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 shouldn’t of course write this…particularly on Craig Murray’s website….
But the cnut he was slagging off…Something About Politics or Something High Up >> Maybe about The Prosecution of ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR et al…
He don’t half look like You…
Maybe its these spindly wire specs – and the hair…I think it is his own…
But…seriously…I can still get away with it..You see – Whilst I Dye It…I Don’t Cut It..and there is No Way I would Trust My Wife with a Pair Of Scissors….
I Can Still Pull…She never had any problem at all..You see The Competition…I have Just Got To Keep Up With Her For Another 33 Years…
She Keeps Me Fit.
She is My Wife.and I am Still In Love With Her…
The Priest Didn’t Understand.
Tony
Richard Alan Jones
yep nice one
Some stuff worth Noting / Remembering – here, from over at Mondoweiss –
“I sometimes forget what happened to our country. But Belén Fernández has a new book out on Tom Friedman called The Imperial Messenger, and she reminds us of Friedman’s achievement, in an interview in the NY Times Examiner:
Friedman sells the Iraq war as “the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched” despite making subsequent assessments such as “The neocon strategy may have been necessary to trigger reform in Iraq and the wider Arab world, but it will not be sufficient unless it is followed up by what I call a ‘geo-green’ strategy.” As I point out in my book, it is difficult to determine how many true “geo-greens” would advocate for the tactical contamination of the earth’s soil with depleted uranium munitions; why not introduce a doctrine of neoconservationism?
Fernández links to Tom Friedman cheerleading the Iraq war in 2003. Wow, I forgot about his stuff! Or thankfully never read it in the first place. The question arises, Did Tom Friedman make any difference with this kind of talk? And I say of course he did, he helped convince the liberal Establishment to go along with this foolish war. Friedman and Ken Pollack and Bill Keller and David Remnick– the pen is mightier than the sword.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/tom-friedman-pushed-iraq-war-as-radical-liberal-revolution-to-install-democracy-in-heart-of-arab-world.html
Also ‘Hostage’ has an excellent Post up including this Link –
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1456594
Craig wrote – “The present problems of Iraq are 100% down to our murderous invasion and occupation.”
Are you sure, Craig? That would imply that Muslims are incapable of resolving their differences or, at least, tolerating them in the absence of an enduring solution. Why not 50%, 66.66% or 99.99% instead of 100%?
The good people of the Quran had 1400 odd years to get their act together, conquered lands in and on the fringe of Europe and been blessed(?) with a powerful energy resource from which even a small fraction of a share represents a massive inflow of wealth.
What is it about the religion of peace that it cannot even find harmony within itself with all that wealth of experience and resources? I fail to see how the West can be blamed for the schism of Sunni vs Shia.
So how is it that the wise people of Islam are so unsophisticated that they can be exploited over their differences by Western savages?
The trouble with some ideas –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhN6CG1zCRc
Often enough to be reliable, how things look results deterministically from how things are, hidden in plain sight, reality sometimes hoves into view. Whether that is how it is, it’s undeniably how it looks. Anyone who won’t say so is hoping only to keep themselves fooled that bit longer. Who would it serve if such interpretations were intended but unfounded? that the Empire can proceed under cover of critics being labelled Anti-Septic?
It’s that threadbare Strongman trope, it irks me, it resembles “too poor, too wee, too stupid”, too Other and too inherently fractious, the muddle-headed oiks -it works as well and is suitably condescending for damping upstart pretensions in the slave reservations at home and abroad, having first got them fighting amongst themselves over trifles, divide et impera, the gift that just keeps giving. A bumper bonus for some entitled few to flaunt, and a fortified yoke for the ever obliging herd to labour under.
Gilad Atzmon explains clearly for the uninitiated what Oded Yinon means. It is often referred to and is pertinent to the current upheavals. Gilad is well informed. He is called a ‘self hating Jew’ of course.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/the-jewish-plan-for-the-middle-east-and-beyond/
The war criminal seems to be rather silent at the moment. Nothing to say Tony or are you still prostituting yourself to some group of rich 1%ers? You were recently advocating a touch more war war, on Syria this time. Remember?
“http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/the-jewish-plan-for-the-middle-east-and-beyond/”
_____________________
I love that sinister sounding “..and beyond”
Yup, there really is a devilishly cunning Jewish plan for world domination!
Our puny pocket politicians speak, mostly stating the bleedin’ obvious. How about Baker referring only to 179 British lives lost? Could not make it up.
‘Iraq chaos is Tony Blair’s legacy’: Intervention by ex-PM in 2003 destabilised the country and left it open to extremism, says Home Office minister
Government ‘rules out’ new Iraqi campaign despite major Jihadist threat
Al Qaeda militants have seized large areas of northern Iraq
Norman Baker said Iraq was stable under Saddam ‘in a vile sort of way’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2656559/Iraq-chaos-Tony-Blairs-legacy-Intervention-ex-PM-2003-destabilised-country-left-open-extremism-says-Home-Office-minister.html
Off out and off topic! but a lovely read for the weekend here from Alan Bennett. His take on our current condition. His look back at Cambridge in the 50s and the public school louts is good. Has anything really changed?
Fair Play
Alan Bennett
Sermon before the University, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, 1 June.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n12/alan-bennett/fair-play
@Jemand: It wasn’t just the invasion, it was the commercialisation that came afterwards… remember the “pack of cards” of Saddam’s henchmen – and the rival pack of cards featuring neocon archcapitalists
“Between Iraq and a Hard Place” : Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_jUboo66d8
I usually skip reading the trolls but I would prefer that they be banned. We all know who they are. They serve no honest purpose.
Great news for you Habbabkuk!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27834804
Richard Alan Jones
13 Jun, 2014 – 12:02 pm
Spot on!
“So let me get this right. We support the Iraq government in the fight against ISIS. We don’t like ISIS, but ISIS is supported him, but ISIS is also fighting against him. We don’t like Iran, but Iran supports the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS. So some of our friends support our enemies, some enemies are now our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies, who we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win. If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they could be replaced by people we like even less, and all this was started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists who were not actually there until we went in to drive them out. I think I’ve got it.”
Any chance of your take on the contradictiond of the Nuland Gang’s ATO?
Meanwhile here’s Aleksandr Zmeyevsky the Russian presidential representative for international cooperation against terrorism and organized crime at the UN on Friday. “Taking actions with a foreign blessing and support to suppress a protest movement, using troops and radical nationalists against civilians under the guise of a fight against terrorism, which is what is happening today in Ukraine, is absolutely unacceptable,”
MSM has reported a lot more on Iraq since the Sunnis advanced on Baghdad than ever it did in the run up to the last Iraq war. There is a theme to what is reported and what is not.
The BBC and Sky have even reported the shooting down of a Ukrainian forces military plane killing all 49 on board. But it only reports on issues where the government’s forces are attacked making it look like the pro-Russian Ukrainians are the aggressors, like the military helicopter shot down a fortnight ago. Remeber these are military targets. It does not report the mass killing of civilians in the towns (including 20 children) which has gone on over the same period. That is not news. Shameful I call it.
Why would you expect any different, John. There has been a propaganda war going on since 9/11. IMHO, we in the UK used to be able to get a slightly balanced picture was because the BBC had some independence, and was competing for audience with Channel 4. When I saw John Pilger at Hay in 2004, for example, the event was sponsored by Channel 4. After Hutton, Channel 4 managed to continue in this vein… otherwise Rory Bremner & Co’s magnificent satires wouldn’t have been aired. The neutering of Channel 4 News was the final straw.
Can the MSM filterers achieve “news management” on two fronts though?
Roxy Music’s Brian Eno questions Britain’s involvement in Ukraine, Iraq and Palestine – does the UK have a right to expand NATO and will we ever hear back from the Chilcot Inquiry?
Bianca Jagger exposes the double standards when it comes to dealing with rape in Sri Lanka because of our own governments arms trade deals with the country.
http://rt.com/shows/going-underground/165896-sexual-violence-foreign-wars/
Interestingly some 30 years ago I achieved UK political asylum for Sri Lankan friend, Sumi, by using company sponsorship. Sumi and his fatherless family fled the country after government forces destroyed their village, murdered and raped many young girls.
Some of the best coverage on Iraq at the moment is from Aljazeera. They were/are neocon regarding Ukraine, but present more objectively on ISIS, Sistani, and all the other players in the region.
While the corporate media turns ever more spectacular sommersaults trying to fit observable reality into the Neocon fantasy narrative, the evidence of multiple breaches of international law continues to mount. All symptoms of the same malady.
More evidence here,
http://tomgiuretis.com/
Time to pile on the pressure for the perpetrators and their foreign backers to answer for their actions in the international courts?
Will we (the people) get a Chilcot Report, Mark? Only if we follow the same tactics as the Hillsborough families, and that means 20 years hard slog. Are you prepared to keep going until 2023?
Regarding news management, John… how can you manage the news when the “goodies” become the “baddies”.
This seems to be what has happened with ISIS. They were the goodies in the MSM in Syria. Now they’ve gone over the border to Iraq they are rapidly being re-portrayed as the baddies (spoiling peace and democracy in Iraq). If you tell enough lies, then sooner or later they’ll come back to haunt you!
Tony – you could take over the Low Life column at the Spectator, I am not taking the piss. You might have to add some narrative, but otherwise you are there.
Guano – congratulations on exceeding the permitted level of craziness. Respect to you for that.
Wonder if Iran is nervous as to whether ISIS is some sort of trap and whether all is not what it appears? I have no grounds for any such suspicion save that things often are not as they appear; apply Occam’s razor test and then conclude the opposite.
Habba – all fools are welcome: fake or real.
Peacewisher – The Chilcot report has a ‘big black marker’ over implicating text that entangles Blair/Bush within the ‘Iraq lie’ –
I am committed to expose this deceit before returning; for the innocent new lives so destroyed and left out of giving back love.
“Regarding news management, John… how can you manage the news when the “goodies” become the “baddies”.”
Yep. There are no goodies and baddies Peacemaker. Anybody involved in war is a baddie. It’s peace we want. The laws are much better under peace.
In case this disappears from Craig’s view in the lower threads. Important. We have heard it all about the state broadcaster now.
Better Together film ‘made in BBC studio’
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/better-together-film-made-in-bbc-studio-1-3444021
Yes, Jon, but news media have to have goodies and baddies. Makes for more exciting news… and keeps their government happy as well if they get it “the right way round”. BBC now seems to have got them definitely as baddies, must be confusing because Iran now “goodies”. LOL!
Mark… so am I. But no-one is going to listen to a couple of bloggers. Stop the War Coalition, or (better) Amnesty International should be leading this.
Connecting all this with the last thread…. if Iran and US are now on the same side, where does that leave “Bomb Iran” Blair?
Thanks for the pragmatism Peacemaker – looking back we do have a ‘chunkymark’ intention… and Craig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_1S7HfFCGM#t=18
Gaia Hepburn
“I usually skip reading the trolls but I would prefer that they be banned. We all know who they are. They serve no honest purpose”
__________________________
I absolutely agree with you, Gaia.
It is sad to see how this blog of Craig’s, started with the noblest of intentions, has been turned into a kind of mixture between a semi-private chatroom for a few self-important,lonely people and a platform for the vapourings of assorted shills, paid for by God knows whom: the PLO/Hamas shills, the Iran shills, the rasPutin/Russia is better shills, and so on.
They should be laughed off the blog. I have made a start on this and have been joined by a small number of other posters who have the good of this blog at heart, but as you know, the trolls are legion. Please do what YOU can to help and ask your friends to do likewise! Many thanks.
Mark,
I understand why chunkymark shouts so much – he wants us to see his anger at the system, he doesn’t want us to be complacent, he wants us to be angry too …. fair enough. But I HATE being shouted at, by anybody, even by someone I agree with, who’s on my side. So I can’t ever last through a full video of him. Pity, cos he’s one of the good guys.
That above was from the troll who contributes NOTHING here except dissent, distortion, distraction, and destruction.
http://bitsocialmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Internet-Troll-281×300.jpg