It has been a difficult couple of days at the end of a difficult year. Individual lone wolf terrorism is impossible to stop completely. Fortunately, although it commands the headlines when it occurs, it is quite incredibly rare. Terrorism remains almost the least likely of freak deaths you could suffer, and everywhere in Europe is thousands of times less likely than the comparatively mundane event of dying in an ordinary traffic accident. Yet the perception of the terrorism risk is entirely wrong – for precisely the same reason that recent surveys show that people massively overestimate the number of Muslims in the population. Relentless media propaganda takes its toll.
Just as in the case of Anders Breivik, the media have jumped to the conclusion that the Berlin Christmas market terror was an act of Islamic terrorism, with no evidence whatsoever at this point. It is indeed very likely, probably most likely. But it could also have been a right wing group seeking to exacerbate anti-immigrant feeling. The disappearance of the killer makes this more likely. Perhaps people weren’t looking for a Breivik type slinking away because they were too busy in a racially motivated vigilante chase after a perfectly innocent Baloch muslim? I do not say it was not a Muslim – I don’t know – but the arrest of that young Baloch shows the problem of false assumptions. Amidst the terrible sorrow and anguish in Berlin – and let us not forget in Poland – I hope Germans find the grace to apologise properly and humbly to that racially stigmatised young man.
Even if the attacker was motivated by Islamic terrorism, the ISIS claim of control and organisation is very probably false. Let us await real progress in identifying what kind of attack this was before we start to address conclusions.
The murder of Ambassador Andrey Karlov was awful. Again, it is very hard to understand the precise situation. I remain sceptical that the Gulenists were really behind the coup attempt in Turkey. I am therefore reluctant to address theories about the policeman murderer’s links to the coup or Gulen, both of which seem improbable.
The Turkish/Russian relationship is extremely complex. There is no doubt that Erdogan remains strongly sympathetic to elements of the Sunni insurgency in Syria, and the profit-making of his family members from relationships with the jihadists was very real. So there is real conflict beneath the attempts at détente. But I cannot conceive Erdogan sanctioning the murder of an Ambassador, nor see how it benefits him. Russian bombing has hit ethnic Turkish communities on Syria’s northern border, and this seems the assassin’s most probable motivation, perhaps from family loss. I do not have high expectations we will get the truth, particularly from the official Russo/Turkish investigation.
Finally. the government has now at last admitted that British cluster bombs have been raining down on civilians in Yemen, a full two years after evidence should have made it undeniable. But there is still no chance that the hobbling of British foreign policy by its strange thraldom to Saudi Arabia is going to change. So long as the arms manufacturers, security industry and owners of high end London property control the British establishment, unquestioning support for Saudi Arabia remains the fulcrum around which the FCO revolves.
Can you not provide more insight into why the UK is so in thrall to the Saudis, from your FCO contacts?
Cant imagine property ownership or the security industry have much to do with it – although the arms industry is obviously hugely important.
Is it simply because our foreign policy has been contracted out to the State Department, and they tell us to keep supplying the Sauds (even while they are taking a temporary ‘moral’ stance)? Having Boris as Foreign Secretary is basically telling the world we dont need our own FCO.
Oil.
sea routes
The Saudis have all the oil, they play the West off the east. The risk to the west would be for the Saudis to strike a deal with the Chinese or Russia, so they are allowed to do whatever they like. That is why they’ll fly planes into the WTC whilst doing deals with the bushes – they have us by the nuts.
In recent times, one of the great benefits to the Saudi Regime has been Regime Change /Arab Spring,
it had simultaneously taken the spotlight off the horrors of Saudi Arabia and reduced the oil output of Sudan / Tunisia / Libya / Egypt / Syria / Iraq / Kuwait / Iran / Yemen / Venezuela
Oil. Not merely energy, but specifically liquid fuel – for agriculture, transport and military operations. The fighting over the Middle East will continue until enough infrastructure is built to synthesize sufficient liquid fuel.
I understand why people like Craig can feel crushed by it all.
But really, the world is wonderful (or what’s left of the world, because we’ve now almost destroyed it).
The world is only ‘difficult’ because we allow complete psychopaths to control us.
This is so easy to remediate. We vastly outnumber the psychos and can, if the will is there, just brush them aside like the scum they are. It’s what most societies throughout history have tried to do (we only succeeded at the end of the Second World War, which was the biggest slaughter in history, but now the social gains have all been pissed down the drain).
We are not in a post-truth era, we are actually, in my humble opinion, in a back-truth era.
Somewhere about 1838, I would say.
(to give the 1930s Nazi analogy to the present crop of western politicians makes them appear far too intelligent)
As the old saying goes, It’s better to die as a free man than to live as a slave.
Interesting, I think it’s 1937 all over again.
There’s a little psychopath in every one of us, scheming to get away with stuff and very good at making up excuses that even convince ourselves…
No, there isn’t. That is simply self-justification, too. It’s just the same as ‘If we didn’t do it, someone else would.’ We are not all like that, and if each individual who is like that stops, desists and encourages others to do the same, then it will make a difference.
“…and very good at making up excuses that even convince ourselves”.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
But yes, difference can be made by personal effort. Becoming honest is the easier part. The self-knowledge is harder.
There are other problems. “The system” selects for competitiveness, even ruthlessness. We even have our own evolutionary adaptation, the selfishness of survival, undermining our better natures.
““The system” selects for competitiveness, even ruthlessness.”
The system selects those who are blackmailable, or easily bought.
Hear, hear.
The psychopath formerly known as The Devil is an essential and highly evolved component of the naked ape’s psyche. It’s there for a reason, survival. We might be better to accept it as the norm, rather than pretending that our veneer of civilisation is an inherent and stable feature.
Happy Christmas.
Learn to love the bonobo inside you Baal.
bonobo life, is all about free love.
michael norton
“all about free love”
Well, I was infering a bit more as part of a long standing phlisophical difference between Ball and myself. However, I suspect wthat was the grumpy lizards parting shot til after the festive season. So let me spell it out in case you fancy discussing it.
Baal, an old soldier, was suggesting we are all ‘animals’ ready to tear each other apart. The Hobbsian conclusion is only strict rule of law keeps us from perpetual battle.
I, as an old fart, was reminding him that we are as much bonobo as chimp (our two closest relatives). And yes the bonobos live in relative peace, mediating their social relations with sex.
Capitalism is competition and to function it relentlessly promotes competition untill we fail to rcognise the cooperation all around us.
However, I suspect wthat was the grumpy lizards parting shot til after the festive season.
Your suspicion is completely unfounded. Naturally you wish to believe that we more closely resemble nice bonobos than nasty chimps; but the reality is smeared across every page of human history.
Anyway, this for your entertainment:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000334721100546X
Komodo
“the reality is smeared across every page of human history.”
Not at all. It is smeared across some very recent paragraphs.
Even now, when we are forced to compete with our neighbours for jobs and housing, paid to kill those from abroad to further enrich our lords, driven to craven envy over garbage by inescapable hypnosis, even now when our cultures are shaped to bring out our very worse, to fight day in day out as if our lives depend on it (and god forbid if you lose), even now co-operation still breaks out all over the place.
Interesting your link extract argues that my dog and a bonobo are less aggressive because of relaxed competition. Who’d have thunk? Perhaps some fair distribution in our post scarcity world might make a considerable difference.
End the wars. Become an anarchist commie. For the children’s sake.
Rob
“But really, the world is wonderful (or what’s left of the world, because we’ve now almost destroyed it).”
Aye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMncbomr388
I am 60 and have never before felt that the tide of evil in the world so poised to finally engulf us. This sounds melodramatic but plausible. The election of Trump and his cabinet of rapists, driven by blind greed and personal interest bodes calamity for us all in 2017. The reality that this has happened to the World is still difficult to comprehend. The Middle East, the powder keg it’s always been. But now fractions are well delineated and their backers exposed. The proxy veil tantalisingly close to being discarded leaving the theatre of conflict laid bare and more real than ever been. Not only this but unheard and unpronounceable terror groups emerge from the chaos each time we turn around and show up out of the blue on our high streets, beachs and shopping malls. Humanity on our screens have sunk to new depths of depravity. Images of desperation and abandonment, collective quilt and horror a daily reoccurrence. However despite the hypocrisy and contempt for truth of nations the skewed lullaby reporting of the media may succeed in comatosing us all. I’m sure the annals of history will find the reason why those of us that could have revolutionised and prevented WW111, or saved the orangutans were terminally stuck to their sofas, watching Net flicks or porn and eating palm oil sodden carbohydrates.
At home we stumble over our feet in a complete two and eight with Brexit, but undoubtedly the consequences Cameron has bestowed us with will be dire.
So reasons to be cheerful? Sunsets at the end of the day and the gratitude we have seen it.
Were you asleep during the Great Terror wrought by Reagan, Clinton (both), bUSha (both) and Obama?
Ha- you think that was terror- I imagine it will fell more like a walk in the park than the next 4 years.
I tremble every time I see Trump’s hairdo but not as much as I would if that revolting creature Clinton had “won”.
Just be grateful Clinton wasn’t able to steal it.
Can someone photoshop Trump’s hair on Hillary please.
It’s already been done!
http://thepulse2016.com/wp-content/uploads/Hillary_Trump.jpg
Why do you assume the media narrative to be true rather than another staged event to promote the pro-war agenda and when the script is so obviously pre-prepared. In respect the Nice lorry “atrocity” that happened late on a Thursday evening, but a message was sent from the Government Cabinet Office very early Friday morning to fly flags at half-mast on all public buildings in solidarity with the residents and victims of Nice, before it was impossible for the actual rather than media truth to be known. And you will find the same elementary signs of a “stunt” in the other highly promoted “attacks”, which is itself a give away. I mean you only promote the success of the “other side” if they are “your side”.
Security is being tightened’ we have just been told by the BBC. Oc course it has.
They had a reporter outside Buck House showing barriers being erected on the edges of the pavements surrounding it.
Then we had Michael Clarke, the past director of RUSI, telling us of his surprise that the road leading to the Berlin market was not closed off and that would not have been difficult.
Meanwhile, the 24 hour delay while Naved B was detained has allowed the perpetrator to escape. The poor Polish lorry driver is dead.
Don’t be absurd.
This kind of ridiculous bollocks is more detrimental to promoting an understanding of the complexities of the problems we face in the modern world than any amount of poor quality media reporting. It is also hugely insulting to the people affected by the death and injury in Berlin, and elsewhere. If you think that terrible atrocities like this are staged for by the evil mind control lizards to confound you through your tv then can you please at least chose to express that opinion in the nutjob corners of internet’s shittiest conspiracy forums, and not here.
Recently I cycled around Windsor Castle / Great Park, massively strong steel pins all the way around, look like they would stop a fully loaded speeding lorry.
“Janz Berlin war ene Wolke, Nur noch icke war zu sehen”
a description of the people in Berlin, their astute and forthright, but also humorous characteristics.
Wolsto, have the authorities found out yet who killed all those ten victims years back, ten I believe, apparently killed by NSU killers who had shadowy support from within the the BND and the BKA, is that absurd as well? A right wing terror group, untamed, allowed to kill immigrants as well as Germans that has support in the police and the Intelligence services? Tragic ballet dancing, dangerous and alarming, but not absurd.
The facts around the issue of this event in Berlin will come out, my sincere condolences to the victims. It does not make it impossible that Washington runs riot wherever it chooses, but that’s an old hat.
If IS has claimed to have done this, then we all know who has created and backed this organisation, good morning Hillary, as well as donors to the democratic party, currently busy using UK made cluster bombs in Yemen, as well as those in the US putting their hands in their pockets.
I think you’re referring to this?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/neo-nazi-murders-revealing-germanys-darkest-secrets
I have a real problem with (always) online voices who see some past instances of chicanery and leap to conclude that any and all event is therefore the result of crazy conspiracy. This is especially ridiculous when it manifests as all politicians and celebrities described as satanist child abusers because of a few high profile cases, but it is also clear that whenever there is a tragedy or an act of violence like this there will always be someone crouched over their keyboard claiming some alphabet agency, MOSSAD, lizards or some combination thereof were responsible, or that it was all faked. This is idiocy.
The real world is complicated and often horrible, but our understanding of it and our conversations that shape our reaction to important events or national tragedies are cheapened and hollowed out when everything is interpreted through the lens of wild conjecture and fantasy. If and when we can prove conspiracy then by all means seek accountability, but the reality of conspiracies always seem to be both more prosaic, accidental, and smaller in scope and membership than the overarching master plans offered up by a certain type of online commentator.
I’ve been reading this blog for years and years but only started commenting recently, in despair at some of the things posted below the line, which detract from the often excellent points Craig makes and tars the whole site with the same brush. It makes us all – readers, those who recommend this site to friends, and those who comment here – look like idiots by association.
Finally, if I were grieving the death of a family member in Berlin this morning I would, were I to look at online reaction, be heartened by the calls to not let anger rule our response to tragedy, but I would also be horrified by people’s attempts to use my loss to further their conspiratorial fantasies about the state of the world.
A family member is dead, and you’d look for online reaction ?
That says it all, Wolsto.
I’d imagine the sponsors of “Ghost Banning” would also be partial to below the line conspiracy type posts on this site to undermine it. Judged by the company you keep.
In the meantime, the driver of the lorry has conveniently left ID under the seat and is a Tunisian with 10 different aliases and is known to the police. He apparently hi-jacked the lorry and fought with the injured driver as he drove into the crowd. He then shot the driver dead before making his escape. So we now have a villain, a hero and a dubious story line for conspiracy theorists to salivate over.
Leap to conclude?
We don’t give much to Guardian articles here as we know who owns the rag, hope you can live with that.
Firstly I very much speak my mother tongue and am fairly well educated on the ins an outs of this case of state blindness when it comes to Fascist still trying their best to get a grip on the German political scene.
I can only suggest Wolsto that reading a book is definitely an advantage ‘Geheimsache NSU, zehn Morde von Aufklaerung Keine Spur’ by Andreas Foerster.
read it before you assume that false flags in Europe are impossible. Until then you just keep being horrified. Nobody here attempts to use anybody’s loss to their conspiratorial fantasies, grow up.
I’m not from Berlin, but I’m equally aggrieved at this terror idiom that is being controlled by the paymasters of IS, seemingly having an agenda to disrupt Europe with people who are chased out of their homes by bombs.
@ nevermind
I was linking to the article just to confirm we were talking about the same thing, it’s the last thing I read on the subject so it’s the first thing that came to mind. However, for what it’s worth, the article does actually draw attention to the collusion between the BfV and the German far right.
I don’t assume false flags in Europe are impossible… or at least complex situations that can be simplified to fit that definition. See bombings in Italy in the 70’s and 80’s, for example. What I don’t do, and what I’m arguing is idiocy, is immediately assume that every incident is a ‘false flag’, or is faked; or assume that the most incoherent and far fetched explanation is always the ‘truth’. And what I certainly don’t do is infer that some people are purely evil, or that satanists paedophiles rule the world, which is the kind of childish nonsense I’ve seen expressed here that has prompted me to start posting after many years of just reading. ‘Pizzagate’ etc.
Ooh, ooh, the “… the complexities of the problems we face in the modern world …”.
The bad guys are calling the shots. Not that complex, it seems to me, but if you find it so, my sincere wishes for your eventual clear perception.
“It is also hugely insulting to the people affected by the death and injury in Berlin, and elsewhere”.
Nonsense. But a common meme, first played strongly after 9-11. If any of my family, God forbid, are ever killed by a similar event, I would want all theories/motivations/actors/scenarios thoroughly examined, not dismissed by self-appointed guardians of correct behaviour.
“If you think that terrible atrocities like this are staged for by the evil mind control lizards to confound you through your tv then can you please at least chose to express that opinion in the nutjob corners of internet’s shittiest conspiracy forums, and not here”.
Because you want ? Nah.
Sneaky use of ‘lizard’ – suggests your case is weak. Or maybe you work for the bad guys ?
Nor do I have a ‘tv’; you should research their effects, particularly on children.
nutjobs/shittiest – brought to you from the pages of Disruptive Trolling 101. Pisspoor.
My comments you’ve quoted were addressed specifically to Dave, rather than you, but your use of the phrase “bad guys” give me a glimpse of your simplistic world view. However, my original reply does read back as being a little strident, so apologies Dave. I stand by my point though, crazy conspiracy theories do us all an injustice.
Wolsto
“crazy conspiracy theories do us all an injustice”
It wasn’t your strident tone, it was your confidence that you are the well rounded, right minded arbiter of reality to tell the unjust crazy conspiracies from the rest that made me laugh.
Your comments are on the blog, so expect responses when you post personal ‘wot I reckons’.
You’re right re the injustice – except of course when they are proved to be the truth.
@ Phil:
A month or two ago I was patiently patronised on here by a regular poster who felt sorry for my lack of understanding of the Luciferian plotters ruling the world. That’s the level I’m aiming at here, that kind of distance from reality.
” If any of my family, God forbid, are ever killed by a similar event, I would want … etc, etc..”
_____________________
I’m sure you would waste no time in blaming the govt in some way or other (“false flag”, “the govt should have done more to protect us”, etc, etc….the possibilities are endless for people of your stripe)
Interesting you claim to know my ‘stripe’, when immediately prior to that you suggest I’d ask the ‘gvrnmnt’ for protection.
Those who really do know me would find that hilarious.
Next you will be saying there was no SOE in WWII.
The German authorities were honest. They said “we may have the wrong man. There is no physical evidence to conect him to the crashed vehicle.”
I notice that the BBC continue to broadcast that he was released because of “insufficient evidence”. That is really weasel wording. If he had been in the cab surely there would have been some DNA?
This anti-foreigner spin does the BBC reputation no good.
Radio 4 Today this morning reported that German poice had stated that there was no forensic evidence to link the suspect with the lorry.
Maybe it depends on which bit of the BBC you’re waiting to jump on? Or just maybe, it takes a finite time to get news from its source to its outlet?
There is also a tussle for the “anti” Muslim” narrative, which in practice is a pro and anti Muslim narrative! That is the populists promote the “anti” to reconcile with Russia and end the war and migration crisis, whereas the neo-cons promote the “anti” (and IS) as the excuse for perpetual war and Russo phobia.
This point was illustrated by the parliamentary votes on bombing Syria. Initially Cameron wanted to bomb Assad, but MPs revolted saying it was madness to replace him with the (Coalition of Willing/IS) head-choppers and the vote was lost. So Cameron “spun” the message and said he wanted to bomb the head-choppers instead and staged public relations events to make a “compelling case”, except swift of foot Putin said you’re right they’re a menace and we’ll destroy them for you!
Except bombing IS was a Cameron pretext to bomb Assad, not a green light for Russia to back Assad by bombing IS. Hence the furious claims that Russia was bombing the “moderates” not “IS”. Following Aleppo it means the populists are winning control of the “anti” Muslim narrative, hence the latest spat of “media events” to try and force the issue before Trump takes office and removes the “anti-Muslim” CIA/neo-cons from office (I hope).
yesterday morning I had a call from the local BBc, at 7.30 am, my plasterer was just setting up to run riot in the back room and my eyes were half shut.
@ Don’t know if you as yet heard about the terror incident in Berlin, ( the moment I heard its BBC local radio I knew what they wanted anyway) we were wondering whether you’d like to give us a comment ( being German).
I said’ No, I would not like to fuel the speculations the BBC can generate itself, yesterday I wanted to comment on Aleppo’s people dancing in the streets, and of those alleged 14 NATO officers captured (what are their names, has this been collaborated yet ?) and did not give me a chance. I am thoroughly disgusted with the BBC using terms such as ‘Srebrenizca’ in comparison with Aleppo.’
This need of the MSM to instantly project their narrative on to anything that might fit, regardless of the other options for this event that could apply, is taking up most of their time these days. Newspaper proprietors really don’t own their rags anymore, they are consumed vby the same narrative and competing with each other to find the most weirdest angle to report, truth or principles do not come into it.
I have changed my min d, Leveson’s recommendations should be put into law, without redactions, and some. We are mugs to still read the shite they write.
Fear sells consumer goods! its a long known fact and if at any time we should decide to stop to react with a flight to the shops, for the projected/ generated/ manipulated/well planned fear, then peace might actually break out. If fluffy kittens and saving tigers turns us on to go shopping, then that would be used.
I’m having three days of attack loops flown above our heads, most of them US aircraft, mobilising for some inane threat, maybe that bloke flying around in a sledge pulled by reindeer’s, maybe somebody should show the the door or were to get off over Christmas, its incessant.
Should we be hunting Saudis/( please insert your fav. bugbear) with horses and hounds on boxing day, rather than fill our bellies?
Inserting my favourite bugbear, hunting it with horse and hound would be sweet retribution indeed. For it was Blair who banned hunting with dogs. Even if the law is permitted to stand, a Boxing Day Blairhunt should be granted exemption. I will not specify which part of him should be used to blood new hunt members, in the absence of the brush*.
*note for townies: ‘brush’ = fox tail
the media have jumped to the conclusion that the Berlin Christmas market terror was an act of Islamic terrorism, with no evidence whatsoever at this point. It is indeed very likely, probably most likely.
Surely the media ‘jumped to the conclusion’ that it was an act of Islamic terrorism on the basis that this was a carbon copy of similar attacks 2 Christmasses ago in France, but sadly with higher casualties ?-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30583390
In other words the assumptions on which the MSM reporting of this terrible incident is based are (insofar as speculation over motives can be) based on historic evidence relating to previous attacks of this nature.
That’s journalism, not reportage.
In much the same way that “historical” evidence was initially used to, incorrectly and inaccuratly, assume the perpetrator(s) of the terror event instigated by Breivik. In that event assumptions based on “historical” evidence alone was sufficient to make an ass not only of those media outlets who made those highly dubious assumptions, counting their chickens before they were hatched, but also those amongst the general population who shared those assumptions.
Having been or seen others burnt in such a way does not seem to deter people continuing to make an ass of themselves in similar circumstances. Jumping to instant conclusions based on such flimsy evidence as “historical” occurrences rather than waiting patiently for solid evidence to be gathered by those new villains of post truth, the experts and professional also whose job is to gather the evidence, which does not run to the instant gratification timetable of the 24/7 so called news cycle.
The question remains why do so many rush like the mythical lemmings towards the cliff risking making themselves an ass on the basis of such flimsy assumptions? Perhaps an answer of sorts can be found here………:
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2016/12/the-nocturnal-side-of-reason.html?m=1
” As soon as one lies, however, one creates. And there is no creation without desire. Once you start to lie, you tell the truth about your desire — perhaps in the only way that you can, through displacements and metaphors.
The lies we might tell about immigrants, for example, tell the truth about us. If we are not able to say, “any amount of immigrants is too many, and we should sadistically and brutally punish them for being here,” we can instead massively exaggerate the numbers, identify migrants as ‘illegals’ and ‘bogus’, and scapegoat them for sexual assault and violent crime.”
….. which argues, in the general sense, that taking a particular position often reveals a truth based on desire. In this instance to jump the gun, of solid evidence, because of the desire, the want, the need, for what one is claiming to be so. Regardless of an absence, at present, of the evidence necessary to substantiate or otherwise what can only be an instant theory. In this regard Craig Murray exhibits the necessary prudence in taking a position which in essence says let’s wait for the solid evidence until reaching a firm conclusion rather than jumping to conclusions we may wish or desire to jump to.
Down that road leads to vigilantism and lynch mob mentality.
My money’s on the Amish
Anon is always right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Underground
Come on, more people have killed by Amish buggy drivers than takfiri scumbags.
You are so right about UK ‘thraldom’ to the Saudi perverts, they and their extreme Wahhabi form of Islam are the cause of terrorism all over the world. Unfortunately as you say arms sales, financial investments including the petrodollar have too much influence. Interesting that the half man [a term the Saudis hate] Saudi Foreign Minister threatened to withdraw investments in the US one day, then almost immediately backed down, wonder what made him do that? Of course the Saudis are under pressure, knowing their only source of income is oil. Here is a comprehensive analysis of the security threats the Saudis oil infrastructure faces from people who understandably want to do them harm, including the ‘arc of resistance’ Yemen, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Iraq and possibly Egypt and Libya. http://www.gulfinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Threats_to_the_Saudi_Oil_Infrastructure.pdf
Craig, on a lighter note perhaps as a friend of Julian Assange you could pass on to him this little quip from Christine C Holmer. “Julian posted Clinton Podesta truth’s and fucked Hillary in a non consensual way and politically uncoverable way. That is nothing but good”.
Why is this a difficult world? Who is making it so difficult? Who gave them the power to fight, to terror? And first of all why aren’t we stopping them? Politically correct!
I couldn’t agree more with your reactions, Craig. There is a certain danger of a right-wing false flag, even if the most obvious answer is Sunni Islamic terrorism. There’s a big tendency among the extreme right in Germany to instantly blame the immigrants/refugees, and I suppose many of them are among the police. They seem to be willing to go to extremes in a way that British or French extremists don’t. The most obvious case was the famous CCTV video of the guy kicking the woman down the stairs in the U-Bahn. Instantly it was circulated as an refugee immigrant, but in fact it has now turned out to be a Bulgarian, a citizen of the EU. (It was always unlikely to be a recent Muslim immigrant, as the guy had a can of beer). I’ve always wondered why it was we’ve never heard much about prosecutions of all those scores (at the minimum) of Muslim men who are supposed to have harrassed those women in Köln on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps they were not really Muslim immigrants, rather the standard drunken chauvinistic Central Europeans (including Germans)? Like I say, there are a lot of right-wing nutters in the police, in all countries.
My wife was assaulted in the street by a non-white male in Cologne earlier this year. The assaults on the women was played down and ignored by the German mainstream. It only appeared days later in the press because of pressure from social media. This fuels the paranoia.
Soothmoother
“My wife was assaulted in the street by a non-white male in Cologne earlier this year. The assaults on the women was played down and ignored by the German mainstream. It only appeared days later in the press because of pressure from social media. This fuels the paranoia.”
It was known 24 hrs in advance that a call went out to jihadists to rob and assault people who were celebrating New years Eve. Why was this allowed ?
‘Unrecoverable way’ sorry I froze on stage when delivering the punch line.
Why would a Pakistani be a refugee in Germany?
Is Pakistan at war?
If he had to flee Pakistan, why not go to Afghanistan, Iran, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh?
So the Pakistani refugee is suspicious.
Was he registered in Germany as a refugee?
Why did the German authorities choose this man as their patsy?
There must be reasoning behind then arresting this person?
It has been said he was in a park in a car being driven by other men, yet this one individual had been chosen?
This pre-knowledge of this Pakistani man
allowed the authorities to call off the search for the killer driver.
This is intrigue.
German police are now looking for a 24-year-old Tunisian man whose identity document was found in the cabin of the truck used in the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, which killed 12 people and injured 48 others, German media reports.
Russia Today
The suspect, identified as a Tunisian national named Anis A., is also believed to have several IDs, according to various media reports.
My goodness, do they expect us to swallow this crap.
You do not leave your identity documents in a stolen truck that use use to run people over,
unless you stay in the truck to prove who you are and what your point is?
Finding the ID/passport on the scene is a standard meme now. It’s happened quite a bit in France. The night of the Bataclan, at the Stade de France, for example. Terrorists really are very careless these days.
100.000 Euro’s reward for the whereabouts of the Tunesian who was refused asylum some weeks back. That should get him when times are hard for refugees and work is hard to get.
He has single handedly set back the case of all refugees with his petty action as the public will make up its own mind regardless what the politicians tell them. and anybody still listening to those who say that the young man from Pakistan had a part in this is a gullible oaf.
So lets not use references to Pakistan in this terror incident.
Craig’s post stated he was from Balochistan, which would give him every reason to be seeking asylum abroad. Most people do seek asylum in a neighbouring country, some don’t.
Further to the threats Saudi Arabia faces to their oil infrastructure is this..
“An assault on Ras Tanura, however, would be vastly more serious. As much as 80% of the near 9m barrels of oil a day pumped out by Saudi is believed to end up being piped from fields such as Ghawar to Ras Tanura in the Gulf to be loaded on to supertankers bound for the west”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/03/saudiarabia.oil ‘You have a nice little oil terminal at Ras Tanura, wouldn’t like anything to happen to it, know what I mean Gov’nor’. One day the Saudi scumbags will learn that in their position ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’.
It’s interesting that after the oil prices rises of 1973 and 1979, the Saudi headchoppers are so vulnerable to a temporary stop on oil production, almost as if the money went somewhere else…. For me the Saudi gangster regime is as much a US proxy as the one in occupied Palestine and equally illegitimate so I tend to discount it as an independent factor in the Middle East.
Good point, and no accident either that both owe their origins largely to the Godfather that the US has replaced, namely the British Empire.
It is indeed, not a settled globe at this time, but, I have hope.. in the change of government in America, even though, most people want to attribute a racial or racist problemmatical attitude in Trump, I think he is more practical than Hillary. I think people can cope with staying in their own countries, for now, better than WW3. I am shocked at the amount of build up of US militia around the China seas though, shown in John Pilger’s film. I think, and I still think this, the way to peace is through prayer and understanding and respecting eachother. I do think bombing is useless, and distructive. And where now after everything is rubble?
I have never, and probably never will, understood how destruction of property and people is used as a way of “solving” anything. The people ordering this inhuman activity are mostly men; but if they were real “men”, not just monkeys playing games and minding machines, they would put their combat gear on and fly to the front to fight with the troops, to show that they are happy to do what they are asking others to do.
Which ‘front’ and which ‘troops’ may I inquire.
The Berlin police are making Corbyn’s front bench look competent right now.
Until they start looking in the right places instead of trying/hoping to a find a six-foot, blonde Norwegian culprit then they are not going to get any closer.
The Berlin police are making Frau Nicola Sturgeon seem competent!!!!!!!!
1/ arrest a known Pakistani refugee, choose just him, even though he is in a car-load of people, they have their patsy.
2/ immediately stop looking for anyone else, we have our patsy.
3/ look in the truck to see what else you can pin on your patsy.
4/ “find” identity documents of a third party – no gun ( used to kill Polish driver)
5/ let Pakistani go
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/berlin-attack-german-police-hunt-tunisian-man-after-finding-id-card-under-lorry-seat-a3425456.html
YCMIU
Do they think we were born yesterday?
A 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker Naved Baluch was arrested in the aftermath of the attack based on a description from witnesses of a suspect who jumped from the truck and fled.
Hoewever, it emerged that a man who was said to be following the suspect lost him in a near-by park.
The Pakistani question
How can it be certain that just because his surname is baluch
this person is from that bit of Pakistan?
In the days of Empire, people from the sub-Continent were moved all over the place, as were people from Scotland.
Why, we have even had people from Scotland become U.K. Prime ministers in London – Gordon Brown
Sarky was of Hungarian parentage.
The last Prime minister of France was of Spanish parentage.
One of the recent Prime ministers of Australia was of Welsh parentage – you could go on and on
but you may take the point.
The Pakistani is suspicious because of pre-knowledge the German Authorities have on him.
Pakistani asylum seeker Naved Baluch was arrested in the aftermath of the attack based on a description from witnesses of a suspect who jumped from the truck and fled.
If that ‘description from witnesses’ is true Michael that should put to bed the idea, favoured by some on this thread, that the Berlin atrocity was a far right ‘false flag’ attack along the lines of the ‘strategy of tension/Gladio’ attacks in Italy in the 70s & 80s, which were routinely ascribed to the far left but were in fact in many instances executed by far right paramilitaries with Deep State links.
Get real commenters and calm down- Christians celebrating the birth of (to Muslims) the minor prophet Jesus by drinking gluwein in large quantities is just the sort of thing to get a muslim fanatic’s blood up isn’t it ? And,as I wrote earlier, these attacks have been carried out at Christmas by Islamic nutters before, with, thankfully, less deadly effect.
Douglas Murray (definitely not a relation) of the Henry Jackson Society writes on Coffee House.
Here we go again – but this time Je Suis Berlin
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/go-time-je-suis-berlin/
(register to read!! No way)
Of course you are dear Douglas and I am not registering on the right wing organ on which you write your slime.
He has apparently been proselytizing on Sky and ITV.
https://twitter.com/douglaskmurray
Individual lone wolf terrorism.
Craig, any evidence for this, assuming you are referring to the Berlin event ?
Craig, have you got some privacy settings on Facebook set up such that not everyone can comment on your updates? I just saw your short notice on the likeliood of the tunisian immigration papers found under the driver’s seat, and I can not comment on that.
“Berlin attack: Police ‘launch manhunt for Tunisian man’ after finding ID under truck driver’s seat”
How many times can the security services get away with ‘joke’?
Keeping Cheerful or not – Euro goes down the pan
ITALY approves a €20bn bailout plan for its banks
Ministry of Truth
If the countries that use the Euro stop bunging each other – themselves VAST AMOUNT OF IMAGINARY MONEY
the Euro would be Zero
It is all an illusion.
Shares in Spanish banks have tumbled after a ruling from Europe’s top court that means they will have to repay mortgage customers up to €4bn (£3.36bn).
Business Live: Monte dei Paschi warns on funding
Ministry of Truth
The Truth is the Eurozone is a collapsing disaster,
don’t believe
ask
Greece / France / Italy / Spain / Ireland / Portugal / Cyprus
DEFINITION of ‘PIIGS’
PIIGS is an acronym used to refer to the five Eurozone nations that were considered weaker economically following the financial crisis: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Since the nations use the euro as their currency, they were unable to employ independent monetary policy to help battle the economic downturn.
They’re going to need a bigger acronym.
Here is some cheerful Christmas news for The Middle East ( Ministry of Truth speak -Europe)
Bana Alabed – the seven-year-old Syrian who tweeted about life inside rebel-held east Aleppo – has met Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Bana and her little brother have been pictured sitting on Mr Erdogan’s knee in the presidential complex in Ankara.
You should like this story. It is about the EU crumbling. And it is good.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/21/brexit-reconsidered-a-modern-day-peasants-revolt/
bevin
“You should like this story. It is about the EU crumbling. And it is good.”
Thanks for that.I`m glad someone has made the connection.The Red Dagger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN_pBKhftkg&t=330s
Good article,Bevin. though I would not say it was about the collapse of the EU. Rather about the EU being a progressive entity intent on homogenisation of the EU population and how strange that the Greens in particular should be in favour of this.
i have often wondered why the Greens call themselves “green” there is nothing that I can see that connects them to nature. ” Grey” like the colour of asphalt surely would be more appropriate. As in more people therefore more houses therefore more roads therefore more grey and less green trees, grass etc.
bevin:
You should like this story. It is about the EU crumbling. And it is good.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/21/brexit-reconsidered-a-modern-day-peasants-revolt/
Yes, it is good. I hope Craig enjoys it too!
It’s very interesting to note, that the most senior prosecutor, in Germany, Peter Frank, agrees with me, that the Berlin event has striking similarities with the Nice event – incidently I notice the previous thread has been removed?
What I find staggering, is now according to radio news, the alleged Tunisian perpetrator, has been identified due to his ID, which is said to have been found in the truck.
This piece of information, should set alarm bells ringing, why? Well, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, ID’s were also found in the their getaway vehicle after the Charlie Hebdo incident, how convenient, don’t you think?
The Bataclan attackers were also extremely clumsy in their approach, as their ID’s were also found in and around the scene of the attack.
Ask yourself this, what are the odds of all of these “terrorists” leaving their ID’s lying around, to then be easily discovered by the security services.
Then ask yourself why Twitter has banned hackers, known as Hacktivists, who hack ISIS and Daesh accounts to trace them back to their origins, needless to say their origins, come as no surprise, when you piece it altogether.
http://newsrescue.com/daesh-isis-twitter-accounts-traced-to-saudi-arabia-and-britain/#axzz4TU2ba6Ro
Re my above comment, Anis Amri, is Tunisian, the CIA have a secret military base in Tunisia, first used I think to send Reaper drones to Libya. Mr Amri, is described as between 20 and 23 years of age, which I think, is the age bracket for compulsory military service in the Tunisian army.
Mine earlier today RoS
_____
Sharp Ears
December 21, 2016 at 11:43
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/berlin-attack-german-police-hunt-tunisian-man-after-finding-id-card-under-lorry-seat-a3425456.html
YCMIU
Do they think we were born yesterday?
______
Thank you Sharp Ears, good link. ?
Anyone remember Sadam having children on his knee, while their parents were held as targets for the Americans to strike?
That is what the pictures of the sultan of Turkey remind me of,
Pure fucking evil
Human Shields of Saddam
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/05/thats-me-picture-stuart-lockwood-saddam-hussein-iraq
Another rat jumps the Labour “ship of fools”
Labour MP Jamie Reed quitting Parliament
Labour MP Jamie Reed is quitting Parliament to take a job in the nuclear industry.
Returning to Windscale – fundamentally wrong
Labour M.P.Jamie Reed didn’t hide his scepticism towards the current leadership of his party. He resigned from the front bench within a minute of Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in September 2015, denouncing the new leader’s opposition to NUCLEAR ENERG as “fundamentally wrong”. But he felt it was better to stay and fight his party’s shift to the left rather than leave – and was congratulated by none other than the former SDP leader Lord Owen for that stance.
This “could” be yet another example of an M.P. feathering his own nest.
LFoI. Perhaps he’s been shown round Dimona.
He knows all about toxicity but I trust he keeps his dosimeter about his person at times at Windscale aka Sellafield,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Radiological_releases
He’s been taken on there to spin its ‘safety’ of course because there is expansion coming.
New £10bn Sellafield nuclear power plant set to create 21,000 jobs
Power station near Sellafield will have its own railway station, health centres and local amenities, with a transport infrastructure to take pressure off local roads
Suggest Owen Smith ex PR Pfizer joins him. He is doing very little in the HoC now.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/new-10bn-sellafield-nuclear-power-6073419
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/dec/21/steve-bell-on-jamie-reed-quitting-labour-cartoon
White Elephant
Here’s a British reactor design, abandoned for unknown reasons in the 1970s. Devourer of bomb cores, a starting point for a Sellafield clean-up machine:
http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2014/11/13/the-uks-forgotten-molten-salt-reactor-programme/
A PAKISTANI migrant accused of killing 12 in a terror attack in Berlin has gone missing in Germany, it has been reported.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/746122/Pakistani-migrant-wrongly-accused-of-Berlin-terror-attack-missing-mental-illness-Germany
Naveed’s cousin Waheed, who says he was with Naveed when he was arrested, has told MailOnline he has not been seen since police admitted they had the wrong man.
Waved told Mail Online: “Naveed is missing, his phone is off. I am very worried. We have no link with religious fundamentalists or terrorists. He condemns terrorism.”
German authorities admitted Naveed was the wrong man after he was arrested in the wake of a terror attack on a Berlin Christmas market.
Twelve people were killed and 48 injured when a truck was driven into revellers.
It is believed the driver is still at large.
Well and has already been said, the Berlin Police seem VERY INCAPABLE in this matter.
It could look like they detained the Pakistani to allow the real culprit get clean away, now the Pakistani has ran away too.
So what eXactly do they have, Jack Shit?
“But there is still no chance that the hobbling of British foreign policy by its strange thraldom to Saudi Arabia is going to change.”
In that period from 2006, when the British went back in to Afghanistan (as part of NATO), Saudi intelligence were backing the Taliban (via the Pakistani ISI). At the same time, we’re told, MI6 and the CIA were cooperating with Saudi intelligence. To such an extent that Blair halted a fraud investigation into Bae on the grounds of national security ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/court-condemns-blair-for-halting-saudi-arms-inquiry-807793.html ). Which meant that the spooks ally was supporting (via the ISI) the Taliban, who were killing British troops. Thraldom indeed.
In respect of the events in Berlin, I’ve been shocked at the BBC’s reporting (on Radio 4 and 5). German politicians and journalists when responding to BBC questions seem themselves to be baffled by these questions. A favourite seems to be a Nigel Farage plant – doesn’t this attack prove that Merkel was wrong to let huge numbers of refugees into Germany, or won’t Germany need to beef up its security services. The Tunisian being sought, it turns out, entered Germany before the current wave of refugees. The comparison between the rabid BBC right wingers and the measured responses of the German interviewees illustrates how right wing the BBC has become.
[btw, do we all now have to proclaim ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ – yes, yes I know – jam donuts, etc,etc.]
Maybe the Pakistani is/was in the Pakistani ISI
In the late 20th century, the ISI’s work and activities in relation to Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in then-communist Afghanistan became quite famous. During this war, ISI worked in close coordination with
the Central Intelligence Agency.
The latter provided strategic and intelligence support to the Afghan Taliban against the Northern Alliance in the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
nice company.
Well if the Pakistani was with the ISI that may be why he was so swiftly picked up
and it may be why he is now missing.
my bet is that the “Tunisian” person will also be a patsy.
He will probably be found dead, before he could have been worked over.
France pushes to give police greater freedom to use their guns
http://www.france24.com/en/20161221-france-police-greater-freedom-guns-security
They are really on their way now
Turkey (Erdogan) blames U.S.A.-based cleric Gulen for envoy’s assassination
http://www.france24.com/en/20161220-turkey-blames-us-based-cleric-gulen-karlov-ambassador-assassination
Russia’s ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was shot nine times in the back on Monday by off-duty Turkish policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas at an art gallery during the opening of a show on Russian photography.
The amount of bullets the Russian ambassador took has gone up a lot.
Who were the bosses of the shootist?