We are directly responsible for the disasters in the Mediterranean. The bombing of Libya into failed state status is now coming back to haunt us. The ludicrous idea, propounded by Blair, Robert Cooper and the Henry Jackson Society, that you could improve dictatorial states by massive bombing campaigns that targeted their basic infrastructure, is now a total bust. Sadly so are Iraq and Libya, to the permanent detriment of many millions of people. We caused both the Islamic State and the Mediterranean boat disasters, and we caused them with bombs.
But the lack of any effective policing is only part of the problem. What makes people so desperate that they are prepared to give all of the small amount they own, to ruthless gangs, in exchange for a dreadful sea crossing with a one in ten chance of drowning? Most of the refugees are sub-Saharan African. We only see the European end of the saga, not the terrible conditions on the cross Saharan journeys that they start with.
There will be no security anywhere if the world does not address the terrible scourge of African poverty and under-development. That is a huge subject on which I have written extensively and worked much of my life, and I do not wish to open it here. But what it does show is the utter stupidity – inhumanity yes, but also stupidity – of UKIP in thinking that cutting development aid will increase the economic security of the UK.
LOL, Russian Dolls sounds a much better description of Goss and Macky, than Russian Trolls, Clark.
Good to see you here and you sound well!
Chilcot Report may not come out until next year,as Jack Straw and Tony Blair are given more time to prepare their case, to defend themselves from criticism,that the report contains.
The Maxwellian Process,allows Blair and Straw access to the criticism,and time to reply to it.
The report must contain some damning evidence against Blair and Straw,and Labour as a whole,watch out for the report being kicked back into the long grass again.
7:25 is an excellent example of Clark’s ambiguous influence on this site when instead of moderating he tries to herd everyone to his opinion. “Churning out endless additional theories” demonstrates that he did not bother to read the link http://www.consensus911.org. Show us the theories in there, Clark.
Clark’s point about testimony under torture is apposite. But overall Clark is behaving in classic consistency with the behavioral science research, which shows orthodox persons repressing discourse by dismissing evidence and parroting boilerplate pejoratives – like ‘theories.’
@Clark
“So John Goss and Macky are supporters of Russian government policy.”
Clark. And me as well.RT is more honest than the rest of the western propaganda.
Come on Clark get your act together.
“I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.” John Lennon.
@Clark
”We know there was popular support for the overthrow, but you ignore it, just as Russian government propaganda does. ”
Not in the east. Opponents for the coup were almost immediately called terrorists by the new regime in Kiev for doing exactly what the Maidan protesters did, occupy government buildings. Opponents of the coup didn’t march on Kiev and demand that Ukrainian’s constitution be upheld, something they had every right to do, no they stayed in the east and said, we didn’t recognize the illegal regime in Kiev.
The fact is there is no way of knowing if the coup was popular. Even if it was the new regime that took power had no right to use force to prevent opponents of the coup from protesting.
You are considering yourself lucky, Truther999, being killed in the blast wave.
More likely to be one of the hundreds of millions who have to cope with the resulting fallout.
Chances are I shall be one of them too.
“Donbas” itself is a pro-Kremlin propaganda term. Donbas is the basin of the Don river, and as such half of it is already within Russia, the propaganda objective being to normalise the idea of it all being within Russia.
John Goss, if you’re honest, you’ve got a lot of waking up to do.
———————————————————————
Absolute bollocks, like most of the ill-informed stuff you’ve been spouting about Ukraine and Russia, which have a lot of shared history, and geography including the River Don. Donbas (Донбасс) stands for the Donetsk Coal-fields Basin (Донецкий Угольный Бассейн). It’s like the Danube Delta which, though going through several European countries and four capital cities, tips out into the Black Sea at the Danube Delta. It’s named after the river. Get it? Resident Dissident has already put you right on this once if I recall.
@Trowbridge – I aim to be at St Helens by then enjoying the fruits of my aquaponics research – eat your hearts out, preppers !
Remember St. Helens is about the same latitude as Australia where in On The Beach the last survivor of that imagined armageddon turned out to be a Coke bottle and the nuclear wind.
Hope that’s not you.
@Clark
Here we go have a read its hot off the press just for you.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/truth-is-washingtons-enemy/5444563
FT has new projection out today for election. http://elections.ft.com/uk/2015/projections/ . One change from yesterday: one seat has switched from LibDems to Labour. So Labour is up to 270, and LibDems are down to 25. Labour (270) + SNP (47) + Plaid Cymru (4) + SDLP (3) + Greens (1) now equals 425, 1 short of a majority.
Dave, giving Clark something like Craig Robert’s article to read on the removal of free-speech and US perpetual or proxy war (including that in Ukraine) is hardly likely to bear fruit, though thank you for trying. Macky gave him a very good article on the history of the fascist coup in Kiev resultant events in Odessa and the Donbas but I don’t think he finished it, at least he only addressed the first section. He has an idea that Russia is equally as culpable as the USA in creating world tension and anything that does not fit that preconception is dismissed. However I don’t recall him blaming Russia for the wars in Iraq, Libya or other regions where NATO has introduced ‘democracy’. Only after the Ukraine war.
However it was good to see the arrival of yourself and Andy to restore some credibility to the blog. Like a badly neglected garden it had fallen into a barren wasteland, where thistles had grown up and throttled the good seedlings(no disrespect RoS 🙂 ) and the good seed had fallen on stony ground and got gobbled up by the blue tits and finches, pigeons and crows. I learnt something like that in Sunday School. 🙂
The United States has deployed two more warships to take up position off the Yemeni coast, joining seven other American naval vessels already patrolling the area and a veritable flotilla of Iranian ships that have been rapidly moving toward the war-ravaged country.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier and guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy are arriving just as two Iranian warships have taken up position in the Gulf of Aden, heightening tensions between the two rivals just as fighting between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Yemeni forces supported by Saudi Arabia and other American allies intensifies.
Could Iran and the USA,be about to go head to head,over the Yemen?
Both are backing different factions in the war torn country.
The unrest could give Saudi Arabia an excuse to also attack Iran.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/20/why-are-the-u-s-and-iran-sending-warships-to-the-yemeni-coast/
Thanks RoS for that story. I think it was the USS Theodore Roosevelt that docked in the UK about two or three weeks back. Hopefully it is just sabre-rattling, however with the Saudi bombing of poor Yemenis, it might be a pre-planned joint exercise.
Putting geopolitics above a longtime campaign promise, President Barack Obama will refrain from using the word “genocide” to describe the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.
The decision came after a senior delegation of Turkish diplomats travelled to Washington to meet with White House officials and three days before the 100th anniversary of the mass killings.
U.S. officials speaking to Foreign Policy said the White House had contemplated recognising the genocide and alerted State Department officials who deal with Turkey to prepare for the potential diplomatic blowback.
In the end, though, the White House decided against using the term. Administration officials relayed the decision to a group of Armenian-American leaders Tuesday afternoon, prompting an immediate backlash from those who have spent decades trying to get Washington to recognise what many historians describe as the first genocide of the 20th century.
“President Obama’s surrender to Turkey represents a national disgrace,” Ken Hachikian, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement. “It is, very simply, a betrayal of truth, a betrayal of trust.”
I suppose Obama doesn’t want to alienate Turkey as an ally,but probably more significantly he wouldn’t want to over shadow the other holocaust,that gets all the attention you know the one I mean,of course you do.
In the eyes of some there’s only room for one holocaust in this world.
Was it the work of terrorists? Or protesters against Japan’s post-Fukushima return to nuclear energy? Or was it merely an example of high-tech hijinks that flew astray?
Judging by reports from Tokyo, the small drone that landed Wednesday on the roof of the Japanese prime minister’s office spurred more questions — as evidenced by the number of confused-looking investigators milling around — than actual fear.
Small traces of what is believed to be radioactive caesium were found on the drone, which sported a camera and insignia associated with hazmats, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is out of the country, and no emergency was declared.
Remarkably Japan has no laws governing,how low unmanned aircraft can be flown over its cities.
You’re welcome John Goss.
To understand China’s role in the Middle East, consider one recent event, and one recent non-event. In late March, Beijing made headlines by sending warships to rescue hundreds of Chinese and foreign nationals from conflict-torn Yemen.
Yet in early April, Chinese President Xi Jinping cancelled what was supposed to be his first official trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reportedly as a result of the fighting in Yemen — underscoring that Beijing would rather get out of the kitchen than stand the heat of Middle Eastern politics.
Indeed, it is China’s considerable absence, rather than burgeoning influence, that continues to define its role in this turbulent region.
China has good reasons to care about events in the Middle East: Roughly half of its oil imports come from the Persian Gulf. Moreover, Beijing worries about extremist elements in the region providing training and inspiration to Muslim separatists in western China.
It is hard to see how a deeply risk-averse China could step into a leadership role in any of the region’s fiery disputes. Beijing’s most difficult balancing act will be trying to maintain good relations with both Riyadh and Tehran amid escalating regional and sectarian competition.
Eventually China’s fuel needs will drive it,to more extreme measures in the Middle East,and confrontation with the west seems inevitable,the question is are we prepared enough,to stifle China’s economic growth,or will China’s booming economy be the demise of ours.
Incredibly, Israeli historian Guenter Lewy argued in his book The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies that what was done to the Gypsies was not genocide. Even though about the same proportion of Gypsies in the world as of Jews (in each case about one third) was killed by the Nazis, and even though much of the killing of Gypsies took place at Auschwitz.
When Obama was running for president in 2008, he promised Armenian-Americans that as president he would use the word “genocide” to describe what was done to the Armenians. Since then, he has steadfastly refused to use the word. And he isn’t even using it now, on the 100th anniversary of the start of that genocide and just after Pope Francis used the word.
European Union competition officials will likely throw the book at Russian energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday, flexing Brussels’s strongest muscle and potentially reshaping an energy sector that has worked largely to Moscow’s advantage since the 1970s.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who leapt into global headlines last week when she opened an antitrust investigation of Google, is expected to charge Gazprom with a bevy of anti-competitive practices, including denying pipeline access to other energy suppliers and charging discriminatory prices to certain customers.
The high-profile antitrust case, in the works since late 2011 and officially open since 2012, continues a recent thrust by European bureaucrats to push back against Russia by digging deep into their regulatory toolkit.
But it also threatens to further ratchet up tensions between Brussels and Moscow that have been severely strained over the Ukraine crisis.
I’d like to see the EU make peace with Russia,and welcome them back into the economic fold,but common sense isn’t a thread that runs through,both Brussels nor Moscow.
Meanwhile the Asian economy grows,they already produce most of our electrical goods,and a vast array of other goods,that we take for granted every day.
This proxy war by both sides using Ukraine as the chessboard,will see Russia and the EU,lose out economically in the long run,as billions will be need to resurrect Ukraine from the ashes of civil conflict.
In the meantime the Asian economy grows stronger.
“Regarding 9/11, instead of churning out endless additional theories that effectively supply cover, we should be unanimously attacking the official fiction:
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT RELIES UPON CONFESSIONS EXTRACTED UNDER TORTURE:”
I agree but we should also be attacking the fiction that the towers were brought down by controlled explosives and that the Pentagon was struck by missiles. The report is flawed, yes, but that doesn’t entitle critics to fill in the gaps with wild conspiratorial nonsense.
Agree 100%, Daniel.
See my article in Issue Eight of Eye Spy magazine which talks about the cockups the unarmed 15 CIA agents caused by being on the last three planes to capture the 19 hijackers on all of them when they arrived at LA’s International Airport.
Unfortunately, the 19 proved to be most successful suicide bombers.
Communists had already been banned from the Kiev parliament. Poroshenko signed it off in a day. With the People’s Republic of Eastern Ukraine now being a separate state, and attacks on former MPs a reality the communist party has been driven underground I suspect.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-fee2-Communists-barred-from-Ukrainian-parliament#.VTfJoJOJzIU
“See my article in Issue Eight of Eye Spy magazine”
I would love to read it. Have you got a link?
WTC7 100 yards long collapsed simultaneously at each end and along its ENTIRE length in free fall . Very matzo dem steel columns.
This too is keeping with the Gene Sharp model;
Egypt’s ousted President Morsi jailed for 20 years
Arab spring turned Arab ice age, Morsi is off to be tortured in jails, whilst Mubarak and co are left to get on enjoying their ill gotten gains.
The same model will inevitably conclude in the same fashion.
PS conscription of the Ukrainian male population into the army to go and fight somehow never is debated.
Dunchyou just luv the Smell of freedom in the mornin?
Yeah based on highly technical and scientifically in depth reaserch;
Lala fingers I am not listening is the only way for the struggle to go on!!!
Whose struggle is the said struggle?
Silly question, “we don’t do reality”, instead shove fiction as fact and proceed to classify actualities and facts as conspiracy, pretty straight forward really.
Thinking of the USA’s softening position in Cuba,and the esculating position with Russia,it would appear to me that Obama has,well played a blinder.
In one swift move the US has thwarted any thoughts that Russia may have had in using Cuba’s friendship as a political weapon against the west.
Whether or not this was Obamas intention is still unclear,but one has to say the warming to Cuba after all these years is, a remarkable turn around.
Surely Raul Castro can see that future trade between the US and Cuba,can and will be good thing for the nations people.
Of course,removing the political barrier between both nations,leaves the US,free to infiltrate Cuba,and fund Castro’s decriers,which could lead to destabilising Cuba,something the US has done countless times throughout the America’s.
But lets not go their just yet, lets hope for a brighter more prosperous future for Cuban’s.
Taking into account several posters comments regarding 9/11,the fallout from that cataclysmic event,has been continuous wars around the globe,though mainly in the Middle East.
A decade and a half after 9/11, the war on terror continues to open new fronts from Syria to Libya to Nigeria. And it’s hard to see this changing under a Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush administration. Perpetual war is unlikely to end in our lifetimes. Until we accept this, the post-9/11 erosion of human rights is likely to continue.
In the meantime the Middle East will remain in turmoil,especially oil producing regions (except Saudi Arabia) because it stops blossoming economies such as China’s from obtaining enough oil to completely swamp the market.
Would it therefore then be heartless of me to say,that perpetual war and casualties across the Middle Eastern region,is a price we pay,morally in order to keep our stable economies,and way of life in the west.