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.
Oh, and sanctions on all arms sales from Israel. Cut off the head and the body will die.
Re Mary
“Sorry Ishmael. You must not believe all the stuff that the trolls/shills say about me. On this thread I have posted just 8 comments out of 129.”
Mary, there is no need to be sorry. It was not meant as a jealous comment or to get at you in any way. More a light hearted comment as a response to what is clear bias. (+ makes little sense without deeper understanding, witch is again disallowed through censorship, removed comment, part of what I consider offensive degrading behavior) Fact is you do make my overall contributions look minor, that just fact’s, no issue to me what-so-ever.
People don’t see to get (though i’v made it clear to mods etc in unrevealed comments) that I don’t come here through my wishes, i’v actually requested all my comments be removed as I don’t like it. Never have….But I still do/did, but won’t anymore under this name, and unless all my previous comments are removed (that I contributed) I won’t at all again…
Those names were used Glenn, as you damned well know, to avoid the persecution I underwent from the likes of Habbabkuk and others here. Luckily, I did not succumb. You have a spiteful streak to have raked that up. You once said sorry.
Robert Stuart again on his battle for truth in the reporting on Syria by the media. This time IPSO and the DT.
‘IPSO rejects Telegraph “new” “barrel bomb” footage complaint
Posted by Robert on October 1, 2015, 9:25 pm
Correspondence posted here (intro below – this is the first non-“Saving Syria’s Children” entry on my blog). I’ve also been corresponding with Channel 4 News about its labelling of some of the same material as “recent” and will publish that when it concludes.
Below is an exchange with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) regarding the 20 May 2015 Telegraph article Bashar al-Assad’s airmen laugh as they drop barrel bombs on fellow Syr.
The Telegraph article claims “New footage has emerged showing Syrian aircrew using barrel bombs”. However as observers noted, and I pointed out (19 July 2015, below), one of the two relevant clips in the al-Jazeera report which formed the source of the Telegraph’s claim had been available on You Tube since 27 October 2012.
In rejecting my complaint (23 July) IPSO observed that I “do not appear to be in a position to dispute that the video shown had been newly obtained by al-Jazeera, or that other sections of the footage had been recently filmed.”
In my appeal of IPSO’s decision (30 July) I noted that the Telegraph had not claimed that the footage was “newly obtained”, but simply that it was “new”, i.e, on a commonsense understanding, that it was roughly contemporaneous with the Telegraph’s report, rather than being at least two and half years older. ‘
/..
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1443731113.html
I greatly admire his tenacity and endurance.
Lavrov – “If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist, right?”
Just imagine the indignation here had a Western leader said that. But hey, it’s Russia! And now the same people who have been telling us that bombing makes things worse are overjoyed to see Putin “sorting out Syria” by, er, bombing it.
Some may remember speculation of tactical nuke in the HOMS explosion of 2013. What do you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO9hKbHZc7A
“Lavrov – “If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist, right?”
Excluding the corpulence of the Western Power hypocrisy bloc…..well said.
Umpqua, where this latest shooting has taken place, is a very rural part of America (I’ve hiked up from northern California, through Oregon and into Washington state, and it’s a beautiful part of the world; that is, when people aren’t blowing each other to bits, or when it isn’t being irradiated).
Words sometimes fail me.
http://business.time.com/2012/12/18/americas-gun-economy-by-the-numbers/
(the above link is from 3 years ago)
Our leadership has been persuaded – or has persuaded themselves – that air-strikes minimize casualties, and that drone strikes in particular are capable of great precision. I’ve no idea how they can think this, but there you go. Air-strikes are intended to cause maximum damage to infrastructure, which in turn causes more loss of life, and of course aren’t terribly accurate; and drones just take out everything near the ‘bad guy’, including fellow wedding guests. It may be a limited kind of war, but war it still is. You don’t want deaths, don’t bomb anyone. Handwringing about ‘precision’ strikes just looks kinda cowardly.
It is blackly amusing that Putin is being roundly attacked for … I’m not sure … doing what we wanted to do, but quicker, or targetting the ‘wrong’ (ie, right) kind of terrorists. In a world where Putin looks vaguely reasonable, we surely have serious problems indeed. The yanks once had a revolution, and got rid of the Brits, kudos. Need another one though, and the enemy is much better armed …
If a few percentile dollars were spent on mental health matters, (Including ADD meds research on behavior under the influence, for example) deducted from personal bias non-profit dollars, as well as government participation in psychotropic deadfall research, one might find the problem is people, not guns.
“For new readers who might not have seen it: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/some-rules-for-comment-moderation/”
Funny how I suggested this very thing over two years ago, although with an enumerated list, and was patronisingly told “No”.
Insufficient deference to ‘whites’ Jemand?
Here is a reminder of what Jeremy Corbyn’s party did when it was last in power. It was genocide pure and simple:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/09/arrest-tony-blair-for-war-crimes-in-the-middle-east/
The party overwhelmingly supported Blair and his cabinet in their vicious war on the citizens of Iraq. There were about 100 Labour MP’s who voted against the war. A true roll of honour. The rest voted for the war using the cover of “intelligence” reports presented in the infamous dossiers. Despite the fact that anyone with an IQ over 100 could see that this “intelligence” was a confection.
The Labour Party has not expelled any of these war criminals to my knowledge.
Never mind that old chap, that was all a long time ago, best move on, we’ve got a new leader now……
Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, came under fire for taking a large pay-off after the nationalisation of his troubled bank ABN Amro.
Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan bank executive, died this morning after he threw himself off the top of the bank’s European headquarters
28-year old Kenneth Bellando, a former JPMorgan banker, current employee of Levy Capital, and brother of a top chief investment officer of JPM, jumped to his death from his 6th floor East Side apartment on March 12.
A City worker fell to his death from the tenth storey roof terrace of an office building yards from City Hall.
The 23-year-old plunged from the top of the block at MoreLondon Riverside, near Tower Bridge on the South Bank, at around 7.45pm last night.
John some of the jumpers and suicides. If it is too sensitive skip answering mate.
=====================
Obliviously Lavarov does not realise there are good terrorists and bad terrorists. Good terrorists suck up to the West, and kill Syrian civilians and blame Assad. also make youtube clips of purported gas attacks. Bad terrorist kill Syrian civilians and blame Assad but these do not suck up to the West so much!!! Also another way of telling the good terrorist from bad terrorist is to listen to US et a, and find out who is the white hat terrorist and who is the black hat terrorist!
Clearly Lavarov does not have good comprehension of English!!!! He does not know of “our values” (these are made up on the fly and the oligarch owned media tell us all they are our values and traditions)
“Our leadership has been persuaded – or has persuaded themselves – that air-strikes minimize casualties, and that drone strikes in particular are capable of great precision. I’ve no idea how they can think this, but there you go.”
Hieroglyph. They are right. But the casualties they minimise are those with the superior weapons doing the attacking from highly-sophisticated machines and technology. Such attacks are cowardly but that is the state we have reached (the West). Vietnam taught the Yanks (who just love to kill others to change the world) that if your own troops die the country turns against what you are doing, and soldiers go AWOL.
This cowardice, otherwise known as military superiority, would never exist in a school playground. It is an extended progression of the unarmed child having to defend himself or herself against someone with a knife, gun, howitzer, missile, nuclear weapon. So when I see the brave, but in some ways silly, children of Palestine throwing stones at armed Israelis who have taken away their loved ones, I think of the biblical story of David and Goliath. How times have changed. They could change again!
Republicofscotland
“But seriously don’t you agree that Netanyahu in parts of his speech was overly melodramatic, he would’ve made a good actor, kind of a angry Ronald Reagan type.”
_____________________
Yes, I agree with the first part – but he’s a leader and it’s not entirely unknown for leaders to wax dramatic at showcase occasions like the annual UNGA.
On the second part – I have never seen Ronald Reagan in a film so I don’t know if the comparison is a good one or not.
Q Why should the Secretary of State for Wales, Stephen Crabb, currently on QT, be a member of the lobby group, Conservative Friends of Israel?
https://cfoi.co.uk/conservative-party-conference-2014/
He was at this party conference event with Hammond, Morgan, Fox, Ellwood and Lord Feldman.
He has visited Israel under their auspices.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11768
Pembrokeshire is a long way from Tel Aviv!
Glenn
“As far as BeeBee is concerned, remember that ridiculous spectacle when he addressed the US House of Congress earlier this year? They all jumped up and down like bobbins, bursting into applause each time BeeBee as much as coughed, burped or farted.”
________________
I don’t, but I like the way you described it 🙂
But I have seen the Congress in applaudatory mode (does that word exist?) on other occasions and must say I was always impressed by its physical energy. I wish you a lot of the same for Sunday!
“Insufficient deference to ‘whites’ Jemand?”
And there we have yet another unprovoked insult from another idiot who wants to imply an imaginary offence of “racism” because he is too much of a coward to come out and say it directly. These are the kinds of comments Jon conveniently ignores when he admonishes others for posting coarse missives in reply.
Laguerre
“Really nobody is interested.”
___________________
If you have ever attended an UNGA you would know that on the whole they are not very interesting occasions.
I’m sure Craig could confirm that.
Fedup
01/10/2015 10:58pm
There’s no reason for me to skip it but I can’t be of any help. I know nothing about these occurrences, sorry. On the face of it they do not seem to be connected in any way.
I would make two observations. You need a baseline for suicide among similar persons working in corporate finance in similar economic climates before regarding these suicides as unusual. For all I know, a similar number of executives end their lives every week. No idea.
My second observation is a personal one. I used to work for a multinational corporation with a worldwide reputation, a household name. I had a colleague, a lovely young lady, who was experiencing problems in her personal life and suffering emotional distress as a result, and who went to the director of human resources for help. He basically told her to pull herself together or else, and as a result she became very unwell and left the company. He was a classic example of a person who had sold his soul to the company. The only things he cared about in the slightest were his own reputation, his own job security and pension, and the interests of the company as he saw them.
Knowledge of that series of events had a direct effect upon me, and I wasn’t alone. When I began to experience personal distress, I dared not say a word to anyone in authority. I shut up and got on with things, and I also became very unwell as a result. In a corporate culture where you dare not confess to any kind of mental of emotional difficulty because you fear for the effect on your career as a consequence, it is not at all surprising that you get suicides, suicide attempts, breakdowns, hospitalisations. That’s what an unforgiving corporate structure can do to people.
Thankfully, enlightenment is gradually coming, but it is still a jungle out there.
Kind regards,
John
Harry Law
Martin van Crevel did say that and it is often quoted to make him look like a sort of Dr Strangelove.
But it might be good if you were to acquaint yourself somewhat more intensively with his writings and opinions – you might be quite surprised at what you discover.
Don’t try to make cheap “points”.
Dr Martin van Creveld I should have said.
Habba and Jemand are about to address a press conference, to tell us that it is all perfectly normal, and it’s all the fault of people who don’t have white skins, and war is peace. freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
I’ll give it another year or so before our propagandist friends find themselves being lynched.
It is coarse to accuse without hard evidence. I prefer smoking out genuine opin ions attitudes and beliefs.
What happened to my avatar?
Interesting…
He is the prime minister
And let’s not forget that Saudi Arabia is now bombing the fuck out of Yemen, all with American and British supplied weapons and logistical support…
http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/01/dispatches-britain-backtracks-justice-yemen
I don’t know, how mad does it have to get before people start waking-up?!
“Habba and Jemand are about to address a press conference, to tell us that it is all perfectly normal, and it’s all the fault of people who don’t have white skins, and war is peace. freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
I’ll give it another year or so before our propagandist friends find themselves being lynched.”
– – –
RobG has now joined the club of abusive fantasists by imagining me to be a propagandist of some unstated description. Let’s see if we can get him to explain his silly comment. I don’t hold out much hope.
Pray tell, RobG, what am I propagandising about? Hmmmm? Please try to use real evidence, if you can. All that made up shit by your runny-brained friends doesn’t qualify.