Between 4 and 20 August the Saudi Arabian government beheaded 19 people. Saudi Arabia, which has funded and armed ISIS from inception (initially with CIA support), is now bombing alongside the USA in Iraq and Syria.
Forget the war technology porn regularly being broadcast by western media, with those spectacular photos of missiles erupting from ships into the night sky. Those missiles and bombs eviscerate and maim innocents as well as combatants, children as well as terrorists. The West always first denies, then regrets, “collateral damage”. The propaganda can be laughable. During the invasion of Iraq I remember a news propaganda item about how a cruise missile can enter a specific window, being followed by the next item – the US had apologised to Syria for two missiles aimed at Iraq which had hit Syria by accident.
If we can accidentally bomb the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, we can – and do – hit civilian homes near the proposed target. Being eviscerated by a piece of flying shrapnel is no less terrible than being beheaded by a jihadist. Let us not pretend that our violence is somehow nicer. Children will be dying under our bombs soon.
Other than the two extraordinary crazed Nigerians, there have been no recent Islamic motivated terrorist attacks in the UK and even a slowdown in the propaganda of phoney attacks. This was a threat to the major financial interests of the security industry, in both its governmental and private branches.
There can be no greater nonsense than the idea that the Caliphate poses a direct threat to the UK. This is even more crazy than the claim that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the UK. But by seeking to join in the bombing campaign, and initiating a new round of fake “anti-terror” arrests in London, the British government is doing everything it possibly can do to try to provoke terrorist violence on British streets. The interests of the security state are therefore secured. I am longing for somebody to explain to me the precise mechanism by which our bombing Islamic countries helps prevent terrorist incidents in the UK. The way it can provoke such incidents seems to me too obvious to need stating. Indeed it says a great deal for the wisdom and tolerance of Britain’s Muslim communities that it has not provoked more. They could teach government a great deal about the good sense of not resorting to violence to gratify passions and earn short term acclaim.
unbelievable! it’s all about regime change in Syria…
NYT: U.S. Considers a No-Fly Zone to Protect Civilians From Airstrikes by Syria
The Obama administration has not ruled out establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday… http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/world/middleeast/us-considers-a-no-fly-zone-to-protect-civilians-from-airstrikes-by-syria-.html
unbelievable! Libya all over again.
NYT: U.S. Considers a No-Fly Zone to Protect Civilians From Airstrikes by Syria
The Obama administration has not ruled out establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday… http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/world/middleeast/us-considers-a-no-fly-zone-to-protect-civilians-from-airstrikes-by-syria-.html
took a little longer, but on the same track:
General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw
Thinking more about the reported killing by the Americans of Abu Yusuf al-Turki.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/145050/turkish-nusra-front-commander-killed-in-syria-air-strike
“Toprak, who had been arrested in the past in connection with a ring that was allegedly planning to assassinate former US President George W. Bush during his visit to Turkey”
Assuming the report is accurate and they knew who they were targetting … then the suspicion is that their surprise attack on the Nusra Front had nothing to do with the professed objectives of protecting Iraq and so on. It was using the opportunity of that cover to carry an extrajudicial assassination of someone they didn’t like.
Indeed it put those professed objectives at risk by increasing the likelyhood of the Nusra Front reconciling with IS and adding 30,000 fighters to their numbers. And killing someone who’s interests were actually aligned with theirs at the moment. He joined Nusra to fight IS. I imagine his five children will now have a great hatred of America.
And the UK has just signed up for this. Sacrificing one of it’s citizens in the process. Whom I expect we will soon hear has been executed.
But all-powerful America think they can’t get away with it… it’ll all be alright in the end won’t it? It just never has been up to now.
THE MENA LOCKDOWN
Craig, I couldn’t disagree more with your moral analysis of the situation in the Middle East. Ultimately, it is global overpopulation, accelerated resource depletion and the dirty wars fought in the course of securing access to these resources that has driven this whole process. Supporters of indefinite population growth, such as your good self, are to blame for stubbornly refusing to accept the incontrovertible reality that we are all facing an exponentially dwindling share of an ever-shrinking cake. If people laid the foundations for a sustainable population, we would not be witnessing the carnage that we see in MENA (Middle East, North Africa) today.
The US, Israel and Saudi Arabia have developed a partnership and mission to lockdown MENA for the indefinite future. They each have their own agendas with security being the central objective in common.
Saudi Arabia wants to secure a continuation of their kingdom and eliminate long term threats from Shia, Iran in particular.
Israel wants energy security and a continuation of the Jewish state.
The US wants energy security and a continuation of US economic imperialism.
Countries like the UK and Australia are merely small players fitting in with the plan.
Everything that happens in MENA therefore needs to be understood in terms of this overarching mission.
In the case of Syria, a shitty unimportant country by any other measure, receives extraordinary attention because of the geopolitical value of it having a coastline that services the Mediterranean Sea, its borders with Iraq and Israel and its potential share of the large energy reserves that lie beneath the Levantine Basin in the Mediterranean Sea.
On the latter point, the Levantine Basin is claimed to hold around 1.7 billion barrels of oil and 3.5 trillion cubic metres of natural gas locked beneath the sea. Approximately 60% of those energy deposits are said to fall within Gaza’s territory and offshore economic zone. Other potential stakeholdres include Lebanon and perhaps Syria. Israel wants to secure as much of this energy for itself by any means fair or foul. That is why they have consistently maintained hostilities with Gazans and frustrated attempts by Palestinians to attain proper statehood within the UN – because formal UN statehood would enable a legal process that gives Palestine an estimated 60% of those energy reserves. The 2012 UN granting of observer status to the Palestinians was a little too close for Israel’s comfort and we saw how well they responded to that outcome.
So if you want to find a root cause to all of this evil, don’t fool yourself with notions that moral awareness can be tweaked to bring about fundamental change. It is the profoundly ignorant concept of endless growth that needs to be corrected first and an action plan implemented to ensure that population is brought down to sustainable levels to save humanity from fighting over the last remaining crumbs that this finite world has given us.
Fred is just Habba’s darker, more articulate, sensi-twin. Point and laugh, troops.
I’ve been posting randomly today, calling for most of parliament to be arrested. This is a controversial viewpoint, if legally accurate. ‘Cause facts are lies these days, ‘innit. Where did all the smart people go? They should be speaking out. Evidently, few are in parliament. Weird.
“Fred is just Habba’s darker, more articulate, sensi-twin. Point and laugh, troops. ”
Who asked you shit for brains?
What a load of fucking wankers think they can just bully and intimidate people. Well it don’t work with me thick shit, I see personal remarks made at me and I respond with the same.
Do you understand or are you too fucking stupid to even comprehend that?
Now fuck off and die retard.
@John Goss
Don’t worry, we will be using the ScotLAB MPs who voted in favour of this against them in the May GE. The SNP voted en mass against as I would expect. I’m in SNP held Dundee East. I’m crossing over to swamp Dundee West with a Yes army and sweep the warmonger Jim McGovern away.
No justice, no peace. This is what the majority of MPs voted for yesterday.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=296806950452330
Brendan
“I’ve been posting randomly today, calling for most of parliament to be arrested.”
___________________
Were you the bloke I saw muttering away in Hitchin town centre?
A bit wild-eyed and gesticulating a tad over-emphatically?
Tony Opmoc
Do stop those endless, sub-Joycean ramblings, won’t you? They are very boring.
Neither are they amusing, and on the factual level we really don’t give a monkey’s about your Darling Wife, your Girlfriends and the various music festivals you claim to have attended.
Pleeeeeze?
I’ve emailed my MP Steve McCabe castigating him for following the Labour whip again as he did with the Iraq war. He’s quite a pleasant man to talk with. But he is a warmonger. I will not let him forget this decision.
Muscleguy you’re lucky. We have no alternative in England. My Labour MP is Scottish. If I vote Tory it is even worse for us all. I understand what anarchy is born out of and it is not hatred but frustration.
The cost of the war is incalculable. There is a cartoon here even Noddy might get his head round.
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=116925
John Goss
“I understand what anarchy is born out of and it is not hatred but frustration.”
Arse about tit. My frustration does not shape my increasingly anarchic tendency. To put it as succinctly as I can, my anarchism is born out of this simple conclusion:
All power will be corrupted so minimise concentration of power.
Accept responsibility for yourself! Radical decentralisation now!
We are blessed with many new people writing comments. It’s time to flog my goat again.
Would you rather not waste your life reading certain comments?
Improve your Craig Murray blog experience with Habbabreak.
I grew up on anti-war songs, and that is the most effective way to get the message across. Here’s one that got through to my previously-resistant father:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-l0o3tOXw0
@Phil:
That was what they said the philosophy was in Iraq first time round, Phil.
Iraqi society was considered wicked (by US) because it was completely centralised around the Ba’ath party. The strategy was to pull everything down and build up again from the roots, with US military and associated help. They got rid of every institution.
We all know what happened as a result… (!) The People’s Republic of Fallujah… and that didn’t fit the controlling corporate agenda.
Radical decentralisation sounds fine, but it needs to be a genuinely peoples movement that is completely isolated from the corporate agenda. Now the corporates are so “dug in”, how’s that going to come about?
I’m not criticising, just wondering. But I agree, we can’t just sit idly by and sing anti-war songs.
This might also be of interest to you Phil:
http://rt.com/news/191164-catalonia-independence-referendum-november/
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
25 Sep, 2014 – 11:14 pm
“Guano (23h02) Do you often wipe Mr Scorgie’s backside for him?”
___________________________________________
I have a butler to do that Habbabkuk, just like the Queen.
The torture camp at Guantanamo Bay, which Noddy did not want to see closed down, is still operating and still torturing Muslims who have had no trial. Emad Hassan has been held there since 2002. I have just received a letter in which he describes how his brother Abu was dragged from his cell by the FCE (Forcible Cell Extraction) team. What they did to him is diabolical. They broke one wrist and the other was badly swollen, applied strangulation techniques, kneed him in the back and left him in his cell unable to move his finger, hand or leg. “Every nerve, every vein, every muscle seems to be screaming with me” said Abu. Emad could not sleep. He has been held without trial and was told, seven years ago, along with Shaker Aamer that he had done no wrong. So why are these people being held in captivity by the torturing USA?
Reprieve http://www.reprieve.org/ desperately needs funds to take action against officers from FCE team who did this dreadful deed. Force-feeding is still going on and people held in Guantanamo are worried that the world will forget about them. Please donate at the above link. Thanks.
Afrend
You still haven’t addressed my question. Why do you need to install software to prevent yourself from seeing Habbabkuk’s comments when you coukd quite simply skip past them? Have you no self-control?
Peacewisher
“That was what they said the philosophy was in Iraq first time round, Phil.”
Not sure what you are referring to with this. I am not aware of any anarchist movement in Fallujah. Would love to know more if that is what you are saying.
“how’s that going to come about?”
LOL. If only eh.
Gradual political decentralisation. Encouraging self reliance. Action as well as words. Question and challenge all authority in all your life. Question and challenge yourself. Recognise the cooperation all around. Class consciousness. Confronting the ruling classes. Community work…blah blah blah
“This [Catalonia] might also be of interest to you Phil:”
AFAIK, unfortunately the current secession efforts seem more nationalistic than rooted in the region’s remarkable anarchic history. But there is still a large anti-authoritarian streak in the people there and anarchist groups is huge compared to London so who knows…
The concept of “Terrorism” is projected by the media on behalf of political power and secret think tanks…
Without a consensus reality, the concocted “concept” just fades… “Terrorism” is simply a mantra and symbolism feed to the collective subconscious of a population. There’s power and big in this for those responsible.
The real “terrorists” are those perpetuating the concept of “terror”.
Tony M
“We are in the grip of a regime more terrible than human history has ever seen and our responsibilty, our duty is to thwart and impair and ultimately to destroy it.”
Tony, have you ever considered the possibility that you are stark raving mad?
“Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey say that the US is still considering the possibility of establishing a “no-fly zone” over northeastern Syria to deny the Syrian military the ability to launch airstrikes against the rebels therein.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2014/09/26/pentagon-us-considers-no-fly-zone-against-assad-in-syria/
Step-by-step. They are boxing him in.
PW
Maybe these will be of interest. David Graeber is a bit of an anarchist poster boy (itself a contradiction?) but he’s a great quick read:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you
http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
The anarchist faq is a great collective resource you can dip in and out of:
http://www.anarchistfaq.org/
Doug Scorgie
“Guano (23h02) Do you often wipe Mr Scorgie’s backside for him?”
___________________________________________
I have a butler to do that Habbabkuk, just like the Queen.”
Of course you do, Doug, but just like George III, sometimes your nurse must pretend to be your butler.
US considers no-fly zone over northern Syria; it strikes the central province of Homs for the first time.
The fuckers didn’t waste any time.
It’s all about Syria. If you can’t see that, you’re asleep.
I wonder what Russia is going to do. It surely knows ISIS is a ruse to get at Syria.
How important is Tartous to Russia? That will decide what the Russians do.
Russia has treaty with Syria, O2P is what I call it. Mike sees the Sevastapol/Tartus link. Anyone else?
I’m sure Putin is embarrassed that the ancient MiG (SAF) was shot down so easily. Israel is laying low but for that.