“The objective of the exercise is to reduce public belief in my evidential postings on extraordinary rendition, Iraq and Afghanistan”.

Yes, and those of us who have risen to the bait must also bear some responsibility. Craig posts key evidence here, impeccably and uniquely sourced, and its weight and significance is being diluted by diversionary tactics and off-topic, tangential spats.

Very fairly and succinctly put, Craig.

Recently an influential American professor, who is close to the current White House team, sorry I can’t remember his name, stated that in future it might be necessary, for the state, to infiltrate certain website covertly in order to push them in a more “rational” direction. He specifically 9/11 “truth” sites and others of conspiratorial or extremist nature.

It’s clear, I believe, that the Pentagon, just for example, regards the WWW and information, as an important and strategic “cyber battlefield” for the future. Winning the battle for hearts and minds is a top priority. It’s also well-known that the Israeli security services and private organizations monitor the web and expend a great deal of time, effort, and money, rebutting lies posted about Israel. In my opinion, in a war, they have the right to do this. So this isn’t about anit-semitism. In my case that particular smear would be particularly offensive.

Propaganda and anit-propaganda are, and probably always have been battlefields, only now they are infinitely more important.

I often think, or feel, that some of the comments I encounter on my travels, seem very familiar. I recognize the style. I think they are almost exercises carried out by a team, designed to waste time and divert attention from what really matters. Exercises in deception.

How am I a “pro Iraq War blooger”?

That I don’t believe in some of the faith beliefs (notice that I’m avoiding the specifics) of the majority of people at this blog does not mean that I ever supported the Iraq War.

I’m just sick of the axis of crazy shared by the British Left and the American Right.

For instance, I’m disgusted with Alex Jones. Anyone who appears on his show is supporting that right-wing paranoid fuck.

Also, the plural for me and angrysoba is not “agents provocateurs” – it’s “agents provocateur.” Our compensation does not depend on you getting that right, but I’d still appreciate it if you got that right.

I have always admired Craig’s dedication to free speech. However sometimes the internet, coupled with trolls, makes discussion about controversial topics impossible. In real life peoples comments are usually tempered because they have consequences when talking face to face with people. However with the anonymous nature of the internet, some trolls feel they are able to say things to people they would never have the courage to say in real life.

I hope I don’t sound like a broken record when I say this, but I would suggest Craig implements a comment rating system on this blog that allows the community to upvote or downvote comments made. This has 2 benefits, firstly it can be set to only hide low rated comments by default, so people can still view all comments if they wish (preserving free speech). At the same time it also allows people to ignore the trolls if they want. See slashdot.org for the best implementation of such a system that I have found. This would also save Craig a lot of work deleting comments.

Usually I just recommend people ignore the trolls, but when they are as dedicated as angry and larry this becomes quite difficult. I’ll admit I fell for angry’s bait, thinking he was somewhat interested in genuine debate. I quickly saw my mistake.

Craig, any chance you could make an ‘off topic’ blog once a week? I really like the community here, but I am reluctant to derail topics you are blogging about with my own questions/comments about different issues that others may find of interest. Of course, feel free to disregard this idea, it’s your blog after all

writerman -

The academic was Cass Sunstein, currently the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

we know why they are here. They are here to get us friends to hate each other so we will have less time to hate them and the wars they support.

They have so much time because they are most likely getting paid to do what they do. Or they work in IT so get paid to do nothing.

I’m here to get more people to eat Fish.

I’m about to put something called an admiral pie in the oven. It doesn’t contain any Admiral but does have a lot of fish.

I have time to do this because I married a doctor so don’t have to work at all!

that includes housework.

Craig

I certainly agree with you about anti-Semites and 911 conspiracists. However, you should also be aware that certain posters here seem intent only on abusing people like me who raise opposing points of view. They don’t debate, they just abuse and abuse and abuse. I have posted examples if you are interested. Why are they allowed to spout their bile?

Jaded is one of the worst examples I have come across, closely followed by Sam, Apostate and Steelback (perhaps they are all the same person). I know I have used anglo-saxon language on occasions: for example I once told you to fuck off when you compared Powell to Saddam – I was so incensed that anyone could make such a moral equivalence. But that is in the heat of the moment. You own the blog and you can do what you like but if you don’t deal with these people you will end up with an increasingly narrow section of the population posting here, and I assume you don’t want that? Even in the last few days several people have expressed horror at the abuse they have encountered here. I am finished here unless this is addressed.

Eddie,

I must admit that vulgar abuse has not been one of my main worries – there are things about apostate and steelback’s comments sometimes that worry me much more than that! But I nore what you say.

Craig

Perhaps you can make it clear that off-topic comments will be deleted so people will be discouraged from engaging in that very draining exercise?

eddie

I don’t agree with justifying your ‘f*** off’ with it being heat of the moment.This is a blog where people go through a process to post their comments.In any case,you could have posted an apology afterwards.

I just think this kind of language is totally counterproductive!

Eddie,

look back and read through the “Missing You” thread. You’ll see how tempers got raised during Craig’s low-bandwidth absence. I expect it will take a little while for tempers to calm down, but Craig has applied the brakes, and things have improved considerably already.

The intelligence services come in all shapes and sizes; some to put rational thinking people off and some to make you fall into the trap of cemsorship, which would no doubt be followed by cries that you are partial.

eddie: most people here have been on the receiving end of some pretty unpleasant and hurtful abuse at some time or other. I think the thing to do is not take it personally, ignore it and stick to the point. In my experience the abuse then usually peters out.

“I’m here to get more people to eat Fish.”

Good to have open, transparent goals.

Should I be offended that Ruth and others have stated that I’m a member of the intelligence services. Perhaps – they’ve also accused the intelligence services of some fairly horrific but imaginary actions.

Larry,

I would take issue with the view that anyone who appears on the Alex Jones show is supprting him. I have appeared on a very wide range of US radio stations. I am giving my views and experience to the listeners, not there to agree with the host. In the UK I’ve been, for example, on both the Tories Doughty Street TV and on George Galloway’s show.

This blog has had about 70,000 unique visitors in January already. I suspect very few of them have the “religious beliefs” you refer to. The institutional breakdown of where people come from is almost the same as that recently published by Guido. The largest number of referrals is by IainDale, the second largest the New York Times. The Guardian and ConservativeHome are in the top ten, Harry’s place in the top twenty.

You remain welcome here, but please stick to the topics of the threads and don’t provoke discussion of the religious beliefs you decry if the thread does not relate to them.

“I’m here to get more people to eat Fish.”

Arsalan, you are a goujon provocateur.

Goujon there’s an idea.

How about small strips of lets say three different types of fish, strips of chicken, coated in breadcrumbs lightly spiced?

so Craig Goldsmith how he doing?

Eddie

Sorry, I note what you say – about other’s abusing you. I didn’t mind your saying fuck off at all. I knew you meant what you just posted

eddie: not all war criminals get their hands dirty. Some keep in the background, encouraging and facilitating. They are no less culpable for that.

Goldsmith is getting ratty and arrogant

eddie -

nore = note

nore that r is next to t.

arsalan -

I took offence to your first post. I work in IT. I wish I had the time to waste like angry and larry.

I agree entirely with MJ. Those hung at Nuremberg had mostly never personally killed anybody.

Those who ought to face war crimes charges are Blair, Straw, Powell, Campbell, Manning and Goldsmith.

LOL @ MJ and Arsalan.

I’m trying to go back to Goldsmith but he’s exhausting. I think he’s been studying up for weeks and weeks. And he seems to be talking far more than any of the other witnesses?

CheebaCow, my son is a network security guy. He’s run off his feet most of the time. But he can work from almost anywhere, which is a bonus.

My dear Eddie

Of course there is no moral equivalence between Powell and Saddam Hussain.

Powell is an opportunistic tart, who participated in the bonfire of Iraq, while totally denying the 1,366,000 deaths that followed as a result of the conflagration, while Saddam Hussain was a Muslim who believed in God and who sought redress for the injuries the Arab people had suffered for centuries at the hands of the likes of Powell. He didn’t tolerate collusion with his enemies.

I regard Powell and Blair as lying snakes, while I admire Saddam for his refusal to be undermined and his sticking two fingers up at Western bullying. I sympathise with the headless battery chickens of Europe and the US, who live their lives in a blur of moral uncertainty and football and I sympathise with the victims of Saddam’s unspeakable aggression. Definitely Powell is the greater criminal, in my opinion.

“ratty and arrogant”

He is, isn’t he?

@Craig – excellent, nice to hear Goldsmith is on the skids. I shall be downloading his video this evening, and perhaps I can work out how to snip the best bits onto YouTube.

@Larry: “Also, the plural for me and angrysoba is not “agents provocateurs” – it’s “agents provocateur.” Our compensation does not depend on you getting that right, but I’d still appreciate it if you got that right.”

The plural of ‘agent provocateur’ is ‘agents provocateurs’. Look it up – as you are American, I suggest you try Merriam-Webster.com.

dreolin -

Yeah it’s a definite bonus. I applied and interviewed for my job in Australia, but have spent the last 2 years doing this job while in South East Asia. With the wonders of modern tech, I can be on a train or boat and use my mobile phone as a modem for my laptop. Even though tech is my job, I am still in awe of what you can achieve with it.

“Similarly angrysoba at 8.56pm on the thread “Government Ban Protest Outside Blair Iraq Hearing” posted

Still waiting on Craig to delete references to the Protocols …

on a thread where the only nutter wittering on about the Protocols of Zion was angrysoba.”

I absolutely did not post that!

I have not once asked you to delete any comments or ban any posters!

angrysoba is right. It was Larry.

hawley_jr -

Don’t be too hard to larry, US schools apparently don’t allow dictionaries to be used =P

{guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/25/oral-sex-dictionary-ban-us-schools}

My dear anno

What you wrote is a load of complete tosh and says more about you than the matter at hand. You don’t mean what you say and what you do say is not worth responding to.

Kind regards.

p.s.

Islam states that disbelief is the only unforgiveable crime. Powell’s membership of the conspiracy to simultaneously blindfold his citizenry and to attack Islam by denigrating it and physically assaulting Muslims, is therefore a worse crime even than ruthless murder by Saddam. You knew where you stood with Saddam, but with Powell’s ilk, you don’t even know that there is such a thing as truth because there are so many layers of lying.

eddie, my old friend,

I do mean what I say and thank you for responding.

With Saddam if you cross him you die. With Powell, if you are an Afghan or Iraqi you die. Even if you are a puppet.

CheebaCow,

Yes, apparently ‘oral sex’ in US schools’ dictionaries is bad, but ‘nuclear fission’ is probably OK.

You’re right – I fucked up that pluralization. That does seem to violate the rule, however. I was thinking of “governors general” and some other terms.

Btw, as to that dictionary ban – the U.S. is a really really big place, you know? There are many many school districts in California alone. So I hardly think that the Menifee Union School District officials speak for all of California, let alone the entire U.S. Doesn’t it matter that this made national and global news? What does that tell you? That this sort of thing is commonplace?

I was just going to remark that this is the sort of thing we can expect to be fixed soon, in a time frame similar to the removal of perverse restrictions on free speech in the UK (which we should fully expect). However, it appears that the Menifee Union School District is already moving on this and this issue will be resolved promptly.

I’d love to tell you what I think of chiropractic therapy, but I don’t want to get Craig in trouble.

There is no doubt re-the gamer wish to stifle debate on any issue re-Israel or the Lobby

If they can convince Craig that all criticism of Israel and the Anglo-US elites is anti-semitic conspiracy theory then they will have done their job.

As most of us have noticed the gaming team here of angri,Larry,technicoleur et al are so dim and poorly read the idea that they could engage in a meaningful debate on any topic whatever is risible.

They have abjectly failed to convince anyone that Israel doesn’t deserve its pariah status with the public.Nor have they convinced anyone that the only good conspiracy theories are the official ones promoted by the corporate media.

The “anti-semite” charge they have sprayed scatter-gun fashion against all contributors who have dared to question Anglo-US-Israel policies and the official conspiracy theories that are run in tandem with them-has been shown in full relief to be a hackneyed elite instrument of mind control and marginalization.

Anyone with a brain the size of a walnut wised up to this hapless crew of whingeing no-hopers long ago.

It’s just a shame that a lot of fine and insightful contributors,particularly anti-Zionist ones have now moved elsewhere.

A shame but certainly who could blame them?

“Anyone with a brain the size of a walnut wised up to this hapless crew of whingeing no-hopers long ago.”

That would be you then would it? What’s it like having a brain the size of a walnut?

“Yes, apparently ‘oral sex’ in US schools’ dictionaries is bad, but ‘nuclear fission’ is probably OK.”

1. One school district out of thousands and thousands.

2. What do you mean by a reference to “nuclear fission”? Does that really hold up as any form of jab? To be clever, you can’t just throw out words.

Let me beat you to it. Chiropratic therapy is bollocks.

It is something only believed by silly rich people with too much money.

At least that is the case in the UK.

In America it is a different story. Because there is no NHS there, sometimes silly stuff is all people can afford. Or sometimes, people are not given important surgery and Drugs because their Health insurance companies claim it is silly stuff so they don’t have to pay for it.

My son is alive, but if we lived in America he would be dead. There is a drug keeping him alive, which is available in the UK for free, in many other countries including some really poor countries such as India it is free.

But not in America, a nation where the babies of the poor have to die very painful deaths. Not just the poor, the drug is so expensive most health insurance companies refuse to cover it, so even the children of many rich people die very painful deaths.

Larry -

Don’t take my comment too seriously, just a joke mate.

Please don’t let me troll you =P

There it is. I was waiting for a member of the Left to justify the gassing of innocent non-combatants, and there it is.

Wow.

Proud, Craig?

So what do I say about America?

They don’t have money too keep their own babies alive. But they do have money to invade countries, buy bombs for Israel and keep evil dictators in power(including Saddam when he was on your side)?

Larry just remember that America sold him that gas? and he was on yourside when he done it?

“agents provocateurs”

Guess Larry is one of those Yanks who thinks that the problem with the French is that they have no word for ‘entrepreneur’.

@Larry: “2. What do you mean by a reference to “nuclear fission”? Does that really hold up as any form of jab? To be clever, you can’t just throw out words.”

This is you at January 23, 2010 9:15 PM, on the “Threat From Central Asia” thread:

“Perhaps I know a bit more about this because my 5th grade (when I was 11) science project was on creating a fission device.”

What the bloody hell am I talking to larry anyway?

He is not here to learn or talk, he is only here to cause problems.

Does anyone have any good fish recipes?

“Guess Larry is one of those Yanks who thinks that the problem with the French is that they have no word for ‘entrepreneur’.”

Again, not funny. Not remotely objectively funny.

“Does anyone have any good fish recipes?”

Maguro sashimi. It’s very easy to prepare.

hawley_jr, I understand the reference, but you still haven’t explained to us why your juxtaposition was somehow, in any way, clever.

hawley_jr

What we have to ask our selves is why we bother responding to someone who

“Perhaps I know a bit more about this because my 5th grade (when I was 11) science project was on creating a fission device.”

What does that make us?

Larry -

are you mad? Why should I be “proud” of something a commenter has posted, when anyone in the world can post anything?

You are proving precisely my point in your ludicrous attempts to associate me with absolutely anything posted by anyone else. You are behaving like a maliciously motivated fuckwit.

“Again, not funny. Not remotely objectively funny”

We were rolling in the aisles when Bush said that. But let’s not get into a US/Brit thing again. It gives me a distinct sense of deja vu. Good job the French don’t have a word for that either.

Cook steamed rice. Slice fresh tuna into 1/4-inch thick pieces. (*Make sure to purchase fresh tuna from a certified store/dealer.) Mix wasabi and soy sauce and marinate tuna slices in the mixture. Peel avocado and cut into bite-size pieces. Cut shiso into thin strips. Serve steamed rice in a bowl and place marinated tuna slices and avocado on the top. Sprinkle shiso leaves and sesame seeds. Pour some soy sauce and wasabi mixture over the toppings before eating.

@Larry: “There it is. I was waiting for a member of the Left to justify the gassing of innocent non-combatants, and there it is.

Wow.

Proud, Craig?”

Sorry, have you just mistaken my last post for the justifcation of Saddam’s gassing of Halabja? I am at a loss to explain how you might have honestly reached that conclusion. I fail to see how providing some brief but accurate historical context for the gassing of Halabja constitutes a justification.

For example: if I were to point out that the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression accelerated the Nazi’s rise to power would you see that as a justification of fascism?

Taking you at face value, Larry, which is to believe your claims that you were a well-paid New York lawyer from one of the better US law schools, I find your inability to engage in anything other than the crudest mud-slinging and primitive debate baffling.

Also interesting is your comment that I am a member of the left. I have no idea how you reached this conclusion, or why you think it is of consequence. Apparently, as you have said, you are a member of the left yourself? Are you somehow conflicted in your politcal allegiances?

I believe you are clearly playing some sort of game. Or, possibly, you are of an extremely erratic and eccentric mind. Sadly, there are no shortage of those on the internet.

angrysoba

apologies, it was Larry. You have, however, spent days trying to goad people into discussing 9/11 here, as you know damn well

Arsalan, sounds good, no?

And well-Googled.

Arsalan

definitely off topic. No more red herrings

Rob Lewis. That sounds like whataboutery to me. None of those points justifies or excuses gassing 5,000 of your own citizens. Regarding the question of moral equivalence, few of you seem to have any understanding of history or the particular and specific crimes of the nazis, and that includes Craig. As I said before, comparing Powell to Saddam, or making reference to Nuremberg in the context of Iraq is both wrongheaded and facile and discredits the quality of the debate on these boards, hence reinforcing its reputation for wacky extremism around the rest of the blogosphere.

and just to some it up, my heart goes out to those who have lot their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan lets call them ‘collateral damage’ and to those who should never be forgotten, of course im talking about Holocaust Day

Play nice eveyone…there really are more nasty buggers out there who you should be vent your angst on!

Sorry craig,

Getting back to the topic.

War crimes, means lost the war.

That is all it means.

Only the side that loses are tried.

Powell and Hussein both fall in the category of war criminal. Some criminals are worse than others, I agree. Your problem, Eddie, is that you are in denial that your New Labour heroes launched an illegal and unnecessary war in which hundreds of thousands of people – men, women and children – really did die horrible deaths.

You have to somehow psychologically come to terms with that horrible reality, Eddie. You are in denial. It really did, happen, you know. Most of those bodies really are well rotted by now. Plenty of the maimed are still around.

“apologies, it was Larry. You have, however, spent days trying to goad people into discussing 9/11 here, as you know damn well”

I actually wanted to talk about other things too.

a) I asked a legitimate question about chocolate in Ghana wondering if you had a response.

b) I discussed what I thought about WMD in Iraq and I didn’t argue a pro-Iraq war case, but said that I thought the government had lied.

c) I discussed the David Kelly story which was the subject of the post there.

d) I helpfully (IMHO) told other commenters where they can watch the Iraq Inquiry. I absolutely didn’t clutter up those threads with 9/11 discussion.

e) I asked you a question about Ahmed Rashid’s reporting on Uzbekistan genuinely hoping for some information.

f) I have talked about 9/11 mostly on threads in which a discussion on that was already underway, or on the thread that you dedicated to me or on “off-topic” threads. I don’t believe I have initiated any 9/11 discussion anywhere else.

And, finally… I am still a bit annoyed that on the post you dedicated to me you said I was in favour of somehow suppressing opinions I didn’t like. I don’t agree with censorship or deletion of posts and have not once asked you to delete anything or ban anyone.

Anyway, I’m watching the Iraq inquiry now.

Powel can be tried, but he wont because he wan.

Saddam can be tried, he was because he lost.

That is all that matters.

There are somethings that everyone agrees is a war crime and other things everone agrees is not.

But the few that are tried in Gitmo are tried for war crimes even though they are accused of killing American soldiers in battle.

Another example. Saddam gased kurds, at the time he wasn’t a war criminal because he was a friend of America. When he became an enemy and was captured he became a war criminal. But he wasn’t the first one to gas kurds. Churchil gased kurds when they stopped paying him Taxes. And he is still regarded as a hero.

If one were to engage in a review of history in a light most favorable to the Nazis, then, yes, that would justify the rise of Fascism in a sense.

“As if Saddam was laughing while he did it, and perhaps stroking a white cat a la Blofeld.”

I don’t remember any portrayal of Saddam as such. Perhaps things are different in the UK.

To pick up from that point, the US actually intitially claimed that the chemical attacks on Halabja were committed by Iranian forces, although they knew full well this was not the case. Further, there were US advisors in Iraq before, during and after the attack. Doubtless the UK is equally complicit, or would have been given half the chance – I would like to point out to our American friends I am not claiming any moral high ground.

eddie me old mate,

My point about Saddam and Powell is that it is possible for there to exist more than one value system on this planet.

In any trial in the West of those who led the Iraq invasion, by lying, by restricting information to British Public and by applying UK values to non-UK citizens, Western leaders will always be exonerated because they played by our dirty little rules.

We can’t just bulldoze the entire West with all its moral snobbery and ill-gotten gains into some empty volcanoe and start again. Blair is likely to exonerated because he thinks we think the removal of Saddam Hussain is worthwhile at any price. He thought Keynsian interest-based economic theory was worth it at any price.

Just because he’s exonerated, doesn’t mean he’s right. Events will follow that will demonstrate that he was wrong. We just haven’t got there yet. Antagonising the entire Muslim world while at the same time going to Muslim countries for fresh oil money when his errors have caused the system to fail, has not gone unnoticed in the world, for all this inquiry’s smokescreens.

We are watching a soap, where the script writer is in control. Nothing whatsoever to do with reality which is where the rest of the world stands.

Do I worry if I missed an episode of a soap and lose the story line? Whatever they want to say and do, let them do. The world is bored with the soap. Look at Gordon Brown posing as planet saver, and then it turns out he’s taken the 3rd worlds’ climate change cash from the charity till and he’s going to convert the cash into Carbon currency anyway. He’ll end up paying nothing at all to anyone.

It’s all bollocks and I don’t know why you bother to try to defend it, like some art critic on the telly oozing about some poxy film.

My previous post a response to Arsalan’s, not Larry’s.

Larry, nobody (to my knowledge) claimed that Saddam actually was laughing and stroking a white cat as he ordered the massacre of Halabja. I have attempted satire here, I confess.

As for your response directly above it, I don’t quite follow its logic as a sequitur, but I think I will leave it on the assumption you now understand I have not justifed or attempted to justify the gassing of Halabja. Or that if you don’t understand it is because you are a simpleton. Or oddly nefarious.

I get the satire, but I don’t think the events in Kurdistan have been portrayed to me as acts “of absolute evil by a terroristic madman.” Perhaps I missed that propaganda. My recollection is that they were portrayed as acts of mass murder by a faceless and nameless military.

angrysoba

I changed the mistake immediately it was pointed out.

Your contributions not on 9/11 are very welcome. Sorry if I haven’t answered all your questions – that’s the norm i’m afraid

Setting an example of illegal invasion is something the West may come to regret very soon. Cancelling international law is an issue not just for the present inquiry and the preset offensive in Pakistan, but for the century to come. If you leave the moral high ground, the way is paved for a real madman, like Hitler, to stray down the path you made. It would be far better for the world to try and convict Bush and Blair, than to listen to the smokescreens they are putting up today.

Vronsky: The use of French phrases is so pass?. I used to be pretentious, but I’m not maintenant…

Back on topic:

There is a whole spook/security industry dedicated to monitoring websites/blogs/forums etc. – See http://preview.tinyurl.com/m4etnj

for details….

As I said before, whenever a topic hits a nerve/is ‘on the button’(including resulting comments), the gang pop up & start slinging about the stock phrases 911, jews, conspiracy theories etc. etc.

Craig, I am glad that you are getting an increased readership. Your articles are most welcomed.

Can you/anyone advise where there is video on the web of the Chilcot enquiry? I wanna see Goldsmith squirm…

Anno and Arsalan,

I’ll “defend” the Chilcott enquiry as follows:

1) Evidence is called for and given, in a public forum. The lies that were told get exposed to a wider audience. Members of the voting public who didn’t know before learn. The consensus shifts. Some time later democratic change occurs – we hope.

2) We hope – though it is a thin hope, I admit – that the enquiry helps lead to criminal charges being persued, thus providind a deterrent to such behaviour in the future. Even without charges, the enquiry acts as a (lesser) deterrent.

3) “They” must think it matters, or they wouldn’t have interrupted it yesterday!

This is why I’ll be in London on Friday – to show that this matters to me, and to add my voice to all those calling for justice.

I understand your negativity, you are most likely correct, and it will all achieve nothing. But I’m not going to let negativity stop me trying.

@Bert – see this link:

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

Click on the ‘Evidence’ button. Movies are around 400Mb each as they are around 3 hours long, but on broadband they are quite watchable.

No, Clark, it is not a deterrent. It is another green flag for the colonial trans-history express steaming through the centuries towards the Day of Judgement.

The smiling conductor reassures you with information about your creature comforts, but the train of colonialism gains momentum by these inquiries, not the other way.

Craig, I think you’ve made an excellent point with this post and put it fairly.

Moreover, having commenters like angrysoba, Larry from St Louis, and alan campbell popping in is in itself a form of mental torture, a cruel and unusual punishment if you will, and nobody should be forced to put up with their malicious badgering and malodorous piffle for any longer than one would be expected to endure waterboarding. They are feral savages engaged in a form of bloodsport and you have every moral right to discipline them with lines, homework, detention, a few strokes of the caine, and if all else fails, expulsion. After all, you are a sort of headmaster now.

Now, sit back and enjoy the Chilcot Inquiry. I see the tickets have sold out for Tony Blair’s performance on Friday.

Anno,

how so?

The gas at Halabja was supplied primarily by Egypt and the Dutch.

Craig I am not in denial. Let me tell you, on the day of the Iraq march I actually got as far as Cambridge station fully intending to march. It was only when I saw the hordes of people there that I realised I had nothing in common with them. These people had done zilch to protest about Rwanda or Kosovo or Bosnia or Sierra Leone where (in the last three cases) the West had successfully, albeit belatedly, intervened to save lives. They cared little for the gulags of China or the camps of Cuba. To me they seemed like sheep, whose entire agenda was either a crude anti-Americanism that put politics before people or who cared nothing for the suffering of the Iraqi people, or both. Yes I am a member of the Labour party, but my understanding of the decent left is that it has a history of standing up to fascists, whether it was Blair fighting tyrants in Sierra Leone and Kosovo or Orwell fighting Franco. Governments have to make difficult decisions: my view is that Blair had a genuine desire to deal with a tyrant who posed a threat to the region and to the West. The outcome may have been not what was foreseen, but that is the case of many policy decisions. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I remember very few people at the time saying that post-invasion there would be insurgency and suicide bombings and sectarian violence. Moreover, as Chomsky says, you have to balance one thing against another. How many would have died had we not intervened? How many other bombings would there have been on the streets of New York or London had Al Qaeda not been confronted in their heartland. I doubt you or anyone here can answer such questions. There are difficult moral issues involved. But to call Blair and others war criminals, as you do, I think demeans you. Firstly, a criminal is generally viewed as someone who has been convicted of a crime. Secondly, if a crime has been committed who is the enforcer? Can you or anyone here honestly say who is going to action a case? Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of our law, the law that you and others here seem so keen to uphold.

No doubt you would all like to see Blair swinging from a tree, but you need to be careful of what you wish for.

Bert,

thank you for your link (which leads to an article in “The Register”, in case anyone is wondering). I’m grateful to have some reliable news on these practices. I’ve downloaded the PDFs and will read them – eventually.

Powell, like Obama, understood and was recognized as a valuable personage in the early stages of their careers.

Powell was always accutely aware of the political nature of his activities in the US Army, and what service, loyal service could lead to; success, fame, vast wealth.

The first time he was really noticed, the lever that catapaulted him onwards and upwards, was his central involvement in investigating, ring-fencing, and covering up the nature and extent of the Mai Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. From then on he could do no wrong, as long as he did no wrong, in relation to Power; and this ability characterized his later career. The ability and willingness to serve loyally… regardless.

Was he “worse” than Saddam? Who knows? Who really cares? Was Hitler worse than Stalin? Who decides? What about Mao?

It’s difficult to compare cultures like Iraq with a the United States.

Aren’t we supposed to use higher standards when comparing a public servant, like Powell, to a brutal, totalitarian dictator like Saddam? We cannot, surely, argue that because Saddam was a very, very, very, bad man; that we are therefore allowed to be very, very, bad, and that this small difference makes us materially better than Saddam?

When one is dealing with millions of deaths, mountainous piles of corpses, rivers of blood, can one really, in any meaningful way compare and weigh these crimes on some collosal scale and conclude that one side is good and the other bad? Doesn’t the massive scale of the bloodletting on both sides cancel each other out?

This is, of course, something Blair and his gang, simply don’t appear to understand and are never really asked about. They piously maintain how much they agonized over the great responsibility they felt moving towards war, yet this great weight hanging over them didn’t lead them to stop, think, and examine whether all this mass killing was really worth it.

Saddam, the thug we lifted into power, a power way above his worth, like we so often do; was a useful tool, but then he outlived his usefulness and could be disguarded, like a used Kleenex, as we often do. He was demonized, like we so often do, and then removed. He was a “monster”, yet he wasn’t. He was merely our latest hitman, but they tend to get above their station don’t they.

When Saddam was fighting a dreadful proxy war for us against Iraq, very few western leaders criticized him. He was our boy, our friend, on our side. The gas attack in Kurdistan wasn’t isolated. He used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers supplied by us. Tony Blair didn’t condemn Saddam then, he only discovered his revulsion at Saddam’s methods and lack of respect for the rights of his people, when it was permisible, convenient, and expedient to do so, for reasons of state.

Our leaders aren’t, in reality, that different from the “monsters” we create and then condemn. We do “evil” too, only we are more sophisticated and successful at hiding our “monsters”, we are better at deception, we have, after all, more experience and a longer history of being monsters than others.

Clark, Hi.

If Bush and Blair and co. are not guilty, send them now to Islamabad to be tried, as US has demanded of Bin Laden. It has spent seven years trying to enforce that demand. Which means that they know they can only get away with colonialism within their own governmental systems.

If everybody plays by the rules of their own national expediency, we are back in pre-Nuremburg and we do not have any deterrent against international aggression. The only reason why colonialism continues is because they see that they got away with it, in African slavery, in China , in India. God sent Hitler to draw a line under this stupidity, but two generations down the line, the idiots in power have forgotten. Or, it seems they need another reminding.

Eddie What do you mean no one new what would happen post invasion?

That is what everybody and his aunty was saying!

I know blair wanted us to believe an Anglo-American Army invading a Muslim country would be greated with flowers. But Everyone. But be honest, you knew people would fight back didn’t you?

If you didn’t the rest of the world did.

Eddie,

for the record, I have no wish to see anyone executed.

The UK is SUPPOSED to be a democracy, Eddie, though you have spoken against that, how much in jest I am not sure. Certainly you support top-heavy (and hence inherently unstable) government.

If lies are used to achieve consensus for war then democracy has been subverted.

I was on the 2003 march – making me one of your “sheep”. But then “sheep” are just what you argue for – so long as they follow the Labour Party – why else advocate a top-heavy system of government?

Eddie, the people in attendence in 2003 were exceedingly diverse. Maybe the type of people you wanted to see were simply diluted by the diversity and the vast numbers present.

Incidentally, Iraq was never an “al-Qaeda homeland”.

“How many other bombings would there have been on the streets of New York or London”

I suspect there will be bombings whenever a new and repressive piece of legislation is in the pipeline, or when foreign polcy is about to take a new imperialist turn. Just like PNAC said. You watch.

Anno,

yes, they do need another reminding, and no, they won’t be tried in Islamabad.

So we work with what we have, incrementally. If I could trust my country’s legal system to do justice, I wouldn’t have to go to London and put myself in danger on Friday. But if that were the case, there would never have been this war.

I don’t believe that any God would have sent Hitler. As usual, corrupt politics made Hitler what he was.

Larry,

did you follow Bert’s link? It seems that if you’re not getting paid, then you’re missing out. Best apply quick.

Larry, I for one do not think you are a secret agent.

Secret agents get time off, while you are here all the time.

What I think you are is an over weight stay at home with too much time on your hands. There are many rightwing/Zionist organisations full of people like you. They are told to post of forums like this to do exactly what you and angry have been doing. And you are doing a very good job of it, because you too have diverted nearly every thread off topic.

Eddie,

there’s another reason that there were so many marching that day, who hadn’t marched for the other atrocities you mention. It was OUR GOVERNMENT that we were trying to influence. We were saying, “Not in our name!”, because we were voters who were ignored. You malign many people if you claim that they don’t care.

You often tell people to get involved. But by that, you mean “join the Labour Party”, don’t you?

Arsalan,

you make me laugh more and more. But be fair to Larry, this time he was getting us back ON topic! He’s slow to respond because he’s filling out the on-line PsiOps application form. If he sites his former posts, he may get back-pay!

Arsalan, I’m quite physically fit, thanks.

Clark, those PDFs don’t say what you think they say! But – seriously – thanks for the advice! Work has been a bit slow for me, but there’s nothing I could offer in respect of that application.

TonyOpmoc,

I not only dismissed it, I deleted it.

A few years ago I attended a concert given in Glasgow by Inti Illimani. This folk group were unable to return to Chile after the CIA sponsored coup which removed Allende (are we allowed to mention that 9/11?). The concert was in memory of Victor Jara, the singer/songwriter abducted, tortured and murdered by the Pinochet regime. It was a attended by a number of bigwigs from New Labour – Donald Dewar was there, at that time Scottish First Minister – and sundry Labour luvvies such as Robbie Coltrane.

At the interval a lady appeared on the platform to read a message from, of all people, Gordon Brown. He wished to claim credit for sheltering Inti during their exile (they were in fact supported by guitarists Paco Pe?a and John Williamson).

There was a degree of heckling from the audience, and some very blank looks from Inti: understandably, as this was only a few days after Jack Straw had refused to extradite Pinochet to Spain to stand trial for crimes against humanity. In the circumstances, Brown’s chutzpah was quite staggering. Handed the microphone to make a reply, a member of Inti said simply ‘Democracy has missed an opporunity – there will be other opportunities.’ But there were no other opportunities – Pinochet lived out his remaining days in comfort and died in bed.

The point of all that being – I really cannot see Blair, Brown, Hoon, Straw or anyone else facing a jury for war crimes. If Pinochet can walk, anyone can.

Larry,

I’m having a little trouble with my brain here, you’d best tell me what I think the PDFs say.

writerman you have the wrong Powell. The one referred to above is Jonathan Powell, not Colin Powell. Saddam did not get the bulk of his weapons from the West I assure you. That is another canard.

Clark our government had influence in the other countries I mentioned but no one marched although some protested that we should not intervene and allow people like Milosevic do whatever he wanted to the Muslims of Bosnia. Major, Rifkind and Hurd and the FCO have a lot to answer for. In the long term, I think it was right to stand up to Milosevic, don’t you?

Eddie,

I don’t want anyone to swing from trees. Not even Blair or Straw. That is one reason I am not like them. They caused a huge number of people to die.

Please read the Catholic Orangemen of Togo for an alternative view of Sierra Leone from someone who was in the middle of it.

Clark, perhaps I missed something (I just looked at the PDFs very quickly), but this program seems to merely be a matter of setting up “two and no more than twelve websites” to support U.S./perhaps NATO policy.

This does creep me out a bit. However, did this come to any fruition.

What I don’t see is the suggestion that the U.S. gov’t is paying people to inhabit other websites. Isn’t that what you’re suggesting? Where is that in the document?

Eddie,

I’m sorry, that was before I started to follow events as closely as I do now.

Saddam got SOME of his weapons from the west. You mentioned the Dutch yourself, though I suppose they’re less “western”.

Craig,

That is fair enough. It’s your blog, and that is exactly what I expected you to do. I will post it somewhere else instead.

It wasn’t racist though, and neither was it off-topic.

If it had been on another thread, then I would have considered your action completely appropriate.

I am glad you have made such a rapid recovery. We went to see an old Jewish friend today. He had a massive breakdown at the age of 69, and it has taken him nearly a year to make a full recovery.

He is a manic depressive.

Tony

Larry,

I haven’t read the PDFs yet. But the budget is over ten million dollars (Register article), and there’s the Sunstein article, so it doesn’t seem that much of a stretch. Really, though, I was just having a joke.

Craig

Maybe you just need to change your blogger software stuff so nutcases get no responses.

DtP

Craig did you delete one of my fish posts or did I forget to press post?

Eddie you keep bringing up Bosnia. What I remember from that war was the arms embargo. And Embargo placed only on the Muslims. What else I remember was the safe havens. In which Muslims were told to lay down what few weapons they had, and then the UN not only invited the Serbs in, but also helped the Serbs seprate males 15 and above to kill.

That is what I remember from your so called good intervention.

And finally when the Muslims started winning, the west said, game over, so as to let the Serbs keep all they had obtained from the genocide.

Oh yes, And I also remember all the tanks the British gave to the Serbs everytime with the excuse that the Serbs had captured them.

Clark, Sunstein was an academic when that program was put in place by the Pentagon, so you really must be just having a joke.

Dick the Prick,

The most effective way of getting rid of nutcases like myself, is not to delete their posts completely, but only make them visible to themselves on their own IP address (or geographical area of IP addresses)

Then they can quite happily talk to themselves, thinking that the entire World is reading their comments, when in fact they can only read it themselves.

This is actually very easy to do, by various techniques.

Of course it prevents free speech, but what the hell. If you are running a blog, the chances are you only want to read and promote the views of people who agree with your point of view.

Just like Newspaper editors do.

Tony

Anno

The only solution that will work is the reunification of Muslim lands. The re-establishment of the Khilafah.

Unlike Craig I wouldn’t mind if Jack and Blair were tried for treason and hung. But I don’t think it would make any difference because they would be replaced by men just like themselves.

Even if the UK and America suddenly just vanished, or disintegrated in to their individual states. If they suddenly embarrassed pacifism or declared that they will never send their troops outside of their boarders.

None of it will make difference, because other nations will continue where they left off.

The cause of the invasions, isn’t Blair, Bush Straw and their evil, it is our own weakness and disunity. It is the pathetic puppet states that the Muslims world has been carved in to. So the only way to stop these invasions is reunification.

Message from Craig:

“Ramp back on the bollocks tungsten!”

Seriously though I agree with you, tungsten.Craig has allowed himself to be cowed by the prevailing structure of taboos around race.

The idea that a peculiarly successful ethnic group over centuries might have a lot to teach us re-group evolutionary strategy is taboo evidently.To even draw attention to their success across the professions is to court the prospect of professional suicide at the hands of the cultural establishment.

Who can blame Craig for being intimidated? He understandably doesn’t want to dump several status points down the toilet by encouraging the suspicion that the blog endorses any incorrect positions on race.

Without wanting to ingratiate myself with the bloke,I feel a deal of sympathy for his position.I’m probably not doing him any favours whatever by saying so,though!

Still at the risk of Craig being ultimately devoured by the defamers and disinformationists who will accuse him of allowing anti-semites to infest his blog I think it’s important as you say that we approach the whole topic of race in a far more honest and grown-up fashion.

In a recent piece at jewcycom. John Derbyshire noted how ethnic identification becomes salient according to the situation in which individuals finds themselves.

My white English ethnic identification would not be particularly salient were I in a bar full of white English soccer hooligans.I would be less aware of this group membership than my membership in the group called,”bookish types who dislike physical violence and have little interest in sport!”

It’s the same with Sir Goldsmith.As Derbyshire puts it,membership in the group,”Jewish people” must be something every Jew is aware of at least some of the time,even if it is only rarely his salient group identification.Jewishness is,after all as group identifications go-contra “white English” for example-exceptionally well defined and historically rooted.

Assimilated Jews in Germany likewise de-Judaized themselves to the point of converting to Christianity in large numbers during the 1820s.In a number of cases this was a cryptic assimilative strategy to gain advancement in the professions.Continued practice of Judaism may,as in the case of the Sephardi from Iberia,have followed the “dry baptisms” that often took place.

Again the Russian Jews who de-Judaized themselves as they moved from the Pale into metropolitan Russia to become key group players in the Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet system rediscovered the Jewishness they’d sloughed off when Hitler invaded in 1941!

What Craig and the cultural establishment peddle is the notion that all these racial identifications with their varying degrees of situationally-based salience are but figments of the imagination.Relics of a former barbarous era made entirely anachronistic in current circumstances.

The discussion would be better informed if we looked at humanity as it is rather than at what we’d like it to be.Utter indifference to group identity is not something we should expect of all humans in all situations.

The denial of human nature in the case of Goldsmith at the time he decided the Iraq was “legal” in international law advances our understanding of why he made his decision not one jot.

The human affinity for group allegiance does not suddenly disappear when one decides on such matters as war.Goldsmith did not,I would submit become entirely,as if by magic,disinterested in the perceived interests of his group affiliation.We may indeed hazard that such a situation would render his group identification all the more salient.

The bloodless,deracinated,group-indifferent tabula rasa,omnisympathetic creature promoted by the PC brigade is not even recognisably human it’s a figment of their imagination.

As Derbyshire sums it up,the PC brigade are-for all their pretensions otherwise-human!Their lofty pretensions to have risen high above us group-identifying lesser beings when they decide whether millions of people should live or die are just,a particularly obnoxious form of in-group status-striving.

Derbyshire’s adult evaluation of the question of group affiliation is @jewcy.com.

The piece is titled:Be Nice Or We’ll Crush You:Criticizing Jews Is Professional Suicide.

Haven’t angri,Larry and the gamers warned Craig about that too?

Arsalan you are right that we did nothing to protect the muslims of Bosnia under a Tory government. Srebrenica was in 1995, Blair was elected in 1997. It was only Blair who stood up to Milosevic after 1997, the tories appeased him.

For Heavens sake, Craig was just making a case for staying on topic and being reasonable, not espousing some ultra-PC nonsense. But of course a few people saw that as an opportunity to associate him with a radical view, and repost more despicable propaganda.

These rhetorical distortions are more conspicuous than the authors realise. You may not be agents provocateurs, but you’re every bit as disruptive. Please stop wrecking the discussions for those us trying to follow the political issues.

Apostate,

I don’t know whether or not I agree with what you have just posted, but as it probably took you around 10 minutes to write it, I thought I would copy and paste it to my own PC, so I can read it at my leisure.

What I posted mentioned the words jews and eskimos. It was in no way racist, but it explored the possibility that racism may in fact exist in powerful groups. It took me 20 minutes to write it, and it was deleted within what I thought was a very few minutes.

I was impressed at the speed, but not in the tolerance of the expression of an alternative point of view.

I am in no way convinced that your views are wrong or even tribal, let alone racist, but I would like a chance to read them before they are deleted.

But as you point out, some groups have far too much influence and power, such that if you even point it out, you are liable to be vociferously attacked, and even worse.

Some people complain so much that it is obvious they are trying to suppress some evil from within their own tribal grouping.

Tony

Eddie,

as I said, I know next to nothing of this. But I do know that back at the beginning with Labour, we had Robin Cook, and his “Ethical Foreign Policy”; did this make a difference?

As a general principle, I find that “first terms” of a new political party tend to be the best. As time goes on, the entrenched party seems to become arrogant and dangerous.

@ Rob Lewis

Regarding the chemical attack on Iraqi Kurds at Halabja in March 1988, are you aware of this piece of research from (sorely missed) Ed Teague (Postman Patel):http://www.kurdi.dk/artikler/edward%20teague.htm ?

Seeing mention of slashdot software above, I remember suggesting the same course of action to Craig a while back. I have now changed my mind. Slashdot permits all posts, but allows readers to weight them. Over time people who are clearly trolls can see that their ratings are so low that few people are reading their posts, and their game loses its charm.

So Slashdot allows the reader to filter out noise, but part of the agenda of the trollers here is to accuse Craig of running a blog containing anti-semitism, extreme rightism, extreme leftism and telling-the-truth-ism (the last apparently the worst of all). They ensure that these allegations will stick by the simple expedient of placing such material on the blog themselves. Slashdot will excuse us from reading it, but it is still there, and so their slanders will continue.

I now think that the better option is moderation – vetting posts before publishing them. Of course this is an admin overhead, but the work can be shared – I am one of a number of moderators on another blog and I rarely have much to do. Those who post should be supplying a valid email address and where posts are declined an explanation can be given. If Craig has enough volunteers whom he trusts, all he need do himself is make an occasional check to ensure that he agrees with the modding taking place, or he can supply an email address where anyone refused a posting can appeal.

Arsalan, lucky you! Give my regards to the Admiral! And the fish.

Eddie,

have you ever played with the bit of maths called “The Logistic Difference Equation”?

new x=rx(1-x) …and iterate

Start with a value of x between 0 and 1. You’ll find the most interesting values of r lie between 3 and 4. Don’t let it get above 4…

Let us not forget…

http://tinyurl.com/yuv62m

logos,

The title of this thread is Agents Provocateurs.

Are you suggesting that such people are completely independent individuals?

If the title of this thread was for example

Lord Goldsmith’s Demeanour

or

Government Ban Protest Outside Blair Iraq Hearing

Then posting a view that Agents Provocateurs may in fact be tribal and racial, would not be relevent.

Here I believe it is.

To imply that anyone who is prepared to write about such issues is necessarily racist or tribal is incredibly ignorant. They may be tribal or racial, or they maybe attempting to discuss the issue totally objectively.

I completely understand Craig’s point of view of Agents Provocateurs dragging the important issues of this week off topic, so if he wants to avoid off topic issues and just concentrate on the issues of this week, then maybe he should delete this entire thread.

Its his blog.

Tony

Tony

The link to jewcy.com should help you approach these issues productively.

The site is run by Joey Kurtzman and includes a terrifically stimulating dialogue between him and the guy to whom I referred,John Derbyshire.

As I described,Derbyshire hazards the idea that journalistic criticism of Jews can lead to professional suicide.On the contrary says Kurtzman look at guys like Chomsky,Fisk and Finkelstein.They’re doing very nicely thank you selling themselves as martyrs to world Jewry says Kurtzman.

It’s civilized and incredibly informative to read this dialogue and it shows how these issues can be tackled seriously and sensitively.

Cut above Larry et al anyway!

Go for it:

http://jewcy.com/

Use the site search engine,type in Derbyshire and Kurtzman Dialogue.The articles are from 2007 but the current front page has pieces on Mel Gibson,Schlomo Sand and one on “The Cynicism Behind Restoring Synagogues in Arab Countries”.

Needless to say Larry and the gamers would have you believe Kurtzman is a “self-hating Jew”!

I can’t think of a better recommendation than that,can you?

But Arsalan, your history is fanciful. The history of the Khalifat was complex and apart from immediately after the initial expansion of the Ummayad Empire from Arabia, Muslim ‘lands’ were certainly not ‘united’ in the manner you suggest, even when they were the global superpower and the most advanced society of the ‘Old’ World. I understand the frustration – I think that it is true that they need to get their act together – in both senses of the term – but a harking after utopian and Nativist mythologised glories will not aid that process. The weak are easily divided (and ruled) and majority Muslim countries must become strong internally. It is not realistic to crave after a ‘Khalifat’ as though that would be the solution. I know it’s the current fad. But it’s a facile dead end. I’m all for increased unity and cooperation – though any leader who attempts this, whether b/w Muslim or ‘Third World’ countries in general, tends to end up dead – Bhutto, King Faisal et al, surprise surprise.

OK, folks, back to the original topic:

“The object of these interventions is to provoke anti-semites and others to comment on this blogsite. On other sites around the blogosphere, the same individuals then post entries and comments saying …”

Craig, I don’t post such things to other sites.

And doesn’t it appear that such silliness does not require my instigation?

This guy vronsky offering to moderate comments for craig could be anybody.

I’d be very suspicious of such offers lest the site fall into the lap of those who’ll delete any unofficial conspiracy theory then causing problems for the establishment.

Likewise the “anti-semite” canard will be used to stifle all criticism of Israel,the Lobby,or Holocaust fundamentalism.

vronsky-craig’s blog will end up being just another gate-keeper cypher for the corporate media.Most of us would like to get clean away from such fabricated consensual pap thank you very much!

Moderate out the gamers like Larry and the other barely literate off-topic weirdos and you’ll likely get a unanimous vote in favour!

Wait, Steelback, what do you think should be done with off-topic weirdos?

Apostate,

To be honest, to approach the issue from such a point of view, I think is highly counter-productive, and in that respect I agree with the vast majority of posters here.

On the other hand, to not consider the views of people like Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk/ is equally ignorant.

I have always been a contrary soab, since escaping the Roman Catholic Church at the age of 15.

If someone tells me not to read someone elses views, then I want to know why.

It maybe because that person is promoting a load of racist evil, or it maybe that someone is attacking the racist evil that he doesn’t want me to read.

But at the end of the day, you can descend into an irrelevent philosophical level/discussion loop, and totally miss the real issues, that you may actually be able to do something positive about, like clearing land mines from the Congo, which is what Craig’s brother Frazer does for a “living”.

You can’t really argue with that, except perhaps screaming at the people who are manufacturing the fucking things to stop doing it.

Tony

Craig, I have a suggestion that may have some value and be easy to implement.

When posting a comment here one is asked for an email address. I suppose this could be any email address, even a bogus one–as long as it looks like one. My suggestion is this: when a comment is submitted, automatically send a confirmation email to the given address, and wait until the sender clicks on an included confirmation link, or replies, before it is posted. This would have the advantages of allowing a commenter to think again about what was said, to check the spelling, and of slowing things down a bit and taking the heat out of some exchanges. It’s not a complete panacea for the issues you are having. For example it would still be possible to impersonate another’s pseudonym, and it might frighten off worthwhile comments from people in, say, Uzbekistan.

Another thought: have an optional logon system where one can reserve one’s pseudonym. At the same time, still allow comments from unverified pseudonyms, but provide a button to allow hiding them.

I love the simplicity and openness of your blog format; but it’s also wide open to abuse. The slight complications that I am suggesting might be worth a try.

regards,

Craig:

‘I am not positing that the individuals involved are anything other than individuals with an amazing amount of time on their hands and a fervent attachment to the “War on Terror”.’

Craig, that sounds more conspiratorial than saying they are paid shills. Reread what you wrote there a few times and think about it. Are you really of that opinion?

By the way, did you notice how after I recommended you hook up with Brian Gerrish yesterday there were comments that ridiculed the idea? It’s all part of ‘divide and conquer’ Craig. You need to hook up with other dissidents to become stronger. Don’t get too close because the powers that be will always look to cause a split. Gerrish himself is aware of this. Keep doing your own thing, but find some allies to get some sort of broad, cohesive strategy going. Gerrish is trying to provide a platform for all of this. What have you got to lose by looking at what he says? Do you want to achieve change or not?

Suhayl Saadi

While it is true that the Muslim world has never been as unified as they were during the Umayad period and before, they have never been as disunited as they are now.

There has never been a time when the Muslim world was in the state it is now.

I am not claiming the Khilafah is some sort of utopia. The Khilafah is just a first step to sort our problems out.

The Khilafah is the means to gain unity. Muslim countries will never work together with out it. There is no bases or starting point to any form of unity among Muslims without Khilafah.

I want to repeat these invasions were not caused by the strength of our enemies but by our own weakness and disunity. Would the Americans be able to invade Iraq without their bases in Kuwait, without their airfield in Qatar? Would they be able to invade Afghanistan without the transport roots in Pakistan and the bases in Uzbekistan?

Let me be straight, Muslim countries will never work together at all, in anyway shape or form without Khilafah. They will never strengthen, educate or gain justice.

None of this will happen because none of it is possible without Khilafah.

A lot of this looks like a simple abuse of other peoples’ courtesy. Address direct questions to people and they’ll likely feel obliged to reply, even if it drags in issues that seem like irrelevancies. And then question that reply with more distraction … and it can be made to go on as long as people will put up with it.

I don’t think we need to assume deliberate plots to explain this,

for the simple, sad, reason that people will behave like this for free. All the rhetorical moves, the techniques, are only things that turn up everywhere, wherever people bandy opinions around on the net, even in quiet conversations with nothing controversial about them. Some people have axes to grind, some people seem to take pleasure in upsetting others, some look for fights, some want to prove they’re cleverer than everone else, some give themselves a bunch of names and have mock-quarrels with themselves, the works.

Which is not to deny that astroturf happens (are there astroturf organisations to deny the existence of astroturf, yet ? It’s probably only a matter of time).

Analysis of the logs can sometimes establish things. I saw a case a day or two ago (on something of Bruce Schneier’s, I think) where 4 posts, from 4 different names, claiming to be from Spain and Egypt, were followed by a notice from a site-techy remarking that they all came out of the same IP address, which was in Jordan. Something of a fair cop, not a lot of room for doubt there. (‘whois’ is the tool involved – DNS lookup, see who an address is regstered to).

Many sites have problems with this, it’s possible there might be some techy possibilities to make it easier to deal with. Someone mentioned a ‘rating’ system – the ability to not have to see stuff from whoever we regard as a windup, would be nice. (Must look at slashdot more. Is this per-user, or is it a voting system ? The latter could be flooded).

I imagine that most of us reading and commenting on this blog do so because we are interested in what Craig posts. It’s counter-productive to go against the house rules or to post inflammatory comments simply because it’s an open forum.

Personally, I understand and sympathise with many of the extreme comments, but we make nothing but noise when we argue one extreme against another. And we turn off those who might have become amenable to alternative views.

The bigger picture has to be dealt with, here and in the world at large, but at this point in time it seems we can only gain ground by arguing the mainstream points. And, hopefully, success there will lead on to tolerance of discussion of those matters which are at present unacceptable to the general ear.

For those who believe a fifth column is at work, remember:

When you walk amongst the enemy, wear his colours.

Any dedicated shill can easily appear from multiple IP addresses. Blocking them gives more hoops to jump through and will annoy them though.

Much as I sympathise with your stated reasons for this Thread, I do feel the need to draw your attention that to some extent you yourself have inadvertently encouraged what you are complaining about; take the recent Thread ?Greek Orthodox Church Sells Palestinian Lands to Israel?, in which you make the unconnected & bizarre statements that ?In Cyprus the Church is a major player in money laundering and the international illegal arms trade? , & ?Is the Greek Orthodox Church the most corrupt major religious organisation in the world? Discuss.?. Firstly despite the requests of at least two Posters, you have not seen fit to substantiate the first accusation, and so it remains a cranky Conspiracy Theory, on the back off which you then try to attack the Greek Orthodox Church, (and in doing so further ignore the fact that the Cypriot Church is autocephalous from the main Greek Orthodox Church.) Further, as a direct result of your failure to explain your comments, the Thread then degenerated into an off topic marathon of over 250 posted Comments !

Vronsky,

Moderating a very popular blog is a hellish task. To do it properly requires full time staff working 24x7x365.

But in order to allow free speech, in the true sense of the word, you must allow all comments to be posted, even ones diametrically opposed to your own point of view.

Very few people are actually sufficiently objective, that they are up to the task.

In my view, the only posts that should be deleted, are…

those of the repetetive troll variety, specifically designed to drown out open and fair discussion (that shouldn’t be allowed to stray too far off topic except in certain cases of obvious enormous interest)

those that are clearly liable to result in legal action being brought against the person making them (which is why Craig needs his own blog) – and whoever hosts it is prepared to take on such legal action – as that is usually the first point of call

those that are personally abusive, particularly if they threaten physical violence (my memory is like an elephant)

those that post completely inappropriate links to material specifically designed to be offensive (unless it is on topic pictures of gross war crimes with appropriate warnings)

those that name individuals who obviously wish to remain anonymous

Its a tough job, that probably isn’t worth the effort.

However, My Son did it on his own blog which became very popular indeed and at the age of 13, he was actually deleting some of the stuff that I was posting, because it was too offensive to some ultra-pro war Americans.

Tony

@B: Thank you for the link. I used to read Postman Patel, but only from about 2007 on. I missed that, if it was ever on there. Ed Teague RIP.

Arsalan, I think you’re confusing a number of distinct strands here. Muslim countries were largely colonised during the late C8th and throughout the C19th because they were weak – they are still colonised (in one way or another) – for a whole complex of reasons. There was a Khalifa in Istanbul until 1922, when Ataturk abolished the office, but it had been completely irrelevant to the process of Muslim countries/ empires being colonised, in fact it had been irrelevant to power politics for centuries. There was the Khalifat Movement in early C20th India – which ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan. We’ve been here before, you see. Also, colonialism and all the fall-out from it affected and affects non-Muslim countries just as much as Muslim countries. Right now, the Pentagon has created this ‘enemy’ bu8t I don;t think we need let this become a self-perpetuating thing. I think we need to look at power in the context of history in a cold and lucid manner, no matter how angry we may feel – and I am extremely angry. I think it’s illusory to chase after a Caliphate. It’d be not so dissimilar, politically, as Europe after WW2 saying, “I wish we had a Caesar”, or “I wish Papal Rule could be re-established across Christendom – I am a Guelf!”. The EU – yes, I know about Napoleon Bonaparte’s idea – originally was created largely because of the USA’s to build a subservient bulwark against the Soviet Bloc, and also to control Germany. In other words, it occurred because of distinct processes, economic and military, which had nothing to do with the mythologising of history. The first step would really be an economic community b/w Muslim (or more broadly what used to be called, Non-Aligned) states – as a protection measure (cf the EU’s tariff walls). This is what Chavez has been attempting to do in South and Central America. Sukarno, Nkrumah et al were really brought down because they has a similar idea. I do not think the Caliphate is realisable as the force which you are positing. Genuine mass movements for real economic independence for the PEOPLES – not the elites – of these countries is the only conceivable mode of achieving progress.

I can understand the anger at the rabble rousers, but don’t be so down on 9/11 truthers – I still haven’t seen a worthwhile rebuttal to the 1000 named, professional architects and engineers that don’t buy the official story…

“imagine that most of us reading and commenting on this blog do so because we are interested in what Craig posts. It’s counter-productive to go against the house rules or to post inflammatory comments simply because it’s an open forum” -hawley_jr.

“Tragedy of the commons” – that’s the phrase I’ve been grasping for. People over-use it for their own (perceived) advantage and it ends up laid to waste.

“bloogers” is a nice word.

bloogers and boggers

Whoops, my long comment about Halabja has been “taken into moderation” and there was only one tiny url in it …

Sheesh

http://tinyurl.com/yazlflb

Well, there’s the URL again.

It’s the Central Intelligence Agency’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and professor at the US Army War College from 1988 to 2000, writing (January 2003) in the New York Times, and saying that the gassing of the Kurds may well have been an accident of war (“collateral damage”) rather than Saddam having “gassed his own people”. He also claims that the gas that killed them, a blood agent, was only held by Iran in that period.

He says that the Defense Intelligence Agency wrote a classified report to that effect at the time, and that the facts were long in the public domain, but were rarely mentioned afterwards.

Richard Robinson,

Re the Tragedy of The Commons,

“It has been shown that increased educational and economic opportunities for women correlates well with reduced birthrates”

There is also a great deal of historical evidence, that the supposed issue of the Tragedy of The Commons, never actually happenned with small stable populations, and that the commons were not misused to the point of destruction.

At the time, the overiding issues controlling population were not wars, but disease and natural climate change.

And the theory that the Tragedy of The Commons was a serious issue, was used for completely inappropriate privatisation, which resulted in the misuse of the commons by a selfish controlling elite, that effectively enslaved and starved the common man.

Take a look at Kerala for a modern example of a sustainable society. A place where you may expect there to be a continued exponential population growth, but which has now become stable.

Or for that matter, the almost complete opposite of Kerala – virtually any developed Western Nation, where the indigenous birthrate in places like Germany and Italy is as low as 1.3 (2.1 required to sustain population levels)

And there are also other highly significant issues with regards to technology and resources that people are completely ignorant of.

For example, I realise that most people here will not believe this, but the evidence that oil is a fossil fuel was discredited in Russia around 1950. Also all that waste in all those land fill sites will be an incredibly valuable future resource.

Sure as a human race, we need to stop over-breeding, but the way to do that is to stop killing people, and start educating them and allow them to feel safe and secure in their own land under their own control.

Whilst teacher always thinks he knows best, teacher is in fact and idiot.

If you can do it, do it. If you can’t teach it.

Tony

I think I’ve conflated the remarks Stephen Pelletiere made to Phillip Adams, in an interview in Australia, with the NYT article, but no matter. The NYT article is linked.

dreoilin,

Whilst I read that version of events several years ago – before the Iraq War started – “the gas that killed them, was only held by Iran in that period”, I have more recently read that it was actually a British company that Thatcher knew and allowed to supply the gas to Iraq, completely breaking all international law in force at the time. I think it was posted somewhere in the depths of the education forum.

Of course neither version of events maybe true, but the stuff written by English historians is often more convincing than that which come from the CIA.

Tony

Tony,

We’ll probably never know the full truth about Halabja, but I’d say that there is at least some doubt over Saddam’s guilt on that occasion. And it’s a case that was heavily touted in the United States as one reason for removing Saddam.

Pelletiere also says:

“a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that could change …”

and he then says

“Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.

“Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”

Not to say that gassing civilians (or dropping a Hellfire [tm] missile from an unmanned drone, for that matter) is in any way excusable, but was it any less objectionable when the great Winston Churchill did exactly the same? Times change, and all that, and what was once fine and dandy (see Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam) is not so good in these more enlightened times.

So shouldn’t we now be removing all the portraits and statues of Churchill, for what he did in gassing Kurds and Iraqis?

tony_opmoc

What was the name of ‘the British company that Thatcher knew and allowed to supply the gas to Iraq?’

glenn,

I seem to recall, that Churchill acknowledged his evils, at around the time that he became MP for Oldham and swung between the Conservatives and Liberals, and also in an attempt to seek forgiveness, volunteered for the front line of the trenches in WWI a position that my Grandfather actually took and amazingly survived as an Officer and a Gentleman.

However George Dutton’s point about him pissing off to the Carribean with all the Kings Gold, if we had actually lost WWII may well be correct.

But he didn’t piss off did he.

I’m not sure my Grandfather didn’t though, after seeing the 1,000,000th soldier die in the trenches, he probably thought that this is not much fun.

All the young men from Accrington, Lancashire were wiped out – not one survivor.

Tony

Nice to see my silly little comment did manage to help showcase the full deranged glory of the nutters and conspiraloons that inhabit this website. I had a feeling it might.

and that’s why you’re here, alan, is it.

To highlight the trolls.

Ruth,

I think I read it on the education forum last week, in an almost totally unrelated thread.

I briefly tried to search it, but I think you need to be a registered user to search.

http://www.educationforum.co.uk/

You could try registering and searching there. I maybe mistaken, but I don’t think the name of the company was mentioned, but there is loads of really interesting historical stuff there that is so well buried and so well described that it may in fact be true.

I think it was in here somewhere

educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=1eb830586d2cf925d07fac2be50678a1&showforum=209

Or it may have been linked from there

Tony

Alan: Do you think you might have added something positive to the world, had you not chosen instead to spend your life drawing out negativity?

“There is also a great deal of historical evidence, that the supposed issue of the Tragedy of The Commons, never actually happenned with small stable populations, and that the commons were not misused to the point of destruction.”

I daresay. My point was, perhaps that’s what’s happening here ?

Craig,

You said:-

“But increasingly angrysoba, Larry from St Louis, and alan campbell are not putting any rational argument about the whole string of vital, evidential posts on Iraq that prompted their appearance. Instead they seek to provoke commenters into discussing, 9/11, and attempt to provoke anti-semitic commenters to inhabit the blog.”

Larry from St. Louis, did set out to bait me. He wanted to drag me at one point down the 9/11 conspiracy theory road. I set out my views and posted as I best saw an issue in question.

I believe that you have called the shot.

In a manner of speaking(posting – so to speak) – intelligence will be met by “counter-intelligence” ( if you get my meaning).

Larry, keep posting – if you must – but keep it on topic. Fair comment,and, fair approach.

Courtenay

Richard Robinson,

I did immediately understand that your point was about the population of this bulletin board.

I did a little test about 10 years ago by writing and posting a bit of code on what seemed a busy bulletin board.

The results amazed me.

Whilst my code may have been a bit flaky, and I only tried it for about an hour, it indicated there were over 100 times more lurkers than posters.

On some American forums, the raw statistics indicate in a typical day they may get around 100,000 unique visitors reading the contents of the views of around 100 contributors, which would indicate a ratio of around 1000 times more lurkers than posters.

I guess people watch too much television and text and tweet too much, that they have nothing to say that can’t be said in one sentence.

Maybe we are regressing to grunt mode.

Who reads books?

Tony

“Angry…” you too – you tried to make me out as one of the looneys as well mate. But, not to worry, altought I am not one – make take an operative to try and make me one – 9/11 …huh. NO! – keep it on topic – Craig has called your shot.

“I can understand the anger at the rabble rousers, but don’t be so down on 9/11 truthers – I still haven’t seen a worthwhile rebuttal to the 1000 named, professional architects and engineers that don’t buy the official story…”

Here you are…

http://ae911truth.info/tiki-index.php

“”Angry…” you too – you tried to make me out as one of the looneys as well mate. But, not to worry, altought I am not one – make take an operative to try and make me one – 9/11 …huh. NO! – keep it on topic – Craig has called your shot.”

Not sure I understand that post. But, okay. I am quite willing to keep to the topic of threads. And the topic of this thread is ME!!!1!

tony_o – “Who reads books?”

I do.

I don’t think I see your point. More people read than come out and post anything ? yes, I’m sure they do. Bound to be that way, unless/until the spambots swamp us.

Angrysoba, exactly – I, just as you, was the topic of this thread. And then the thread veered off into ___________, _____________ and ___________.

Operation Hang Back has been a resounding success!

‘Steelback at January 27, 2010 8:02 PM’

I find your comments about Vronsky bordering on offensive. Have you declared your life history and given references before posting on here?

As for Vronsky, I can vouch he is firstly a gentleman (not many of those to the pound these days), a trustworthy individual and reliable.

He occasionally contributes guest posts to my blog and all are most welcome by my readers.

“Angrysoba, exactly – I, just as you, was the topic of this thread.”

It’s bizarre that we’re tarred as “pro-Iraq war bloogers”.

I’ve barely written on the Iraq Inquiry threads except to point commenters to where they can watch it live.

I think this is where the conspiratorial thinking comes in, “They must be pro-Iraq War agents provocateurs because they don’t talk about it. Unlike Eddie, who does.”

I don’t think such paranoia is healthy.

Subrosa, Steelback (along with Apostate and tungsten – who may be the same person) is a nasty racist with a Jew-fixation. His comments aren’t bordering offensive, they are highly offensive.

It seems to me Craig is really denouncing the wrong people, but then I would say that.

There’s gotta be a clever Latin phrase for “Deleting some comments implies some tacit approval for other comments that are not deleted.”

I read books too.

Around 20 a year

I learn far more from reading books than I do from reading stuff posted on the internet, but what motivates me to buy and read a book is almost always a result of reading someone’s point of view on the internet that I thought was totally new and interesting and he or she recommended a book.

Sometimes, I think the book I have bought is not well written, and the contents are inaccurate and reflect a prejudiced personal view, but even in such books I usually find something interesting

And if I read a book that is exceedingly convincing of one particular point of view, I may buy a book that promotes the total opposite point of view.

I am not a scientist, cos I thought there was probably not sufficient money in it to discover the world as it really is doing totally unrelated things, but I was trained in science and maths, and would recommend it to everyone.

Which reminds me of Physics Professor Howard C. Hayden

Who said something like

Politicians will spend billions of dollars trying to fix the world, and will do almost anything except learn even basic science

Do a Degree in Pure Physics and Maths instead

Tony

Larry,

When I first started Flying at The Derby & Lancs Gliding Club in Great Hucklow, Derbyshire, England in 1976 there was a kid about the same age as me flying a little white glider at around 130mph along the ridge about 20 feet above it in a really fierce gale that was providing enormous lift. It was like he was flying a Spitfire for fun

I thought fuck, that looks really cool. I want to do that, and so I did, eventually.

However Rich American Lawyers Have Now Outdone Us British 34 years later, and I see you are All Now Doing Base Jumping

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttz5oPpF1Js

Is that you Larry?

I’m Impressed.

Tony

I’d prefer more Craig and on-topic commentary only.

Like Mr Dick who had trouble with the head of Charles I getting into everything he wrote, many comments have nothing to do with the subject matter, but return to personal obsessions.

Barbara,

You don’t have to read what anyone else writes.

Why are you in fact reading this blog at 4:54 AM?

What is the reason?

Can’t you sleep?

If you are in the UK, couldn’t you have had another hours sleep, before you get dressed and have a cup of coffee and maybe a bit of breakfast, before you run to the bus stop to go to the tube or train station to get you to work in Central London?

Have you ever asked why you are living the life that you live?

How on Earth do you do it?

I couldn’t stand it for more than a few weeks a year that due to my job and the training courses I had to go on, I had to submit to the humiliation of being crushed into a mobile tin can that was incredibly hot and sweaty in summer.

Why not give it up and take up art instead?

Tony

Any chance of anrgysoba, Larry, Eddie, Gordon or Barbara coming up with one quote between them to back up the accusations that I have had levelled at me. No, didn’t think so.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Tony, you’ll find that when a blog is targeted it is usually 24 hours a day. I know this from experience.

It’s lunchtime here. I live in Manila, the Philippines, as I have mentioned before.

Do try to keep up.

I’m a designer and have my best ideas doodling on the internet.

What’s your excuse?

Re: when a blog is targeted it is usually 24 hours a day. I know this from experience (Jaded)

_______________________________________

Thanks for illustrating my observations about personal obsessions.

No plot. No “targetting”. Just a great big world out there where people live in different time zones.

People can disagree with you without being part of any conspiracy, you know.

You’ve been punked.

BWA hahahah.

Barbara,

Jaded had some difficulty with this in the past, noting that I was sometimes posting at 3:00 in the morning or various times in the middle of the night. He didn’t seem to grasp the idea of timezones then either, so it might be cruel of us to keep trying his little mind.

Whatever you say. I reiterate:

‘Any chance of anrgysoba, Larry, Eddie, Gordon or Barbara coming up with one quote between them to back up the accusations that I have had levelled at me. No, didn’t think so.

Thanks for the confirmation. ’

Not one single quote. Just as I stated…

Thanks for the character reference subrosa, but I wasn’t putting myself forward as a moderator anyway. Craig doesn’t know me and I don’t know him (other than through this blog). I was merely pointing out that with a team of moderators, say five or six people whose judgment he trusts, the work thus shared is not onerous.

I was also concerned at his remark that he did not read all comments – this rather leaves him vulnerable to legal action as he would be held responsible for material on his blog even if it is not of his authorship – the Glasgow Herald got done in this way a few years ago.

My modding is on another blog (non-political) and it’s the system where readers can report a post if they think it in some way inappropriate. I don’t know how many moderators there are in total, but I see an average of one complaint per week.

@Larry, angrysoba: Just for reference then, did you you support the Iraq War in March 2003? Dd you think that was a good idea at the time?

I think that moderating a blog like this might be, or could become, more onerous than a “non-political” site (noting that mileages can vary widely, of course).

It would require constant attention – the frequency with which a moderator checks for new posts would be, on average, the timelag people experience till they see their post come up, so the conversation would suffer if the moderator took a couple of hours off.

Someone in Craig’s position, travelling to places where he can’t get a connection for much longer periods, couldn’t possibly do that. It would need a team, definitely, on the case 24/7

Whatever peoples’ motivations for the behaviours that might make moderation desirable (if it is. I express no opinion here), wouldn’t the moderator(s) promptly receive all the same stuff ? The howling about free speech and censorship, the personal abuse ? Which they could delete, of course, but.

Would the moderators be people who have commented here, and have taken Positions on things ? Imagine the fun to be had with suggestions of less-than-impartiality.

Can of worms. Not to say it couldn’t be done, just that it wouldn’t necessarily be trivial.

A user comment rating system would help to remove the pointless rantings of the trolls and idiots.

Another simple to do fix would be to post the Name of the poster at the start so that when a troll is spotted you can move on down the page without having to read all the text. Some on here tony O for example do seem to go on a bit and some of us have limited time to go through the tedious outpourings of their minds. Could the post be limited to say 500 characters to keep the content relevant and sharp?

I understand more or less nothing in the cooment format can be changed because of the extremely creaky ancient Movable Type platform this blog rests on.

Craig -

Ever looked into using this for your blogging platform?

{wordpress.org}

I have setup a WordPress blog for work, easy to install and maintain. Best of all, there are many many free plugins that add almost any functionality you can think of.

“@Larry, angrysoba: Just for reference then, did you you support the Iraq War in March 2003?”

In March 2003, I was in Cambodia. It was St. Patrick’s Day when Bush, Blair and the then prime minister of Spain announced from the Azores that they were going to war.

I was not in favour, no.

My view has shifted one way or the other at different times. It initially seemed to have been a complete success and everyone in Iraq seemed to be happy about it. I never cared much for the WMD argument but I did have a big softspot for the humanitarian intervention argument and the ridding of Saddam Hussein. It seemed to me that I had been completely wrong and that the war had been justified after all.

Then it all went horribly wrong…

I don’t hold to the idea that the US and the UK went to Iraq to conduct a massacre but a massacre is what they definitely, unwittingly unleashed. The main problem had been sectarian conflict and around the time of the worst of it I supported the UK and the US remaining in Iraq.

Why? Because I genuinely believed that the conflict would have been worse without them there.

I realize this isn’t a popular belief but that’s what I think.

By the way, I have read Patrick Cockburn’s “The Occupation” on this subject and think the book is excellent. I definitely recommend it.

“Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Rajiv Chandresekaran is also good.

Cheers soba. I wasn’t in favour either, although it did seem for a brief spell like it might work okay, in the end. A bit like that moment in that old cartoon where the coyote runs off the side of the cliff and remains briefly suspended in mid-air, as long as his legs are pedalling and he doesn’t look down.

Although your views might have shifted, from what you’ve said I would assume that at present you believe it would have been better had the war not taken place? That would be my view.

Have read Imperial Life in the Emerald City, might have to read it again. Seem to remember it was mostly colour. Interesting though. Will check out The Occupation.

@Larry: Larry, do you have any views on the Iraq War at all?

Jaded:

‘Any chance of anrgysoba, Larry, Eddie, Gordon or Barbara coming up with one quote between them to back up the accusations that I have had levelled at me. No, didn’t think so.

Thanks for the confirmation. ’

Actually finding quotes of mine to back up all of your vile accusations is a bit like finding WMD in Iraq eh? Not going to well I take it. Kepp looking. Surely, there must be one somewhere! There simply must be! Never mind lads…

Agents Provacateur? They’re everywhere! Btw, does anyone know where the SS office is in Glasgow?

Craig, just to sum up if I may. They are taking you for a mug and having a good laugh at your expense. I’m glad to see you have wised up a bit and am amazed you didn’t see it sooner. Now you just need to lose the ‘amazing amount of time on their hands’ and ‘fervent attachment to the ‘War On Terror” spiel and we might actually be getting soemwhere! Agent Provocateurs don’t fit into those categories either, so it sort of brings the title of your own thread into question if you think that. Just mull it over more and you will surely see.

Jaded -

Is there anything that I could say to allay your hyperparanoia? I doubt it.

Just because I think you are a rude and stupid punk doesn’t mean I am in any Zionist or Bilderberg or lizard conspiracy.

I just don’t like you. I think you are a bit of a self-absorbed nutter, impatient that others do not see the world as you do.

There – put that “vile accusation” in your pipe.

And by the way, I am not your “son”, not am I a “lad”.

Get a grip!

Jaded:

‘Actually finding quotes of mine to back up all of your vile accusations is a bit like finding WMD in Iraq eh? Not going to well I take it. Kepp looking. Surely, there must be one somewhere! There simply must be! Never mind lads…’

Yup, I was indeed right…

Jaded, I was wasn’t being funny and certainly was not mocking Craig’s post. My exclamation marks were those impelling wakefulness. My question about the SS (MI5) in Glasgow was a genuine one, which no-one yet has answered.

I never said otherwise Suhayl.

Thanks, Jaded.