David Cameron relies on the complicity of mainstream media and the gullibility and disinterest of the British public to get away with an extraordinary switch. Two years ago he was strongly urging military action in Syria against the forces of President Assad. Now he urges military action against the enemies of President Assad. That includes against groups and individuals who were initially armed and financed by western intelligence agencies, and are still being financed by our Saudi “allies”.
Indeed one of the many extraordinary features of this fervid political period is that the neo-cons (be they Tory or Blairite) who are so actively beating the drum for war, are the ones who absolutely refuse to acknowledge that the source of the poison is Saudi Arabia. Cameron today told Westminster that the head of the snake is in Raqqa. That is plainly untrue. The head of the snake is in Riyadh. But if your God is Mammon, that is blasphemy.
It is also fascinating that the same people who triumphantly warned Putin he would get blowback from bombing the Islamists in Syria, deny that our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing of Libya have any blowback effect or in any way cause terrorism in the West. The hypocrisy would be hilarious were it not so serious.
The French are pounding the city of Raqqa as I write and the truth is, whatever the propaganda, that they have already killed more entirely innocent civilians in their bombing than were killed in the horrible atrocity in Paris. The killing on both sides is mindless. The majority of those the French are bombing into oblivion in Raqqa are people horrified at being occupied by ISIL, just as the people killed by ISIL in Paris were ordinary people as powerless as the rest of us to affect the way the elite run our foreign policy. Those who believe that the random killing of bombing is the solution to random killing are crazy.
I was terribly, terribly sad for the victims of Paris and their loved ones. But I could not help but note that we did not fly flags at half mast or illuminate buildings in the rather lighter tones of red white and blue that could have marked Russia losing nearly twice as many dead in a related terrorist atrocity just a few weeks before.
For the terrorists themselves, I have no sympathy. To kill entirely innocent people is indefensible in any circumstances. To believe that religious kudos can be gained from killing the innocent is incredibly sick.
I have often argued that it is actually not difficult to commit a terrorist attack. If I wanted to kill people next week, did not care who I killed, and was prepared to die myself, I could most certainly do so successfully. The key point is of course that in reality there are very, very few people deranged enough to carry out such atrocious acts. Any rational analysis shows this is not an existential threat. Terrible as these attacks were, they killed 0.01% – that’s one in ten thousand – of the population of Paris. They increased the tiny chance of being murdered in France by only 20%. There are over 600 murders a year in France. Many more people die every year in traffic accidents in Paris than were killed in this atrocity.
I am not trying to mitigate the evil or atrocity, I am trying to put it in context. The drama of the incident is used vastly to exaggerate its impact and to justify those moves which the Establishment had up their sleeve anyway as the vast and growing disparity between rich and poor calls for more weapons of social control. These include massive surveillance of the population, larger and more intrusive security services, aggressive policing, an institutional system of informers in education, a new crime of “non-violent extremism”, and of course yet more wars in the Middle East –
The sad thing is of course that the terrorists are so stupid as to increase the powers of the very forces in society whose policies they purport to be fighting, while the only people they kill are also those getting the short straw of society’s gross inequality. I suspect the leadership knows this. Of course, if you are a Saudi prince, then right wing, highly authoritarian western governments hostile to economic equality are exactly what you want too. It makes your lifestyle in London, Paris and Monte Carlo so much easier.
Meanwhile David Cameron thrashes about. The only way he can see to look credible is to go and bomb someone, even if it is the opposite side he wanted to bomb last time. It won’t stop terrorism, but it will be good for the arms manufacturers and security industry. It will help stoke the jingoism that is so useful in enabling the wealthy to maintain their firm grip on political power.
Actually stopping terrorism would of course do none of those useful things for the Establishment. I do not claim that the Establishment deliberately employs a Middle Eastern policy that promotes and exacerbates terrorism. But their policy has that effect, and they use its consequence in their own interest in retaining a firm grip on political power. It helps further ensure that political power will not be employed to reorder society upon more egalitarian lines.
Bibi pictured examining the Balfour Declaration was cunning cover, there is BIG oil in them thaar Golan Heights (et tu murdoch?!) and Heller will jump through umpteen hoops to get at it. After all that JCPOA drama and address to Congress, the shameless devil had the temerity to ask Obama to recognise the 1981 Golan annexation ??!! They desperately need the Syrian State out of the way, it must be huge, for cameron to bypass the UN and a Russian Veto. We can see it in the canaries all over the MSM.
BTW – why on earth would anybody illegal be carrying a passport on their person which would be of absolutely no use in the EU, and especially if it was fake and land them in jail?
Hi, I run a Facebook page called Corbyn: Media Watch, and we used this article for a post today. https://www.facebook.com/corbynmedia/photos/a.466144566908148.1073741828.466123113576960/481000232089248/?type=3&theater
Hope this is ok!
Declan
Let’s not allow terrorism to disrupt bizness….http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/francois-hollandes-war-with-isis-wont-stand-in-the-way-of-frances-arms-deals-with-saudi-arabia-a6738546.html
“And of far more interest to France will be its own lucrative arms deals with Saudi Arabia, where Hollande still hopes – forlornly, one might add – to supplant the US as the kingdom’s main arms supplier. He may think he’s “at war” with Isis – but the spiritual mentors of the so-called Caliphate will be left untouched.”
Because that was what ISIS’s paymasters in Riyadh and wherever told ISIS to do. And that is what ISIS’s leaders therefore ordered their obedient footsoldiers to do.
Why do you think Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, when Sibel Edmunds tells us the U.S. was financially supporting Al Qaeda until that date?
One possible reason would be to divert indignation and hostility to the refugees in Europe.
Thanks for your kind thoughts Mary. They are much appreciated.
We are watching. I miss the balance and class that John Spencer-Davis brings to this forum.
I hope you are getting better John, all the very best.
I also miss John Goss’s input. John Goss is a very clever man, and as such, a possible target for abuse. “Do not let them grind you down John”. “We the silent majority are wishing you well”.
The one liner shite bags here, are in so much turmoil in their warped minds, it is better not to feed their desire for attention. “Don’t feed the Trolls”. You must have see the same Notice at the ZOO “Don’t feed the animals”.( As you have said many times Mary).
Your input and Links are valued by me and others,so do not let them grind you down either. You are worth a billion times more than those with an “Inferiority Complex”.
Thanks also to Salford Lad for providing the name to what has been happening to me for years. I knew it must have a text book name.
Edward Louis Bernay’s “Propaganda”,demonise,deride,discredit and degrade your opponent”.
Thanks to all the good guys and gals on here. You enhance Craig’s blog more than you realise!
I had an interesting experience the other night when I went to a Fracking demo by Ineos.
I am only letting THEM know, that I saw what THEY were doing. What a fucking country I live in!!!
If England bombs Syria, Craig, I bet the bombs don’t fall on Isis!
The Basilica of St. Denis was the first truly Gothic building in Europe, its building overseen by none other than Abbot Suger, and every French king from the 10th century on was buried there.
One of the birthplaces of Western culture.
Thrashing….not swimming.
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/
“The only foiled attack involved the arrests of Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, who traveled from Arizona to Garland, Texas, bearing assault weapons and body armor, intending to shoot up an art contest involving the drawing of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Both attackers were shot by local police officers.
There are just five instances of what the report’s authors call “advanced attack plotting” — two of which involve the FBI providing assistance in planning or acquiring supplies for an attack before making an arrest.
Harlem Suarez, a 23-year-old from Florida, had been posting on Facebook about his support for ISIS when an undercover FBI agent started communicating with him, eventually about a “timer bomb” he wanted to construct and detonate on a public beach in Key West. Suarez asked the undercover agent if he knew how to assemble a bomb, and the agent agreed to get what he needed, subsequently goading him by asking if he was “true to the Islamic State” or “just playing games.” Suarez paid the FBI agent for the materials to assemble the bomb, and the agent taught him how to detonate it. When he tried to carry out the attack, he was arrested. His attorneys described him as “troubled and confused” in a statement.
An FBI agent also provided a fake explosive device to John T. Booker, a 20-year-old Kansas man who was indicted for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Christopher Cornell, a 20-year-old from Ohio, started posting on Twitter under an alias about his support for ISIS when someone in contact with Cornell agreed to be an FBI informant. Cornell talked about attacking the U.S. Capitol. But his father said it was the FBI that was “taking him somewhere, and they were filling his head with a lot of this garbage.”
Munther Omar Saleh, a New York college student, was arrested after trying to stab federal officers executing a search warrant at his home. The FBI said he and a co-conspirator discussed setting off a pressure-cooker bomb in New York, but no such charge was filed.
Usaamah Rahim, a 26-year-old Boston man, was killed by police officers when he was stopped for questioning after allegedly threatening them with a knife. He had been posting ISIS-inspired social media messages, and had threatened to kill Pamela Geller, the host of the Garland, Texas, Muhammad cartoon contest. Law enforcement sources called that plot a “fantasy,” but said his second plan, to kill cops, was more believable.
There were 12 examples of “aspirational” plots, or even less advanced plans to commit attacks.
There were 30 arrests involving people who were trying to travel to join up with ISIS, most of whom failed, and 15 of people attempting to provide some sort of “material support.”
That’s hardly a record of averting major ISIS attacks on the homeland.”
Will what the UK does in Syria be “legal” in the same way that the invasion of Iraq was?
“BTW – why on earth would anybody illegal be carrying a passport on their person which would be of absolutely no use in the EU, and especially if it was fake and land them in jail?”
So people would think they were Syrian not French.
There are reports that Adel Termos, the hero who saved many lives by tackling a suicide bomber in Beirut and dying as a result, was a member of Hezbollah.
Is Walid Jumblatt still pickled on cognac?
I’m not convinced that western governments aren’t actually following a foreign policy in the Middle East that ‘deliberately’ increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks. If, as Craig says, some degenerate Saudi prince can figure that out, it seems on that no one in Whitehall can’t, no? Of course it’s comforting to assume that our leaders are merely stupid and ignorant and don’t ‘understand’ the consequences of their dreadful policies; rather than concluding that they don’t really care because, as Craig mentions, the ‘blowback’ is unlikely to reach them and, anyway, when it comes it’ll be of no real strategic significance or pose a threat to our way of life at all… unless ‘we’ choose to let it by undermining what’s left of our cherished bourgeois civil rights.
I think the ruling elite regard terrorism as both a threat, but more significantly, an opportunity, ghastly acts that wake people up, the ordinary public to the ‘threats’ we face, meaning the State can rise to the challenge and grab even more power for itself, undermining the very quality of our democracy whilst at the same time claiming to defend it. More powers for the State could come in very handy in the kind of economy we are entering. So, on many levels there seems to be an kind of loose alliance between the terrorists and western states. They seem to feed and nurture each other.
Is there evidence for this? Let’s see. In Syria a regime we don’t like is fighting for its life faced by a multitude of rebel/terrorist groups that want to destroy it and create a very different kind of Syria. The regime isn’t exactly a paragon of liberal values and democracy, however, it is secular, it isn’t Islamist, it is ‘westernized’, it didn’t attack Paris in revenge for French interventions in Syria. One could write a longer list. The point is, when we began pouring arms and money into the rebel groups attacking the Assad regime, we didn’t really care who they were as long as they were willing to do the job, following a blueprint that seemed to work so well in tiny Libya. In Syria we were allied with the Islamic extremists. Now, suddenly, we aren’t anymore, only now it’s too late and the many-headed Hydra is out of control and is snapping back at us too.
How many members of the ruling classes in the West have been killed or hurt by Islamist terrorism? Didn’t the attack on the World Trade Center take place too early in the morning before management arrived? Didn’t the attack on the Pentagon take place in a part of the building not occupied by the movers and shakers in the Defense Department?
How long before we hear that we’ve always been at war with Eastasia and the alliance with the Islamists goes down the memory hole?
I had been writing a comment regarding the ABC airing a disgraceful talk by HJS operative Michael Weiss before PARIS however I posted it after PARIS and put a copy up on Craig’s previous thread.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/11/open-letter-to-president-ahtisaari-re-jim-murphy/comment-page-6/#comment-561773
Comment NOT added on ABC site yet.
At that time I intended to post on the [for the MSM] good ABC show LNL but got discouraged but have attempted another post tonight. This is it [expanded again with shortenings fixed]. This is the site for all the items but I posted to the Chulov article. It is clear that I think like Craig and that it can be difficult to get stuff posted on ABC if actual persons [lying journos] are scrutined.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/16th-november-2015/6943866
Post:
Comment on all four ISIS items under Martin Chulov (MC) story…
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-frontline-against-isis/6945372
MC frequent++ ABC guest re Syria and Mid East –be for going to UK worked for Australian -Works now for the pro-Blair pro-intervention -pushing UK attack on Syria Guardian [Paper +reporters who trashed Assange after benefiting/enriching off his info]
William McCants (WM) works for US think tanks and consults for the US State Department
Lina Khatib (LK) Sen Research Assoc Arab Reform Initiative (ARI) A search for ARI on WikiP yields Bassma Kodmani (BK – (Syrian/French) In 2005 BK established the ARI… Sept 2011 Syrian Nat Council announced BK was the spokesperson. BK is an insider of French foreign affairs estab/academia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassma_Kodmani#The_Arab_Reform_Initiative
TonyB55: Super RN listener since 1978 and has followed Libya Syria closely. Subscribes to the Harold Pinter, Chomsky and Pilger view of US West and MSM.
Despite working for groups linked to US-NATO-Europe WM and LK were measured and supplied useful information WM advises that the Saudi’s (SA) are still more interested in ousting Assad than fighting ISIS Its open knowledge [stated by Joe Biden] that be for ISIS success in Iraq in 201 for ISIS were being financed by SA and Qatar (Q) with the arms and personnel foreign fighters/mercenary going through Turkey.
But MC on LNL with fellow Guard played down SA role in backing ISIS and said they were self-financing from Oil and al this was based on a memory stick –intelligence had given him access to [which I pointed out then]. Why?
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/chaos-in-iraq/5526996
MC has become an expert on ISIS along with his collaborator Michael Weiss (MW) who has been feeding disinformation to MSM. MW has said that MC provides a masterclass [**] in reporting. MW worked for the far right Neocon Henry Jackson Society (HJS) $$$ whose inspiration Richard Perle spread the lie after2001 that Saddam Hussein was aligned with Al-Qaida (AQ) and hence 9/11. This was parroted by Bush/Blair and MSM. MW on following program played on Big Ideas on 10/11/15 tells us that Assad is actually conspiring with ISIS and helped set them up.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/isis3a-inside-the-army-of-terror/6867342
masterclass [**] https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1kwret/iama_michael_weiss_now_lebanon_columnist_on_the/
$$$ HJS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jackson_Society
MC as he sort of points out knows people in ISIS because they were in the Syrian Opposition he was communicating with and visiting back in 2012-13. ISIS only became a problem –to us i.e. We –NATO GCC etc. when the took huge territory in Iraq in 2014. US then told SA and Q to cut them lose which the VM advises they are still reluctant to do.
If FSA existed they don’t now and it is clear [moderate= not ISIS] anti-Assad rebels supported by NATO-GCC are [AQ members associated jihadist extremists and foreign fighters who didn’t join ISIS] –yet.
Best summary of situation after PARIS:
http://angryarab.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/some-observations-about-carnage-in-paris.html
MC’s Orwell prize is Orwellian
lysias
18 Nov, 2015 – 5:00 pm
How many members of the ruling classes in the West have been killed or hurt by Islamist terrorism? Didn’t the attack on the World Trade Center take place too early in the morning before management arrived? Didn’t the attack on the Pentagon take place in a part of the building not occupied by the movers and shakers in the Defense Department?
Or they were warned
30 seconds in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa25s5pqluI
Stop press: New York Times criticizes the CIA and intelligence agencies over their attitude & response to the Paris tragedy: over to Mr. Greenwald ~>
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/18/nyt-editorial-slams-disgraceful-cia-exploitation-of-paris-attacks-but-submissive-media-role-is-key/?
Earlier I described John Woodcock Lab as a blue tory. My eyes have been blinded by all the red, white and blue! I meant red tory.
Of the same hue is Hilary Benn. He’s been on the news with more support for war as has been General Sir Richard Dannatt currently in residence at the Tower. He last saw action in that theatre of war known as Kosovo. Afterwards planning for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They went well didn’t they!
He declares an interest as Advisor, Board of Imeon Logistics Ltd
‘EXPEDITIONARY FREIGHT STRATEGIES FOR CENTRAL ASIA & AFGHANISTAN
Imeon is a project driven management group specializing in logistics and transportation in the world’s most challenging operating environments. Our mission is to ensure our clients extract the greatest reward from Situations of considerable risk.
With a focus on providing western level supply chain management for military and natural resource projects in Central Asia & Afghanistan, our core management team has been working together as a single operational unit since 2001. Since that time we have built and unrivaled track record by consistently delivering for both government and private sector clients.’
and Chairman, Strategic Development Board, Durham Global Security Institute where academe meets
‘The Durham Global Security Institute (DGSi) pursues research across the contemporary security agenda, focusing on the interface between defence, development and diplomacy as the arena where the most important and challenging security issues arise. Drawing on its network of academic and practitioner expertise, DGSi’s research and educational activity is practically-oriented, innovative and ambitious in casting new light on security challenges and identifying effective responses to complex problems.’
A message from the General.
https://www.dur.ac.uk/dgsi/dannatt/
Hard to decide its real function.
Watching the reporting on the recent events in Paris it struck me that there is nothing more revolting or cowardly than terrorism against completely innocent citizens.
Declan
All my articles on this blog are free to share and repost.
I have long thought that the world is run in part by greedy self-serving persons and in a certain way by “mad men”. The latter observation is borne out by the US/NATO policies in the Middle East and neighboring countries:-
1. Lie to create a war in Iraq and in the aftermath leave death, suffering, increased ethnic and religious divisiveness.
2. Don’t learn from the Iraq error – but proceed to do the same in Libya as was done in Iraq and create a ‘failed state’. READ:-
http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/76510
3. Advance a proxy war against President Assad in Syria; arm, train and fund terrorists; watch the terrorists cross lines of allegiance at will and then 4 years on create a humanitarian crisis such that multitudes of migrants flee to Europe.
4. Continue to tell the naïve and unsuspecting denizens of the world that there is a great defence of “democracy” for the Middle Eastern countries coming from the West – yet – ignore that policy when it comes to Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or Israel ( in the sense that the 1967 boundary lines are ignored without Western response and it is Jewish ethnicity which determines full political participation.) But – we are told that the US/NATO is defending human rights, international law and democracy.
Then – smile to the World and sing ” How great though are”. After three now… “How great…
That’s weird. ‘This content is no longer available’ on the BBC link to
‘Hollande addresses French mayors 5 hours ago
French president Francois Hollande addresses an assembly of the mayors of France in the wake of last week’s attacks in Paris.’
I was going to put up a link to the effect that the image of each of the seemingly hundreds of French mayors all seated and wearing a red, white and blue sash was striking. It’s a State propaganda tool just like the rows of flags we keep seeing at every gathering now.
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo-association-of-the-mayors-of-news-photo/497676380
Cameron and Blair have massively used the Union Flag as a backdrop for their messages as did Thatcher. Google ‘Cameron Union Flag’. There are hundreds of images as there are for Thatcher and Blair. Go back to Wilson and there is just one shown and that is held by a person in a crowd of people.
Looks to me that the French authorities deliberately allowed this small, family conspiracy to happen so they could conduct a NATO free-for- all in Syria.
Craig is quoted in this blogger’s letter to his MP. The MP is Johnny Mercer Con Plymouth Moor View. He is ex army and went straight onto the Defence Committee following election in May.
‘I elected for the Army over the Royal Navy and graduated from Sandhurst in 2002. The Royal Citadel on the Hoe then became my home for the next 11 years and Plymouth has been my adopted city ever since. During my career I served from the tactical to the strategic level throughout a career across the globe, including multiple combat operations.’ His website.
He will be Defence Minister if Fallon doesn’t watch it.
On Bombing Syria: Open letter to Johnny Mercer MP
https://wordsbeyondmeaning.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/on-bombing-syria-open-letter-to-johnny-mercer-
Pulcinella (14h19)
I get the impression from your comment that you are favorably inclined towards Hizbollah.
Of that impression is correct, would you care to tell us why you view Hizbollah with favour?
Thank you.
TonyB55
Moderate = everybody except IS
Moderate = everybody except Corbyn
My Venn diagram has a set where admirers of Islamic State and admirers of Corbyn intersect.
The most despised institution ( by David Cameron at least ) would be a peace-loving, egalitarian caliphate. That really would leave a disgustingly revoltingly insanely nasty taste in the mouth.
( For those who don’t do irony – Not. )
Johnstone
When challenged by Anon1, you replied:
“I can not know what really happened in Paris and choose not believe what I hear on RT or the BBC or what I read in German newspapers, as I no longer consider these news outlets reliable”
But you obviously knew/know enough to have been able to use the following words and expressions in a post of yours from a little earlier on: “so called ‘terrorist atrocity’”, “the cycle of fakery”, “how gullible people are”.
So why not share with us what you do actually “know”?
We’re all ears.
Some of Brendan McCarthy’s sensible words before the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. He is on Welby’s team at Lambeth Palace.
https://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/mission/the-team.aspx
‘The Welfare State
The Health and Social Care Bill runs the risk of breaking the obligation of the Government to take responsibility for healthcare in the nation. This is not merely a matter to be judged on the grounds of efficiency or effectiveness (although both are important – and there is, as yet, no evidence that the proposed changes in the Bill will promote either).
Rather, the government’s responsibility for the welfare of the people,
including healthcare, is part of the fundamental justification for the State, and one main reason why individuals should subordinate themselves, within limits, to the State.
In the 1930s, totalitarianisms were thriving across Europe and beyond. In order to combat totalitarianisms of Right or Left, it was necessary for the United Kingdom to develop an understanding of the relationship between the individual and the State which contradicted the total subordination of every person to the demands of fascism or communism for total power. Merely being a democracy was not enough unless the
power conferred by democracy was properly directed. What emerged, with some help from churchmen such as Archbishop William Temple, was the understanding that the State was legitimated by its attempts to guarantee the basic welfare of every citizen.
As Temple put it, the “welfare state”, unlike the “power state”, could legitimately command the allegiance of the people, and not least, Christians whose ultimate commitment is to a greater Kingdom and who are therefore rightly sceptical about the claims of any national state.’
https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1360113/healthandsocialcarebillbriefingoct2011.pdf
I was at the hospital today and could see some floundering. The collegiality is diminished. Each time I go I see more privatisation. Today it was the management of medical records and patients’ notes, a vital function. The new staff were wearing their company’s livery. The little friendly coffee shop in Oncology which was staffed by volunteers has been handed over to Costa, part of Whitbreads. The prices seemed to be near double cf the previous. There were new flat screen TVs in the waiting areas – tuned to BBC news of course.