A Great Day 1137


My body and mind are still in Ankara, fully engaged with the Syrian peace talks. But my heart is in Catalonia.

A great day. The achievement is colossal – a pro-independence majority achieved despite the leadership being in jail or in exile, and on an 84% turnout. The lies being spewed out day by day by the neo-liberal media about a “silent majority” are well and truly exposed, as is the EU’s contempt for democracy.

I guess now they have to charge over million people with sedition.


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1,137 thoughts on “A Great Day

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  • Republicofscotland

    So hundreds if not thousands of sensitive documents kept at the National Archive have disappeared, including documents regarding the Falklands war, the Northern Ireland conflict, Britain’s dealings with Palestine and Israel, and many other important documents, such as the Zinoviev Letter.

    It thought many of the documents relate to British overseas activities, dealing with sensitive events, surrounding British liability and incompetence.

    Of course things like this only happen in the likes of Russia, and not in Britain a open and democratic nation.

        • Trowbridge H. Ford

          Came across his name somewhere. Not in Christopher Andrew’s work where one would expect to find it. Absence helps explain Vasili Mitrokhin’s unexpected suicide.

          Suspect Koval, like Rosenberg, got credit for the spying by others better placed, particularly Wright’s.

          Amazing how careful the Russians are to keep the names of their real spies secret.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Republicofscotland December 27, 2017 at 13:10
      I recommend ‘The History Thieves’ by Ian Cobain, re ‘missing documents’.
      He also exposes the little-known fact that British forces have been in action every day since the beginning of WWI, often in many places around the globe, and often unknown to the general public.

  • Republicofscotland

    As pollsters confidently tip Putin to win the Russian March 18th election, now that his nearest rival Alexi Navalny is conveniently barred from running.

    A Chinese human rights activist who championed cases of those abused by the Chinese government has been sent to prison for eight years.

    Wu Gan, who’s known online as Super Vulgar Butcher (not exactly an endearing name if you ask me) had been detained for two years, prior to his sentence, his crime, subverting the state power.

    China has long history of cracking down on human rights activists and lawyers, using violence and intimidation, and imprisonment.

    • Habbabkuk

      A timely reminder, RoS. But never forget – it’s the United Kingdom which is the “fascist” state. It should be so lucky.. LOL

    • Godfree Roberts

      “As pollsters confidently tip Putin to win the Russian March 18th election, now that his nearest rival Alexi Navalny is conveniently barred from running”. Navalny never got more than 2% of the popular vote. He was never a ‘rival’ except in Western media, whose creature he is.

      “A Chinese human rights activist who championed cases of those abused by the Chinese government has been sent to prison for eight years”. So our media says but, when you look closer, you find a US-trained agent provocateur who knows nothing about governing or Uyghur terrorism (which has killed hundreds of Chinese in recent decades).

      “Wu Gan, who’s known online as Super Vulgar Butcher (not exactly an endearing name if you ask me) had been detained for two years, prior to his sentence, his crime, subverting the state power”. Ask Manning, Assange and Snowdon what happened when they subverted state power.

      “China has long history of cracking down on human rights activists and lawyers, using violence and intimidation, and imprisonment”. A 3,000 year-long history, actually, with the current government being the least violent, least intimidating and least prone to imprisoning anyone. China’s unarmed police imprison fewer people and rehabilitate more than America’s murderous goons.

      • giyane

        Apart from your sticker I agree with everything you say. I assume you are part Adam-clay for earthly purposes and part-soul for after-life purposes. Brimming with God in every way. It is a rather wondrous spectacle, the flowering of Chinese civilisation, as Western civilisation starts to decay. God bless you!

      • K Crosby

        Well put although you might have made a comparison with the number of official human sacrifices of the Chinese government and the official and unofficial ritual murders of the US police and courts; you might also have mentioned the hecatombs of corpses piled up by the American state beyond its geographical borders.

        • Courtenay Barnett

          Well getting back to Giyane’s point – isn’t all about the pot calling the kettle black.

          Let’s start with a million plus dead in Iraq and a prosperous country named Libya destroyed by the West – and – yes – let’s add to that the racist American prison industrial complex.

          So – pot does call kettle black – na, na, na, na, na, na… A load of hypocritical bullshit from top to bottom!

  • Tony_0pmoc

    This is another storming article from the Australian Caitlin Johnstone. My God, she has got some balls (courage).

    “Surveillance Is Not About Fighting Terrorism”

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48493.htm

    Extract – Conclusion

    ” Either way, we need to talk about this. We need to talk about the fact that there is a violent, unelected power establishment with zero accountability or transparency which cannot be trusted not to false flag Americans into consenting to an expansion of the Orwellian surveillance state. The only way to pretend that this is not a very real threat is to live in denial and shove this reality as far away from one’s consciousness as possible.

    So let’s bring it into consciousness. This is a real thing. This is happening. America is ruled by a band of unelected, unaccountable thugs who will kill and terrorize in order to shore up power and advance agendas. These thugs rule America, and therefore much of the world. Pay attention to these things, everyone. This affects you personally.”

    Tony

  • Republicofscotland

    As we recover from our Christmas exertions, which in most cases is a hangover or bad indigestion. Spare a thought for those civilians who’ve died from Saudi coalition bombing on Christmas and Boxing day.

    A Saudi-backed airstrike has struck a crowded market in Yemen, killing at least 25 – as the death toll from bombings in the last 48 hours soars to more than 70.

    Yemeni witnesses and security officials confirmed a number of children, had also been killed in the attack and that Tuesday’s strike in the western province of Taiz wounded at least 30 others.

    Bear in mind that, Westminster has allowed British forces to train Saudi pilots and troops, who’ve went on to kill Yemeni women and children in airstrikes etc.

    How proud do you feel of Britain’s actions in the training their Saudi allies?

    • Habbabkuk

      Yemen has been in a state of civil war almost ever since it achieved “independence” from its wicked “colonial master”. What’s new?

      • Laguerre

        Untrue, of course. The real Yemen was never colonised. It was the bit in the south that was colonised, and they, once liberated, were not in civil war until after they joined the north, which was a mistake no doubt.

  • BrianFujisan

    Re the Video of Israeli MP’s Racial, Hateful Abuse a mother of a Palestinian prisoner..and other passengers too.. For all the world to see, and zero condemnation From the EU, or anywhere, The Red Cross are the Only ones Speaking out on this Vile sickness

    On another Front.. Israel envoy asks to meet Lorde over cancelled show.. Well Done Lorde..I hope She Tells the Envoy Keep dreaming.. She could tell him to Fuck off..but I’m sure she is worlds apart in Diplomacy compared to the likes of the Disgusting Oren Hazan

    I gotta go out, but later I shall Write to Ahed –

    Ahed Tamimi
    HaSharon Prison
    Ben Yehuda, P.O. Box 7
    40 330 Israel

    Not sure if This Brave Wee girl is Ahed as I lost track of my original source –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RXc8paeQ0U

    • nevermind

      Yes Brian, I could not believe my eyes when I saw this self aggrandising Knesset member abuse and harass family members on a visit to see their incarcerated family members.
      Oren Hazan is worse than the SS, he is a self-propelling fascist. The shot were he gatecrashed Bibi’s meeting with the other egomaniac psycho Trump said it all, Bibi had to use a limp hand gesture to make out that he did not approve of this man’s approach, what a farce.

      The western world is dripping with fascism, bending the law as they see fit and this time there is nobody who will bail out any humans who fall victim to the greed of arms dealers and the neocons in charge of the elected western puppets, the poor, the undesirables and those who question authority will be wiped out by these 21st century Nazi’s.

      I have got a funny feeling that they will not walk to their mass graves without a whimper.

    • Habbabkuk

      Fujisan

      “Re the Video of Israeli MP’s Racial, Hateful Abuse a mother of a Palestinian prisoner..and other passengers too.. For all the world to see, and zero condemnation From the EU, or anywhere,”
      ________________

      Perhaps zero condemnation because there is probably not a Parliament in the world (in those countries lucky enough to have a real Parliament) which doesn’t contain a few very nasty individuals ?

        • Habbabkuk

          I think I said that every Parliament contains some very nasty individuals. Now that’s a general observation and not a comparison between that particular Knesset MP and any named person sitting in any other Parliament.

          As for someone sitting as an MP in a country “not his own”m that sounds rather racist to me. Did you object to Gisela Stuart (born in Germany) and Danny Cohn-Bendit (also born in Germany) sitting, respectively, as a UK MP and a MEP?

          As for representing “land thieves”, well, that seems as if you’re saying the entire Knesset is guilty of what you are accusing one particular MK of being. In that case, why focus on that particular MK?

  • Tony_0pmoc

    This has not been a good Christmas for me, though unlike nearly everyone in my family, I have not been physically ill (yet). However, when I read stuff like this from Professor James Petras, who I have followed for years, I feel like throwing up. It’s all probably much worse, than the official records he quotes.

    Is Westminster any different?

    Tony

    “Congress in Search of a Bordello”

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48489.htm

    Extracts

    “In accordance with the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA) the Office of Compliance (OC) compiled and published shocking statistics listing (1) the number of settlements paid to its employees and interns after allegations of abuse by legislators; (2) the total amount of dollars paid by US Treasury to the victims of Congressional workplace abuse.”

    “Moving from monetary payment to the number of abused employees, we find 133 were subjected to abuse under the Republicans (1997-2007), 48 under the Democrats between (2008-2011) and another 73 victims under the latest period of Republican control (2012-2017). All victims, who came forward with their complaints, faced a gauntlet of procedural intimidation, ‘counseling’, ‘cooling off’ periods and legal restraint to remain silent.

    If we examine Congressional abuse on a per capita basis, Republicans abused on an average, 13 victims a year while the Democrats harassed 12 victims a year. There is a comforting level of uniformity and continuity of abuse in the US political system under both Republican and Democratic control of Congress. This indicates a shared political culture and practice among America’s ‘Solons’. Whatever wild-eyed rhetorical ideological differences, both parties cooperate with great civility in the abuse of their employees.

    Indeed, the sense of feudal privilege over employees, viewing workers and interns as peasants, invoking the once outlawed ‘droit de seigneur’, pervades the Halls of Congress. This culture of feudal abuse, so common in the private sector, in giant corporations, Hollywood and the media, has metastasized to the centers of US political power, leaving untold thousands of brutalized victims and their helpless loved ones to deal with the long-term effects of humiliation, bitterness and injustice. For every abused young employee, treated like a serf by an all powerful legislator, there are dozens of helpless family members, fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters and spouses, who must deal with decades of silent resentment against these abusers.”

    • nevermind

      The US Olympic Association team should be barred from any international contests until they have weeded out their child abusers amongst them, why should there only be punishment for athletes abnd officials who take or peddle performance enhancing drugs, but ethical moral abuse by trainers and or other officials does have no bearing on their international status.

      Why should top athletes grin and bear sexual abuse amongst them, repeatedly, when they are representing their country?
      Like you said Tony, its not just Hollywood, its everywhere, humans are such animals, but hey, if you are rich, like the Clinton’s, for example, you can make crimes disappear, even the crimes of your best friends/ those that know lots about you.

  • Republicofscotland

    “Israel’s transport minister is pushing ahead with a controversial plan to extend Jerusalem’s soon-to-open high-speed rail line to the Western Wall, where he wants to name a station after the US president, Donald Trump.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/27/israeli-minister-plans-name-western-wall-train-station-donald-trump

    This is kind of exaltation, that will float Trump’s boat, a life long megalomaniac Trump will, if the madcap plan comes to fruition, open the station personally, with a long winded speech about how he deserves the tasteless accolade.

    • Habbabkuk

      I wonder why a scheme to extend a high speed rail line should be called “madcap”?

      As for the name of the new station, is it really – with certain exceptions of course, eg “Adolph Hiltler” or “Joseph Stalin” or “Vladimir Lenin” or “Reginald Kray” or “John Christie” or “Jack the Ripper”… – anyone’s else’s business what name the competent authorities in a country give to a rail station?

      • Laguerre

        “I wonder why a scheme to extend a high speed rail line should be called “madcap”?”

        Are you really as ignorant as you seem? Running an underground line under the Old City is going to destroy vast swathes of Jerusalem’s ancient history.

      • Republicofscotland

        Trump will be impeached like Clinton and Jackson, if not, the 25th amendment contains powers to remove a POTUS.

        Trump will become more erratic and unstable, his egotistical decisions will eventually lead to his removal (hopefully).

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        Sounds more likely that the UN will be dragged into maintaining the territorial integrity of either Spain and/or North Korea. like the League of Nations over the growing Spanish Civil War, and all Hell Will Break Out.

        The Americans might impeach Trump on a weak item, like it did with Clinton. But they will not remove him from office by either means. The POTUS is like the nutty British King before some checks were put on his absolute power.

        • Republicofscotland

          North Korea, will probably remain intact, I say that after reading articles where satellites have spotted China secretly unloading oil ships for NK use, even though the 90% oil embargo is in place.

          It begs the question what else is China secretly supplying NK with?

          China will not allow NK to fall, it’s a buffer zone to Nato expansionism. As for fascist Spain, the EU sees Catalonia as a internal matter, the UN would only step in if, the fascist Rajoy became overly trigger happy.

          The Catalan’s best chance is international recognition.

          • Habbabkuk

            “China will not allow NK to fall, it’s a buffer zone to Nato expansionism”

            I was unaware that NATO was seeking to expand in South-East Asia, RoS. Is any South-East Asian country already a member?

          • nevermind

            South Korea is not a NATO country and its in the name, RoS, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
            The South China Sea and Korea are/have never been scope for NATO’s aggressive expansion, regardless of the non existent peace treaty long overdue.

            Jens Stoltenberg is to be exchanged for another attack puppet for the west’s arms dealers next year and we will see what this means for the world at large.
            One thing is for sure, that job will never be done by a woman, even if she is able, sadly, this ceiling is made of hardened DU, not glass.

        • John Goss

          Trowbridge, did you know that clicking on your name does not bring up any site? Just an error message. There is so little traffic on mine I suspect the same is true.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            Not true. When I click my name, Trowbridge H. Ford, on google, for example, I see between 54,000 to 92.000 entries, and I have no blog despite what my critics claim. And more if you just click Trowbridge Ford.

            For info about the world’s sad state, see that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that American diplomacy, especially in the North Korean crisis, will continue until the first bomb falls. Anyone got a spare one?

          • John Goss

            It is true. The link is broken.

            I presume this is your blog.

            flyingcuttlefish.wordpress.com

            That works. But it does not work from this blog so I suggest you re-enter it at the Website space next time you make a comment. When I click your name the message I get is:

            “Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site.

            We can’t connect to the server at flying%20cuttlefish%20picayune.
            If that address is correct, here are three other things you can try:

            Try again later.
            Check your network connection.
            If you are connected but behind a firewall, check that Firefox has permission to access the Web.”

            Would you please check mine. Thanks.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            I hace no website, so I am leaving the request for it blank this time. We’ll see if it works.

            I have no interest in seeing your blog.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Trowbridge H. Ford December 27, 2017 at 17:40
        Yes, indeed, look what happened! The Fourth Reich runs the States, and Germany runs Europe!

    • Habbabkuk

      I heard Prince Harry doing the guest presenter bit this morning and thought he did a rather good job, actually. He seems a fine young man.

      • giyane

        Yes I liked the bit where he was discussing working together to train young people. Well how do you deal with a completely bi-polarised brain which can simultaneously wear a Nobel Peace Prize and promise a terror murderous state in the ashes of Iraq/Syria? You could see the skeleton opening and shutting its jaws while trite phrases issued out the microphone. Very scarey. I suppose all those cosy evenings in Africa have prepared the young prince for a bit of weeja board black magic fun.

      • Republicofscotland

        Habbabkuk.

        It’s head turning propaganda.

        Yes we’ll be subject to more of this tedious nonsense, until the sponging unemployed royal and his foreign unemployed fiancée tie the knot. In which the security alone will cost the taxpayer a small fortune.

    • Habbabkuk

      “Obomber is lining up Michelle for the job. He was listing all her qualities.”
      __________________

      I realise that it might be difficult for someone who’s always negative about each and every public figure to grasp that it might be possible for someone to praise his wife without “lining her up” for a public job.

      • giyane

        Habbabkuk

        Nothing Obama as ever uttered has the slightest relevance, owing to the fact that he is a brain-washed pillock. and the least relevant of all his utterances is what he was brain-washed to speak to his spouse.

      • Old Mark

        “Obomber is lining up Michelle for the job. He was listing all her qualities.”

        Can’t help being reminded of the Clive Anderson joke, when interviewing Jeffrey Archer-

        ‘Is there no beginning to your talents ?’

        BTW Habba thanks for your Crimbo wishes back on 24/12 on page 2- you noted previously with your beady eye back in the Autumn that I’d disappeared from this esteemed forum for the summer- not to a warm beach malheuresement, but to recover from a couple of knock backs health wise- feeling perkier mostly these days, hence the fairly regular commenting here.

        Happy New Year to your good self Habba, to Craig, and to those among regulars who I haven’t offended over the years.

        Now, where’s that bloody key to the drinks cabinet again…

  • Habbabkuk

    Good idea, but the South African govt would have to improve security considerably in that splendid city. Much more dangerous than New York with higher rates of crime of every sort.

  • glenn_uk

    Anon1: “I’m always right.”

    Jolly good… could you advise when might be the best time for me to sell some of my bitcoins? Glad I’ve hung onto them this long (all the way since 2013!), but this might be an unsustainable bubble. Any advice?

      • glenn_uk

        Generally good advice, I agree. And having sold a third of my collection very recently, I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Hope you all took my advice to buy them back in 2013! 🙂

        • giyane

          The things we think are most solid in this life, like steel, will be blown away like cotton-wool, while the things we consider to be of least significance in this life, such as one word of praising God, will be the most real and the most solid in the next life. It was Mrs Thatcher who told us from a pulpit that the meaning of the scriptures that we should build up our spiritual bank accounts with good deeds and remembrance of God, in fact meant that we should stand on our own feet and look after our own selves.

          Mrs Thatcher was the creator of our ‘Fiat Currency’. We will spend many billions shifting bums on high-speed trains between London and Birmingham, because we have forgotten how to navigate at the lightning speed of spiritual energy. Forcing disabled people to work slows our spiritual speed to that of a cornered mouse stuck on a glue trap. Our civilisation is virtually seized up completely by this all-encompassing glue of austerity and meanness. our partner in global terror, Israel, is literally frozen like a Mammoth in glacier ice, by the sub-zero temperature of its heart.

          Cheer up , kaida shaytana dhaeefaa/ satan’s plan is weak. I give this government just two months before it and its repulsive Zionist strategists break apart.

      • Habbabkuk

        I agree. Every good idea has it imitators and there are more and more virtual currencies out there.

        BTW I do hope that anyone in the fortunate position of having bought his bitcoins years ago and now envisaging selling them will NOT behave like an evil Wall Street speculator or greedy capitalost pig BUT INSTEAD give the proceeds away to a good cause. I would suggest a Palestinian good cause.

        • glenn_uk

          Excellent advice, whatever one’s particular level of income.

          How much do you give to charity, as a rough percentage, and Palestinian charities in particular – so that I have a good moral guidance on such matters?

          While I await such worthy advice, I am rather pleased to see you acknowledge Palestinians exist at all – since you have frequently claimed such people do not exist. Could you help clarify where these people reside?

      • glenn_uk

        Appreciate the advice. Sold one third of my holdings, which made for about a 15,000% return – so even if the other 2/3rds of it disappears without trace, that’s still quite a nice little earner. Shame nobody else took me seriously at the time – anyway, when I get another good hunch like this one, I’ll be sure to let you know.

        • Macky

          I’ve read Dalrymple‘s “From the Holy Mountain”, and I went to a talk by him on the theme of the ever decreasing populations of Christians around the Middle East. After the talk, I held up my arm for ages during the questions session, but in vain, so I never got to ask him why despite a fairly long talk, that covered many countries, and some quite obscure & tiny Christian communities, he didn’t mention the 200,000 Greek Cypriots Christians ethnically cleansed from the north of Cyprus by the 1974 Turkish invasion, & still on-going occupation.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Obama most admired man among Americans: Gallup poll’:
    https://japantoday.com/category/world/obama-most-admired-man-among-americans-gallup-poll?

    ‘…Obama came out on top of the annual Gallup survey for the 10th year in a row while Clinton, who lost last year’s presidential election to Donald Trump, was named the most admired woman for the 16th straight year.
    Seventeen percent of the Americans polled said Obama was the man they admired most, down from 22% last year. Trump was second with 14% followed by Pope Francis with 3%.
    Nine percent of those polled said Clinton was their most admired woman followed by former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama with 7% and talk show host Oprah Winfrey with 4%.
    Gallup said the poll of 1,049 adults was conducted between December 4-11 and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points….’

    It must be all the Fracking chemicals and other poisons in the water…

  • Sharp Ears

    Why do archive files on Britain’s colonial past keep going missing?
    Siobhan Fenton
    Around 1,000 files have disappeared while ‘on loan’ to the government. This sort of accident is happening too often for comfort
    27 December 2017
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/27/archive-files-britain-colonial-past-government

    A sequel to Ian Cobain’s earlier and excellent article.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/26/government-admits-losing-thousands-of-papers-from-national-archives

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Sharp Ears December 28, 2017 at 07:44
      Ian Cobain wrote a book, ‘The History Thieves’, which I have mentioned on here. Very revealing.

  • Jonathan

    “I guess now they have to charge over million people with sedition”.

    Don’t put it past them.

  • Sharp Ears

    Why was Blankfein upping Frankfurt? Does he think London is going down?

    ‘Lloyd Blankfein‏ @lloydblankfein · Oct 19
    Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I’ll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit’

    Jeremy is being positive and he’s resolute.

    Jeremy Corbyn denies claims Labour’s Brexit stance is ‘confusing’ as he rules out second EU referendum
    The Labour leader says he accepts the UK will leave the EU but he will not allow the country to “go off a cliff in March 2019”.
    “Our position is that we are not advocating a second referendum,” Mr Corbyn told the i newspaper.

    “We have had a referendum which came to a decision. The negotiations are still ongoing, albeit well behind schedule, and we’ve set out the kind of relationship we want to have with Europe in the future.”‘
    https://news.sky.com/story/labour-confusion-over-second-eu-referendum-as-remain-support-grows-11175057

    That follows Watson who suggested a second referendum was possible.

    The sooner Corbyn ditches Watson the better.

    • giyane

      Carl
      from your link: Owen Jones:
      “So here is the truth. Clegg formed an austerity coalition because his socially liberal anti-state worldview was fundamentally in accordance with that of Tory leader David Cameron. “If we keep doing this we won’t find anything to bloody disagree on in the bloody TV debate!” as he was accidentally recorded cooing to Cameron in 2011.”

      In other words Clegg, like Blair before him, has the intellectual energy which Tories will never, ever possess, to drive forward an austerity agenda which is more right-wing, less liberal and more aware and approving of Obama’s foreign policy mendacity, than the actual Tories. He is in fact the driver of both right-wing austerity and the destruction of Libya followed by Iraq. He hijacked a party of decency on the pretext of his youth, but his actual political location is far far to the right of current Liberal leadership whom he kicked out.

      Many on this blog dislike my use of anal language to describe the state of current politics. So I have turned on the extractor fan and I strongly recommend waiting 20 minutes before entering with a lighted cigarette.

      Clegg

  • Macky

    Of our generation’s many Crimes of Humanity, what has been done to Iraq, stands out as the greatest, both for scale & for the precedent it set. This is why Caitlin Johnstone’s following words resonate so strongly with me, both for Iraq, & as a warning against all war-mongering propaganda:

    “I promise I will always fight to remind the world about the Iraq invasion. I will always do everything I can to make sure that as many people as possible view all actions of the US power establishment through the lens of what they did to that country for as long as I draw breath.

    I will always do everything I can to keep Iraq from being dismissed as an anomaly of history that could never happen again. Whenever US power talks about Russia, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Yemen, or any other country, I will be talking about what they did to Iraq.
    You don’t get to butcher a million people and then say “Oh yeah, but that was a whole fourteen years ago. You can trust us now.” That’s not a thing. The world has no business taking US defense and intelligence agencies at their word about anything ever again.”

    • Loony

      Is that right?

      Did you know that the Mongol empire was estimated to have killed 40 million people. Given the vastly lower global population in Mongol times that would perhaps seem a likely contender “for the greatest both for scale and the precedent it set” I wonder why you fail to mention this?

      Perhaps it is too long ago for you to care about. If so try Rwanda – upwards of 800,000 people chopped up in a staggeringly brief 90 day period.

      The task should be to bring criminals to account not to wallow in the vacuous nihilism of self loathing. Just look at Donald Trump and how a full range of criminals are rapidly scuttling into the darkest corners they can find. Ironic then that those so devoted to the cult of self loathing despise Trump even more than they despise themselves.

      • John Spencer-Davis

        Macky won’t be as courteous about this as I will, so I will get in first and gently point out that Macky’s comment applied to “our generation’s many Crimes of Humanity”. “Our generation” is presumably different to “Mongol times”.

        Personally, I don’t really care much for the calculus of genocide. In my opinion, if one family is unjustly deprived of its father or mother or children, that is no less a tragedy than a million families suffering in the same fashion. J

        • Macky

          “Macky won’t be as courteous about this as I will”

          I’ll leave it enjoying the irony of somebody failing basic reading & comprehension, just a few days after (incorrectly) trying to pull me up for using a word incorrectly. 😀

          @Giyane, she an Australian, and since the last US election, she keeps knocking out some very powerful pieces;

          https://caitlinjohnstone.com/

      • giyane

        If so, Erdogan should be canonised by the Pope for his relatively modest contribution. RIP Jacqui Sutton.

    • Sharp Ears

      I think Caitlin is terrific. She joins the likes of Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett for standing up to the evil wherever it is encountered.

      Her website opens with that memorable photo of a little Palestinian boy throwing a stone at an Israeli tank, There are many other similar instances recorded.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj3xGkNTgQg

      It is called R E S I S T A N C E to the Occupier.

      • Anon1

        “It is called R E S I S T A N C E to the Occupier.”

        No I think that’s when you appear in a supermarket in Surrey and start hissing at a customer buying Israeli produce.

    • Macky

      “The invasion of Iraq was unforgivable. It remains unforgivable. It will always be unforgivable. Its architects should be tried in The Hague and imprisoned, and nobody who helped inflict that unfathomable evil upon our world should ever be employed anywhere they could do any more damage or mislead anyone else. All behaviors of the mainstream media, US intelligence agencies and US defense agencies should be viewed through the lens of those unforgivable lies and murders forevermore, and nobody should ever take them at their word about anything ever again.” Caitlin Johnstone

      Unbelievably in the UK the only MP to lose his job over Iraq, was Galloway for OPPOSING the invasion of Iraq ! A bit like that the only person to be sent to jail over the torture of TWOT detainees as the whistleblower John Kyriacou, who EXPOSED the torture ! Tells you all you need to know how about how the elites control both the UK & US.

  • Anon1

    So Prince Harry avoided attending the Sandringham Boxing Day shoot because his fiancee is opposed to birds being shot for sport. Oh dear, not a good start. This isn’t going to end well. We’ve got an attention-swwlimg luvvie airhead who is going to use the marriage as a platform to promote the full smorgasbord of SJW causes and attendant virtue signalling.

  • Anon1

    Is it any wonder that the Israelis want to keep a close eye on members of the Tamimi family of Nabi Saleh village in the West Bank?

    In 2001, Ahlam Tamimi was convicted to life imprisonment for her part in a suicide attack in Jerusalem that left 15 dead, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and 130 injured. She was released ten years later as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal and currently lives in Jordan from where she is wanted by the US for plotting further terrorist attacks.

    Obviously there’s a fair bit more to this lot than what you’d gain from the petitions about stolen wells and springs.

    • K Crosby

      Guilt by association, now where have I heard that before….now I remember, Heinrich Himmler said something Simmler.

      Happy New Year

  • Macky

    [Mod: “Geoffry” is a Habbabkuk sock puppet – all contributions have been deleted.]

    @Geoffry,

    If you want a real “LOL”, there’s that Twitter account of seven year old Bana Al-Abed, which was most active during the ISIS occupation of East Aleppo; people have questioned whether Bana understands the concepts that she tweets about, in a language she doesn’t know, with many considering her account as propaganda, being used to propagate and legitimise the use of military force by the US. My favourite was ” it is better to start 3rd world war instead of letting Russia & assad commit #HolocaustAleppo” !!

    She’s now a Turkish citizen, and is reportedly planning to publish her memoir, aged eight ! 😀

      • K Crosby

        [Mod: If a comment is deleted, the replies to it remain on the comment feed, but become invisible to the commenters. If the replies to a sock puppeter are valuable contributions, then this is problematic. However, we may have a solution. Thank you.]

        @Mods, when even you get fed up with Habbakkuk’s neo-fascist agitprop, it might encourage him to mind his manners if you only censor his posts. If you remove the replies, Habbabkuk might use your precedent to sabotage discussions by being obnoxious so that you censor the other posters too.

  • Habbabkuk

    Here’s a guy (Ulrich Stephane Savary, a Labour Party activist in South Manchester) who writes it as it is :

    “If this obsession with condemning Israel does nothing to advance peace or help the Palestinians, it does however help to enforce the belief that Israelis are all guilty. We should be suspicious of any left-wing organisations obsessed with Israel, to the point that they don’t seem to vigorously campaign on any anything else.”

    • Macky

      A follow-up to your (or was it ““Geoffry” 😀 ) interest in the young Palestinian girl’s twitter account;

      https://www.rt.com/usa/414396-twitter-delete-ahed-tamimi/

      “The Tamimis are prominent anti-occupation activists who reside in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. They lead demonstrations every Friday to protest the confiscation of the village’s well for the nearby settlement of Halamish.”

      • Habbabkuk

        Thank you, Macky, for confirming that Anon1 was spot on (at 17h18 above).

        An active activist rather than a sweet little teen picked up for nothing by those wicked occupiers, and a suicide bomber in the family as well, bwabwabwa, the heart bleeds.

        • Macky

          “An active activist rather than a sweet little teen picked up for nothing by those wicked occupiers, and a suicide bomber in the family as well, bwabwabwa, the heart bleeds.”

          Even the Israeli press confirm that the 16 year old girl was arrested for slapping an Israeli soldier, who was standing on her family property, after her 14 year brother had just been seriously wounded by being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier.

          Seems the IDF even attack their own, if they’re Arab of course;

          https://www.rt.com/news/414450-idf-druze-soldier-attack-israel/

        • Anon1

          There always more to these sob stories than meets the eye. Like when Sharp Ears tells us some innocent Palestinian has been gunned down mercilessly by the IDF. And then you do a minute’s research and find out he’s been on a stabbing spree moments before.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ Anon1 December 29, 2017 at 09:52
            The Isra*lis are an occupying force, and the Palestinians have every right to fight them and to kill them. All the young girl was doing was to try to keep them out of her house (which they subsequently ransacked).
            ‘…“Less than half an hour earlier, a soldier shot Ahed’s 14-year-old cousin in the face at close distance with a rubber coated steel bullet, causing severe injuries and leaving him in a coma. Then, two soldiers had jumped the wall of our backyard and forced their way on to our property when Ahed confronted them in an effort to make them leave.”..’
            And, whilst we are still in 2017, let us not forget this is the 50th Anniversary of the murderous Isr*eli attack on the unarmed US naval ship, the USS Liberty, killing 34 and wounding 170-odd, with the intent to sink the ship, leave no US survivors, and to blame it on Egypt. After all the US Administrations have done for Isr*el. that is how they repay them.
            Palestinians who attack the occupiers of their country are not terrorists, but freedom fighters.
            That does not mean I rejoice when they kill someone, but they have international law on their side (just as did the French Resistance to the Nazis).
            Support BDS!

        • Macky

          “in the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras” Ben Caspit

          ‘Ahed Tamimi aged 16 is detained for 6 days and despite the decision of the court President to provide her clothes, this has not been done. “The system” is exacting revenge’. That ‘revenge’ is the ‘price’ that the system is now ‘exacting’ upon Ahed Tamimi and her family. It is happening in the darkness of cold cells, where there are no cameras or witnesses. And Ben Caspit has been a part of the incitement leading to all this.”

          http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/journalist-unspeakable-backpedal/

          • K Crosby

            “Nacht und nebel”, hmmm, wherer Have I heard that expression? Oh yes, that’s right it wa invented by the regime what can’t be compared to the occupation because it might hurt the feelings of “people who pretend to a religion” that they defile by their actions.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Habbabkuk December 28, 2017 at 22:44
          So you make the family wrong for protesting about the confiscation of their village well by illegal occupiers?

        • Macky

          Twitter is just another immoral money-making corporation, acting as a censoring & propaganda arm of the PTB, & knowing which side their bread is buttered;

          Ahed Tamimi, arrested by the forces of Zionism for rebelling against the squatter oppressors > closed her account.

          Bana Alabed, used by terrorists to call for a third world war > promoted her account.

      • Macky

        Worrying that a person intent on sabotaging an exchange here, can on purpose achieve deletions by openly commenting as a sock-puppet; something similar is happening on the 911 Thread, where deletions are triggered by somebody being abusive.

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