I am in Tbilisi at the moment, where I spent this early morning drinking tea with some of the 2,000 strong Yazidi community. They see their religion as much more closely descended from Zoroastrianism than appears in most accounts I have read.
I very much enjoyed a visit to Tsinandali which was most useful for gaining a Russian perspective of the Great Game. I don’t have my books with me and am suffering a mental block as to whether it was Connoly, Abbott or Malcolm who visited Tsinandali. I had not realised that Griboyedov was married to a daughter of the house, Nina Chavchavadze. The murder of Griboyedov, Russian Ambassador in Tehran, by a mob rates little more than a footnote in British accounts of the Great Game, even though the British had bribed the religious authority to stir up the riots. What revisionist history there has been, has come from the Iranian side and falsely tried to obscure the fact that the refugees Griboyedov was sheltering were runaway slaves from harems.
This is a neglected recurring theme. When Shuja agreed the treaty already negotiated between Macnaghten and Ranjit Singh, the main stipulation he sought to add was that the British would return to him any runaway slave girls. The immediate motive for the ringleader of the attack on Alexander Burnes was that Burnes had refused to intervene to return a runaway slave girl who had sought the protection of another British officer. My fellow anti-imperialist historians have in general been guilty of emphasising rapaciousness by the British in these incidents and overlooking or excusing the slave status of the girls. Both aspects need to be faced squarely to write honestly the full facts of history. Tellingly, it is generally impossible to recover names of the girls involved.
Griboyedov deserves to be remembered for much more than his murder. An accomplished playwright and poet, he was a friend of Pushkin and had links to the dissident groups who attempted revolution in 1825. His murder left Nina a widow at either 17 or 19 by different accounts, and pregnant. She lost the child on hearing of her husband’s death, and never remarried. It is a tragic story which came alive to me in visiting the family home.
Griboyedov had fought Napoleon in the 1812 campaign, but had helped those Napoleonic adventurers Allard and Ventura evade a British blockade and go into service with Ranjit Singh. Griboyedov’s successor as Russian Ambassador to Tehran, Simonicz, had actually fought on the Napoleonic side against Russia, presumably in the Polish Legion. Nina’s sister was to marry a Murad nephew of Napoleon. The political elites of Europe melded quickly after the convulsion.
With which clumsy segue I shall note that the battle against the entrenched political elites of the UK appears to be going extremely well without me. I cannot express without a welling up of real emotion how happy I am that all I have been saying about the stultifying neo-liberal consensus and exclusion of dissent, and appalling burgeoning wealth gap between rich and poor, has found such massive traction between Jeremy Corbyn in England and the SNP in Scotland. I may have gone AWOL for a few days, but the cause of social justice appears in extremely safe hands.
Mark Golding
That was a figure of speech I was using.
In the ’80s I had many arguments with my family about the stupidity of liberalising the banking system. Mrs T said that only if you vastly overpaid bankers could you trust them to serve the community with integrity.
I dared to disagree but they said I was a bookbinder, not a banker, so who was I to disagree? Mrs T stupidity has prevailed but in my own terms the crash has proved my own intuitions.
Now in exactly the same way we are faced with a policy towards Islam in which the Islamic scholars, seething with resentment at a colonial history, are being empowered with intelligence/spying, encouraged with a licence to run armies, armed, stuffed to the teeth with cash, and assisted by western commandos.
They are not using this new-found Western power against the colonial enemy. They are using this power against the ordinary Muslims. This is a liberalisation of Jihad, intentionally to corrupt . Intentionally to divide. Intentionally to suck in criminality. Intentionally to exclude commonsense.
The two events, banking and political Islam, are exactly the same. The rise of political Islam will eventually crash like the banks, but the scholars of Islam will never admit responsibility for the wave of destruction they have caused.
We are hoping that the efforts of the Syrian people to resist the power-crazed imams, will be rewarded by Allah. The nutters of Al Qaida who swallowed the US green card will just have to live with their sins.
Pulcinella (23h32)
Thanks for tidying up my text, it’s good that you’re doing something useful for once. Keep it up!
Re your link to the former Shin Bet officers: your attitude to them appears to be akin to the attitude of some of the Excellences to the Daily Mail – good when they agree with your views, bad when they don’t.
By the way, I’m pleased to see that your visits to the State of Israel and its wonderful beaches around Tel Aviv have attracted no adverse comment from the BDS brigade on here.
The usual clunking prose at 01h41. Lengthy Bernard Levin-like sentences but strangely enough, none of the usual smileys 🙂
Welcoe back, “Macky”!
Whoops, I was wrong about the smileys. Leopards, spots, etc…..
Brian, brilliant post (11:52pm, yesterday). The MSM keeps going on about ‘Corby-mania’, falsely to suggest irrationality, but is there any mention of the totally irrational and dangerous ‘migrant-mania’ that has possessed the MSM over the past few years? No, of course not. People often simply parrot rubbish they’ve heard.
Blair’s intervention (and he does so love ‘intervening’, doesn’t he?) may well drive some who felt strongly about the destruction of Iraq to vote for Corbyn.
Ba’al, at 11:04pm yesterday, interesting link and observation, thanks.
Blair’s intervention (and he does so love ‘intervening’, doesn’t he?) may well drive some who felt strongly about the destruction of Iraq to vote for Corbyn.
It’s the colossal arrogance of the man (and Campbell, who also got his one-p-worth in, last week) in regarding himself as being in any way relevant. Blairites might remind themselves that he ducked out of parliament two years before his term was up, leaving Brown to hold the financial baby and his constituents with a bye-election. His decision was to get out of UK politics, he should fucking stay out.
Anyone else well knows that he gutted the principles and purpose of the Labour movement, that his Third Way was camouflage for enabling global capitalism and financial fraud, that his first electoral success was due to very much the same yearning for change that Corbyn is riding, that the Labour vote declined steadily thereafter, that PFI was a persisting disaster for the NHS, and that *his* major successes were due to other peoples’ efforts while he surrounded himself with yes-men and kept his pink little paws clean. To name but a few points.
Though yes, Iraq is still what he deserves to be remembered for.
The Guardian, like the entire UK media, fails to observe that Tony Blair is currently enjoying a fortnight’s luxurious holiday (except for dissing Corbyn in the entire UK media)in the tropical paradise of Sri Lanka. But it does print this, which is something.
http://www.newslocker.com/en-uk/profession/general_news/torture-of-tamil-detainees-in-sri-lanka-has-continued-says-charity/view/
There’s something about tortured detainees that seems to attract him, isn’t there?
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september092012/tamil-massacre-nb.php
Note the pink little paws again. And their proximity to genocide.
I think we have dealt with the verminous Milken brood before especially their knowledge centres.
Milken Snr has spent 10 years in prison.
The brothers who funded Blair, Israeli settlements and Islamophobia
‘Tony Blair is again in the headlines, this time after Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn publicly voiced the opinion of millions of British citizens: that the former prime minister should stand trial on charges of war crimes if the evidence suggests that he broke international law during the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Blair’s conduct since leaving office has received less scrutiny, however. Our investigations show that while Blair was serving as the special Middle East peace envoy of the Quartet, representing the UN, Russia, US and EU, the American fundraising arm of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation accepted money from a family that finances illegal Israeli settlements via the earnings of a convicted felon.
/..
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/shared-funding-tony-blair-israeli-settlements-and-islamophobes-612558816
12 August 2015
Best mates with Tony and Cherie. Both were speakers here in April.
A galaxy of criminals and gangsters-in-charge.
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/conferences/global-conference/global-conference-2015/program-detail
Last night on the news channels, footage of yesterday’s deadly explosions in China was shown following some of the original footage of the start of Shock and Awe on Baghdad of Tomahawk* cruise missiles exploding, the latter to illustrate Corbyn’s charging of BLiar as a war criminal.
The sets of images were indistinguishable from each other.
I shot up when, yet again, the death toll in Iraq was undercounted as ‘thousands’ as of Iraqi people. More like hundreds of thousands exceeding 1 million. We will never know exactly. Their blood has long since dried in the sand.
179 British servicemen were killed and their relatives are now considering legal action to get the Chilcot report published without delay. Their hopes for any justice will be dashed. Nothing will happen. Chilcot was just a conversation with war criminals and their stooges.
*The Iraq Invasion Archive-US forces launch 40 cruise missiles at Baghdad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu0rHduGv2E
Mary:
“…Jeremy Corbyn publicly voiced the opinion of millions of British citizens: that the former prime minister should stand trial on charges of war crimes if the evidence suggests that he broke international law during the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.”
Do you have a link for that please? New Labour needs to sluice out the vermin before many of us would consider voting for them.
Ba’al 9.02am Not forgetting Fox and Werritty in Sri Lanka.
PS Where is Werritty?
Nothing recent on Werritty but he does get a mention here.
By the Numbers
An x-ray of Brussels lobbyists
Call it a crowdsourcing exercise.
By Alex Harrowell
7/30/15
‘I developed a metric to identify gatekeepers, who increase your influence, and flak-catchers who reduce it. I tested the GREEDY FRAGILE algorithm developed by West Point for drone targeting decisions, which measures how much an individual participant in a network makes it more or less centralized. The results were fascinating.
On this quality-adjusted basis, the most important gatekeepers in British politics in 2010 and 2011 were the government ministers involved in the Adam Werritty scandal — to put it another way, my machine had successfully detected a secret network of influence. Also, Lord (Jonathan) Hill was the fourth-best gatekeeper outside that group, and he got to be a European Commissioner for reasons European Parliament President Martin Schulz couldn’t guess but probably had to do with Hill being a lobbyist by trade. The biggest lobbies in the U.K. were Barclays, BAE Systems, the CBI, and the TUC. The worst possible minister to lobby was Andrew Stunell, who reduced your influence by 80 percent.’
http://www.politico.eu/article/x-ray-of-brussels-lobbyists-transparency-hacktivists-crowdsourcing-network/
links within
Hopefully Suhayl @8:06 I appreciate your optimism. The zombies and child fiddlers know only the confusion of war can extricate their guilt. The aftermath of the coup in Ukraine is the capitalist freaks final madcap attempt at dismissing the rise of subordinate ‘heretics’ who crave reason and inviolability.
The lines of force are converging towards world conflict…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11797351/Russia-and-Nato-actively-preparing-for-war.html
Mary, 9 20
Further to Milken and Blair:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-2/#comment-522597
Blair’s trip to LA (Milken Institute, school, Museum of Tolerance) and Toronto (Friends of Simon Wiesenthal) preceded his appointment as chairman of ECTR. Hard to avoid the assumption that he was being checked out for the job by both strongly Israelophilic organisations.
More on the $12000-a head Milken conference this year, at which Blair, Paul Kagame, Michael Hintze* and Bob Diamond were all present, demonstrating strong Israeli input:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/meeting_of_the_minds_at_annual_milken_conference
*Another ‘where’s Werritty?’ is indicated here. Funded him and the Tories, to the tune of £1.5M, and is now Sir Michael Hintze. Not an MP.
Giyane. I wish it was a stronger verb than ‘suggested’ but here.
Tony Blair should stand trial for war crimes over Iraq invasion, Jeremy Corbyn says
The Labour leadership candidate says it was an ‘illegal war'” and individuals who ‘made the decisions’ should face justice http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11784095/Tony-Blair-should-stand-trial-for-war-crimes-over-Iraq-invasion-Jeremy-Corbyn-says.html
5 August 2015
The Newsnight video itself.
Jeremy Corbyn on Tony Blair and ‘war crimes’ – Newsnight …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6VEKVHu2mY
Excellent post Brian, good luck with your endeavours, we shall sample a few next week, see if we can’t keep you safe from the onslaught of ‘Babes’. My best to the wee Yin and mum.
Thanks Ba’al Yes I saw the glistening bonce of Kagame on the ‘Kagame Blair Milken’ image page. Bill Gates was there too.
Some closeups here. Kagame certainly looks at ease amongst the other Z GiCs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulkagame/sets/72157633382357606/?view=sq
Thanks for the links Mary.
” I think that all those who have committed war crimes should be tried for it “.
Powerful stuff from Jeremy Corbyn on 3 Aug 2015.
Since George Bush and Tony Blair defined their actions as a War on Terror, I hope this would include all crimes of rendition by USUK and its allies under New Labour; and also David Cameron’s war crimes against the Libyan and Syrian peoples for the illegal destruction of these two countries in the time since New Labour.
Suyahl wrote: “Brian, brilliant post (11:52pm, yesterday). The MSM keeps going on about ‘Corby-mania’, falsely to suggest irrationality, but is there any mention of the totally irrational and dangerous ‘migrant-mania’ that has possessed the MSM over the past few years? No, of course not. People often simply parrot rubbish they’ve heard.”
You mean this one?
http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/10-facts-on-migration.html
Which in turn relied rather heavily on this:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/10-truths-about-europes-refugee-crisis
Now I wouldn’t like to say Brian was simply parroting rubbish he’d heard… more like copy & pasting something he’d read. It would be nice if people could attribute the original author once in a while.
He’s probably Habbabkuk.
SIR Eric Pickles, anti corruption czar! LOL
Whitehall in denial over extent of UK election fraud, says Eric Pickles
Government’s new anti-corruption tsar says officialdom is in denial over state of electoral fraud as he launches investigation into the voting system
13 August 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/13/uk-election-fraud-whitehall-in-denial-says-eric-pickles
Will be looking north to Scotland? No. It will all be about Tower Hamlets and the like.
Thought for the day…
http://www.xcoptermotion.com/uploads/SSMBAPLN11TN.png
Glenn; “Now I wouldn’t like to say Brian was simply parroting rubbish he’d heard… more like copy & pasting something he’d read. It would be nice if people could attribute the original author once in a while.”
That rather a mean-spirited & rude remark to make; it was obviously not Brian’s own words, as he does have a rather distinctive style; instead myself & others were thanking him for presenting such relevant information to a current debate, even if he forgot to source it.
Instead of picking him up on this, and simply dismissing the information as “rubbish”, it would be much more constructive if you could explain why you think it’s rubbish.
BTW You haven’t responded to my point about your conflating the issue of refugees with migrants, nor commented on my expressed belief that countries responsible for wrecking others countries should take in at least their fair share of the resulting refugees, nor addressed the many points in the Seamus Milne piece that seem to counter your own povs.
Habbabkuk (la vita e’ bella)
12 Aug, 2015 – 8:01 pm
Master Scorgie
“I hear that Trump is nicknamed Palm-turd Don.”
_______________
“Wow, that is hilarious! Hats off to the guy who first thought it up! Did you hear it behind the school bicycle shed?”
…………………………………………………………………………………
It’s an anagram o his name Habbabkuk. DUH!
Habbabkuk (la vita e’ bella)
12 Aug, 2015 – 10:22 pm
“I can’t help wondering what you would be saying if all those new memberships were being taken out for the benefit of, say, Yvette Cooper.”
…………………………………………………………………
That can’t be ruled out Habbabkuk. The Blairites/Brownites seem to be desperate at the moment and it would not surprise me if they are begging their non-member friends and family to sign up.
I see a lot of Greens signed up (and were excluded). Corbyn would probably pull a fair chunk of the Green vote if he won. The self-destruction of the Labour Party is mainly driven by the Blairites’ inability to see the potential of a shift back to its original ethos.
Well it seems that the French elite certainly like the beaches of Tel Aviv;
http://sayed7asan.blogspot.fr/2015/08/third-reich-sur-seine-french.html