It turns out that the CIA has realised for years that drone attacks are of very limited utility. Like so many of the injustices of the “War on Terror”, they are in fact a driver for armed hatred of the West, not least because they kill more civilians than targets.
But of course, the “war on terror” is very much about boosting the standing of politicians who are “fighting terror” on behalf of their citizens, and about boosting the ever-inflating powers – and budgets – of the security services. SO counterproductive measures are, paradoxically, the most attractive to those whose aim is not to obtain peace, but rather to maintain the concentration of power and finance consequent upon an eternal state of phoney war.
“Certainly coincidences happen. But the less probable they are, the more you have to suspect that they were not just coincidences.”
Like if a helicopter crashes into a pub and a dustbin wagon into a supermarket in almost the same place within a year?
Now what were the odds against that?
These things happen.
For your analogy to work, the helicopter and the garbage truck would have to belong to the same owner. And airliner disappearances and shootdowns are both much less common than motor vehicle crashes.
Lysias opines
“Certainly coincidences happen. But the less probable they are, the more you have to suspect that they were not just coincidences.”
Habbabkuk asks
what is “the less probable” in the case of the two Malaysian airliners?
what yardstick of probability are you measuring this case against?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you sure you read Lit. Hum. at Oxford?
Both events were mysterious. For an airliner to wander off course for no detectable reason and absolutely disappear is extremely improbable. And for another airliner, during the same year, to wander off course for no detectable reason into a war zone and then be shot down is also extremely improbable. And it just so happens that both airliners belong to the same company.
“For your analogy to work, the helicopter and the garbage truck would have to belong to the same owner.”
_______________
Not at all, Lysias.
Why wouldn’t the same place make the analogy work just as well (given that we’re looking at a helicopter crash (vertical)and a truck crash (horizontal)?
Of course once something has happened it ceases to be a probability and becomes a certainty
“Both events were mysterious. For an airliner to wander off course for no detectable reason and absolutely disappear is extremely improbable. And for another airliner, during the same year, to wander off course for no detectable reason into a war zone and then be shot down is also extremely improbable. And it just so happens that both airliners belong to the same company.”
MH17 wasn’t off course.
Context from 1986.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP8CzlFhc14
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
Cicero, 55 BC in Roman …Senate
I’ve just listed to Dr Nott’s interview on PM – all the appeasers and apologists for the Assad monarchy need to hang their heads in shame. I remember the same humanitarian arguments being raised a year ago and in the meantime our politicians have done nothing and Putin has supplied Assad with arms – if we wait another year Western Syria will be entirely in Assad’s hands and much of the rest will belong to the other barbarians of ISIS – and the bulk of decent Syrians will be assigned to refugee camps for the rest of their life. If there ever were circumstances that meet John Stuart Mill’s requirements for liberal humanitarian intervention – modern day Syria is such a case.
I made my last post before seeing Mark Golding’s effort on treason from within. The irony is somewhat overpowering.
Resident Dissident
Fully agree.
I too have heard Dr Nott.
A true humanitarian doctor, who does not – unlike Norwegian doctor and extreme left-winger Mads (“Mad”) Gilbert – fuse and confuse medicine and politics.
Macky
‘Indeed, rather like the deraillings, distractions & misdirections that online shills & trolls employ on political blogs !’
Ha ha well I guess we are lucky that we don’t have to worry about things like that on this blog, eh? 🙂
Reading Resident Dissident’s posts, the thought struck me:
Since Dr Mad (“Mad”) Gilbert, the political doctor, has apparently been refused re-entry to Gaza, could he not – indeed, should he not – immediately go to Syria to help suffering humanity there?
The borders of Syria are so porous that he should have no difficulty entering.
How about it, Dr Mads??
“A true humanitarian doctor”
——————————-
Habb the apologist.
Talking of humanitarian doctors, well dentists actually 5 dentists from Glasgow are today heading for the Gaza strip, to provide free dental health care for the Palestinian people.
That is of course if that other lot, allow them access the strip.
Kempe
I don’t know what happened but I do know the official 911 report is not remotely credible with a quarter of its footnotes–according to NBC News some 441 out of 1,700 footnotes–based on the evidence of prisoners who were tortured, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who holds the world record for being waterboarded with some 180 or so sessions.
My goodness, another thought has struck me (there will be more, don’t worry!)… :
surely it could not be that Dr Mads (“Mad”) Gilbert would wish to confine his humanitarian interventions to Arab victims of Israelis and would avert his eyes from the Arab victims of other Arabs??
Perish the thought!
“Talking of humanitarian doctors, well dentists actually 5 dentists from Glasgow are today heading for the Gaza strip, to provide free dental health care for the Palestinian people.
That is of course if that other lot, allow them access the strip.”
___________________
The Israelis might well refuse them entry into Gaza (as they did with Dr Mads “Mad” Gilbert) but I’m sure they would faciltate their journey to Syria, where their services are surely also much needed.
Dr Gilbert please note!
“Japan, Australia, US start new era with F-35 service agreement”
________________
Splendid news! Thanks for posting.
add to that Britain, buying a failure that has not shot a missile since last year, a dud and danger to our pilots. Pity on those who speak up for this ‘Walmart Starfighter’
Shows what our socket knows of military hardware, the plane is a death trap and test pilots have said so, its too complex and the service agreements sound more like rip off for shite agreements.
Our Habbacrack thinks that a dangerous plane for our boys in blue, who have been flying attack training all day/last week btw., is splendid news. Just keep to your school masterly blow jobs and cyber stalking here, military stuff is not your forte.
http://theaviationist.com/2013/03/07/f-35-visibility/
the link to go with above
RiDiculous
“If there ever were circumstances that meet John Stuart Mill’s requirements for liberal humanitarian intervention – modern day Syria is such a case.”
Trollyshill, Be aware that Israyhell which backs Assad and founded ISIS want to expand their territory into Syria. They have a unique opportunity with an entirely owned political class in the United States and UK, to swing it and take control of Syria under humanitarian licence from the United Nations.
They have form on territory.
If Cameron can keep his farts inside, so can you.
“On the contrary, RoS, as a pro-Palestinian supporter I’m constantly on the look out for sloppy, pisspoor articles and research that would do our cause harm.”
“PressTV, FFS. Are you a Zionist infiltrator?”
—————————————-
Erm! I think you’ll find Habb is the Zionist infiltraitor, and he has no qualms about showing it.
He seems to agree with you, and if what you say about being Pro-Palestinian is true, you’d do well to remember that.
As for pisspoor articles, the other side spew out far more than the pro-Palestinian ones ever could.
The North’s poor are going hungry after the Government rejected a £22m food fund from Europe, it is claimed today by the region’s Labour MEPs.
David Cameron has been criticised for allegedly failing to take the money, which could directly go to foodbanks in the region, over fears it reveals the UK’s dependency on the EU and weakens his position.
However the Conservative Party have dismissed Labour’s claims, saying people are not missing out on the EU cash and have £2.9m to spend.
Labour MEPs have now written an open letter to the Prime Minister asking him to lift his block on support for the country’s most vulnerable people for what they consider is solely for ‘ideological reasons’.
The European Aid to the Most Deprived Fund is worth £2.5bn, and is available to all EU member countries to dip into to help people who are most in need.
Foodbanks in the North East would have been able to apply for funding from the pot.
However David Cameron decided to opt out of the scheme in 2013, which Labour members believe could have eventually totalled £22m for the UK between 2014 and 2020.
http://unemployedtynewear.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/government-slammed-over-decision-to-reject-eu-hand-out-while-folk-go-hungry/
…………………………….
What an absolute t*sser, David Cameron, could have asked the money to help ease the suffering of the poor, in NE England, this Tory Bullingdon Boy, if the allegations are true, really doesn’t give a stuff about the poor folk of England, or the rest of the UK for that matter.
Concern was growing in America yesterday over David Miliband’s suitability to run a human rights charity given his track record in hushing up torture.
His past involvement in covering up the dark practice threatens to tarnish the reputation of the International Rescue Committee, its supporters warned.
Some donors to the highly regarded humanitarian charity are now openly questioning whether he is the right man to be its president.
They are demanding he clear the air by returning to London to give evidence to a judge-led inquiry.
Mr Miliband, who landed the £300,000-a-year job last year after quitting British politics, has always denied suppressing evidence of torture. In 2010.
However, he spent £213,000 of taxpayers’ money in legal fees battling in the Court of Appeal to stop details emerging of the appalling treatment of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident and former Guantanamo inmate.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2884455/Anger-human-rights-charity-backers-Concern-grows-David-Miliband-s-suitability-role-given-record-hushing-torture.html
……………………………….
Are the Miliband brothers actually suitable, to hold any position of power, in any field? I for one very much doubt it.
“The Israelis might well refuse them entry into Gaza”
____________________________
Habb
No surprise there then eh.
What could be the potential problem? could the liquid mouth wash, be seen as a liquid bomb?
Or could the mirrors for inspecting teeth for cavities been seen as communication devices, using the sun?
Or maybe the dental drills could been construed as being small Uzi pistols?
One really does wonder.
The Washington Post published an article about MH17 a few days after the shootdown that had a map of the route MH flights had flown through Ukraine in the last several iterations of that flight. They all went well away from the Donbass and the area of fighting.
David Miliband secretly plotted to hand Shaker Aamer to the hardline Saudi Arabian authorities while leading his British family to believe he was seeking to bring him back to the UK.
Documents obtained by the Daily Mail show the Labour government was involved in negotiations to transfer the father of four from Guantanamo to the Arab kingdom in spite of serious concerns he would face torture.
This was despite assurances that then foreign secretary Mr Miliband – the brother of current Labour leader Ed – was lobbying for his return to Britain. Mr Aamer’s lawyers claim the intention was to silence their client – who claims to have witnessed torture in the presence of a British security official.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2884395/David-Miliband-s-dirty-secret-Red-Ed-s-brother-told-Guantanamo-Briton-s-family-fighting-bring-home-plotting-hand-Saudis.html
…………………………………
There goes a future PM of the UK he has all the right credentials, to fill the post.
A Fox affiliate out of Baltimore has been accused of deceptively editing a video, making it seem as though protesters in the nation’s capitol chanted, “Kill a cop,” when they were actually calling for accountability.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/fox-affiliate-caught-deceptively-editing-footage-of-police-protesters.html
…………………………..
Well well well, talk about pisspoor reports harming causes, now who was it that mentioned this sort of thing, Ah Yes it was Anon.
“The Washington Post published an article about MH17 a few days after the shootdown that had a map of the route MH flights had flown through Ukraine in the last several iterations of that flight. They all went well away from the Donbass and the area of fighting.”
Planes often alter their routes to suit the weather, if they can avoid headwinds they can save fuel. MH17 contacted air traffic control and asked to divert to the north to avoid storms and they were on the new flight path air traffic control gave them when they were shot down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Crash
Vanity Fair now has an article about Dolphin Square and the pedophilia scandal: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/12/scandal-dolphin-square-london
Some people probably know this from the article, but it was news to me:
Head of MI6, that’s about as connected as you can get, isn’t it?