the United States , Tony Blair, Ex. Labour Prime Minister of the UK and now U.N. Middle East Peace Envoy, addressed a major gathering of Native American Indians.

    He spoke for almost two hours on his success in bringing about a lasting peace settlement amongst the warring nations of the Middle East, likening it to the way that the U.S. Government found a suitable agreement with the North American tribes.

    At the conclusion of his speech, the crowd presented him with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name – Walking Eagle.

    A very chuffed Tony then departed in his motorcade, waving to the crowds..

    A news reporter later asked one of the Indians how they came to select the new name given to Tony Blair. They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of shit that it can no longer fly.

  • mark golding

    Operation “Brother’s Keeper” has been created and engineered to detach Hamas networks in the West Bank.

    RT had video footage of IDF/Metsada raids in the West Bank…

    “By Way Of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War.”

  • Sofia

    Ba’al. 10 07am

    “He spoke for almost two hours on his success in bringing about a lasting peace settlement amongst the warring nations of the Middle East, likening it to the way that the U.S. Government found a suitable agreement with the North American tribes…”

    Peace Envoy Bliar is so popular he’s made it onto Seatle public school drama sylabus.

     

  • ba'al Zevul (Chimp Assassin)

    She’s quite something, isn’t she, Nevermind? If it all goes horribly wrong for her in Gaza – between some of her more Neanderthal friends and her not-even-vaguely-human enemies, I’m not optimistic – perhaps she could be enticed back to become PM here?

  • nevermind, viva beautiful football

    apologise for mangling beautiful, happens all the time.

    My Chickens see a beautifull centipede or worm, and its down their throats in a flash, nature does not respect beauty or fairness when hunger is involved.

    Great game between Portugal and the USA, especially the last two minutes, what a pass and what a header to come up with in time.

    We will see whether Klinsmanns will encourage his team to use every trick in the book, we shall see whether his special flying/falling abilities and training will make a reappearance against Germany, and will we see the USA dispatched back home.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    “At 9:30am on Thursday, 12 June, approximately 350 police officers and special forces encircled the village of Al Araqib and rounded up inhabitants in the makeshift mosque. Homes were bulldozed to the ground in about three hours and the rubble cleared away and water tanks removed from the site. All in a days work for Dad’s heroes.”

    ____________

    Thanks for that info. It reminded me that I should ask you the same question I asked California Ben the other day, which was:

    “Just to be able to evaluate your bona fides, so to speak – apart from frequently sounding off on this blog (and perhaps on others?)- what do you do in concrete and practical terms to support the Palestinian cause and help the Palestinian people?

    You are doing a grand job of talking the talk, but are you walking the walk?

    Off you go!

  • Mary

    By e-mail this morning

    ‘Invasion in Abu Dis which is now joining the terror happening all over the West Bank. “We haven’t seen anything like this since 1967”, we are told.

    On Saturday night Al Quds University was invaded by Israel soldiers. On Sunday night, the university and now the town filled up with soldiers. They often come with ten or twenty. This was hundreds of Israeli soldiers, first walking and then in vehicles. They were everywhere, climbing and jumping in and out of buildings. Going into houses, not even asking whose house it was. They didn’t stop anyone in the streets – the issue was to invade the houses. They chose more than thirty houses – ones on hills, ones in valleys, ones in the main town, big buildings, flats. These houses were searched and messed up; at least three houses had their gates blown up as soldiers entered.

    There were tear gas, sound bombs and shooting. Four people at least were arrested: three of them under 18. The whole area was invaded in this way – Sawahreh, Aizariyeh, the Bedouin area as well as Abu Dis.

    This all started with reports of three Israeli young people going missing near Hebron a week ago: there is no clear picture of what happened to them. Following this, a military operation involving 15000 Israeli soldiers has turned the lives of people in the West Bank upside down in what feels like a vast collective punishment. In the last week, several people have been killed including a thirteen year old; many hurt; house invasions in all areas of the West Bank; five hundred arrests. Gaza has been under attack again and people injured.

    People in Palestine are trying to work out what this is about. They are subject always to vast racism – the kidnaps of their own children have gone un-investigated for years: so is this about something else. Is it to bring down the unity government? Or is it military training: Israel preparing not for them but for the next war?

    A news report here: http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=707014

    One of the CADFA volunteers wrote this: http://abudisvolunteers.blogspot.co.uk/

    Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association
    Linking together for human rights

    http://camdenabudis.net ‘

  • Sofia

    OT

    A Node. 11 47am

    Lightening Map. Thanks.

    Now I need to learn how to interpret it.

    I reckon it’s proof that the gods don’t really do thunderbolts otherwise we’d be able to use it to track the movements of the Walking Eagle. (Badly chosen word there, maybe “location” would be in better taste.)

    Here’s an animation of the last two hours satelite images from mid- Atlantic to Black Sea. You can click box in bottom left for lightening. Double click to zoom in.

    http://www.sat.24

    What strikes me is the patterns the thunder storms make. I suppose it’s only to be expected when we’re standing on a vast magnet rotating through the field of an even vaster one. With all those layers of liquid, rock and gas, doesn’t that make Earth a big leaky capacitor? Can any scientifically minded person explain where all the charge goes?

    Re the Earth-wind site, have you checked out the ocean currents window?

    http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/orthographic=314.84,44.34,670

  • nevermind, viva beautiful football

    You have to be plucky and forward to do that job in Gaza, Ba’al, good luck to her.

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