After UK and US bombs have been devastating the Middle East for over a decade, killing certainly tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people, including many thousands of children, the media have suddenly noticed this morning that bombs kill an awful lot of civilians. But only Russian bombs, of course. British bombs are cheerful, happy and their shrapnel and blast are brilliantly engineered only to go in the direction of bad guys.
The UK/US bombing of Sirte was approximately 500 times more devastating than the Russian bombings yesterday. Yet strangely there was not one single BBC report on the thousands of civilian casualties they caused in just one of many towns they bombed in Libya.
It is worth pointing out that whether yesterday’s bombing by the Russians was against ISIL or against a different bunch of crazed Islamist rebels, one still supported by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, makes no difference whatsoever to the legal position. It was at the request of the Government of Syria and thus legal. That is not to say I support it. I do not. Bombing kills civilians and just causes more hate.
I have the confidence in my fellow human beings to believe that a substantial number will see through the propaganda and realise British bombs do that too.
My optimism extends to the quite astonishing media attack on Jeremy Corbyn. The scorn and bias of the media in dealing with him has awoken many to the fact that we do not in reality live in a democratic society. People are not free to present alternative ideas to the electorate and obtain a fair hearing for them.
But still I think there will be some effect. For an entire generation, broadcast media and print newspapers had never given the slightest indication that there might be a moral dilemma involved in pushing a button to kill a billion people directly, and set off a chain of events that will destroy all human life. The spluttering fury by the establishment at the revelation that there are in existence the kind of people who would not do that, is a wonder to behold.
But all that rage is revealing the existence of the moral dilemma to people from whom it has been effectively hidden as a topic of legitimate and serious debate. People will start to think. That is why Corbyn is so dangerous to the establishment. He has opened a Pandora’s box of ideas.
“the GNP of Syria wouldn’t really justify the bank explanation”
Nothing to do with GNP. It’s to do with the principle of maintaining a financial system that protects itself from debt.
Since the sole Russian aircraft carrier now in service, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is apparently now undergoing refitting in Severodvinsk, the Chinese carrier would fulfill a real military role in the theater.
The presence or absence of the Chinese carrier off Syria is easy to check out…
Think about that. Satellite? Grid search? That transponder you slipped aboard the last time it docked? If those are open to you, do let us know what you find. Although there would be no compelling reason to believe you. I can’t (and don’t) actually rely on anyone to tell me the truth. But we can 90% rely on DEBKA not to. Just sayin’.
Craig does not support the bombing of Islamist fanatics because it causes more hatred,unfortunately there is no other way, the fanatical Syrian opposition [there are no moderates] want regime change, and for themselves to be installed as the government. All the minorities in Syria together with the Sunni majority know what will happen to them if these fanatics come to power, that is why Assad has support from all sections of Syrian society, Seymour Hersh [the redirection 2007]http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection envisaged the US backing the Sunni dictatorships to counter a resurgent Iran and the so called ‘Arc of resistance’ Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah. It is not working out as planned. In fact the fanatics have no chance against the combined might of the ‘Arc’ maybe alongside China. Once that border with Turkey is sealed it will be all downhill for the motley group of lunatics.
Satellite images of Tartus are available on line. http://www.maps-streetview.com/Syria/Tartus/satelliteview.php
Peter “If Russia and China can help reduce the number of children that will die, I for one cannot condemn them.”
Agree, or if anyone can do that. But how to crate a more just situation, it is and should be a result of care and consideration of actions and effects. And i’d assume it’s not going to be a quick fix. And certainly not by just military means.
One thing, if the ME could use the profits from recourses it should really control, maybe this prosperity would help some. So we can do something by changing our own energy infrastructure. let alone just not brutalizing and robbing other countries. Don’t think that’s helping somehow. I do think some laws are worth following.
Join labour as it is now the explicitly non-bomber party.
James Chater, can’t quite tell if you are joking or not! There are plenty of bombers left amongst elected Labour MPs.
Saudi and Qatar have joined in the criticisms of Russians. The Saudi evidently are running out of prison convicts to send to Syria to keep up the numbers of the “freedom fighters” in that theater (I hate this fucking clinical word) at the rate the Rooskies are mincing these.
This is well known that Saudi are fancying their chances as the “power brokers” in the mid east, and Assad paid no attention to them, as his 2004/6 speeches clearly indicated.
Funny how the miedjia has started to tally the civilian body counts ever since yesterday.
‘Join labour as it is now the explicitly non-bomber party.’
🙂
Lysias, please supply current, satellite images of the city and its port rather than just old maps for possible tourists or else one will think you are someone’s spook.
Lysias, please supply current, satellite images of the city and its port* rather than just old maps for possible tourists or else one will think you are an idiot.
FIFY.
*With docked Chinese Kuznetsov-class carrier Liaoning clearly identifiable as not being the Russian Kuznetsov-class carrier Admiral Kuznetsov….
Also DEBKA files the most reliable source of news on the web and universe beyond has published detailed targets of the pterodactyls squadrons carried no board the Chinese aircraft carrier, these are armed with enormously gigantic and worrisomely explosive barrel bombs made out of the beer kegs of McAlwan’s Lager containing the deadly genetically modified yeast, as the first dirty bomb to be used in the history of the world. Oh the humanity!
And Ba’al, remember that the 10% is enough during crises, like when the right-wing Dallas Morning News predicted on October 20, 1963 that the Cuban Missile Criisis was resuming after a13-month hiatus, and its outcome would involve all the original players in the confrontation, especially JFK, Nixon, Dallas Representative Bruce Alger, and a possibly dangerous sociopath from Dallas, Irving, and Fort Worth, Texas which proved the most telling account of what happened a month later in Dallas.
Fedup, Exactly, why not bomb them with luxury goods (we’ve plenty with overproduction) Nice large tv’s and wine decanters, then just wait for apathy and bloated consumption to set in.
Work’s for most of the UKUS population.
Whatever, Trowbridge. My crystal ball’s hyperdimensional modem having failed, I really have difficulty working out which 10% of DEBKA’s output is going to eventually prove to be correct, and prefer other sources with a better record, say the 50% which results from pure guesswork. Including much of the US Press, it has to be said, whose journalistic standards remain higher than our nationals.
http://www.flashearth.com/ has satellite images that it claims are dated September 30, yesterday.
TY Lysias. Unfortunately, as you zoom in on the recent NASA weather image, it switches to an undated Google Earth picture at the higher resolution. If you can find a hi-res product (say 3m per pixel or better) which doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to download in real time, that would be useful.
Ba’al kindly refrain from debating your genitalia on this family orientated blog! No need for such graphic language at all!!!
The answer is so obvious, but you seem to have failed to see it; The ten percent that DEBKA did not publish of course and is left in the drafts folder!!!!
It’s difficult to hide an aircraft carrier. All it needs is for an inhabitant of Tartus to point a camera at the sea. Pictures or it didn’t happen.
Speaking of Jeremy Corbyn, he’s been accused of top-down media management by the Fourth Estate.
Claims have been made that Corbyn that said, he’d only meet with three selected writers, whose stories could be passed on to rival journalists, a pooling protocol if you like.
However the journalists association said they would not take part in any such protocol. The press do carry too much power, but they can make you or break you,any attempt to muzzle them or sideline them, would be seen as an attack on their freedoms.
Jeremy Corbyn better tread carefully.
Mary reports, with considerable scorn and indignation:
“Mr Foster told the Times: “I find it difficult to understand how the leader of the British Labour party, when he has spent the conference talking about decency, respect for human values and human rights, kindness and a new way of conducting politics, can appear on a platform in front of 250 or 300 Jewish people . . . and cannot find in his lexicon of words at that meeting, the word ‘Jew’, ‘Jewish’, ‘the UK Jewish community’ or the word ‘Israel’. That is not leadership.””
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Is Mr Foster’s complaint that unreasonable, given that Mr Corbyn was speaking at a Labour friends of Israel reception with a couple of hundred Jewish people present?
If someone were apeaking at, say, an Anglo-German friendship society meeting, or an Anglo-Hellenic cultural association meeting, would it not be strange if he avoided saying the words “Germany” or “Greece”?
If Mr Corbyn does not like Israel for some reason, perhaps he might have done better to be honest and not speak at a Friends of Israel meeting?
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Afterthought: but perhaps he did refer to Israel without directly naming it – a little like how Mary and our Transatlantic Friend (for example) refer to me? 🙂
The Medialens editors to one of their contributors who puts up YTs of TV transmissions.
Paging gutenberg….
Posted by The Editors on October 1, 2015, 2:57 pm
If you have time, any chance you could capture Laura Kuenssberg’s interview with Jeremy Corbyn – the version that was broadcast on last night’s BBC News at Ten, please?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06dncsw/bbc-news-at-ten-30092015
It starts at around 13:08.
Unfortunately, it’ll only be available for another few hours (until just before 10pm tonight).
Not the version that BBC News put up here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34397258
The Corbyn interview on BBC News at Ten showed Kuenssberg – her body language – the pointing, facial expressions, and so on – which is important to see. The version on the website accompanying her article didn’t.
DC
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Interesting illustration of BBC editing highlighted there.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1443707859.html
Robert Crawford, well recovered now, inotnes:
“Remember this, The State owned Bank of Syria does not owe anyone money.
Name two countries who could do with free money to pay for all this bombing.”
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Is that the same National Bank of Syria (founded about 60 years ago) which some Excellence or other recently said did not exist but would be “imposed” by the West once Assad Junior had been overthrown?
Jeremy Corbyn has been out in the sun in Edinburgh with Kezia.
http://news.sky.com/story/1561912/can-jeremy-corbyn-win-over-scottish-labour
Ton Welsh
“And quite often, the only way to end a war is to use violence against the people who are waging it.”
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I imagine that George Orwell must have written something very similar.
The JC reported the Foster heckling of Jeremy Corbyn, not me. Hard for me to say whether Mr Dysch was scornful or indignant. I have never met him. Is he known to the commenter above?
“The UK/US bombing of Sirte was approximately 500 times more devastating than the Russian bombings yesterday. Yet strangely there was not one single BBC report on the thousands of civilian casualties they caused in just one of many towns they bombed in Libya.”
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Of course the USA, and it’s obedient sidekick have form when it comes to prolific bombing, and although Britain didn’t actually do the bombing during the assault on Vietnam and Laos, they willingly provided backing for the USA, which in my book makes them/us complicit.
https://markcurtis.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/britains-secret-support-for-us-aggression-the-vietnam-war/
As to the amount of bombs, dropped during the assault on Vietnam and Laos some reports claim, and I could quite well believe them, that more bombs were dropped than were dropped in the whole of WWII.
Up to as much as 30% of those bombs never exploded, (reminds me of Afghanistan and its personnel mines) and they are still killing people to this day when a unexploded bombs goes of in the bush near a community, of a farmer ploughs a new rice field.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1100842.stm
The bombing of Syria, will lead to ,albeit years down the road, once the regime has been decided on, to the deaths of more innocent victims, due to unexploded ordnance dropped by the USA and its allies.
Mary
“The JC reported the Foster heckling of Jeremy Corbyn, not me.”
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Hmmmm – it’s never you, is it. 🙂
By quoting – without using quotation marks, as per usual – what the Jewish Chronicle reported Mr Foster as saying to the “The Times”, are you not reporting what Mr Foster said?
The elected head of zionist terrorists does not represent a country, so he can’t really speak for anything else but the terror he creates.
Countries have declared borders and they mostly agree with UN human rights legislation.
Countries don’t commit to murdering those they don’t like in international waters either.
Stealing land, oil and gas is not just done by ISIL, its also done by those who occupy Palestine.