Precisely why Russian action against Saudi Arabia’s proxy militias of fanatics is against western interests is something which nobody in the western elite seems to believe it is necessary to explain. That Russia is bad and evil and must be opposed is another one of those axiomatic beliefs of the governing elite, which they can’t bring themselves to believe the public do not wholeheartedly share. Equally they cannot quite understand why we the people do not see the necessity of backing the Saudi regime.
I am a stern critic of Russia’s democratic deficit, human rights record, and gangster dominated economy and government. But on all these counts it is still a thousand times better than Saudi Arabia, and I am quite certain that 99% of Europeans would be happier living in St Petersburg than Riyadh.
If the Russians turn back CIA and Saudi-backed rebels I for one shall be delighted.
Russian activity in Syria is nothing whatsoever to do with NATO. The Syrian rebels under attack by Russia are not members of NATO. Russia is not attacking Turkey and there is no chance whatsoever that Russia would deliberately attack Turkey. So the suggestion of NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg that NATO will send forces to protect Southern Turkey is absolute madness. In the Iraq War, two of the United States “pinpoint accurate” cruise missiles aimed at Baghdad actually hit Syria. At some stage Russia is going to accidentally hit something in Turkey, it is the nature of war. It is like playing football in the garden – it is inevitable the ball will go over the neighbours’ fence at some stage, however careful you are.
Increasing the amount of military hardware in Turkey – which is already extremely militarised and already full of US forces – just increases the political temperature and chances of something going disastrously wrong, with no possible gain except making the stupid western countries who messed up the Middle East feel less envious of Putin.
NATO countries have caused the crisis in the Middle East through their disastrous and criminal invasions. Russia is not and could never be strong enough to launch an actual attack on western Europe even if Russia wanted to – which Russia most certainly does not. Just like Trident missiles, NATO was no use to the United States on 9/11 and is no use against any actual challenge we face in the world. It exists to perpetuate the dominance of a neo-con elite and ensure massive income to the arms industry.
NATO’s attempts to build up forces around Syria and around the Baltic show that NATO’s over-activity poses the only viable threat of a disastrous world war. Ask yourself this question. Why does the USA, a country which faces no risk of invasion from anybody, account for 44% of the military spending of the whole world? NATO exists solely for client states to assist the projection of US military power abroad. Every decent European should be campaigning for their country to leave NATO.
@Craig
“I don’t think there is any doubt about Russia’s ability to produce decent missiles. It is a shame they can’t make a decent LED TV, car or laptop”
Russia may not produce super slick LED’s TVs cars or laptops neither does the UK
I remember buying the worlds smallest TV at the time Russian designed and built. Not slick but it worked.
I bet you have never heard of Oleg Vladimirovich Losev who discovered the light emitting junctions and transistors years before the Bell labs. Some countries are good at discoveries
and inventing and some at manufacturing.
TonyM
My apologies!
RT breaking news headline; “Obama administration ends $500mn program to train Syrian rebels – report”
Which ties in with some uncomfortable questions being asked here;
http://off-guardian.org/2015/10/09/isis-the-psycho-nightmare-of-us-middle-east-policy/
Dave Lawton
Thank you for that excellent demonstration of Russia’s pathetic failure at manufacturing things that don’t kill people.
Mind you the photo-voltaic cell was discovered at Dundee University and sold to a Japanese company for 10,000 quid.
Paul Barbara
Thank you for re-stating the facts about the neo-con Zionist project. Craig is still portraying NATO as somehow confused by the Russian attack on the takfiri dogs of hell.
If you have a chaos policy, you sure don’t need to be confused by the outcome of your own chaos.
Uzbek
Muslim independence of thought has always got up the noses of the powerful, not least the Saudis who recently considered the Hajjis in Mina expendable for the sake of their (false) royal dignitaries. Robespierre persecuted the french protestants for much the same reason. Are we going to leave the EU because of relatively recent French violence on our own Protestant kind?
Politics is pragmatic. The USUKIS insanity of using takfiri heresy to divide and rule the Muslims has been exposed by the internet, been opposed by Russia and China, and in this particular moment of history the Russians and Chinese are the good guys. ( Obama seems to have scored some brownie points as well for allowing the bombing of the takfiris to happen in spite of the neo-cons.
Can I just say that thoughts are with the Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferky whose condition in the Royal Free has just been described as ‘serious’.
jon -absolutely right but I tend to just bang away at the keyboard as fast as possible and hope that people will ignore the frequent typos.
I shall try to improve my presentation.
Don’t see why there is no mention of NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, the American spook who runs the show. That loony Dane is only his mouthpiece.
No one in the USA has the Russophobe, covert experience of Vershbow who has been trying to tighten the noose around Moscow for nearly a half century.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, my ass!
@ Macky 11:41:
Russia bombing in Afghanistan I would not like to see, and I hope that does not occur. They went in last time to prop up a repressive regime, and were drawn into a deliberate trap by the US.
I was against the Russian invasion and brutality in Afghanistan from day one. But Putin was not President then, so cannot be blamed. Things have changed in Russia. It is obviously not perfect, but has been wrongly demonised by lying politicians and a presstitute MSM.
The best people to rule Afghanistan are the people that resisted the massive, brutal, destructive and totally unjustified Allied bombardment, invasion and occupation of a Sovereign State.
I don’t for a moment try to be an apologist for the massive repression of women, but much of that came with the Saudi-leaning ‘Jihadis’ the US had conjured up to bleed the Soviets.
They could have been won over slowly by trade and assistance and indeed the US was friendly with the Taliban until talks for the oil pipeline they wanted to build through Afghanistan to export massive Caspian gas and oil reserves controlled by mainly US interests broke down.
As Malalai Joya so rightfully says, most Afghans want neither the Taliban, Occupation or the Drug Warlords which make up half of the US-installed puppet government; a plague on all their houses. They want to be left alone, to develop in peace.
The knowledge that 9/11, the expressed reason for the Afghan holocaust, in reality had nothing to do with either OBL or Afghanistan, increases the monstrosity of the intervention a thousand fold; but even to those who believe OBL was responsible, that would not be justification to bomb and subjugate one of the poorest nations on earth, using massive sophisticated Superpower weaponry.
The US has been trampling over other countries, gobbling some up completely or in part, or putting their puppets in power over others, virtually since the birth of the Republic.
Thank you for that excellent demonstration of Russia’s pathetic failure at manufacturing things ouch! – space station? Vostok spacecraft? Soyuz space rocket?
Commander Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani – Peace be with you – taken out with US co-ordinates.
Mind you the photo-voltaic cell was discovered at Dundee University…
Interesting and debatable assertion. Could you be more specific, please?
craig 16 June, 2015 – 8:11 pm : “Play the ball, not the man.”
craig 8 Oct, 2015 – 9:45 pm : “Tom Welsh. Don’t be stupid.”
craig 9 Oct, 2015 – 8:24 am : “Giyane. You are an idiot.”
craig 9 Oct, 2015 – 12:08 pm : “OldMark. Complete nonsense.”
Why does Richard Harrington Con MP Watford, ‘Minister for Syrian Refugees’, receive so many donations from so many sources and for what purpose?
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=24954
£497,064.99 itemized on the Search The Money website.
2 pages corporate donor http://searchthemoney.com/profile/272?p0=2#tabsx-1
5 pages private donor http://searchthemoney.com/profile/272?p0=2&p2=4#tabsx-3
http://searchthemoney.com/profile/272
Ex John Lewis Partnership and Chair Con Friends of Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Harrington_(politician)
Harrington Richard MP gives his pay rise to Watford charities. [puke]
http://www.richardharrington.org.uk/news/richard-harrington-mp-give-pay-rise-charity
“OldMark. Complete nonsense.”
I thought Craig was being tongue-in-cheek there. OldMark’s error of mistaking Dundee for Glasgow was in reality a minor one.
Talking of our favourite politicians:
http://www.wigantoday.net/news/local/political-heavyweights-make-borough-visits-1-7503793
Mr Straw, the former MP for Blackburn who served in the New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, will appear at Wigan Youth Zone at a business breakfast event tomorrow*.
He will give a speech entitled British politics is good for you.
That understandable confusion between ‘you’ and ‘me’ , again.
*Today: “It was a new day yesterday
but it’s an ooollldd day now”
OT for info
‘You probably know about TTIP – the EU-US trade deal that will let corporations sue states for lost profits via secret tribunals – but have you met its dangerous cousin, CETA?
CETA – the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – was drawn up by Canada and the EU last year. It contains clauses that are every bit as sinister as TTIP, including the same secret courts that give corporations power over governments. US companies with bases in Canada will be able to use the treaty to sue our governments too. They could use it to block minimum wage policies, environmental protection and moves to renationalise transport and health services.
The good news is that CETA hasn’t yet passed into law and there’s still time to stop it. But we must act now as the treaty could be ratified within months. We need to make sure Members of the European Parliament know we expect them to vote against this undemocratic deal.
Sign the petition to call on your MEP to vote against CETA’
https://campaign.goingtowork.org.uk/petitions/stop-ceta-ttip-s-dangerous-cousin
@Ba’al
“Mind you the photo-voltaic cell was discovered at Dundee University…
Interesting and debatable assertion. Could you be more specific, please?”
Remember reading about it at the time. Quite a lot of UK inventions and discoveries go the same way.
I believe what Craig was referring to was the TFT/ LCD displays which
they did not patent.
Craig Murray said:
“It was I that deleted your post, personally. Theories about the Rothschilds controlling everything are pretty daft, but I would let that pass. But your sentence about the Ashkenazy was plainly racist”
So it was you Mr Murray. How dissapointing. I would like to suggest two things therefore. Please kindly read this article http://andrewcarringtonhitchcock.com/The-History-Of-The-House-Of-Rothschild.php titled ‘History of the House of Rothchilds’ by a book by Andrew Hitchcock and then refute his historically evidenced points with counter evidence that supports your claim that ‘Theories about the Rothchilds controlling everything are pretty daft’.
They don’t control everything obviously – just most major things that have affected your and my families through the generations including the present time. Then kindly explain and qualify why you believe the sentence about the Ashkenazi ‘was plainly racist’. Such accusations are very disappointing and tiring considering that the Khazarian Ashkenazi who now run Israel are one of the most racist regimes on earth. Who is the main force behind Isis you ask? yep , you guessed it. What one single country in the middle east has refused to take in a single refugee asylum seeker during the recent crisis? Yep you guessed it. Zionist Israel. A state that was set up by the Rothchilds through coercion and terrorism.
The majority moderate people of Israel and the Orthodox Jews are as much victims of this regime as anyone else. Their psychopathic state rulers is what is the problem. If you can refute all of this Mr Murray you deserve a chocolate biscuit. But your terror at risking ‘being called names’ by trying to find the truth means that your blog is half cocked
Thanks, Dave. Those, of course, aren’t ‘photovoltaic cells’ in the usually accepted sense of the term: the variety of devices which are so describable, as they generate electricity from light, was what led to my request for clarification.
I hope Manchester patented graphene…
Paul Barbara; “Russia bombing in Afghanistan I would not like to see”
I think the Russians have learnt their lessons in Afghanistan, and the report I linked does tend to infer that any Russian assistance will not involve the sending of troops.
Paul Barbara; “They went in last time to prop up a repressive regime,”
They went in because, just like now in Syria, an official Government asked for their help; I would avoid using propagandizing terms like “repressive regime”, otherwise you will end up like the BBC, calling Assad the “President of the Syrian Government” when he was having tea with the Queen, and being considered for a Blair instigated honorary knighthood, to now referring to him as “Leader of the Regime”. Was the old Afghan Government repressive ? Perhaps, but when under Westerner instigated & supported Jihadist terrorism attacks, like all countries at war, some level of repression is inevitable. More honest to judge that old Afghan Government before the West stirred up the Jihadi terrorists, and surprise, surprise, just like Iraq & Libya, it was a stable modern secular nation, where most of its people were mostly content, especially the women;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543902/Photos-just-free-women-Afghanistan-Taliban-rule.html
Paul Barbara; “and were drawn into a deliberate trap by the US.”
Indeed, the difference this time in Syria is that the US & the West cannot hide behind the scenes, and are being seen & judged by the World, especially with allies such as Saudi Arabia & Israel, and on the other hand, there is Russia aligning with Syria & Iran & Iraq, and acting without breaking International Law.
Anyhow, what do you think of my little theory that Iraq & Afghanistan, are trying to rid themselves of Western interference, by inviting the Russians in ?
You are an optimist, or are you losing your bite?
with all the data sifting that NSA is carrying out, any patent of any value is already taken up and the others that don’t matter can be left for the holders to hold onto something (you don’t have hands so you would not know about it, it is a human thing) for sentimental reasons!
==============
————·´`·.¸¸.¸¸.··.¸¸Node
9 Oct, 2015 – 1:54 pm
ROFL
N @11.20am Imagine “God save the Queen at Glastonbury” Yes I can, and here they are..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrAPOZxgzU
Today is the day the Nobel Peace prize is awarded.
Contenders for the prize include the Pope and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.
Merkel however has caused much suffering with her hard line approach to Greek austerity, a fact not lost on many Greeks.
Still the Nobel Peace prize has a somewhat checkered history, non more so than its 1973 recipient Henry Kissinger, the war mongering Secretary of State to Richard Nixon.
Other recipients of the award, somewhat misconceived in my opinion, are US president Barack Obama in 2009, who has went on to become a prolific war mongerer in my opinion. Another awardee, was the EU in 2012.
Controversy was never been far away when it comes to the Nobel Peace prize, in 1945 former US Secretary of State Cordon Hill received the plaudit, for his role in helping to found the UN.
Later critics claimed Hill was behind the refusal to allow 1,000 Jewish refugees into the US during WWII, many died in the camps in years during the war.
The 1994 award, was a triumvirate award, to Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, aimed at boosting the peace accord, between Israel and Palestine. Alas hard line Israeli’s assassinated Rabin, and Peres, launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip.
Here is this years winner.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/oct/09/nobel-peace-prize-2015-awarded-angela-merkel-pope-francis-john-kerry-live-updates
LOL @ Fedup.
Going through US Patents you speedily recognise that if a gadget patented by A has had one screw in its cover changed from 1/4″ to 5/16″ by B, B has a patent on that. The Orientals are the same. It’s that ridiculous. It is probably impossible to design an optical or electronic device from scratch without infringing someone’s patent if you try to sell it. But I genuinely don’t know if Manchester, where graphene was discovered, has any rights in the product, although they probably have the original journal publication date taped. Not quite interested enough to look it up myself…
Does anyone have any views on why Russia might have used cruise missiles the other day? They’re very expensive, particularly when you’ve already got jets on hand to do the same job.
My first thought was Russia was demonstrating its capabilities to the West, but then I thought that it was probably a bit early in proceedings to be showboating and that it must primarily have served an operational purpose.
Tunisian Democracy Group Wins Nobel Peace Prize
9 October 2015
The National Dialogue Quartet in Tunisia has won the Nobel Peace prize for its “decisive contribution” to building a democracy in the country in the wake of its 2011 revolution.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation the group had “established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war”.
The quartet is made up of four key organisations in Tunisian society: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers.
“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is awarded to this quartet, not to the four individual organisations as such,” the committee said.
The prize is a huge victory for Tunisia and its young and still shaky democracy.
/..
http://news.sky.com/story/1566579/tunisian-democracy-group-wins-nobel-peace-prize
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/
“Still the Nobel Peace prize has a somewhat checkered history, non more so than its 1973 recipient Henry Kissinger”
Menachem Begin in 1978, surely.
Sales, MJ.
GREAT publicity: right in the eye of the world press, while everyone’s looking to see what Russia will do. Did you see the videos? Raytheon are probably incandescent. Also accounts for both (a) the US claim that four of them went astray and (b) the Russian assertion that they didn’t. Neither is testable unless Iran chooses to recover the bits and display them.
Its was intriguing to see the look on Secretary of State, Ash Carter’s face today, when a journalist (internantional I might add, a home grown daren’t step out of line) asked him about a Iranian General killed during the fighting in Syria.
Carter squirmed a little stuttered briefly and then mumbled we can’t confirm that, as a rather timid, Michael Fallon looked on.
Iran is in my opinion, fighting with the Russian, and supporting the pro-Assad regime.
Russia, is now bombing Homs, and its anti-Assad fighters.
Some American news networks, if they’re to be believed. Carry a story which claims a Russian General met with an American General in Baghdad, the Russian General, then allegedly said to his NATO counterpart to leave Syria altogether.
He was rebuffed, the report said, just maybe Russia, aren’t going to back down on this one.
http://www.allenbwest.com/2015/10/folks-heres-what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-russia-bombing-syria/