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.
“It’s all about Syria. If you can’t see that, you’re asleep.”
It’s all about oil and the pipeline from Iran through Syria that would make oil available to Europe. Read the article which everybody who has read it agrees is the best analysis of what the US global pursuit of war is all about.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/09/31406/comment-page-2/#comment-483159
Yes, John. BRICS is the fundamental key; the death of the Petrodollar…while it’s on a ventilator waiting for the plug to get pulled.
I know about the pipeline, John. Is ISIS about stopping that or toppling Assad? Probably both.
Maybe Russia will have to lend Assad a few S-34s, Ben.
all of this involves the sovereign State of Syria!
Pentagon ready to train up to 15,000 Syrian rebels
“This will not be an easy or brief effort,” Hagel said. “We are at the beginning not the end”…
On Friday, Sec. Hagel said that “there has been no coordination, nor will there be, with the Assad regime,”suggesting the Pentagon will continue to launch strikes in Syria without the permission of that country’s president. “Nothing has changed about our position that has shifted our approach to Assad and his regime because President Assad has lost all legitimacy to govern,” he said.
http://rt.com/usa/191048-hagel-dempsey-command-isis/
it’s mind-boggling really that so many people think we’re trying to defeat the wicked ISIS:
PM (David Cameron) speech at the UN General Assembly 2014
In Syria, it must mean a political transition and an end to Assad’s brutality.
Now I know there are some who think that we should do a deal with Assad in order to defeat ISIL.
But I think this view is dangerously misguided. Our enemies’ enemy is not our friend. It is another enemy. Doing a deal with Assad will not defeat ISIL – because the bias and the brutality of the Assad regime was and is one of the most powerful recruiting tools for the extremists…
So to those who have backed Assad or have stood on the sidelines, I would say this: we are ready to join with you in a new political effort to secure a representative and accountable government in Damascus that can take the fight to ISIL. But it is simply not credible for Assad to lead such a government…
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-at-the-un-general-assembly-2014
I have just sent the following email to Jeremy Corbyn (one of the tellers for the “No” lobby in the Iraq bombing debate yesterday) and all those in the tiny minority who voted “No” [I posted the list of all their names at 7.10pm yesterday.]
“Iraq – and foreign policy generally – is not a constituency matter. So, although you and copyees are not my MP, I am writing to thank you all for not being stampeded into the lobby that voted “Yes” to the bombing of Iraq.
RAF pilots will shortly start bombing raids in Iraq , under the authority of a huge majority of MPs. It is the Prime Minister (on whose resolution MPs were voting) and those who went into the “Yes” lobby – not the members of the UK armed forces – who will bear responsibility for the consequences of such a rash decision.
As contributions by you and others to yesterday’s debate made clear, the experiment to solve the intractable problems of the Middle East with bombs and ground forces and without a coherent political and diplomatic strategy has already been tried. If the Chilcot Inquiry ever delivers its report, will one of its lessons be – “Next time, try bombing alone, again without any agreed strategy” ? But then, the Chilcot Inquiry has already failed. Its stated purpose when launched by Sir John Chilcot was:
“We will …be considering the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country.”
No wonder so many UK citizens despair that, 11 years after our US ally celebrated “Mission Accomplished!”, 524 MPs have decided that the UK and its allies are now well-equipped to use bombs to produce peace. A Commons kibitzer like Boris Johnson might like to recall Tacitus: “ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant” (They make a desert and call it peace).
Thank you for being again in the truthful minority.”
If you look at the countries the neo-cons have whacked over the last 15 years, they are all pressure points on Russia/China. That’s the grand narrative here.
Ukraine is probably a strategic victory for Russia, so now the focus is back on Syria after last year’s failed false flag gas attack.
No sooner had Poroshenko vamoosed with his tail between his legs than ISIS suddenly became a Really Big Threat again.
we really don’t give a monkey’s[arse] about your Darling Wife, your Girlfriends and the various music festivals you claim to have attended.
If we have little responsibility for our friends, neighbors and associates how can we be ever fully understand sorrow, anguish, unhappiness, pain and tragedy.
Thank-you Tony for unmasking a stone heart. x
Fred
26 Sep, 2014 – 1:21 pm
“Fuck off and die retard, you don’t know shit.”
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Fred you’re an arsehole looking for a tongue.
I don’t think you’ll find one here.
Thanks Iain. I did a similar thing earlier thanking John McDonnell, and one condemning my own MP, Steve McCabe. It is just as important to let those who voted for war know what you think about their decision.
“I know about the pipeline, John. Is ISIS about stopping that or toppling Assad? Probably both.”
It is about oil. They are not worried who the heads of state are, whether it is Assad, Hussein or Gaddafi. They would like somebody they could work with but if not they will get rid of them and put in a puppet (calling it democratically elected). Protecting petrodollars is the policy. And we are helping them instead of benefiting from cheaper oil.
“Fred you’re an arsehole looking for a tongue.”
Fuck off retard cunt.
Mike
26 Sep, 2014 – 3:47 pm
“Nick Robinson, today: “The prime minister said he would not extend “pre-meditated” military action in Syria without a Commons vote but added that he reserved the right to act if there was an urgent humanitarian need to do so.”
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And I predict that “urgent humanitarian need” will be the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad.
Also; keep an eye on Israel.
Has the entire nation been so traumatized that it can only react with speechlessness (and blog posts) to the bloody-minded violence of our politician?
Where is the outrage? Where has it been over the last decade and a half, in which a state of permanent war has become a norm rather than an indecency?
Phil Ochs seems a thousand times more relevant today than he did during Viet-Nam even….
” I did not say ISIS rapes do not matter. I did say that if protecting girls from rape was the reason for attacking, as was said, then it makes more sense to attack India where rape is of a greater scale. ”
Of course you have proof of that assertion? Oh no I forgot, we don’t do evidence around here do we?
Details aside this is just another example of “We cannot condemn A because B is worse” that we’ve had so many times before.
Fred
26 Sep, 2014 – 6:15 pm
“Personally I am very much against dispersed groups of people united by extreme religious beliefs pushing indigenous Arabs out of their homeland to create a state for themselves.”
________________________________
Are you talking about Israel there Fred?
Gutter (cogently):
But Christ almighty! 415 comments in one day!
I’m sure there’s plenty of really good thoughts and links here, but who has the time to wade through 415 comments to find them?
Congratulations on rediscovering the purpose of political trolling. I think Afrend has linked to the script ‘Habbabreak’, above. Recommended; you can temporarily or permanently, partially or wholly, remove irrelevances like [insert opinionated, evidence-free, abusive or simply diversionary nuisance here]
Oddie, thanks for reprinting Cameron’s ravings. Which might be edited to read:
“I would say this: we are ready to join with you in a new political effort to secure a representative and accountable government in London that can take the fight to the financial parasites who have ruined us. But it is simply not credible for me to lead such a government…”
Hear, hear.
“Are you talking about Israel there Fred?”
Thought it was the US. Arabs, Native Americans, Aboriginal Austalians, all the same arn’t they?
It’s not per chance only when none white people ‘do it’ when some are aginst it. Otherwise it’s encouraged.
Ahh, thoes dispersed groups brought together by western intervention and radicalised. awfull isun’t it..
Another Paul Craig Roberts’ bulls-eye:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/09/25/will-russia-china-hold-fire-war-alternative-paul-craig-roberts/
At what point do enough of us say: But the King is naked.
Having considered before writing the above that some will say it cannot be the most terrible regime in human history, perhaps citing Hitlers Nazis or Stalins communists I would say this: these regimes, and what we have in the countries of Britain, in America, are one and the same, you would be comparing not two peas in a pod, but the one pea with itself. An international cabal of bankers and industrialists, was behind the creation and rise of the Nazis and Stalin’s Communists, which like ISIS may have escaped control of their creators and gone off their masters’ script in some details and indulged secondary personal foibles here and there, but still, could do nothing but serve their creators aims, obliged to play their given parts, they might ad-lib here and there, but like the actors in Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead the critical steps and the final act were inviolable, however much they might resist, for destiny they could not alter or escape.
The Nazi regime’s enemy was not the Communist regime in Russia, and the Communist regime’s enemy was not German Nazism. Both of their enemy’s were one and the same: the mass of the Russian peoples and German peoples, between them culled by around 40 millions, who were a threat not to each other, but to their ‘own’ totalitarian regimes in Berlin and Moscow. The war ended when both sides had exhausted for the moment their excess human fodder.
The new enemy, and the old enemy isn’t ISIS, but is us (ISUS).
There is hope, as multi million pound warplanes can be utterly destroyed with an 8 quid lump hammer.
Craig hosts this perspicacious and erudite blog, I believe, not for encouraging/inciting ‘action’ – certainly not for the design to influence the government or an international governmental organisation nor to intimidate a section of the public, and not for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
“new” sock-puppets in their ‘earn trust’ phase really shouldn’t encourage/incite opinion pronouncers to fall into these traps either, tho’ perhaps some of you might have a white van that you can help transport us in, and ready cash to flash for helping the plotting of the next coup?
I post news snippets here, when I find them , when they are relevant to push forward the discussion – to help examine a ‘claimed truth’ and shine a light on misspeaking, should these exist. I have been a news junkie for decades – it’s a hobby that allowed me to laugh at Radio Havana in the past, to smirk at Radio Station Peace & Progress, whilst enjoying the capture of these elusive propaganda outlets. I certainly no longer trust ANYTHING I see or hear on the organisation formerly known as the British Broadcasting Corporation, excepting perhaps an Alan Bennet monologue now and then.
Nowadays, the UKUSA propaganda budget is up in the billions, the media that I trusted until recently is subverted, the politicians are all on the same message, the elephants in the room are never mentioned. I am surprised that the UKUSA deep state (dark-forces?) still permits Blogs like Craig’s – perhaps we still have the illusion of free speech, should we be dumb enough to even try it, certainly the sock-puppets here are compiling dossiers on us visitors/posters.
Would we have freedom to post news/views in the near future?
can we expect to link to an article on SMART BOMBS in Iraq in a decade and get away with it? Sometimes I have my doubts!
As once again the UK goes to war on behalf of the City of London, Iceland reminds us that you can be financially successful without bowing down to the bankers. Iceland has recovered from the financial crisis better than any other European country. What did they do differently? Instead of bailing out the bankers who caused it, they jailed them. A short interview with the president of Iceland :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU9ijza42jVR3T6b8bColgvg&v=3CyCP9vhs5c
The front page of the print Guardian today gives more space to a celeb wedding than Britain’s new war.
YNMN;
Bringing the reality of war to a personal level. There are conscientious reporters out there, but like the citizenry, it’s a limited number who care enough to make a difference. What I don’t care for is the tendency to see catastrophe and it’s effect on bystanders and the collateral damage as just an unfortunate event. The folks back home can ignore the macabre deaths of innocents by the thousands when they don’t share the same national identity. When the rebels were eating hearts we were appalled, but only became incensed when Americans Brits and French victims fell by the sword.
Nationalism is a terrible thing.
What state is most at risk from a strong middle east country with modern weapons. What state benefits from a fragmented middle east, where any country that starts to become stable and strong is bombed back into a non threatening position?
The Caliphate spreading faster than Ebola.
“Nearly everywhere in Africa, the U.S. military is in action. However, except in rare cases, like the recent announcement of an “Ebola surge” in Liberia, you would never know it. At the moment, for instance, according to the Associated Press, AFRICOM is “preparing to launch a ‘major’ border security program to help Nigeria and its neighbors combat the increasing number and scope of attacks by Islamic extremists.” We’re talking, of course, about the other “caliphate,” the one in northern Nigeria announced by Boko Haram, an outfit that makes the militants of IS look moderate. But that’s news you’re unlikely to read in this country, not at least until, at some future moment, things start to go really, really wrong. Similarly, U.S. drone bases are slowly spreading in Africa, but you’d have to have an eagle eye to notice it. Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the “Pentagon is preparing to open a drone base in one of the remotest places on Earth.” Tucked away, far from prying eyes, in the middle of the Sahara desert, the U.S. will now be cleared to fly drones out of “the mud-walled desert city of Agadez.”
http://www.tomdispatch.com/
YouKnowMyName
Good points
But just because they may be able to restrict speech in some places. Their power is declining for the very reasons you mention. Lost of people see though this, lots of em. So what if they can’t talk about it in the guardian. It’s still reality. And people directly in the establishment are seeing it more and more. Which in my view they often haven’t. lots of them need to believe in what they are doing.
The capacity for the state to really make people convinced is declining. And it seems to me what they have is the shadow of power. Sure they can do bad stuff to people tying to engage in democratic ways. But when I get out and about it always encourages me how many people think just the same.
It’s really not very good power when your only backers are full of nonsense. Sofa ‘thinkers’ in front of the TV. It won’t take long before many people lied to over this recent intervention will get it also. It’s just a matter of time.
So what if they could close down a blog like this? The fact is they want to know what people think.
It’s concerning me less and less because it’s actions that matter. The internet is a tool, but by no means essential. And can also be a hinderance.
It’s a state running on nothing. It’s like those cartoons when you see someone riding a bike or running or something, and the ground disappears from beneath them.
They still keep on going for a bit, happy and jolly, oblivious. But they are screwed.
my tortuous phraseology “encouraging/inciting ‘action’ – certainly not for the design to influence the government or an international governmental organisation nor to intimidate a section of the public, and not for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.”
was of course a reversal of the salient points on the definition of terrorism in the Uk Terrorism Act 2000. hence you calling for “action” on a blog that is hosted in the Netherlands – could be misinterpreted in the wrong place/wrong time as an incitement to terrorism, international terrorism even. wow!
But I partly agree with you on the direct sentiment analysis, the twitter API “sentiment” tools are still crude, can be 100% out of phase with reality, but then remember that most postings on blogs are the equivalent of talking to a drunk guy/gal in a pub.
O/T. Did Russia *really* secure its multi-billion 2013 loan to Ukraine, not only by signing the document in an English court, but with the default-trigger clause that requires Ukraine to maintain capital reserves to national debt ratio at above 60%? Is Kiev just minutes away from a financial meltdown as the http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=UAH&to=USD&view=1Y currency is in free-fall?
Mr Goss (on the assumption that I am “Noddy” to him)
“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”
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Great cartoon, Mr Goss, I enjoyed it very much.
Please post some more – in fact, lots more.
Thanks!