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.
One (poor?) analogy to the above… something dodgy on the road. Natural reaction is to brake.
Car goes into a skid… Panic! So brake harder?|?
Nothing happens… even more panic! Brake even harder….
We all know what happens next!
The propaganda does seem targeted to the more elderly. Very easy to scare when they haven’t been shown stuff that ‘our’ allies do regular..
Who would have thought that people could do this. Not the beheading but spread fear across populations about nonsense threats. Somehow I find that a far more disturbing truth about those pushing this..
oops wrong email agan.
Spreading fear has physiological effects. So someone of even good health can be made quite ill. Let alone those with a fragile disposition.
It’s sickness beyond belief. Sate terrorism. Unlimited budgets.
Tony: Can you write like this???
No. I can’t do lyrical and make sense at the same time. Though I think his actual argument could have been made more clearly- he wanders and repeats like Carlyle does, so emotion is perhaps a couple of lengths ahead of reason there.
State* terrorism.
Syria – Update:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/world-govt-politics/us-led-planes-strike-fighters-attacking-syria-town/nhW7p/
Thank-you for visiting.
While I’m off topic, I see Cherie Blair has now given up human rights – even trendy ones – for her important work advising brutal dictators on globalisation:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/516101/Cherie-Blair-quits-human-rights-chambers
Follow the money, Cherie. No-one will ever call you a whore.
If only, Ishmael…:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-prescott-isis-air-strikes-4334465
Look at the vote… 82% bomb them. This is online Daily Mirror… hardly the territory of the elderly. Carefully orchestrated mass hysteria is the most likely explanation.
And as for the people directing that mass hysteria… this is/was the behaviour of our Minister for Civil Society:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2771883/BREAKING-NEWS-Tory-MP-Mark-Reckless-defects-UKIP.html
Maybe the hypocrisy squared of this will shake people out of their “bomb them” hysteria?
If not, maybe this might change a few minds:
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/obama-and-cameron-clear-up-any-confusion-about-why-they-are-bombing-iraq-and-syria
With a forthcoming election now in Medway, Bob Marshall-Andrews previous constituency, labour would do well the get another anti-war candidate, in 2005 Bob bucked the national trend to retain his marginal seat.
Bob, speaking in any almost deserted house of commons in 2009, regarding the Chilcot Inquiry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJGkXQ8zfwo
If labour won’t, maybe this is a good opportunity for the Greens…
Radio 4 is as I type softening up opinion to accept that our poor bloody infantry will be shipping out at some point. The message being that the Iraqi government has to look a damn sight more credible before the locals fight on its behalf (true) and as IS is now embedded in civilian areas, bombing would be bad PR (true).
OTOH As mentioned earlier, the SOC puppet-government-in-exile we favour is not well aligned with the Syrian resistance to Assad, and given a level playing field Assad could hve dealt with IS in Syria himself (one reason IS started going for Iraq was that Assad was pushing them out). We’re probably beyond any rational solution now. Here we bloody go again.
“OTOH As mentioned earlier, the SOC puppet-government-in-exile we favour is not well aligned with the Syrian resistance to Assad, and given a level playing field Assad could hve dealt with IS in Syria himself (one reason IS started going for Iraq was that Assad was pushing them out). ”
Assad is dealing with IS. He’s buying cheap petrol off them and a few other smuggled across the border goods he can’t otherwise get because of sanctions.
@Fred: You seem well informed…
Or could this be part of a very clever piece of news rom these very clever media types that attempts to associate Assad with ISIS?
it can’t get crazier! am sure you all know of Rita Katz and SITE.
Mohsin al-Fadhli, here one minute, gone the next!
Jerusalem Post: Leader was al-Qaida affiliate Osama bin Laden and among the few who knew in advance about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks
DUBAI – A Twitter account run by an al-Qaida member said the leader of the al-Qaida-linked Khorasan group was killed in a US air strike in Syria, SITE monitoring service said on Sunday, following several days of uncertainty over whether he survived the raid…
SITE did not name the jihadist who reported Fadhli’s death but said he had trained under a close associate of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri and had fought in Khorasan before traveling to Syria….
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Khorasan-leader-killed-by-US-strike-in-Syria-376480
“Do you think ISIS pose a threat to the streets of Britain?”
Yea, polls like this are vile. Obversely there is SOME threat, But so is going out of the front door.
Car accidents, lighting strikes, also ‘threats’ but are we all issued with rubber boots. Again it’s a way to frame the question in an oversimplified manner.
Ps, I agree it’s not just the elderly, it’s also the perpetually fearful reading that trash. It seems to me there are those who have been genuinely made to fear irrationally. And those who want it to be a ‘threat’ finding there identity in a brutal jingoistic society.
@Ishmael: Watching Bob Marshall-Andrews’ brilliant speech again reminded me that this country can never become a functioning democracy whilst it still doesn’t institutionally accept that a Prime Minister lied to Parliament to take the country to war.
Stop the War Coalition is organising a demonstration or next Saturday, 4th October, gather along The Embankment.
So just six RAF Tornado jets are not bombing Iraq because they can’t find any targets and the Murrayistas are already presenting this as some sort of appalling war crime for which we should all be shamed for all eternity. They’ll be waiting eagle-eyed for the first civilian casualties so they can moan and wail about the evil of the West while Muslims carry on slaughtering thousands of their fellow Muslims.
Peacewisher
Agree, it’s still not been sorted.
@Anonm1: I thought a Murrayista was some sort of tennis fan…
This is probably happening because Harriet Harman asked to be kept informed on each mission. Good for the RAF or refusing the get any civilian blood on their hands.
Even a war-hungry public need to be reminded for this before we go on another war. Otherwise, Blair’s crimes will become a “conspiracy Theory”.
Last comment in response to Ishmael re “Lying to Parliament”.
Maybe some good news re public opinion:
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/09/28/green-party-neck-and-neck-liberal-democrats-voting/
Could this mean that Nick Clegg will get defeated in his Sheffield constituency at the general election?
Assad is dealing with IS. He’s buying cheap petrol off them and a few other smuggled across the border goods he can’t otherwise get because of sanctions.
Wouldn’t you? Western policy is forcing all sorts of bizarre arrangements. Though I would like to see the reason for your belief, beyond mere assertion. Possibly this has to do with bidirectional smuggling across the Turkish borders? In which case he’s buying from Turkish smugglers. One way to stop him enriching IS, or even doing clandestine deals with them, might be to lift the sanctions conditionally. Or would that be unacceptably logical?
I’d agree, though, that what the west wants is a clean slate in Syria, Then they can set up an appointed (but ‘democratic’) government which a ‘popular’ revolt can destroy if the markets so demand, and propagate the horror into the future.
According to Sky News its costing the UK taxpayer £3 million quid a day to fund, this phoney war on terrorism.
Meanwhile a Tory MP named Reckless, (an apt title for a Tory if ever there was one) has defected to UKIP, I wish these MP’s would defect a little bit further a field, to lets say China, think of the money we could save.
Its also being reported widely that UK Tornado jets are returning to their Cyprus,base or wherever there landing,and have NOT fired a single missile, the reason given for the lack of missiles fired, is they can’t find IS/ISL or Jihadi Johnny.
I mean what kind of excuse is that? according to the CIA/MI5 they know who he is and where IS/ISL are yet when it comes to bombing them they’ve drawn a blank.
Of course this is all just a ruse which will pave the way for boot on the ground in Iraq, the excuse will be we can’t find to bomb them so in we go.
Blair urges bombing antisemites, though air strikes alone won’t solve the problem:
http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/blair-action-rather-words-needed-tackle-anti-semitism/
And UAE is spinning furiously…against Qatar. Alastair Campbell – rarely far from a shitstir.
http://dohanews.co/qatar-center-pr-firms-battle-influence/
It’s outrageous that regular folks see death by natural causes is ‘unusual’
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/death-and-dying-in-aleppo-as-syria-civil-war-rages-on-a-993123.html
On Monday, Zakarias had been drinking his coffee in the garden, as he does every morning. The 60-year-old tailor lives alone in his centuries-old house. He used to run a shop, which he had rented out, but unfortunately the tenant is now dead. Zakarias tends to the plants surrounding the well in the inner courtyard. He usually goes to visit his old friend Johannes in the morning and brings him a jug of cold water from the refrigerator.
An Unusual Way to Die
On Tuesday morning at nine, Zakarias is once again drinking his coffee in the courtyard. When he suddenly hears the hissing of a bomb, he runs into his room, hoping he will be safe there. But it’s the wrong direction. The bomb isn’t big, but it hits the 60-year-old man, and it destroys half of his house and that of his neighbor Samar Hiyasi, the 38-year-old widow of a stock market employee. He died five years ago, say the neighbors. Of natural causes, they add, as if it were an unusual way to die.
Zakarias might have survived had he jumped into his cellar on the other side of the courtyard as his neighbor did. The civil defense volunteers, who arrive with a generator, a jackhammer and wire cutters, find him quickly. But it takes them two hours of sawing through a mountain of debris to reach Hiyasi’s body. Two steel balls, one the size of a cherry and the other as big as a walnut, are embedded in what is left of her skull. They had been stuffed into the bomb to increase its destructive power.
As the men continue to dig, Zakarias’ old friend Johannes shows up. Someone tells him what has happened. He nods. No screaming, no eyes wide open in horror, no astonishment, nothing. Just a nod. He buys some bread and returns to his house, the last Catholic old age home in eastern Aleppo, the Maison de Repos Saint-Elie.
“I have to sweep the courtyard,” he says as he walks away, and adds, in the same gentle singsong voice, that he had already guessed what had happened. First there was the explosion, and then Zakarias didn’t show up with the water. “Now he’s dead, too,” he thought.
There are still seven residents in the Saint-Elie home. The others have left or have died, and at 75 Johannes is now one of the two youngest. Magi Anastos, sitting in the dappled shade of trees in the courtyard in front of a sky-blue statue of Jesus, is 80. The residents, some of whom have lived here for 20 years or more, had thought these last few years of their lives would be quiet.
Blair urges bombing antisemites, though air strikes alone won’t solve the problem:
_________________________
Anti-Semitism on,the rise, why am I not surprised, of course you can blame, the many for the failings of the few.
Re. Cyprus Tornadoes ; the GR4 can operate interchangeably with the GR4a reconnaissance version. And the later Paveway bombs are extremely expensive – you wouldn’t use one on a guy with a camel. At a guess, move on, nothing to see except the MSM’s curious obsession with a couple of a/c going out on a recce in a predesignated sector, not finding anything worth wasting costly ordnance on, and bringing said ordnance back for another day.
Previous post, not CAN but CAN’T I do apologise.