The present problems of Iraq are 100% down to our murderous invasion and occupation. The idea that further western bombing will make things better is so deluded as to beggar belief.
I was surprised to find during my Burnes research that the imperialist powers of Britain and Russia were explicitly exploiting Sunni and Shia divisions to further their conquests of Islamic lands as early as the 1830’s. This has been the major tool of the neo-con Middle Eastern gameplan for some time, spreading disunity and crippling war throughout the Middle East, with the hope that this will benefit the interests of Israel.
The peculiar result has been that in general the West is very actively supporting Sunni armies and miscellaneous forces, but in Iraq is supporting the Shia. ISIS – which is heavily backed by the Saudis, who hate al-Maliki – brings this paradox into sharp relief. The current US and UK strategy is to persuade Saudi Arabia to get ISIS to reconcentrate their efforts against Assad, on the understanding they will be allowed to keep the Sunni areas of Iraq (the old neo-con plan of dividing Iraq is firmly back on the agenda).
The BBC News this morning said that ISIS would not be capable of using the billions of dollars of sophisticated western armaments they have captured. I think you will find the Saudis remedy that one quite quickly. It is quite possible we will see some token airstrikes to kill civilians in Mosul, in order to appease Obama’s domestic backers who are never happy if Americans aren’t killing enough people, but only after agreement has been reached with the Saudis that no serious harm will be done – except to the ordinary people neither Obama, the Saudis or al-Maliki care in the least about.
I had the intention to recall here the camp near the small village of Stare Kiejkuty that Polish Prime Minister Tusk called a CIA prison aka ‘Black Site’. I reflected the fact that Poland asked NATO to station 10,000 troops on its territory in April this year.
I get the reckoning of ‘ill will’ between Russia and Poland and her borders from hell. Starting from the top, Poland abuts Kaliningrad (the Russian exclave on the Baltic carved at the end of the war from East Prussia), Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.
None of these borders relies on any natural barriers like rivers or mountain ranges – they are just lines on a map drawn by Stalin in the full flush of victory.
No wonder the Poles feel vulnerable. Yet that saddens me. All I know about Koken and Fibonacci loops was learned from a brilliant Polish mathematician.
But Poland is going to have to work out their future with more Russian influence and pressure on their countries than they had anticipated. Both Nato and the EU have made promises they can’t possibly keep. We have led them up the garden path with our empty guarantees.
Our local Polish community have admitted to being ‘house trained’ and they are not fukin stupid – Yes — Poland has mercenaries in Ukraine and many have traveled there from the UK.
Donald Tusk was right when he warned the “world stands on the brink of conflict.”
Some here just ‘poison the tea’ while invoking the hoodoo ‘Life is Beautiful’ — pour the tea into the plant-pot!! much as you knew that anyway. Thank-you.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10670931/Ukraine-crisis-World-stands-on-brink-of-conflict-warns-Polish-prime-minister.html
@Pykrete: Well, that was careless of Ukrainian broadcasting…
The pictures on the faces of the Kievists is priceless!
Pipeline in Ukraine blown up:
http://rt.com/news/166532-gas-pipeline-blast-ukraine/
Iraqi Government blames Saudi Arabia…
http://rt.com/news/166592-saudi-arabia-genocide-iraq/
“Iraqi Government blames Saudi Arabia…”
Yes, but the World Cup and it’s corruption !!!
Where are your priorities, Peacewisher?
Mark; Shall History record the Fascist rejoinder to Samuel Clemons sagacious response to those who stalwart souls of the media in his time falsely publishing his death?
“I fear reports of the demise of the 1000 year Reich, to be premature”
…those {strike} who {strike} stalwart souls…..(an Edit button, an Edit button. My Kingdom for an edit button.)
Jonathan Cook on the International Red Cross and Israel’s secret jails.
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-06-18/why-i-accuse-the-red-cross-of-being-gutless/
following the EI piece I posted before
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/red-cross-refuses-call-israel-release-palestinian-children-held-army
Running scared, literally.
http://news.oneindia.in/international/un-evacuates-staff-from-baghdad-1466897.html
Stooge Ban Ki-Moon was waffling away yesterday but nobody was listening.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemns Iraq violence
http://news.oneindia.in/international/un-chief-condemns-iraq-violence-1466267.html
The sectarian myth of Iraq exploited by the West is a recipe for endless war
Sami Ramadani 17 June 2014.
Iraqi exile Sami Ramadani says Iraq is not a motley collection of religions and ethnicities which have been waiting for decades, if not centuries, to slaughter each other.
Tony Blair has been widely derided for his attempted justification of the 2003 Iraq invasion, and his claim last weekend that he’s blameless over the current turmoil.
Unfortunately, though, many of his critics have also bought into a central plank of his argument: that Iraqi society is no more than a motley collection of religions and ethnicities which have been waiting for decades, if not centuries, to slaughter each other and plunge the place into a bloodbath.
The main difference between the two sides seems to be that Blair believes western intervention is the answer; some of his critics say Iraq needed a dictator like Saddam to hold the nation together.
Neither side, though, has yet produced historical evidence of significant communal fighting between Iraq’s religions, sects, ethnicities or nationalities. Prior to the 2003 US-led occupation, the only incident was the 1941 violent looting of Jewish neighbourhoods – which is still shrouded in mystery as to who planned it. Documents relating to that criminal incident are still kept secret at the Public Records Office by orders of successive British governments. The bombing of synagogues in Baghdad in 1950-51 turned out to be the work of Zionists to frighten Iraq’s Jews – one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world – into emigrating to Israel following their refusal to do so.
Until the 1970s nearly all Iraq’s political organisations were secular, attracting people from all religions and none. The dividing lines were sharply political, mostly based on social class and political orientation. The growth of religious parties followed Saddam’s ruthless elimination of all political entities other than the Ba’ath party. Places of worship became centres of political agitation and organisation.
Despite popular myths, the majority of Ba’ath party founders were Shia. However, Iraqi Ba’athist ideology always had a racist dimension against the Kurdish people and non-Arabs – as well as a class orientation, when in power, that marginalised millions in the poorest sections of society, mostly in the south. Southern Iraq and some areas of Baghdad, populated by mostly Shia migrants from southern rural areas, have historically been home to the poorest people.
Iraq’s biggest mass organisation from the 1940s to the 60s was the Iraqi Communist party, founded in 1934 by activists from all religious and ethnic backgrounds. It was the strongest party even in Iraqi Kurdistan, and remained a mass party until its leadership decided to join Saddam’s regime in 1973 – against the wishes of most party members. Saddam launched a vicious campaign against the ICP in 1978-9, and the party lost its raison d’être after joining the Iraq Governing Council set up after the occupation in 2003.
Commentators on Iraq often refer to ethnic wars waged against its Kurdish people. They fail to mention that none of these wars were popular but were ruthlessly pursued by repressive regimes, particularly Saddam’s.
One of the greatest testaments to the tolerance that exists between the various communities in Iraq is that Baghdad still has up to a million Kurds, who have never experienced communal violence by Arabs. Similarly, about 20% of Basra’s population is Sunni. Samarra, a mostly Sunni city, is home to two of the most sacred Shia shrines. Its Sunni clergy have been the custodians of the shrines for centuries.
Every tribe in Iraq has Sunnis and Shia in its ranks. Every town and city has a mix of communities. My experience of Iraq, and that of all friends and relatives, is that of an amazing mix of coexisting communities, despite successive divide-and-rule regimes.
/..
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/the-sectarian-myth-of-iraq-peddled-by-the-west-is-a-recipe-for-endless-war
KingOfWelshNoir
“I recommend readers to check out “Voltaire Net” for themselves, and I wish them better luck than I had in finding out very much about it.’
Habbabkuk! Delighted to see you inveigh against those dickheads who post online without revealing their identities.”
_________________
King! Good to have you back with us, but wish it had been to make a more intelligent comment.
Compare and contrast one commenter on someone else’s blog with an entire website which is frequently quoted from as a source for sundry point of view.
My identity is as unimportant as Mary’s, Herbie’s, Ba’n A N’Zevul’s or – dare I say it – even yours. The identity, organisation and credentials of outfits like “Voltaire Net” and “Global Research” on the other hand are highly relevant as they are evidently seen by many on here as the infallible sources of truth.
Why do you and others get so twitchy when they’re held up to the light, I wonder?
(No need to answer that!)
From California Ben
“…those {strike} who {strike} stalwart souls…..(an Edit button, an Edit button. My Kingdom for an edit button.)”
__________________
Indeed.
An edit button with a function enabling commenters to avoid making fools of themselves when attempting to be clever-clever:
“..the Fascist rejoinder to Samuel Clemons sagacious response..”
Who?
Mary
A VERY long cut-and-paste at 06h48 (up with the lark, eh!).
Did not Craig once ask people to stop cluttering up his blog with long quotes from other sources/websites unless it was to back up a personal opinion or point of view?
Something about not wanting his blog to become a rubbish dump?
Please make an effort to respect our host’s wishes, Mary (this goes for certain others as well – you know who you are)
*******************
La vita è bella, life is gooooood!
Cameron gushes drivel about British values and Magna Carta as the inexorable rise of secret trials continues.
You couldnt make it up.
Hush. The bastards obviously take that as a challenge.
There’s a little piece in this week’s Private Eye (print only) on the antecedents of the judge in charge of the secret trial. Seems he protested, when just a humble lawyer (!), against similar moves: “justice must always be seen to be done…”
But he evidently overcame his scruples in order to achieve his full potential.
“Neither side, though, has yet produced historical evidence of significant communal fighting between Iraq’s religions, sects, ethnicities or nationalities.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935–36_Iraqi_Shia_revolts
I must’ve imagined the post-Gulf War rebellions in Iraq that left tens of thousands dead too.
Confirming everything you ever suspected about Blair, by someone who tried to advise him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/17/iraq-tony-blair_n_5503110.html
According to Joffe, Blair “personalised” the whole issue in the form of Hussein and thus “the whole structure of Iraq was utterly irrelevant.. It was very two-dimensional.”
The Torygraph weighs in this morning with the assertion that Saddam “filled more graves” than ISIS has.
Give ’em time. Saddam had 35 years.
America’s top diplomat John Kerry says the US is “now open” to working with Iran in a bid to halt the collapse of the Baghdad government.
Or, as Churchill said after the fall of France, “Oh fuck, what are we going to do now?”
And here’s the two-dimensional, shallow, geopolitically naive, self-aggrandising, pontificating POS in Israel. Flew out on the 15th, if I’m not mistaken.
They’ll be the only friends he’s got.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/tony-blair-hamas-has-a-very-clear-choice-to-make/
Note the trained lawyer making assertions about Hamas when there is not yet a shred of evidence that Hamas was in any way involved…
PS: Israeli justice –
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.599302
And he’s meddling in Cairo, too.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.599302
*private jet*
I have to wonder what Blair’s connection with the current government really is. He seems to be acting as some kind of clandestine representative of HMG – which he definitely shouldn’t be. Blair the back-channel? Appropriate.
Supporting evidence, Charles Hendry’s (our Envoy to the ‘Stan Dictators) recent visit to Azerbaijan: no detectable trace of Blair on this one, but G-CEYL flew (unusually) from Heathrow to Baku on the same date. Hendry and Blair are not even friends, and have clashed in the past. Is G-CEYL’s hire actually funded by us?
International media ignore Israel’s abduction of Palestinian teens
Amena Saleem
17 June 2014
In the first ten days of June, seventeen teenage boys were abducted in the occupied West Bank. The youngest was thirteen, the oldest seventeen.
Some were dragged at gunpoint from their homes and family in the middle of the night; others were seized from the streets in broad daylight.
All of the abductions were documented by the Palestinian Monitoring Group. None were reported by the international media. No Western politicians called for the release of the boys.
/..
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/international-media-ignore-israels-abduction-palestinian-teens
Just a few specks here of the daily experiences of the Palestinians logged by the Palestine Monitoring Group, and reported on Leslie Bravery’s website from New Zealand, a decent human.
11 June 2014
Israeli Army stun and tear gas grenades: Ramallah – 14:45, Israeli troops positioned at the Ofer Prison fired stun and tear gas grenades at pedestrians.
Occupation road casualty – child: Qalqiliya – 07:15, 14-year-old Ahmad Yunis was admitted to hospital after being run over by an Occupation settler vehicle in Saniriya.
Raid – mosque violation: Jerusalem – settler militants, escorted by Israeli troops, invaded the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and molested worshippers.
‘Something about not wanting his blog to become a rubbish dump?’
One of Craig’s earlier pieces was entitled ‘Motes’.
Read and learn troll.
‘Matthew 7:3-5
King James Version (KJV)
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.’
Yes I was up early wasn’t I!
Early to bed….etc.
Was Blair’s very silent visit to China on the 10th – only reported by Italian media…here’s Renzi meeting him there:
https://twitter.com/AlbertoNardelli/status/476799254854656000
– was this a deniable preliminary to the current visit to the UK by Chinese premier Li Keqiang?
I mean, normally, he’s so vocal…
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/205040/8397283.html
Maybe he just dropped in to see how Wendi was doing.
Wait to see queues at the filling stations going round the block shortly. This will start off the scare stories. At the weekend there were even unusually long queues in this area.
BBC Breakfast: ISIS seize oil refinery in Baiji.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yQ0mCIdK0
earlier this morning. Baiji is the location of the largest oil refinery in Iraq.
“Baiji is the location of the largest oil refinery in Iraq.”
Refineries produce fuel for the domestic market.
Won’t affect anybody outside Iraq.
Tony Blair Bears ‘Total Responsibility’ For Isis, Says Academic Who Advised Him On Iraq
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/17/iraq-tony-blair_n_5503110.html
Is Tony a sociopath or psychopath?
Discuss.
Heh.
This page is, according to Google, about how Christianity has transfomed China (you what, Tone?), and published 5 days before Tony flew there. Clicky.
http://tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/blogpost/religion-and-geopolitics-digest-5-june-2014
Our Saviour seems to have taken it down.
I wrote yesterday about the ICRC’s refusal to step in on behalf of the Palestinian child prisoners held by the Occupiers.
The ICRC president is onePeter Maurer. Have a look at this most nauseating film of Maurer. He is introduced by an admiral who had charge of Guantanamo. He speaks of his posting there as being ‘uncomfortable’. Not half as nasty as that of his prisoners, orange jump suited, shackled, force fed and carted around on gurneys like corpses.
Maurer’s posturing towards the most egregious offender, the US, is excruciating.
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/News-and-Media/2014/05/08/ICRC-President-Peter-Maurer
‘“Baiji is the location of the largest oil refinery in Iraq.”
Refineries produce fuel for the domestic market.”
Quite well aware of that Fred. I said scare stories.
‘Won’t affect anybody outside Iraq. I hope your sentence doesn’t become ‘famous last words’.
From Medialens
Amazing Nick Robinson quote on BBC News at Ten
Posted by The Editors on June 18, 2014
The BBC’s political editor delivered a real pearl:
‘The history of the rift between the US and Iran goes all the way back to the Islamic Revolution 35 years ago’
As we’ve noted before, the history of US-Iran relations only ever seems to go back to 1979 in the corporate media. They’re not so quick to mention the 1953 Iranian coup orchestrated by the US – with British help.
Plus this about another of the state’s broadcasters, Paul Wood.
The BBC’s Paul Wood in Iraq – a decade on
Posted by The Editors on June 18, 2014.
10 years ago in Iraq, BBC reporter Paul Wood was a leading light in the propaganda barrage there. Perhaps the worst examples were his ‘journalism’ from Fallujah, as you can see by looking through our archive of media alerts, e.g.:
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2004/362-rapid-response-alert-the-bbc-legitimising-mass-slaughter-in-fallujah.html
Amazing to think that a decade on, his career is still intact and he’s back reporting from Iraq – as on last night’s BBC News at Ten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b046nkjz/bbc-news-at-ten-17062014
DC
For those that can’t access the iPlayer or don’t fancy trawling through News at Ten:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27897696