Kompromat: it sounds like a 1970s make of vaccum-cleaner. Here goes!

‘Kompromat’, it sucks up to power wherever and whenever any threats to power emerge and it kills them (or their reputations), stone-dead. 100% effective. Don’t go for any less. Kompromat cleans your house like it’s never been cleaned before. Kompromat makes you strong. Kompromat: 99% of spy companies use it. Kompromat: buy it, use it. It’ll never let you down. Kompromat.

Hidden Intelligence Operation Behind the Wikileaks Release of “Secret” Documents?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=20580&context=va\

+

false charges to make it look as if he’s being smeared by the CIA. I think so.

‘Telling the truth is hazardous in todays Western polotical system” You may be right Craig. However here in Oz one whistleblower, Andrew Wilkie, along with 3 other independents and a ‘green’ will help govern this country. Et voila. I’m lovin it!

Here’s a quote from Atlas Shrugged:

“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris.”We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against. We’re after power and we mean it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted ?” and you create a nation of law-breakers ?” and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”

Great post

Is this woman going to be charged with making a false report and why not reveal her name???

Her links would make a good wikileaks report!

Craig – do you know her name?

Once they smear it is very difficult to remove that suspicion from the minds of the brainwashed. With comments like “well they would not have made those accusations if not true” Like you say your experience should be cleared and the FCO should make a public statement on your case. Its so easy to smear and dead difficult to clear. In a world were we have bent police, councils, in fact everything to control you is bent. Take the Scottish Parliament for example. Over a comparative period look at the number of new laws and regulation in comparision with the same at Westminster relating to Scotland and you will see these monkeys have nothing to do but create more legislation, more rules. The police make the law up as they go along and there is no one to enforce it. The ombudsmen protect the guilty and councils act outwith the law to which is it a waste of time reporting it to anyone as that complaint will get no where. More cops + more regulation = dictatorship. Maybe Anne Moffat was right about Salmond.

The Conservative are worse than the Labour party, they all stink

MikeD – the entire world knows her name by now. Anna Ardin.

One thing to clarify though: it’s not at all clear that she worked at the Swedish Embassy in DC. She certainly was a Foreign Office intern/junior functionary, but the DC appointment may be the result of a bad translation.

Craig – you will not be surprised to hear that a former colleague (Andrew Wilkie, formerly of Australia’s Office of National Assessments) was also the subject of an attempted kompromat by the apparatchiki of the Australian government when he came out against the Iraq war. Funnily enough, he is about to be elected to a seat in Parliament (as an independent) and will play a HUGE role in the balance of power, given that the new government will be a minority government.

Cheerio

GT

(and yes – of COURSE I have also been the target of smears… no decent chap living hasn’t).

You are correct in your analysis of the swedish legal concept “ofredande” which basicly covers anything unpleasant or annoying that you can do to another person without harming or threatening them.

The translation “harassment” may not be completely right, intstead the term is used as kind of a last resort. There will be need of evidence for this to to trial however and I seriously doubt that this is the case here.

The attacks on Julian Assange are a disgrace. Keep up the excellent work Wikileaks!!I will this weekend make a financial donation for this great work. We only want the truth.

hm and a page (a smaller medium, working with journalists who in fact do own press passports for a longer time and write for press newspapers) – that this page got a hint about an interesting time jump re the operation of the publication itself. from expresen to a commentator at abc.

http://tinyurl.com/33hfcyj

comments to this?

My fear is that, if they haven’t already, security services will start to use Wikileaks as a conduit for spreading disinformation, under the guise of being from genuine whistleblowers.

The gradual reduction of charges – I wonder if this helps to protect the accuser from being charged with false accusation.

wikileaks is part of the CIA..think about it. Assange would have been killed by now if he was genuine

“Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.”

Although I struggle to think of a time or political system under which it was substantially less hazardous.

Powerful politicians and the truth have always had an uneasy coexistence. Here’s hoping for the truth to get more respect in the era of the internet, anyway…

jungle,

yes, I fear you are right

Ruth,

yr link is not quite right – here it is:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=20580&context=va

Thanks

Perhaps. But try telling the truth outside the “Western political system”.

This is a historic battle between the forces of light and darkness. The dark side revels in deception, chaos, cruelty, corruption, greed,lawlessness, & war.

The other side abhors all that, and stands for truth and justice.

Finally in the history of this weary earth, the time for war has past. Humanity is rousing from a deep sleep. Some very good & courageous people are standing up for what is right. The truth will set us free (from all the horrors caused by corrupt leadership).

All sane people who care about the human family, should do whatever they can to help wikileaks. If they get enough support, corrupt leaders everywhere will have to accept that there is no place to hide dirty dark secrets concerning how they’ve screwed the people.

The corrupt ones will be replaced by competent leaders, and together we’ll build a new world on the principles of justice & peace. That is much more than just a pipe dream. It’s how it’s going to be.

Ruth,

We remember David Cameron blaming Pakistan for helping the Taliban.

Further to this the BBC have said today that the Taliban will kill aid workers in Pakistan.

Hamid Gul former ISI views in 2001 still hold true today:

veteranstoday.com/2010/07/28/arnaud-de-borchgrave-2001-interview-with-hamid-gul-former-isi-chief/

In my opinion America ‘helped’ the ‘leaked’ documents reach Wikileaks as part of their ‘psywar’ to oust Gul’s military forces that are fully aware of the strength of deterrent of Pakistan’s nukes.

It is these nukes that have delayed the strike on Iran. Washington is not 100% sure whether Pakistan would not retaliate after a strike on the cradle of Islam, especially if thousands of Muslims are murdered.

I have said before and say again, America is searching for Pakistan’s nukes now aided by the terrible floods affecting a quarter of this impoverished country; it HAS to disrupt/dismantle them BEFORE Iran is crushed.

Elite forces are left in Iraq and special forces are close to the Iran/Pakistan borders, while US financed PKK or PJAK groups attempt false-flag operations necessary to arrogate the pysops needed for another American take-over.

Why?

Western democracy is failing, we are bankrupt and power has moved East; the so called ‘truth’ movement is gaining strength; time is running out; past atrocities can be seen through the mist of deception; WWIV is imminent or we succumb to a new era of worshipping our existence instead of Hollywood idols.

Was there anything in this leak that was previously unknown to the public?

The fact that the IRA had been receiving money from wealthy Irish-Americans has been well-known for a long time.

Wikileaks has all the hallmarks of counter-intelligence. By feeding the public with these ‘leaks’ it is diverting time and attention away from even more sinister goings on.

Not until I see some convictions will I believe that Wikileaks is the real deal.

If I had confidential information that I wanted to be made public, the last place I would send it would be to wikileaks.

Craig Murray, your delusions of grandeur continue to amaze me.

Also, pretty desperate of you to bring up Karpinski and Ritter. They seemed to be themselves part of the conspiracies against them, as they gave rise to such conduct that resulted in the accusations.

Is Ritter suggesting that there’s a secret agent conspiracy against him? When he is soon convicted by a jury, will you then say that the jury was tainted by the conspiracy?

Larry,

I know them both – I suspect unlike you. Janis Karpinski I know really quite well. I find the allegations completely incredible. If you think that Brigadier Janis Krpinski, the most senior woman in the US Army, decided yo go shoplifting while she was revealing that Donald Rumsfeld ordered the torture at Abu Ghraib, you are extraordniarily gullible.

From Sweden.

This is fore dead frets against Lars Vilks

If muslims kill Sweden artists, is it self defense to kill muslims?

Help to cure muslim children from islam and send this info to there internet HOME page.

“prophet” mohammed and islam is haram.

When “prophet” mohammed was 50 year old he marry Aisha a 6 year old child, when Aisha was 9 year old “prophet” mohammed rape Aisha so he was a fucking pedophile and a slave owner so fuck him.

Girls read quran sura bina 60.

Watch and read mohammed T-shirt art from Sweden at,

http://www.mohammedt-shirt.com

Not mine ip nr

Don

Kompromat ?” Nothing new. Julian Assange will have to put up with this type of smear for the rest of his life. And he will have many more smears, coming from all angles. There was an excellent article by Dean Baker in The Huffington Post, the gist of which is that the elected politicians in the USA no longer represent those who elected them, and I have commented that it is much the same in the UK and Canada.

http://tinyurl.com/2en9jjg

So it is not surprising that our elites turn to the intelligence services, and that this results in Kompromat. Nothing new, It is just part of what used to be called “The Big Lie” technique and has been in operation for centuries. What is new is the extent to which it is being applied in the western world, as we lose our democracy.

As Craig says “being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect” I was originally slandered by the Grosvenor Guttersnipes in Vancouver 20 years ago and though everybody is in total denial these old smears still affect me. As one top headhunter told me ?” I’m 95% sure you are telling the truth; but how could I take the risk of recommending you to a client unless I was 100% sure. So Craig you have to fight back all the time, because you have no other choice.

Roderick Russell

ghuyjk, you are something even less credible than a routine spambot, and that is a shallow, silly and illiterate spambot.

Buy tee-shirt, get dictionary, learn dictionary, become intelligent, do deal with tee-shirt company, eat prophets, eat prophets, make big profits! Hey!

Pandemic, so, if Bradley Manning is sentenced to 500 years in prison, then you will believe the the leaks are genuine? But the information in the leaks will be the same, regardless of whether or not Manning gets convicted. So where’s the logic?

John McNeil, I love what you’re saying and wish it were true. Let’s work for it, right. But I’m not going to hold my breath! Nonetheless, on a lighter note, I do wish I could some of whatever it is you’re on (!)

cid, not necessarily – and it might still happen (though I hope not). Sometimes – usually, in fact – it is more effective to damage someone’s credibility. Unless, it seems, they work as a microbiologist.

Paranoia. You are not Ritter. To start with.

No one seems able to refute the fact that Assange failed to read all the documents passed to him and as a result has put at risk the lives of many Afghans.

Suhayl Saadi,

John McNeil,

it seems to me that John McNeil could be right. Humanity seems to be approaching a crisis point, a convergence of many influences. Technology enables remote controlled war and widespread, choreographed propaganda, but simultaneously liberates information and communication, and enables global grass-roots organisation. Populations grow, overlap and intermingle, bringing traditional beliefs into both conflict and synthesis. Technology (again) at once threatens catastrophic climate change and resource depletion, but also promises the means to avoid them. The disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, neurology, psychology, etc, have all expanded to the point where they begin to merge at their boundaries; for the first time in Human history we are within reach of knowing just what and who we really are. We seem to be on the verge of being able to either wipe ourselves out as a species, or create the sort of world we really want to live in.

Maybe it has seemed like this at all points in Human history, but I suspect that something unprecedented is happening, a ‘make or break’ point is being approached…

Re: John McNeil,

it’s not that Human nature is changing, it’s that Human ability is growing. The ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ are both being enabled by the coalescence of the sciences and technology.

I think that ‘good’ will triumph, because the survivalist motivations of greed and the search for power are being made obsolete by the ability to produce abundance. But it is looking like a closely run race, and many will suffer before some kind of ‘New Order’ is established.

Cid,

I think that killing Assange would not serve their purposes – Wikileaks is an organisation, and there are others, such as Cryptome. And Wikileaks has published its operational methods – killing Assange would not destroy the knowledge of how to do what Wikileaks does.

Plus there is that encrypted ‘insurance’ file. If it were me, I’d post an encrypted file of information that the Powers That Be would absolutely NOT want released. And I’d set up some web servers that would publish the decryption key automatically if they failed to receive my secret ‘reset’ code say, once every 24 hours. The Powers That Be would then have a very strong incentive to keep me alive, free, and with unrestricted access to the Internet.

The truth is that 9/11 was a brilliant terror op. run by Osama bin Laden from a cave in Afghanistan (when he was not undergoing life-saving dialysis treatment at a Pak military hospital in Rawalpindi or at the American Hospital in Dubai — a location he found convenient for negotiations with the CIA).

The operation was carried out by 19 Muslims who gladly gave up their self-indulgent life of drugs, alcohol and American strippers to provide the United States the justification it sought for waging war on Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan.

The 19 highjackers undertook the operation — which involved flying airliners in aerobatic maneuvers at close to the speed of sound — despite their bare competence to fly a two-seat Piper Cub.

To conceal this crime, Osama bin Laden, now directing the war against the United States in Afghanistan, cleverly created the 9/11 Truth movement and, by payment of extravagant bribes, persuaded important scientists, scholars, and military figures to endorse the ridiculous “inside job” account of 9/11.

A good example of the lies of these vicious traitors is provided by Major General Albert Stubblebine, formerly responsible for all U.S. Army strategic intelligence — signals, photo, counter, and human — for the entire world?

Here’s what Major General Albert Stubblebine (Retd.) has to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daNr_TrBw6E

Julian Assange, with Craig Murray is among the few with the courage to fight Major General Stubblebine (U.S. Army, Ret’d.) and the rest of Osama’s army of lying 9/11 Truthers.

John NcNeil, I too love what you’re saying and I’ve been thinking the same thing too. Right on!

Come to think of it, this could be what happened to that rape charge. Some underling thought “I can fix that Assange good – I’ll get him charged with rape”! More knowledgeable spooks knew what would happen if Assange were locked up for too long, and promptly got the charges withdrawn.

Uww!. What a technique!..

This is just in general response to some of the previous comments. I also agree that a snowball has started rolling down a big hill. We all need to keeping speaking out online and continue to help it gather momentum. Raise these issues with your friends, neighbours and at work. We need to be in a situation where those elected to government have no personal economic interests whatsoever; where many more people actively engage in the political process; and where secret societies and spooks don’t call the shots. The senior spooks really piss me off because they are there to ‘advise’, not ‘dictate’. The only way we are going to get anywhere is by taking power peacefully through high calibre, independent candidates. When the awareness is widespread enough people will realise this is the only way real change will happen. It has to be root and branch. Once decent, honest people are in government we can figure out the best way forward. It doesn’t matter how bad things are or how long it will take. Of course, before then all the truth must come out. However horrid…

To be clear, I know politics isn’t easy and hard choices have to be made. However, when the corruption really takes hold those in command become drunk on their power. They start to see themselves as the state, become unable to make decent decisions, develop a curious ability to self-justify (Tony Bliar) and everything just gets steadily worse.

They will ‘desperately’ try to stop change happening as their illusion crumbles. I guess the most immediate danger is the internet becoming censored. That will be no easy task for them. :-0

Qark,

Thank you kindly for introducing me into this thread! Just in case you’re not aware – Richard Dawkins often features me in his speeches. Starting at 6:00:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba3tlR5tPRI

A character based on me was also featured in the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats.

It was of course Major General Albert Stubblebine III who taught George W Bush how to harness his powers and become a Jedi warrior after his father had said he was the chosen one. Predictably he was of course overcome by the liquidity of the dark side brought on by the mental anguish of constant whispers at night that spoke of confusion and death.

His seduction complete Bush would go on to command the Empire’s most powerful weapons that could be guided by the force of the dark side. Such weapons would completely demolish tall buildings and bring about great changes to benefit the Empire.

Bush would use torture to discover the hidden fortress containing the world’s most powerful weapons of mass destruction. Much later, in a complex game of strategy against a scheming criminal mastermind, Bush realised he had been lied to and commenced decimating large areas, wiping out a generation under the spell and eventually executing the mastermind in front of his foes.

The Rebels fought back until Bush was forced down the sacrificial well. Other Rebels would join the fight, attempting to reverse the evil deeds of the falling Bush only to realise the evil had precipitated and nothing dare penetrate the dark layer hiding the clear fluids of truth below.

Nothing until now…

Eddie, this really is a straw man argument. I would say that the USA-and-NATO has “put at risk the lives of many Afghans” already over the past 8 years; if we go back 30 years, we might say that the USA, USSR and others collectively have “put at risk the lives of many Afghans”.

In fact, the USA, NATO, the USSR and their various ‘pals’ have actually ended the lives of many Afghans, not to mention the lives of millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Chileans, [insert name of country]…

I would say that those who strive for transparency of information and an end to the corporate war economy are aiming, primarily, to put an end to policies which constantly and repeatedly have been proven to “put at risk the lives of many Afghans”.

Mark Golding: “It was of course Major General Albert Stubblebine III who taught George W Bush how to harness his powers and become a Jedi warrior…”

Goddamitt! Mark’s using the Chu Baka Defence!

As usual, the MO is to confuse everyone reading with weird and meaningless red herrings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xywqv1cDH8&feature=related

“The Rebels fought back until Bush was forced down the sacrificial well. Other Rebels would join the fight, attempting to reverse the evil deeds of the falling Bush only to realise the evil had precipitated and nothing dare penetrate the dark layer hiding the clear fluids of truth below. ”

Yeah! This is brilliant! George Bush was forced out of office by Twoofers!

Nothing to do with the fact that he was constitutionally ineligible from running for a third term!

stupiddrunk – ‘Yeah! This is brilliant! George Bush was forced out of office by Twoofers!

Nothing to do with the fact that he was constitutionally ineligible from running for a third term!’

He was constitutionally ineligible the moment he lied through his teeth while taking his oath for office. This may sound a bit hackneyed, but I think the guy’s bullshit would actually break a polygraph. He swore to uphold the constitution and not rip it up right? Ha ha ha.

Oh soba, what are we going to do with you? You’ll get traced in time when the murderers are rounded up. Off to the Scrubs for you, which you’ll enjoy probably. You can pretend to be important to lots of dumb inmates and try to influence the prison gossip.

“Oh soba, what are we going to do with you? You’ll get traced in time when the murderers are rounded up. Off to the Scrubs for you, which you’ll enjoy probably. You can pretend to be important to lots of dumb inmates and try to influence the prison gossip.”

Nice projection.

Good thing these impotent wannabe authoritarians will never get their grubby mits on the levers of power.

It would be the Khmer Rouge all over again.

“He was constitutionally ineligible the moment he lied through his teeth while taking his oath for office. This may sound a bit hackneyed, but I think the guy’s bullshit would actually break a polygraph. He swore to uphold the constitution and not rip it up right? Ha ha ha.”

I don’t like George Bush at all but what actually made him “constitutionally ineligible the moment he took his oath”?

Is this just more bullshit you’re making up because no one you know would ever bother telling you it’s garbage?

Well, strange as it may seem, it might have something to with having no intention of upholding the constituion. As he said his oath with a straight face you were happy eh soba? You will be traced you little stoat and you will go down. Get used to that idea…

“It would be the Khmer Rouge all over again.”

Everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition !

angrysober,

Not a ‘red herring’ it was an ‘Ignoratio elenchi’ understood by my generation to be a valid argument against the illogical fallacy of an ‘official’ explanation.

Wise-up!

“You will be traced you little stoat and you will go down. Get used to that idea…”

I’m not going anywhere.

And when you say I’ll be traced and I will go down. What does that mean? It sounds like the kind of thing some silly little teenager who has been watching too much Lethal Weapon would say.

“angrysober,

Not a ‘red herring’ it was an ‘Ignoratio elenchi’ understood by my generation to be a valid argument against the illogical fallacy of an ‘official’ explanation.

Wise-up!”

Hi Keiron!

You use the same idiosyncratic spelling of my name as your father does.

Say hi to him for me.

Cheers!

“Well, strange as it may seem, it might have something to with having no intention of upholding the constituion. … You will be traced you little stoat and you will go down”

Ever hear of the idea of free speech ? Freedom of belief ? etc.

To hell with witchhunts. If you’re going to attack Bush for not upholding “the constitution” (of the US, I presume ?) shouldn’t you show some intention of respecting it yourself ? Or is it just that you’d prefer to be tearing it up yourself ?

Not that the US constitution seems like the central issue, outside the US.

You are knowingly on the payroll of mass murderers soba and will get your comeuppance. Take that as a given. You are going somewhere and that somewhere is jail via a court. I trust all is clear for you now…

“You are knowingly on the payroll of mass murderers soba and will get your comeuppance. Take that as a given. You are going somewhere and that somewhere is jail via a court. I trust all is clear for you now…”

Whatever you say, you little Moonbat.

And what, may I ask, will the charge be against me?

And who, may I ask, is paying you?

No one is paying is me soba. The charge against you will be taking money to cynically spread propaganda for mass murderers. We will let you take a polygraph test next to George though. I’m sure you will pass the test with flying colours, not. Now go and slither back into your pit.

“No one is paying is me soba. The charge against you will be taking money to cynically spread propaganda for mass murderers. We will let you take a polygraph test next to George though. I’m sure you will pass the test with flying colours, not. Now go and slither back into your pit.”

Behold the paranoid mind! One that feverishly rehearses the time they will POLYGRAPH George Bush!

It’s cruel to laugh but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to.

Behold the evil mind! And you do have a heart of stone. Now go slither back into your pit.

Angrysober,

A mere student and researcher has revealed you and the whole ‘debunker’ movement as a sham. Attacking and trying to destroy your opponents cred in an obvious ‘modus operandi’ of belittling.

I have witnessed these attempts by you and others on great minds like Lee Hamilton, Kevin Ryan and Craig Murray.

The ‘debunkers’ are a dying breed, increasingly irrelevant and ignored by my generation. You guys are leaving your corruption for us kids to unravel – we will have to deal with the shame and loss of integrity because you are too blind to see a cover-up, too deaf to listen to wisdom and too daft to interpret greed.

Heh Craig Murray – have you yet noticed that 85% of the folks who follow your blog and believe in your “cause” are pathetic nutjobs?

Kieron, Lee Hamilton doesn’t believe a word of 911 truthy-truth, Kevin Ryan is a water-tester and Craig Murray thinks that, among other things, (i) the University of Michigan is full of religious students and (ii) I’m a secret agent man.

“Attacking and trying to destroy your opponents cred in an obvious ‘modus operandi’ of belittling.”

“Remember, when you point the finger at someone else, you have three pointing back at yourself”.

Re. George W. Bush (though I am somewhat reluctant to side-track over old ground), my understanding is that the 2000 Presidential Election recount was stopped by one of his pals in Florida, whatshername, and that in fact if the count had been allowed to continue, it would have become clear that he had lost and ought never have been sworn-in as President.

I know that Al Gore (yes, we need to remember about the sanctions on, and bombings of, Iraq during the Clinton-Gore years) ‘ought’ to have won handsomely and didn’t, and so ‘threw away’ the election (so to speak), but nonetheless, that corrupt, fraudulent election allowed the war dogs to have their day – their several years, in fact. It’s easy to launch war and a culture of systemic abuse and torture, black sites, etc.; it’s extremely difficult to stop/ reverse it. I’m thinking particularly of Iraq, of course, but more generally as well, because it is a global operation which continues apace. And so, millions have died. Whatshername-in-Florida has an awful lot to answer for. I’m sure she sleeps peacefully. Such amoral people do.

Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Larry and soba, operating through different IP addresses of course, were one and the same. They will rarely have 2 or more shills assigned to the same patch unless there are copious comments to deal with.

Kieron, please don’t be in any doubt whether these ‘debunkers’ would be here without an economic incentive. It’s full time work for them. I would wholeheartedly agree that they must have sick minds to boot.

No I don’t think so. Angrysoba is more literate than LfStL and Angry uses the term of endearment – Moonbat. LfStL calls us ‘silly gooses’

As usual Suhayl, you have it completely wrong. And you’ve had plenty of time to clarify the issue. If the recount had transpired in the counties in which the Democrats wanted it to transpire, then Al Gore would probably have squeaked by (and not won “handsomely”). But if the recount had occurred for ALL of the votes in Florida with the same standard being applied (that is, an impression of the voting card) being enough, then Bush would have squeaked by. If it makes it more palatable for you, just imagine all the Republican voters in Florida who were not able to figure out how to properly punch a hole into their ballot. The Gore campaign’s lead attorney, David Boies, later on concluded that if a full recount had occurred, Bush would have won.

But the U.S. Supreme Court cut short any recount (as ordered by the Florida Supreme Court), probably because a full recount would have lasted past the end of Bill Clinton’s second term, which seemed scary to them.

Nonetheless, I think they should have allowed the full recount to occur, and everyone should have recognized Clinton as the de facto interim President.

In any event, we’re still dealing with idiots like you who know nothing of the facts and think Al Gore actually won “handsomely” in Florida.

Richard Robinson,

Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

Larry, though I am reluctant to respond to you at all now, I shall in this instance.

I never said that Gore won “handsomely”; re-read the post, Larry. As usual, you didn’t read it properly. Quite plainly, what I inferred was that he ‘ought’ to have won handsomely (but ran a poor campaign) which resulted in a very close outcome.

Thank you for your infomation. There were very many controversial aspects of that election, including the problems with (mainly black) voters being turned away, etc. It is by no means as clear-cut as you posit. My view is that extensive electoral corruption at various levels aided Bush’s ‘election’ in 2000.

Do you agree with the killings and torture, the black sites and the debasement of the reputation of the USA internationally by the flouting of international laws and conventions and the deliberate waging of aggressive war? I think you do.

You have claimed, in previous posts, to disparage the rightwing in the USA, yet you do everything you can to express your support for their policies.

Remember your use of the word, “ragheads”, for which you were criticised by angrysoba? You issued to retraction or disclaimer, no apology for the use of that word.

I thought that you had been banned from this blog, buddy. So why do you keep popping-up on it?

Israel Shamir on the smearing of Julian Assange. Recommend.

http://www.counterpunch.org/shamir08272010.html

“If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ.”

I don’t follow. Murray spoke publicly, as a matter of conscience, of his personal experience as a diplomat, contrary to the rules or expectations under which he worked. That I would acknowledge as whistleblowing. But Assange is merely a website operator, about who’s motivation we know nothing.

In my view, that he has been charged with “molestation” sexual or otherwise has nothing to do with his credibility.

There seem to be as many ready to believe that the charges prove his integrity as believe the reverse.

What is of real interest is whether Assange has actually read and evaluated the thousands of documents he has released, and if so whether his evaluation is worth a damn. He’s said to be a “hacker”. What kind of background is that for a person claiming the ability to inform the public on the basis of tens of thousands of classified documents?

To the present, the effect of Assange’s release of the Afghanistan documents appears to have been to strengthen the argument for pursuing the war in Pakistan. So why are we supposed to believe that Assange is a good guy — unless you’re for extension of the war to nuclear-armed Pakistan, in which case Assange seems to be doing a great job.

Lord Denning was a very able and interesting English Judge. He made maverick moves in his judgments. One thing however struck me, was that when it came to issue of the interest of the state or the formula of “national security” he was very much a willing sheep on the Bench.

Julian is saying things that reveal the dirty underbelly of the state beast, and the state in the “national interest” wants to award him a Kompromat – but so far have only come up limp dick.

It goes with the turf Craig. When one sets out to do that which is right and in the interest of humanity, as distinct from professed “national interest” the power of the state will be used to discredit or pressure. If all else fails, then death – so sorry Diana.

REPLY TO ” Assange’s release of the Afghanistan documents appears to have been to strengthen the argument for pursuing the war in Pakistan. So why are we supposed to believe that Assange is a good guy — unless you’re for extension of the war to nuclear-armed Pakistan, in which case Assange seems to be doing a great job.”

ANSWER:If the disclosed documents are accurate and would not otherwise be within public domain, it is better to have an informed – rather than an uninformed public. Let the journalists interpret, the public know and the pepople use the information as best they can to keep their governments aligned to truth.

“If the disclosed documents are accurate and would not otherwise be within public domain, it is better to have an informed – rather than an uninformed public.”

But you make the error of assuming that the public will be informed by the documents. Why should we believe that?

First, selective release of real classified documents can give a totally false picture of reality.

Second, obviously the corporate media are not going to give the public a fair evaluation of millions of words of classified documents, for two reasons. One is that the corporate media have their own agenda and will process the released information to project whatever message they favor. The other is that the corporate media rely on journalists who are mostly ignoramuses (I mean, would you be proud to be a journalist working for, say, Poop Murdoch, or the New York Times — LOL), among whom are many assets controlled by the security services.

Courtenay Barnett,

Thank-you for your post which tells us that you find Lord Denning was at times influenced by others on matters of State.

Can you expand on your last sentence that mentions death as a last resort?

Since we’re on the subject of risk, what do people think about this poor chap found dead “in a sports bag in his bath” in London this week? Morbid speculation, perhaps.

I note that the security services are already pouring cold water on any suggestion of an assassination, as opposed to a (relatively, at least wrt aetiology) more mundane ‘criminal’ murder. That’s interesting, because how could they know that at this stage? This in itself suggests that there might be more to it.

One wonders too exactly what he was, or had been, working on. It’s an awful tragedy for his family and of course for the young man himself. A very dark world.

The guy in the bag in the bath? Same as David Kelly. Suicide.

Right, KingofWelshNoir, I know what you mean.

He too may have been Welsh (“had a Welsh accent” in one of the ‘papers).

And then there’s the Russian connection. The ‘phone cards. The nothing for two weeks. If you didn’t turn-up at work for two weeks (and were not on holiday), someone surely would go bang on your door, no? Contact family, no? Report you as a missing person, no? This was not some down-and-out. This was en employee, reportedly, of GCHQ/ SIS. If a Police Officer – an ordinary PC – say, didn’t turn-up at work for two weeks, does one imagine for one moment that his/ her police colleagues would not become just a little worried?

The top-class flat in a top-notch area. Do all SIS employees get that sort of accomodation? I think not.

There is quite a lot which seems very suspicious here (understatement). A decision was made to inform the media. So, what is going on?

KingofWelshNoir, you’re a thriller writer. ‘Found in a bag’, cause of death unknown says Home Office pathologist. Russian Mafia hit…? Is that what is being gently suggested by the repeated ‘Rodina’ references? Virgin Islands.

Wait for the onset of lurid tales of his private life – as was suggested earlier in relation to (albeit ante-mortem) kompromat, a sure sign, if it begins, of a deliberate campaign of disinformation, though the reason would remain elusive.

Oh, I see it’s already begun – I am behind the curve on this, aren’t I?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306711/Parents-murdered-British-spy-fear-government-gay-smear-campaign-discredit-son.html

Call me cyncial, but for me, this kind of thing is a red flag which suggests some form of complicity – either in the death itself or in the aftermath.

Hi Suhayl

I have no idea what it’s all about but I agree it does sound like something from a thriller. And, like you, when I saw his address I immediately wondered about his salary. In fact I was tempted to apply for a job – but they told me, ‘No chance, our files say you are a troofer and you post on Craig Murray’s blog, go away you subversive.’

Shame.

Mail on Sunday – MI5, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones and Ukrainian billionaire anonymous allegations and denials……..

The two men at the centre of the controversy surrounding the Baroness are Ukrainian oligarch Dimitry Firtash and Russian tycoon Mikhail Chernoy……

http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2010/08/15/mail-on-sunday—mi5-baroness-pauline-neville-jones-and-ukrainian-billionaire-an.html

Eye popping and mind blowing stuff.

Photos of Shetler-Jones and Firtash

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-took-donations-from-briton-linked-to-ukrainian-billionaire-973381.html?action=Popup&gallery=no

What a lot of murk. See that Chilcot shared the same platform as N-J in Washington. Enough said.

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2010/08/top-jewish-mafia-boss-neville-jones.html

Can’t really see the inclusion of Madeleine McCann here though.

Wow, somebody, the two businessmen to whom you have alluded look, ahm, robust, shall we say, like archetypal screen antagonists. Except these guys are for real. Scary.

I see also that there have been allegations with respect to dealings with Milosevic when he was boss of Serbia. Interesting that the SS are reported to have blocked Neville-Jones’s appointment to the most senior security position, though she still got the domestic sec. ministry of course. A morass, of course – what else would one expect?

Interesting, too, that many of the Russian (and Ukrainian) ‘oligarchs’ seem to have Israeli passports. I’ve heard that Israel has become quite a node for organised crime – and much more.

Suhayl: I thought Kompromat was a washing machine. It uses Moony washing powder, so one brain wash later you have a fellow with head shaved and dressed in a white robe with a symbol of the Exalted Leader on it saying ‘I believe that Sin Bin Moony is supernatural, and I want to give him all my money.’

As for the GCHQ employee found murdered in his flat, that is wonderful for conspiracists. Just imagine how many yarns you could spin with that one. Here’s my guess: he gambled, was up to his skull in debt, and couldn’t pay up. The gang to whom he owed a large sum decided to make an example of him.

PS. The theory of gambling is only a guess. He might have been a paragon of virtue, murdered by dastardly terrorists or enemy agents.

It is indeed a washing-machine, Abe!

Thbe thing is, one doesn’t actually haver to make anything up – this death is so bizarre, it almost outdoes fiction (as KingofWelshNoir implied – and he should know!). Actually, in my experience, taling not just about thrillers, etc. but about fiction in general, you’ll write something and think, oh I’ve gone too far, and then you’ll read about some real happening and relaise that the ‘real’ world in which we live is further-out, more extreme, the bad things worse, than any fiction or drama could portray.

Whether or not he was a paragon of virtue, I doubt very much that this was seomthing as simple as gambling debts.

REPLY TO QARK AND GOLDING:-

TO QARK:- “If the disclosed documents are accurate and would not otherwise be within public domain, it is better to have an informed – rather than an uninformed public.”

But you make the error of assuming that the public will be informed by the documents. Why should we believe that?

REPLY: I stick to my point. Indeed, as you suggest, there can be more subtle manipulative information elements that are being utilised. So, is it better to have more information that one can grapple with – or less?

TO GOLDING: Having one house burning down threat, and two death threats by drowing – what more can I say? I am still alive until the powers that be take my life.

come on people

there are more of us then there are of them

we can do it!

one world united in peace!

It’s scary how much of the US population is brainwashed, basically. If one bothers to step “outside” of the US, it coukd get scary. Some never leave; some do, and return with a much greater perspective.

In a nutshell, can’t the US government fathom up somthing a bit more clever than “rape”, if the incrimination is meant for Julian. Please, come up with something more original, if even for the fun of being governmentally creative. Just a though…some of us know better than to listen to the drivel…

Courtenay, why are “the powers that be” threatening you? And who are “the powers that be”? Are we talking the state, or organised crime, or what? Now that you’ve intrigued us, please could you expand. Thanks.

Somebody, do you think that the SS’s blocking of Neville-Jones from the top job might have as much to do with turf wars b/w the two sec. and intel. services (SS and SIS) as with the alleged Russian angle itself? After all, if they’d been that concerned, why give her a job in government at all?

Somebody, one wonders who runs ‘Spyblog’, the fascinating link which you provided? As far as I can see, there’s no info. on their extremely detailed, professional (to run the operation, it would require full-time staff, in my view, and the whole presentation looks intensely corporate) and very elegantly designed website, no ‘contact us’ button, no details of funding sources. It asks one to register in order to make comments, as do many sites. How does one know whether or not this is simply another vehicle for gathering information on dissent(ers)?

Perhaps I’m being inordinately suspicious. It’s just a thought.

Why are the cops reportedly being blocked from doing their job?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306842/Gareth-WIllams-Riddle-murder-spys-money-trail.html?ITO=1490

Kompromat ? No, it’s the shop, just off in a side-street not far away. Or maybe a handy booth at the entrance to the supermarket.

Put your coins in the slot, the flash goes off, and hey presto ! a strip of photos of you doing embarrassing things with people you could swear you never met.

Whereas Kompromol, of course, is a fizzy analgesic and gets rid of 99.9% of all hangover headaches and is recommended by 97.3% of white-teethed dentists. Kompromol: Good for the morning after.

(I need a ‘Remember the ‘Remember me” button).

And then we wander right into Phil Dick territory with Nokompromol, the ultimate morning-after pill; makes the things you did last night never have happened. “Safe if used as directed”.

But in that case, of course, the dentist wasn’t really a dentist. “What white teeth you have, Granny”.

The other day, upon the stair

I saw a dentist, smiling fair.

His teeth were there again today,

I think they’re from the CIA.

Oh dear. More coffee, I think …

CIA doesnt have anything to do with this.Thats DoD trying to do something,and that something is illegal.

Richard, I like it! Is that one of your tunes? You could turn it into a chant – sounds a bit like Country Joe and the Fish.

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

No, it’s my President

LBJ

Suhayl,

You have gotten very cynical bless you – let us know more on the sis guy links etc – the whole thing has made me bit nervous – remember I have an sis contact – just a mere comms/electronics guy – but still a source.

from Saudi Arabia i say thanks to Mr.Craig Murray and Julian Assange , both are true heros, peaple like you both are the light of this dark world

the vanguard of goodness

i wish we have the freedom to do what you do

god bless you all

The death of the poor guy in the sports holdall is being investigated by the CIA too, as he had dealings with them. So I read, but I can’t give you the source as I can’t find it! (I use three browsers … and when the laptop slows down, I do a big clean-up operation which clears out all sorts.)

How can they announce so confidently that he was stabbed, and now say that he was neither stabbed nor shot, and that he “may have died innocently”? Innocently? And his body stuffed into a sports holdall? Why and by whom?

http://tinyurl.com/362ogel

And they wonder why we get suspicious.

I use three browsers dreoilin, ie8 in case something doesn’t work (jscript) firefox 4.0 beta 2 in ‘secure mode’(no history/cookies) and google chrome because I like the thumbnails – yes, good idea clear out history because I once noticed a ‘secure’ connection was trying to access my history in Mozilla firefox.

Suhayl and Qark,

Suhayl: Here is a link to the last incident when I was pushed in the ocean, by the beach, and held down as a warning – reported in The Times (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/32458,news-comment,news-politics,charles-laurence-lifts-the-lid-on-the-shady-politics-of-a-british-owned-sunshine-isle-in-the-caribbean) I am the lawyer referred to, but not actually named.

It is just that I have taken on public interest cases, and sometimes the intelligence services and others are not pleased with the work I do.

Qark: “”If the disclosed documents are accurate and would not otherwise be within public domain, it is better to have an informed – rather than an uninformed public.”

But you make the error of assuming that the public will be informed by the documents. Why should we believe that? ”

Clearly when governments release documents that is always done selectively. Surely, if this man is releasing additional information, the be it for the general public, academics, researchers, journalists etc, then surely more information is better than less to decide upon the rights and wrongs of public issues.

CB

“Gone are the days when agents were recruited after a discreet word from their Oxbridge tutor. In the 21st century, spooks are recruited like anyone else. Posts are publicly advertised, and hopefuls must first sit the kind of psychometric test – devised to reveal their powers of analysis and observation – that many blue chip companies now employ.”

“http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306233/Did-killer-MI6-spy-Gareth-Williams-steal-state-secrets.html”

Wrong – the emphasis at the initial interview is how good you are at talking yourself OUT of a situation which may have compromised your mission and how good your knowledge is of the technical requirements for the post.

Courtenay,

Is globaljusticeonline.com your own website – I note it is registered to American Association of Amateur Astronomers.

Most of the discussion here is BS rambling by the Craig Murray groupies. Five consecutive posts by Saadi attempting to enforce Craig Murray’s ridiculous thesis that because he has been accused of molestation and rape, the former charge still standing, Assange must be an honest man intent on informing the public.

But Courtenay Barnett, at least, addresses a real issue:

“So, is it better to have more information that one can grapple with – or less?”

If the more information has been carefully filtered to mislead, then it is better that the public, distracted by media nonsense and misinterpretation, have less.

The great majority of the public will not take the trouble, if they had the capacity, to analyze what the Sun or the Timesey tells them.

There are many other questions that need to be addressed. Who selected the documents for release, and what was their purpose? Did they intend to inform the public or deceive them? Unless we know who the whistle blower is, we are unlikely to answer that question. To think that Assange is the whistle blower is to fall for a major deception. Assange is merely serving as a conduit for information that the whistle blower could easily have transmitted to the NY Times and the Guardian without an intermediary. Why, one wonders, did they not do it that way?

And if their intention was to inform, what was the competence of the whistle blower to assess the documents to which they had access? Were they really competent to achieve their purpose, or are they some low level person without access to much of the most relevant material?

Comparisons are being made between the release of the Afghanistan Papers and the release by Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers. But there is almost certainly no valid comparison. Ellsberg was directly involved in Operation Phoenix, a CIA program of mass murder, which Ellsberg enthusiastically supported. When he released information on this program, he knew what he was talking about, although what his intention in talking about it may have been remains unclear to this day.

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine03082003.html

The MI6 ‘safe flat’ in Alderney Street according to land Registry documents reveal that the block at number 36 is owned by a private company, New Rodina, whose details are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is not listed with Companies House.

The owner is a Russian company (note the ruskies are trying to get a valid signature of our SSBN’s)

http://once-upon-a-time-in-the-west.blogspot.com/

To: Courtenay Barnett “It is just that I have taken on public interest cases, and sometimes the intelligence services and others are not pleased with the work I do.”

If you do take on these cases, good on you. You are a rarity. It takes courage to take on such cases; and few lawyers are up to it. It’s been my experience that lawyers will not take on any cases where they feel they might go against the intelligence services or the establishment. And if they did, the judges would slap them down anyway (I read your earlier comment on Denning with interest ?” “he was very much a willing sheep on the Bench”).

Take a look at Abe Rene’s comment (August 23, 2010 1:04 PM ) on Craig’s blog of August 19th on Gita Sahgal ?” “Human rights lawyers appear to be reluctant to help her”. From this it seems that even Amnesty International is a powerful enough establishment in the Human Rights field to ensure that their opponents are without legal help. People with real human rights cases against the intelligence services or the establishment can forget about the law; they only have one remedy ?” publicity.

Courtney, the truth I am sorry to tell you is this ?” lawyers and Judges will not help with cases where the establishment or intelligence community are opposed. If you are different, you are indeed a rarity. As for your T & C case. Good luck. Alleged corruption of this magnitude at top government level in a Crown Colony would in my opinion have required some Westminster protection; since our government has changed with different Ministers in office, it may just be that the truth will indeed be allowed to surface now

Wikileaks latest – CIA perception control:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1008/S00181/wikileaks-red-cell-cia-release-say-what.htm

“Richard, I like it! Is that one of your tunes?”

Not yet … it might fit a polka ?

It’s not really mine, just my own mangling of a things that’s been knocking around on the ‘net for ages :-

The other day upon the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there again today,

I think he’s from the CIA.

I’ve no idea who was originally responsble for it.

And, yes, that was the LP with Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die, wasn’t it ? Some things never go away, dammit.

Gaah. That was me at 8:45, sorry.

It would not be a suprise if someone tried to snare JA. However, this is normal procedure in sweden. If you are a male and have sex you will face the risk not only to be accused for rape but maybe even sentenced. Virtually no hard evidence is requiered in those cases. It is really great that this “incident” now is known to the world because that also explains why Sweden have 3-8 times as many rape charges as the neighburing countries and actually is second in the world. JA was saved by his status, in sweden a lot of males are accussed for rape (that also has a very wide definition compared to other countries) and many are sentenced with no hard evidence at all.

@ Roderick et. al.

As regards my web site the registration relates to the fact that the web master is a member of the “American Association of Amateur Astronomers”. I pay for it, it is my web site.

So far as the question of which cases lawyers are willing to accept, you are correct Roderick. The majority do not necessarily seek to go out of their way to do that which is right, if wrong necessitates conveniently siding with the corrupt Judge or establishment.

With TCI do not look for justice any time soon. The chief prosecutor is the same lady ( Helen Garlick) who did the BAE prosecution. Recall that when the truth started to emerege in that case, and things were being revealed too far up the establishment ladder, the case was stopped “in the national interest”. Consider who funded the Conservative party and who has major investments in the TCI. Why has it taken this long to prosecute by actually instituting criminal proceedings? So, don’t be surprised if the result is ultimately similar to the BAE case. Sometimes it is not that easy to separate the local corrupt baby from dirty British bathwater.

Dreoilin,

“laptop slows down” – try Ubuntu Linux! You don’t even have to install it; you can boot up from its CD-ROM without affecting your Windows installation at all.

Really, folks; if you knew what some of the Windows Malware was being used for, you’d ditch Windows immediately. From WikiLeaks (CP = Child Pornography):

“the installed Trojans are sometimes used as a SOCKS proxy to upload CP. The Russians have even worked out a schema to use infected computer as a network combing these infected computers (each computer would be part of a huge, redundant cluster) as a kind of huge, distributed and remote servers can be (a kind of Freenet Project, however, by using infected computers as the nodes). I want to make one thing clear: if you have an email address, there is a possibility that there is child pornography on your computer because you have received CP advertising. And if your computer is not 100% safe against Trojans, viruses and rootkits, there is the possibility that your computer is part of the vast child pornography network”.

Roderick,

Tell me this. How can the corrupt investitgate or effectively prosecute the corrupt?Surely, the legal issue narrows to the UK’s Article 73 obligation under the United Charter. But who really gives a hoot about the Rule of Law and abiding by any legal obligation? Guess we need to read Article 2 of the UN Charter and ask Tony Blair about the Iraq invasion. READ on, and see just how the corrupt game is being played out in the colony. From The Independent 31st May, 2010:-

UK faces revolt in Caribbean as islanders demand bailout

By Stephen Foley in Providenciales

Monday, 31 May 2010

Charges of corruption have been levelled in the British colonial outpost of Turks and Caicos Islands

Britain is facing a revolt against its rule of a group of Caribbean islands, amidst a gathering political and economic crisis in the country.

The Foreign Office suspended parliamentary democracy in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) last August after a group of visiting MPs uncovered evidence of widespread corruption in the territory, one of 14 colonial outposts for which the UK still has responsibility.

But an investigation by The Independent has found that the economic situation in the country has deteriorated sharply since then, and islanders are demanding a financial bailout of tens of millions of dollars.

Related articles

@ Roderick,

If you really understood the situation in the TCI, you may then begin to understand that it is quite the opposite of what you posted:-

“… since our government has changed with different Ministers in office, it may just be that the truth will indeed be allowed to surface now”

Actually, it is quite the reverse of what you think.

How can the Conservatives delve into their point man and main funder – you tell me. It’s a non-starter, but have you even begun to understand the depths of the corruption from Britain to the colony?

PS. I accept your observation and criticism of lawyers, but how does that compare with international corruption and global arms trading? One big dirty mess.

@Roderick,

Just ask yourself a few questions on this one.

Why would Her Majesty’s Government want to finance the Turks and Caicos Islands with a US$85m loan from First Carribean Bank, when the TCI as a dependent territory of the UK will be subject to, higher interest payments and the UK msut underwrite the loan with contingent obligations for any soverign debt it negotiates? Surely, by not making a direct loan/grant from the UK, the interest factor ultimatrely must be a greater burden on the UK government? What earthly advantage is there in mounting the colony’s debt burden, when the UK has a primary duty to address the colony’s financial problems ( see: Article 73 UN Charter)- but the UK instead leap-frogs to lend to independent countries or bribe the Saudi and in the Middle East to procure contracts, while ignoring its direct responsiblity. Who the hell really is corrupt?

Something rotten in the state of Denmark, or elsewhere – I guess.

READ: THE LOAN DOCUMENT – YOU DECIDE – http://file.wikileaks.org/file/turks-loan.pdf

@ Craig ( off topic but interesting),

I came across this from the Jerusalem Post.

I make the point that, if the Muslims have their fundamentalists ?” then ?” surely too do the Jews:-

‘Sinner’ singer given 39 lashes by rabbis

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

08/27/2010 02:45

Punishment for performance in front of “mixed audience.”

A singer who performed in front of a “mixed audience” of men and women was lashed 39 times to make him “repent,” after a ruling by a self-described rabbinic court on Wednesday.

Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, founder of the Shofar organization aimed at bringing Jews “back to religion” (hazara betshuva), has made it his recent mission to fight against musical performances for both men and women.

His “judicial panel,” with Rabbi Ben Zion Mutsafi and another member, sentenced Erez Yechiel to 39 lashes in order to “rid him of his sins.”

In a video clip of the court posted on the Shofar Web site, Ben Zion said that those who make others sin (mahtiei rabim), such as artists who make men and women attend performances or dance together, have no place in the world to come.

He displayed a leather strip he said was made by his father from ass and bull skin, with which Yechiel was to have been whipped.

Yechiel, who said, “I accept upon myself the lashing for my sins,” was ordered to stand by a wooden poll with his head facing north (“from whence the evil inclination comes”), his hands tied with a azure-colored rope (“a symbol of mercy”), and served his “sentence.”

TURKS & CAICOS

Courteney ?” Strikes me that the UK government just wants to refinance (and repay) existing bank loans ?” perhaps the security on the old loans was not sufficient to have stopped a total default. This new loan is very secure with telecom revenues, etc. hypothecated. It’s a hammer. The TCI citizens will have to service it since the loan agreement seems to give the right to just step in and grab the taxes. Didn’t something similar happen in China in the 1920s when customs revenues were hypothecated?

I know the development and hospitality industry in the Caribbean and other parts of the world, though not TCI. These problems initially lie with corrupt and greedy politicians / bureaucrats who seem to think that being elected to office is a license to plunder their own countries. But TCI is a Crown Colony and this could not have happened without the knowledge and involvement of Westminster.

Yes, Courtenay, as you say, something is wrong in the State of Denmark. Worldwide, there seems to have been a huge decline in ethical standards over the last 25 years. Proportionately the financial problem this gives TCI is far less than the problem government has given the UK taxpayer in bailing out our bankers during the recent financial fiasco; but the numbers on the UK bank bailout are so big that people can’t relate to them. I don’t envy you your task and suspect it is a little like an iceberg ?” you will only have seen the tip of it so far, but when you delve into it, may find corruption piled on corruption. Nowadays politicians seem to see election to office not as an opportunity to give public service, but simply as an opportunity to get ones snout in the trough.

I can now see the error of my ways. I fully acknowledge that I have been behaving like a fool and am handing in my resignation to the Agency with immediate effect. I don’t care what they say any more. A few weeks on here they told me to begin with and it just never ends. I have had a few too many drinks tonight and admittedly shouldn’t have, but I have had enough of this. Goodbye.

More on Dr Kelly RIP. If only the dead could talk.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306898/David-Kelly-A-textbook-suicide-Intriguing-file-tells-different-story.html

Elsewhere in the press, it’s arise Sir Tony from the Pope to Bliar!

He is off to Ireland next week on a book flogging execise. He seems to be occupying his own bit of the stratosphere.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0827/1224277687863.html

Mark, all good wishes and be safe and well and good on you for your courage.

Courtney, likewise, the account you’ve related – something which I and I’m sure many others really do appreciate – is both intriguing and terrifying and attests to the power and corruption of those who rule us all. I salute you, man.

TM, as I’ve written on this and the previous threads (if you’d read back, you’d have seen that), I’m not at all sure of the truth in relation to the Wikileaks dynamic. I’m engaging in discourse, which means I try to argue in a constructive manner with other bloggers about subjects, but I freely admit that I haven’t always attained a state of absolute certainty about everything – indeed, about anything.

It’s very difficult for people like me, who (thankfully) do not have access to the more direct experience and knowledge of those such as Roderick Russell, Craig Murray, Courtney Barnett and Mark Golding, for example, to really get a handle on what’s going on. There is SO much information out there with claims and counter-claims, dissidents and those who claim some or all dissidents (unless they’re dead; mortality confers beatification, it seems) are really tools of the state, gatekeepers, etc., etc., it becomes very difficult to know anything at all. This is probably one of the aims of those in power and is also a product of our modern technological world. It was much simpler – though not easier – in the days of the Inquisition!

The “five consecutive posts” were made because I had little time (re. Assange) and later was “behind the curve” (as I’d said) on the GCHQ man’s murder and so posted when I was able, and when I had surfed the appropriate info., rather than writing a single, longer, post, which is what I would have done normally. Please be reassured that there is nothing suspicious in it!

Thanks for the Counterpunch link; it’s a fascinating article. I know one or two of the people who’ve had material published in Counterpunch.

Of course, I’ve also read stuff that casts aspersions at those who run Counterpunch itself, much as the piece in Counterpunch is doing with Ellsberg.

So what, then, is one supposed to believe?

A hall of mirrors, every one of which leads ultimately to the Devil – and possibly to pessimism, despair and inaction.

So perhaps one ought to accept that there will be those who present mis- and dis-information and part of the picture but that by attempting to appraise the bigger picture and working against oppression in whatever way one can cuts through the fog and says, ‘I do not accept that society should be run on the basis of lies, corruption and war’. In other words, a return to the quality of naivety (in its artistic, rather than its colloquial sense) and to first principles.

And so, if Ellsberg present evidence of one thing and Counterpunch now present evidence of other things, good, now we know about both aspects of the evil the US state was committing – let’s use the (mis, dis, real) information against those in power whichever way we can! Let’s turn the mirrors – all of them , at once, into their faces so that like the Cyclopean monster, they are blinded!

Does ‘TM’ stand for ‘Transcendental Meditation’, btw?! (joke)

Richard, yes, I think it was either ‘Electric Music for the Mind and Body’ or else ‘I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die’. Did you know that the lead guitarist in the band, Barry Melton, later became a lawyer?

Existence is circular, indeed. And there is a man on the stairs – the THE Man.

Although I hardly think it necessary, I shall be obsessional in this instance. I re-post the two sets of “five consecutive posts” to which I think TM was referring here, just to bore everyone:

Post 1:

“ghuyjk, you are something even less credible than a routine spambot, and that is a shallow, silly and illiterate spambot.

Buy tee-shirt, get dictionary, learn dictionary, become intelligent, do deal with tee-shirt company, eat prophets, eat prophets, make big profits! Hey!

Posted by: Suhayl Saadi at August 26, 2010 7:39 PM

Post 2:

Pandemic, so, if Bradley Manning is sentenced to 500 years in prison, then you will believe the the leaks are genuine? But the information in the leaks will be the same, regardless of whether or not Manning gets convicted. So where’s the logic?

Posted by: Suhayl Saadi at August 26, 2010 7:41 PM

Post 3:

John McNeil, I love what you’re saying and wish it were true. Let’s work for it, right. But I’m not going to hold my breath! Nonetheless, on a lighter note, I do wish I could some of whatever it is you’re on (!)

Posted by: Suhayl Saadi at August 26, 2010 7:44 PM

Post 4:

cid, not necessarily – and it might still happen (though I hope not). Sometimes – usually, in fact – it is more effective to damage someone’s credibility. Unless, it seems, they work as a microbiologist.

Posted by: Suhayl Saadi at August 26, 2010 8:28 PM

And the other “consecutive” , later on the thread, were all questioning state’s actions wrt the GCHQ murder.

So, in the first set of four (not five) consecutive posts, there are two which question/ develop Pandemic’s and cid’s assertions on Assange. In the one to cid, I suggest that the state may have assassinated microbiologists – a suggestion which is hardly supportive of the state! The rest attack Islamophobic spambots/ trolls and relate to other matters entirely, such as the quest for utopias, etc.

The point I’m making here is not to degrade what TM is saying in general or on Assange/ Wikileaks, not at all, but is simple that it is very easy to drop in on a conversation and then to put two and two together and make five.

Yikes! A gazillion more comments have arrived since I hit Preview!

“If you are a male and have sex you will face the risk not only to be accused for rape but maybe even sentenced. Virtually no hard evidence is requiered in those cases.”

–guapo

Very hard to believe, in those terms. In that case every vindictive woman in Sweden could put a man behind bars just by making a claim against him. It’s bad enough in Ireland and the UK where women often won’t come forward because of the ordeal involved, and when they do, it’s one person’s word against another, regarding consent. But the above is the other extreme and sounds a bit insane.

“there is the possibility that your computer is part of the vast child pornography network”.”

– Clark

Clark, bot-nets worry the heck out of me, but I’m very security conscious, which comes from having a son in that business. But I know you’re right! He’s always advising me to get off Windows. Yep, I’m easy to persuade that Ubuntu Linux is the way to go.

“He is off to Ireland next week on a book flogging execise.”

Talk of a citizen’s arrest going on here, but I don’t know if anything will get off the ground. Wouldn’t it be marvellous … But the Irish Government would never allow it. Blair has too many weighty connections.

On Wikileaks, I am currently split exactly 50/50 on whether Assange is legit or whether he’s a CIA ‘asset’. I’m in the wait and see camp.

One sees that Roderick Russell and Craig Murray appear to feel that Assange/ Wikileaks is genuine, while Courtney Barnett raises doubts. All three, by their own accounts, have experienced the power and malevolence of various aspects of the transnational MI Complex. What this suggests is not that any/ all of the three are really MI-Complex assets (or complex MI assets), an assertion which in the semiotic sense would be self-contradictory, but that, as dreoilin astutely puts it, overall there is a lack of certainty on this subject.

I think, therefore I am.

I disagree, therefore I blog.

Okay, end of riposte.

“I make the point that, if the Muslims have their fundamentalists ?” then ?” surely too do the Jews”

and those wonderful “Christians” in the United States.

Suhayl,

I’ve ‘experienced the power and malevolence of various aspects of the transnational MI Complex’ and come down on the side of Courtney Barnett

“Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef denounced upcoming peace talks with the Palestinians, which are set to start September 2 in Washington, and called for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “perish from this world,” Army Radio reported overnight Saturday.

“Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this world,” Rabbi Ovadia was quoted as saying during his weekly sermon at a synagogue near his Jerusalem home. “God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians.”

“The Shas spiritual leader also called the Palestinians “evil, bitter enemies of Israel” during his speech, which is not the rabbi’s first sermon to spark controversy.”

Haaretz

http://tinyurl.com/3y2e2am

Regarding the death of Gareth Williams, this comment I found on aangirfan makes sense:

‘I’m guessing the guy had a conscience and learnt something while at the Pentagon he shouldn’t have, then mentioned this to the wrong person.

When they murder as blatantly as this without even trying to cover it up, it’s a warning to others.’

Suhayl – puzzlement is good. People who have all the answers don’t ask questions; people who know everything have stopped learning.

“It was much simpler – though not easier – in the days of the Inquisition!”

I doubt it. Or there’d have been no need for such a drastic attempt to abolish complexity ?

Richard, here’s Barry ‘The Fish’ Melton:

http://www.counterculture.net/thefish/

Ruth, thanks, as always. Yes, that’s my concern as well wrt the Gareth Williams. They seem to have allowed details of it to emerge but seem also to be blocking the proper criminal investigation of the murder. Apart from possibly being an attempt to conceal certain dynamics in relation to his work, this might suggest both complicity and propaganda (the “warning to others” to which you allude) with respect to his death. We don’t know yet exactly why he might have been killed, though. Let’s see what emerges – and more importantly, perhaps, what doesn’t.

To quote GK Chesterton, “The world will never be safe for democracy – it is a dangerous trade.”

As for Assange and Wikileaks, I go by the maxim, Trust But Verify. If possible in this case.

“Trust But Verify. If possible in this case”.

It may not be possible to verify in this case.

I think that the likelihood that Assange was framed by the CIA is exactly the likelihood that Roderick Russell was ever been on the radar of the “MI Complex”.

You people simply have delusions of grandeur.

It does seem like hypothecation. I surmise that because Her Majesty’s Government is complicit in the Misick administration corruption, there is a desire to dominate and curtail local political power. How better to do it than to increase the debt burden then having protected same by way of collateral for the loan(s), then tax the local population to the hilt, then use this as the pretext why local democracy is not feasible and the Constitution with democracy cannot be restored. What a hypocritical and corrupt world we really do live in.

You might find interesting to note that I now have the first case from TCI before the European Court of Human Rights. It is a case for the former head of the civil service, and the “beloved British Governor” is in the mix, so we really do need an adjudicative body outside the British loop to get a chance at justice. As a former Chief Justice said to me in the heat of a case, ” You really don’t understand that this is a colony” ( read: I guess, we can do what the fuck we want in th4e colony and Westminster covers up all our wrongdoing).

Anyway life goes on, and sometimes, just sometimes, justice does prevail.

Aluta continua!

Lamby, you seem to be increasingly off your rocker and losing the plot of late. Delusions of grandeur? That is one of the truest traits which one could apply to you. You have to be the most arrogant, warped and deluded individual that has ever appeared on Craig’s blog. Moreover, I would say you are the biggest moron I have ever had the misfortune to encounter online. I actually felt a bit sorry for you after what you admitted to last night. And now you reappear after only a matter of hours and start making more inane, worthless and unintelligent comments? Give it a rest. In a nutshell, I would advise handing in your resignation like you intended to and getting a good sponsor through Alcoholics Anonymous. Only then can you be free from the shackles of ‘Establishment Twoofdom’.

Dreoilin,

I used to worry about PC security until I ditched Windows. Ubuntu is relaxing. There are no sudden bursts of unexplained hard disk activity, and my software never changes unless I deliberately change it. I can post you a CD if you like.

I was looking for a recent comment about secrecy vs. openness, but I can’t find it. Suhayl Saadi; I think you replied to it? Openness is a very reassuring attribute in my opinion. Of course, some secrecy is unavoidable – WikiLeaks, for instance, have to protect their sources. But a ‘culture’ of secrecy seems always to be a bad sign.

The workings of Microsoft’s software is a trade secret; by using it you you accept their terms and conditions, which stipulate that you must not even attempt to understand or analyse its operation.

WikiLeaks have published their methods, and use Open Source software, subject to public scrutiny. Assange is a writer and contributor of Open Source software.

MJ,

no, we can’t verify the Afghan War Diaries immediately. However, at his Frontline Club appearance, Assange appealed for witnesses to add detail to the events recorded in the leaked reports. Also, the Collateral Murder video looks pretty unfakeable to me.

Mohammed was a false prophet who had dirty sex with prostitutes.

Jaded, I can’t believe that you just admitted that!

I haven’t looked on here for months, having purposefully banned myself, whilst I started learning how to become a rockstar.

I haven’t quite mastered the electric violin yet, but that’s because it only arrived from China on Friday and I immediately bust a string.

I see nothing much has changed over the last 6 months.

The best contributions today have of course been from Major General Albert Stubblebine and Qark. The rest of you aren’t really in the same league except of course dreoilin who is as wonderful as ever.

There is another explanation with regards to the speculation that Assange must be a CIA asset, otherwise he would be dead.

Maybe elements within the CIA themselves are changing. Its possible that some of the members of the CIA are actually human, and it could be that they are starting to recognise, that the policies of mass assassinations, political destabilization, and generally being really horrible is counter-productive to the interests of the United States and the Queen.

I recently saw a pretty convincing interview of Assange, and he definitely gave a strong impression that not only was he a real human being, but also a bit of a hero.

However, I was also quite impressed with Tony Blair in 1997, so I am obviously not a good judge of character.

I was hoping that Craig might have written something really horrible about David Miliband in response to his words today in the Sunday rags.

Tony

Very droll Lamby. You had a drunken binge and a sudden moment of clarity in your sad life. A cry for help? Now you are trying to cover it up with a weak attempt at humour. Pitiful…

Jaded: What evidence have you that Muhammad ever engaged in sexually immoral behaviour such as you describe? I am neither Muslim nor Islamologist, but I have read Karen Armstrong’s biography which portrays Muhammad as a good man by Old Testament standards. Rulers in that culture could have a number of wives, and he was effectively ruler of Arabia by the end of his life.

@ Roderick,

Maybe this article brings the point home. The foreign events in the far off Caribbean colony, are very much intertwined with the home events in the UK:-

“Lord Michael Ashcroft’s Nikki Beach Resort.

There has been compelling evidence that the UK’s presence in Turks and Caicos is a vast conspiracy to bring down UK multi-millioniare and power house Lord Michael Ashcroft.

Lord Ashcroft of the UK Conservative Party has long been criticized for funding his Conservative party (to the tune of several Million Pounds) while declaring in part “Non-Dom” (Non domicile) status for tax purposes. This has earned him the nickname “Cashcoft” in the UK. Lord Ashcroft is now writing a memoir that promises to be a scathing attack on the Labour Party tactics, as well as his blame of David Cameron for squandering a Conservative party lead in the last election.

Lord Ashcroft had long resided in Belize where he grew up as a boy. He once owned Belize Bank as well as many other ventures across the Caribbean, where he made his millions.

Lord Ashcroft certainly dabbled in the luxury resort development market in Turks & Caicos, his most notable development being the Nikki Beach Resort.

In 2008, Lord Ashcroft became the target of a political opposition party in Turks and Caicos for reasons not fully known. This is rumored to have been linked to a financing dispute involving Lord Ashcroft and the Ritz Carlton project in the islands. However, we now know it runs much deeper than the Ritz Carlton bickering and bad blood between Ashcroft and local developer and opposition friend, David “Jumpy” Hartshorn. This attack on Lord Ashcroft is said to have originated from Gordon Brown’s office, designed to ensnare Ashcroft in corruption charges.

The origins of TCI Journal, the propaganda website in Turks & Caicos dedicated to assisting the UK to take over the islands, began with an angry press release against the former Premier Michael Misick and Lord Ashcroft.

Many people in Turks and Caicos and abroad believe that this UK take over in the islands is nothing more than a vast conspiracy to take down Lord Ashcroft by the former UK Labour Party. The Ritz Carlton financing quarrel might just be a decoy, as well as the allegations of corruption in the islands.

How else could TCI Journal have had so much pull with the UK. If you ask anyone on the streets of Turks & Caicos how TCI Journal editor, Shaun Malcolm, has so much protection and pull with the UK, they shrug in disbelief. Shaun Malcolm hails himself as the former opposition party leader, and technically that’s only half the story. Shaun Malcolm has been giving the UK testimony for which he is not under oath and the UK fails to consider his bias or motivation to make such uncorroborated claims. This is highly suspicious to many people.

Shaun Malcolm has a long line of problems with his credibility. He has been called a con-artist by many people in Turks & Caicos. He was accused of thievery resulting from money he allegedly embezzled from the mass choir, a group in which he once belonged. He’s been accused of fathering children outside of his marriage. He quarrels and bickers with every group for which he belongs and he is eventually asked to leave. Some call him “manic” while others call him a “sociopath”. When the UK invaded Turks & Caicos, the UK asked Shaun Malcolm to serve on an advisory committee. This did not occur because nobody would serve with him. Yet the UK confers with this man and takes his word for all of their evidence of corruption, all hearsay and circumstantial evidence. The people are outraged.

To hear that Shaun Malcolm has been working side-by-side with the British to cause the fall of Lord Ashcroft from UK politics, almost makes sense. After all, if you look at the core of all of Mr. Malcolm’s targets, they somehow trace back to Lord Ashcroft’s holdings, including Leeward, Nikki Beach, Health Care board, and funding of any infrastructure project in Turks and Caicos. Lord Ashcroft and TCI Journal have had several show downs in the last couple of years, including Ashcroft obtaining a court order to shut down TCI Journal for slander and libel. TCI Journal subsequently was able to get the site up and running.

I think that the other developers who were targeted in the islands were pawns unwittingly ensnared in this conspiracy so that the UK could make a pretense of going after all developers.

This has caused a collapse of the Turks and Caicos economy, an UK feat one year in the making.

This begs the question, why are all of the people of Turks & Caicos suffering so that the UK can bring down one man? I knew that Lord Ashcroft was a VIP, but this is ridiculous.”

who is this jaded and why are they saying this – is it not illegal?

@ Roderick,

Think again, if you think home is clean:-

“In an interview with the Independent, Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow accused the Tory party deputy chairman and chief fundraiser of monopoly practices relating to the Central American nations’ telecom service and of trying to obscure his interests through a complex web of subsidiaries and trusts.

Barrow has promised to unpick a series of commercial deals that he says Ashcroft has used to “soak” the country in the manner of a colonial overlord.

“This sense of Lord Ashcroft’s, that he can pretty much call all the shots, and that national governments must simply allow him to have his way ?” that’s colonialism,” said Barrow. “I first met him in the 80s when he said he was interested in helping Belize. We actually – silly us – thought he was talking about being philanthropic more than anything else. But he was certainly not a knight in shining armour.”

Barrow had a stark warning for David Cameron heading into the election campaign: “You would think that government in the UK is so powerful and so diverse that he could not exercise the kind of influence he has been able to here. But there must be a warning in this: if he can he will. Based on my experience, he fully expects that he who pays the piper plays the tune.”

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/55402,business,oleg-deripaska-and-michael-ashcroft-a-tale-of-two-billionaires#ixzz0y0wLRZbf“

None i’m afraid Abe. Sorry to disappoint you. I think Lamby was being an immature kid trying to imitate other posters. He has shown worrying signs of becoming increasingly unhinged of late.

Unknown – ‘who is this jaded and why are they saying this – is it not illegal?’

It’s some wally called Lamby. Go easy on him, as I think he’s going through a rough patch…

A couple of years ago, I actually thought about going to the Turks & Caicos, and also more seriously the British Virgin Islands. Having previously been to Cayo Largo in an old WWII Russian plane before it crashed, I was aware of the potential delights of the Caribbean.

However, I thought that not only would the place be crawling with rich fat Americans, who didn’t have much respect for coral, but I might also bump into people like Cliff Richard and throw up whilst snokeling.

So I gave it a miss, went to the Maldives instead and read Craig’s book cos it rained a lot.

Is it all oily now?

Is Craig’s film in production?

Tony

Jaded – random?

Tony – Hi!

Blair in 1997 was the family man next door, attractively rebellious, later to become an actor, hypnotised by fame, who eventually sold his soul for the lure of wealth. A second-class man, neither rock star or humanitarian, one willing to clasp his hands in prayer for the sake of an image, reaching out to false religion for redemption, a fraud who admitted he relinquished ‘caring’ and eventually obeyed and regressed to murder, maiming and disfiguring the pure who knew no evil.

Yes, with an immature, little kiddy like Lamby around posters can be ‘random’. I thought that someone with his professed intelligence would have better things to do than clone other posters. It seems not… His childishness really does know no bounds. No one took him seriously anyway. :-0

Courtenay – Your second last paragraph says it all – BVI is a Crown Colony; so London had oversight responsibilities. It might be interesting to see if the terms of the loans that are being repaid are as much a hammer as the new loan. I worked a couple of times with Caribbean projects and very much enjoyed. it and the people; you can seems to exist. Throw the involvement of MI6 into this mix, with their reputation for deception and threats, and people will say what they have to say to survive. I don’t know anything about your case, but you will probably be expecting them to spin a web of deception to scapegoat your client if they can.

As for Larry the Liar – he is on again. In fact, he is on immediately following myself; just like clockwork. Larry is paid troll, paid to slander and smear me and others – something he has been doing for 9 months now. And Larry, don’t flatter your client too much, I wouldn’t use words like grandeur in relation to the seedy MI6.

Click on my name and you can see my story on the enclosed Wiki. Click on the 2nd Chapter and you will see a list of other innocent victims of MI5 / MI6. Google on them and check the facts out for yourselves on the internet. You will also note that there are multiple witnesses to many of my statements, recorded death threats in police hands, and a proven history of a government cover-up. As for proof of the involvement of the intelligence services, look on Chapter 7 – Role of MI5, MI6, and CSIS in Zerzetsen and see a list. Backing up this list (not on the wiki) is a very detailed point by point summary of the evidence – which the police have, so no doubt your client has got hold of it as well..

Jaded. at August 29, 2010 5:45 PM: My apologies, given that a creep called ‘Lamby’ was pretending to be you.

No problem, the guy is losing his mind it seems. Just take him with a large bucket of salt until he eventually self-destructs.

Roderick, yes Lamby is a deranged little imp. Fortunately, everyone can see him for what he is. I wouldn’t pay him any attention. Anyhow, as I said, he does seem to be unravelling of late…

Mark,

You should have gone to The Green Man Festival in Wales.

Hell, even I should have gone to The Green Man Festival in Wales.

But I didn’t have a ticket and it was sold out.

My 19 year old daughter didn’t have a ticket either – and didn’t know anything about it until a few hours before…

Her boyfriend had been invited to help with this Music Workshop thing…

My Son was an Angel and took them there in my car – asked at very short notice…

And immediately drove back because we were going to another festival and needed the car..

But This is What Being a Rockstar is all about

Why go around the World Shooting People and Generally Being Horrible when you can have so much fun in Wales

Americans ain’t all bad.

I see Larry is still hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERhkOXxALD4&;

Tony

Clark,

Re PC Security and ubuntu

Well, I got this phone call

I don’t think you made these payments – but maybe you did…???

$100

$1000

$10,000

All within a few minutes

Even the company receiving this money sent me an email…

Did you really make these payments?

Not me mate

So I got my lad on the case….

My virus checker revealed nothing, until I downloaded the very latest updates…

What puzzles me, is why the guys in Rumania who had a semi permanent connection to my PC – and a nice keylogger running didn’t choose other amounts

like

$9.73

$99.73

$999,996

So I reckon it was the CIA

They must be getting a bit skint

Tony

I do realise that evil people in the world can for example drop nombs on my house and garden and kill or kidnap my wife and my children and totrure them or me, trying to extract something from me, that they think will make their lives better…

I mean FFS

I am happy

And I am old

I expect things to get considerably worse

I expect my body to be invaded by cancer and I expet to be in horrendous pain and then I will die

You can’t take anything from me

And if you are trying it is just a measure of how unhappy you are

Maybe you should Try a Bit of Giving Instead

Its what makes me happy

I give a little

And I get 10 times More Love Back

My Wife is an ANGEL

Tony

‘American ain’t all bad’ totally agree Tony – Hell I lived in America; hospitality unlike no other and generous to boot – the reminders of a pioneering spirit.

But do not be deceived by the spoken English, below the surface is apprehension, uncertainty and fear. Those who I met were struggling for their roots, eager to tell me of a cousin, a great uncle, a war-time acquaintance, even a place-name in Britain where ancestors may have hailed.

On many a hot, humid night in Florida I played the Cockney chords I knew and they learned, they sang – they loved me – I was the ‘lord of the manor’ from the land of music and the Beatles, from quaint old England and Winston Churchill.

Beneath it all were ‘lost children’ the sadness evident, the brain-washing severe, the fragility over-whelming.

Like a game of poker or Russian roulette life in America is on the edge, weakness means drowning in the stampede of existence, truth too painful and lies the only means of escape.

Tony-opmoc,

I assume that occurred on your Windows installation, not Ubuntu? I mean, you wouldn’t be running an anti-virus program on Ubuntu. Please clarify, as some people may get the wrong impression!

Any system can be compromised, but Windows systems are by far the most vulnerable. Whichever system you use, I recommend running Firefox with the NoScript extension – it’s a minor hassle to get used to using it, but worth it. I don’t know of a NoScript equivalent for any other browser, but maybe someone else does.

Regarding those payments; this sort of thing goes on all the time, it must run to millions or billions. I’m glad you didn’t have to pay, but the criminals still got the money, so in the end, we all pay, somehow. Is this what we’re bailing out banks for?

in the lee of the river by the john there are barns…

Fascinating website. I found the video on girls’ education very moving – the song, in Persian, is subtitled. Go to the Pakhtunwkha Peace Forum on the right-hand side and scroll down:

http://pakhtunkhwapeaceforum.blogspot.com/

I should’ve said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the new name for the North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pakhtunkhwa

Re: The body in the bag.

He’s a young fellow, honest, idealistic. Through his work he discovers that his government is engaged in vast crimes against the people.

What does he do?

Emails the evidence to Wikileaks of course.

Then what?

Wikileaks notifies the CIA, MI something or other, or Oz Security Services.

Security services gets onto trusty contractor, Xe, Mossad, whoever’s handy to do a job.

Young fella ends up in duffle bag.

Phew, our state secret remains a secret.

Now, how should our bagged whistle blower have done it?

What I’d do probably is put it all on my own website with my photo, and name and address. Then at least a few people would notice the coincidence of the leak of info and the demise of website owner.

Better, perhaps, would be to steal a laptop and email the data from an Internet cafe to a few dozen alt news sites, plus the MSM.

But, come on, you geeks. How should it be done?

I see that Jonathan Moyle’s family have now spoken out about the Gareth Williams case. Could this be how David Kelly died, too?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1307142/Investigation-death-British-spy-Gareth-Williams-takes-mystifying-turn-What-happened-18K-spys-bank.html

Thanks for the link Suhayl. Is it me, or is the Daily Mail being edited by Alex Jones these days?

oh, i feel a bit jaded, in the lee of the john, there are many barnes

KingofWelshNoir,

I wondered as well – then I remembered writing something about the Mail a while back and somebody here (memory useless) warned me the Mail, ‘can often sparkle like gold glitter. But it is fools gold that you see, most of the time. The Mail is a far right wing paper at the end of the day (as they all are) remember that…’

I wonder.

I wonder – The Mail obviously agreed to print the garbage GENIUS WHO CRACKED THE TALIBAN’S CODES and VOIP difficulties.

VOIP (voice over IP) is relatively easy to monitor – obviously it can become difficult if plain voice is delta modulated and the digital stream is encrypted as it is for army field communications.

Unknown – ‘oh, i feel a bit jaded, in the lee of the john, there are many barnes ’

Bless you my son.

Mark Golding – ‘VOIP (voice over IP) is relatively easy to monitor – obviously it can become difficult if plain voice is delta modulated and the digital stream is encrypted as it is for army field communications.’

I can’t remember who it was, but there was this high up numpty linked to spookery I saw doing an official interview on the BBC a while back. He was spouting complete nonsense. He was harping on about how they couldn’t monitor VOIP. Like they would advertise that fact? Hilarious! Anyone see it or know who it was?

@Craig ( off topic),

In a future post, paying due respect to your diplomatic background, and by extension, considerable practical exposure to world affairs, do consider answering the following questions:-

1. With China, a rising economic power, and Russia, still a military power with nuclear capacity able to obliterate the US, while China’s rising economic star does threaten US economic dominance, then to maintain US global hegemony, will the US through reliance on force any time soon seek to repeat the debacle that was the invasion of Iraq? In raw power terms will the US bear out what George Kennan predicted:-

George F. Kennan quotes( architect of the ‘cold war’)

“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”

So ?” must we conclude that perpetual warfare is the ‘American way’?

2. If the answer to 1 above, is “no” then what alternative does the US have, given the pivotal position that the military-industrial complex occupies in the US economy?

3. If the answer to 2 above is “none” then please post the answer very quickly ?” or ?” if you plan to delay, then tell me where the nuclear bunkers are built around the globe.

As always, myself and all the others on this blog appreciate your insights.

CB ( http://www.globaljusticeonline.com)

Suyahl,

The article mentioning Jonathan Moyle says:

‘He had been investigating a company owned by arms dealer Carlos Cardoen which was modifiying helicopters, possibly to carry nuclear weapons, to sell to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.’

But I thought Moyles was investigating how PRB of Brussels was involved with Cardoen and the supply of equipment from the UK to Iraq. I think PRB was taken over by Astra Holdings and manufactured the propellant for Project Babylon. Gerald Bull, who was shot just a few days before Moyle, was apparently going to expose ‘commissions’ being paid from the propellant contract to companies and individuals (including named politicians) who had no role in the contract or its negotiations.

So , I will see you all later today

http://www.ecolocal.org.uk/event-detail.php?id=28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd5jVjzCDvw

Tony

I said to him 23 minutes ago…

But that is all we have got…

We have Got Our Love and We Have Got Our Music

He is 20 Years Old and He Is The Best Musician I Have Heard Play Live in Our Home….

I kind of watched him from outside in our garden

I think my daughter is in love with him nearly as much as I am

He just stroked my guitar and he made it sing

Tony

You might think it is hard doing what you do and it probably is…

But I have been retired for over 5 years now..and they pay me a pension

But I reckon that must have been because I was Really Good

And so when they finally Fired Me at The Age of 51…

A Year Later Than I Had Planned…

You See – My Mum Had Great Genes

And Whilst The Job Turned Me White Overnight – That Was Only Because I Was Working So Hard

When I was about 45 years old – there is a photograph of a Really Old Man – with his 7 year old daughter..

Coming out of a Yellow Submarine in Lanzarote..Yes We Did…

The Really Old Man is Me

I Look Over 20 years years younger now

And I can now Play Guitar and I am Learning Violin and To Be Perfectly Honest I am More Beautiful Than David Coverdale was 5 years ago

But I haven’t yet even started learning to sing…

My only claim to fame is that I reckon even now…

Even in an Audience of 80,000 +

It is My Voice You Can Hear

Shouting For

MORE

Tony

xx

So she saw it

And she just had to have it because it is So Girly,pink,flowery and Beautuful

So I checked the size and the price

And she asked a really important question realising how it was structured…

And I said – well I don’t know – it might fit…

So we started trying to work out the geometry in our heads – and the sizes…

You see This Enormous Great Fucking Teepee has got a Pole Going Through The Middle

And My Squarr Wants To Cuddle Up To Me At Night When It Is Relly Cold On Our Blow Up Bed

I don’t know how to spell the name of a Native American Indian Girl But I want To Spend some time with original North American Indians Before I Die

In a Teeppee

Bought the fucking thing anyway

Half Price

After September Comes Winter

And Then Comes Spring and Summer

And I Just Love Christening New Tents

Tony

I do realise this Tent is Completely Unsuitable for next weekend – unless 10 of our friends also crash in it

It is just too fucking big

And it can get really cold at night in England in September

However if it is just me and 8 Beautiful Girls Are Keeping My Wife and I warm in Our Tepee – then I reckon I can handle that

Tony

I mean this is just what we do in England

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwoeNSxu76k

I am trying to get the gist through to people who are watching Big Brother on Their TV Screens

I don’t know if anyone understands me

Tony

So what are You Doing?

See You Later

Tony

PS – I am about to re-install my prime computer

The one upstairs that arrived on September 11th 2001 is still going strong

Sure I have upgraded the processor and the memory

But – well

I find it hard to believe that Craig still doesn’t get it….

9/11 and all that – Yes It Really Is That Bad

I am almost certain that 9/11 was done by human beings – from Our Culture

We Did It

It Was Us

Tony

“I am almost certain that 9/11 was done by human beings – from Our Culture

We Did It

It Was Us”

Of course you believe that. You’re one of many British leftist/Islamist nutjobs who inhabits Craig Murray’s site.

LOL Lamby. You been on the booze again? You think aliens did it right? :-0 Oh dear, how could your credibility get any lower? Just resign!

Kompromat disinformation operations are foolish because they undermine the credibility of the organisation that runs them. Take the case of Gareth Williams. Some reports say that people in gay bars knew him as a regular. Maybe they did. But a lurid kompromat operation makes even something as simple as this less believable. The police must have been annoyed to openly contradict disinformation if they knew that it came from the security services.

Perhaps the security services need to go back to recruiting people with Character, devoted to Platonic ideals of Truth, Justice, Beauty and Goodness, like Boris Johnson maybe, after all he did Classics at Oxbridge. Boris might be a loudmouth sometimes, but I don’t see him engaging in kompromat operations.

We can trust Boris Abe – he is very much like his dad and we remember he got rid of Sir Ian and subdued his Israeli ‘trigger happy’ followers – Cameron is the one to watch – must be time for his next MI5 briefing.

Hi! – from WebCameron Rejects.

Petition against Waterstone’s, Piccadilly on Wednesday 8 September, 12:30pm, when war criminal Tony Blair will be at a book-signing event to launch his memoirs.

http://bit.ly/93tbfF

I don’t think anyone believed the smear attempt on Mr Assange from day one. It was so obvious.

I think the best the perpetrators could hope for is some psychological damage on the victim, but this is far outweighed by the damage to the already tenuous credibility of the western governments attempting this fraud.

EARTH TO TONY_OPMOC,

EARTH TO TONY_OPMOC,

What OS did that infection occur on?

Please respond…

Tony_opmoc has landed on Facebook for a de-brief

“Even in an Audience of 80,000 +

It is My Voice You Can Hear

Shouting For

MORE”

I’ve often wondered who that was.

Ruth, I think you might be right re. Jonathan Moyles et al. I’ve seen two versions on the web. The Daily Mail picked one version. Here is the other, the one which implicates the UK:

“Another theory is that the British government, headed by Margaret Thatcher, ordered former SAS intelligence agents to kill Bull because he was taking lucrative Iraq contracts away from arms companies controlled by influential British businessmen. In 1998, journalist Walter De Bock wrote in a Flemish daily newspaper, De Morgen, that Bull’s death and dealings in Iraq had connections to the assassination of a British journalist. On March 31, 1990, a little over a week after Bull’s murder, Jonathan Moyle was found hanging with a pillow case over his head in a hotel room in Santiago, Chile. Moyle, 28, had traveled to Chile to investigate a story on secret British involvement in weapons traffic to Iraq. Moyle’s death was initially ruled a suicide by Chilean police, and the British foreign office promoted vicious rumors that he had died in a bizarre sex ritual. Later, Moyle’s death was ruled a murder by a panel of Chilean judges. A British coroner agreed with the judges’ finding. The re-investigations discovered a needle mark on Moyle’s leg and drugs in his stomach. Murder disguised as suicide has long been a lethal tactic favored by intelligence agencies.”

Here’s the link:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=15682

Note the “drugs in his stomach” bit. Reminds you a little of David Kelly, no?

Wrt The Daily Mail, of course one would trust ‘em as far as one could throw ‘em. They’ll have their placemen, too, just like every other outlet.

However, it’s possible that apart from the anti-Labour stance which may have motivated some of their sympathetic coverage of Craig Murray et al, it may be that the ‘Nixon in China’ effect sometimes comes into play. Furthermore, they stand to profit form a good old yarn. In this case, it seems that there really is something very fishy indeed going on. But the Daily Mail knows its readership and they know that (even – especially – Right-wing) people are now very cynical about government in general.

We know they pander to certain elements in the UK with respect to specific thematic areas (shall we say).

To be fair, though, they have published very good articles criticising, eg. the non-reaction of Italian sunbathers to the accidental drowning of Roma girls on a beach. Some – a minority – of their readers made comments in response to that story that were disgraceful.

So it’s a mixed picture.

One requires the perception of an insect – multiple eyes, looking all ways. That’s it – we need to become The Fly. “Help me! Help me!”

On which note…

At the risk of having several consecutive posts again (TM, please be mellow, good-on-you!), here’s a link tro a letter I had published in this week’s New Statesman. Letters get edited for space and other reasons, so here, too, is the full version.

Although the published version especially might suggest anti-American sentiment, this is very far from the truth. As I’ve stated before, on other threads, I am pro-American. It is the control and mis-use of America by the MI Complex that I am against and to which I object.

Original version:

Now the published version – see link:

http://www.newstatesman.com/letters

Original version:

20th August 2010

Dear Editor,

The cliche’d, hyperbolic front cover and editorial title (NS, 23rd August 2010) detracted from the excellence of some of the articles within (Shackle on

Bradford and Husain on Faiz were particularly perceptive) relating to matters Pakistani.

However, as with much recent UK media reportage, some of the coverage seemed unduly influenced by the campaign of disinformation being waged by

reactionary, undemocratic forces against the current Government of Pakistan. In this context, the elevation of political celebrities (Fatima Bhutto, for example, seems bathetically obsessed with dynastic rage against Zardari), in the

absence of countervailing viewpoints and input from on-the-ground Pakistani

journalists, weakened the rigour and depth of the coverage.

Readers may wish to broaden their understanding by perusing the work of columnist, Nadeem Paracha (link) and Editor of The Friday Times, Raza Rumi (link).

Otherwise, as so often, the lingering impression is of Pakistan as a Petri dish and Pakistanis as bacteria. On the contrary, taking the long view of history, one could argue that both metaphorically and literally the “laboratory of world destruction” resides a little to the south of the Potomac River.

Yours sincerely,

Suhayl Saadi

Melanie Phillips – good God, I never thought I’d be posting a link to anything she penned. Apparently, I’m told by those who know that she used to be as much of a one-track ideologue when she wrote for The Guardian as she is now (in manner cliche’d, she just exchanged one set of ideologies for another).

However, she’s written a very good piece today, though of course, she is unable or unwilling to suggest that the covert UK state murders its own citizens on its own soil.

She’s couched it in cursorily patriotic terms, but that’s persiflage. It really sends questions to the heart of the matter and, by singular ommission, I think let’s the readers speculate on whether the UK state might have been a little more ‘active’ in these individuals final posting (shall we say):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1307281/MI6-spy-Gareth-Williams-unsung-hero-shadowy-spooks-trying-blacken-name.html

Okay, folks, enough. I’m off to watch CSI (since clearly I have developed CSI Syndrome).

Re. Gerald Bull and Jonathan Moyle:

http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/readme/81sum

From the Master, himself:

“We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations.”

John Le Carre, 28th August 2010.

Yet all that time, it was steadfastly denied by the UK government and by the UK intelligence services. I remember. Don’t you? It was only 18.3 years ago. So, for the entire 45 years of the Cold War, they lied to us.

So why would it – the killing and the lies – have stopped now?

Answer: it hasn’t.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7969482/John-le-Carre-We-carried-out-assassinations-during-the-Cold-War.html

I think the UK was also involved in supplying South Africa (the South African and Biological Weapons Programme) with tons of equipment and precursors for synthesising chemical weapons. I’ve read that according to the procedings in Pretoria, ‘front’ companies were set up in partnership with an employee of the UK Foreign Office. The UK helped with large-scale production of nerve gases and biological toxins. Apparently, the whole programme was fronted by pharmaceutical companies set up on the instructions of the DTI and Foreign Office and a set of reports indicating the results of biological tests on live subjects were sent to Porton Down in 1988.

Then there’s the sending of B. anthracis to Iraq.

So I think Dr Kelly may have had a lot to say.

I see Julian Assange, the world’s most well-promoted ‘whistle-blower’, agrees with Craig Murray about 9-11.

Maybe no-one’s told him about Building What?

http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/08/27/bulding-what-the-demand-for-9-11-justice/

‘False conspiracies’ eh Julian? That’s a good line. LOL.

You’re wasting your time posting stuff about 9/11 here Syd.

Julian Assange won the same award for “integrity in intelligence” (counter intelligence, maybe) as Craig Murray, so everyone here knows he’s a man of unquestionable integrity.

PS. Glad you put “whistle blower” in quotes. As I noted above, it could be hazardous in the extreme to any real whistle blower to hand their stuff to Wikileaks before making it public through other channels.

“You’re wasting your time posting stuff about 9/11 here Syd.”

Or anywhere.

Incorrect i’m afraid Lamby. Otherwise, freaks like you wouldn’t be contaminating the internet. QED…

Now off to bed with you little boy. :-0

Larry, formerly banned as a provocateur, seems to have achieved rehabilitiation as a member of the Craig Murray blog bodyguard tasked with suppression of 9/11 truth.

Of course Assange doesn’t believe in the insane claims of 911 truthers. He’s not a moron, after all.

Absolutely, Ruth.

Good on you Syd. I have just had a look at your site and your stand with the Palestinians for justice is excellent.

I will bookmark your blog and have my children check up here often. I am quite sure they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else!

I will bookmark your blog and have my children check up here often.

I am quite sure they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else!

they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else!

your blog and have my children check up here often.

Nice Blog Syd – Bravo

I hope Craig can stop the annoying Ad Bots with a filter. Any ideas Clark?

Disappointing from the BBC: “wikileaks founder wanted for xxx” (roughly, fingering the organisation) on the front page, then “julian assange cleared [or whatever]” the next day (or so). Presumably not much connection between those stories to the man on the Clapham omnibus. Of such things is the modern media made.

The demand for the truth about 9/11, which means a real forensic investigation and judicial process, is not only about justice.

More importantly, it is about freedom and liberty ?” and not just in the United States.

See Paul Craig Robert’s article:

Death of the First Amendment ?” The Nazification of the United States.

http://buchanan.org/blog/death-of-the-first-amendment-the-nazification-of-the-united-states-4323

“September 11 destroyed more than lives, World Trade Center buildings, and Americans’ sense of invulnerability. The event destroyed American liberty, the rule of law and the US Constitution.”

Weirdly, this is too difficult for folks like Craig Murray to grasp, apparently.

“I hope Craig can stop the annoying Ad Bots with a filter. Any ideas Clark?”

I dunno. The spambots seem to make as much sense as Larry and many of the others posting here.

LOL

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/27/fidel-castro-osama-bin-laden-us-spy

Ah, tremendous. And I wonder what bin Laden says about Castro ?

I suppose it could be an effective way of forestalling an “al Qaida in Cuba” panic ? That’d be all they need …

I’ve got a nice book out of the library at the moment – “The Island That Dared”. Dervla Murphy on Cuba. It’s kind of a pleasant combination. Interesting.

Suhayl: it is outrageous that Castro is pinching ideas from The Onion. Still, what else can one expect from a no-good Commie Red?

PS. Or could it be that the Guardian took a page out of The Onion’s book?

PPS. Just looked at the English-language of Granma, and it appears that Castro really is coming off his trolley. Still, look on the bright side: it means that Communism might soon fall and we will have Truth, Justice and the American Way in Havana, complete with restaurants that stock the things on the menu!

Thanks big!

The text of the law is pretty funny Craig – i wonder what date that law’s from? It must be 19th century at the earliest from the sound of it.

Sad that so many people just believe whatever they’ve heard said most times. If they didn’t these kind of smears wouldn’t work.

the robots do at least make some amusing sentences, presumably using google translate

“restaurants that stock the things on the menu”

Big Mac.

(me at 10.27. “Remember me”, huh)

Unknown – ‘I dunno. The spambots seem to make as much sense as Larry and many of the others posting here.

LOL’

You know what, now the deluded moron has been rumbled on here by all and sundry that could be a new career move for him! Where is the drunken Lamby anyway?

9/11 was an inside job. Lamby told me so in private and made me swear to secrecy. Don’t tell him I let it slip.

Sorry to bring it to ya, but this is most likely not a conspiracy but a case of swedish feminism.

Read this swedish bloggers detailed overview of the Assange-case, from a swedish perspective. It describes what the political situation is like in sweden, the view on men and women and sex. This could have happened to any celebrity, it’s just a coincidence it happened to Assange. Sweden is a strange country…

http://aktivarum.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/the-entire-assange-case-from-swedish-perspective-analysis-by-aktivarum/

Cuba

Why does the mainstream media routinely refer to Cuba as a dictatorship? Why is it not uncommon even for people on the left to do the same? I think that many of the latter do so in the belief that to say otherwise runs the risk of not being taken seriously, largely a vestige of the Cold War when Communists all over the world were ridiculed for following Moscow’s party line. But what does Cuba do or lack that makes it a dictatorship? No “free press”? Apart from the question of how free Western media is, if that’s to be the standard, what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money ?” secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba ?” would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

Is it “free elections” that Cuba lacks? They regularly have elections at municipal, regional and national levels. Money plays virtually no role in these elections; neither does party politics, including the Communist Party, since candidates run as individuals.7 Again, what is the standard by which Cuban elections are to be judged? Most Americans, if they gave it any thought, might find it difficult to even imagine what a free and democratic election, without great concentrations of corporate money, would look like, or how it would operate. Would Ralph Nader finally be able to get on all 50 state ballots, take part in national television debates, and be able to match the two monopoly parties in media advertising? If that were the case, I think he’d probably win; and that’s why it’s not the case. Or perhaps what Cuba lacks is our marvelous “electoral college” system, where the presidential candidate with the most votes is not necessarily the winner. If we really think this system is a good example of democracy why don’t we use it for local and state elections as well?

Is Cuba a dictatorship because it arrests dissidents? Thousands of anti-war and other protesters have been arrested in the United States in recent years, as in every period in American history. Many have been beaten by police and mistreated while incarcerated. And remember: The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. (This is documented by Cuba in a 1999 suit against the United States detailing $181.1 billion in compensation for victims: the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding or disabling of 2,099 others. The Cuban suit has been in the hands of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the United Nations since 2001, a committee made up of all 15 members of the Security Council, which of course includes the United States, and which may account for the inaction on the matter.)

Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government agents. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from al Qaeda and engaging in repeated meetings with known members of that organization? In recent years the United States has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents’ ties to the United States. Virtually all of Cuba’s “political prisoners” are such dissidents. While others may call Cuba’s security policies dictatorship, I call it self-defense.8

The terrorist list

As casually and as routinely as calling Cuba a dictatorship, the mainstream media drops the line into news stories that “Hezbollah [or Hamas, or FARC, etc.] is considered a terrorist group by the United States”, stated as matter-of-factly as saying that Hezbollah is located in Lebanon. Inclusion on the list limits an organization in various ways, such as its ability to raise funds and travel internationally. And inclusion is scarcely more than a political decision made by the US government. Who is put on or left off the State Department’s terrorist list bears a strong relation to how supportive of US or Israeli policies the group is. The list, for example, never includes any of the anti-Castro Cuban groups or individuals in Florida although those people have carried out literally hundreds of terrorist acts over the past few decades, in Latin America, in the US, and in Europe. As you read this, the two men responsible for blowing up a Cuban airline in 1976, taking 73 lives, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada, are walking around free in the Florida sunshine. Imagine that Osama bin Laden was walking freely around the Streets of an Afghan or Pakistan city taking part in political demonstrations as Posada does in Florida. Venezuela asked the United States to extradite Posada five years ago and is still waiting.

Bosch and Posada are but two of hundreds of Latin-American terrorists who’ve been given haven in the United States over the years. 9 Various administrations, both Democrat and Republican, have also provided close support of terrorists in Kosovo, Bosnia, Iran, Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, including those with known connections to al Qaeda. Yet, in the grand offices of the State Department sit learned men who list Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism”, along with Syria, Sudan and Iran. 10 That’s the complete list.

Meanwhile, the five Cubans sent to Miami to monitor the anti-Castro terrorists are in their 12th year in US prisons. The Cuban government made the very foolish error of turning over to the FBI the evidence of terrorist activities gathered by the five Cubans. Instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the five Cubans (sic).

From Bill Blum’s Anti Empire Report http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer85.html

Most ladies accept smears as routine. Looks like thinking men will have to take a lesson from them.

somebody at September 1, 2010 9:06 AM:

Have you ever met a refugee from Cuba? I had that chance a year or two ago on holiday in Florida. Cuba is a repressive Communist dictatorship, and America is a paradise of freedom by comparison. That is why so many have tried to escape there. Here is Amnesty International’s latest report on Cuba:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR25/013/2010/en

I had the pleasure of seeing this guy debut for Major League Baseball last night:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroldis_Chapman

I’m sure he would like to go back to Cuba to visit his friends and family, but since he defected, he won’t be going home any time soon.

Larry from St. Louis: has he written any article or book about his defection? It’s the kind of story that would have made the Reader’s Digest.

Re: The Swede at September 1, 7:52 AM

and: Da at August 31, 2:18 PM,

the arrest of Assange may well be just a result Sweden’s laws and ‘feminism’, but how the matter is treated by the Mainstream Media is not. Da makes a good point. Today the BBC reports that the *WikiLeaks* rape case has been reopened – *not* Assange’s. Also, a particularly unflattering picture of Assange has been chosen to accompany the article. What is the betting that if the case is dropped again, that will be reported in connection with “Assange”?

TM and others,

how am I supposed to know that you’re not part of a CIA etc plot to discredit Wikileaks, and scare whistleblowers off leaking via that route? Do you have any good evidence that WikiLeaks is an intelligence front, apart from the content of the Afghan War Diaries? Like, whistleblowers arrested or assassinated?

Mark Golding,

there are plenty of methods of blocking spambots, but you know it’s impossible to get Craig to do anything to his website!

Earth to Tony_opmoc,

Earth to Tony_opmoc,

are you receiving? come in please.

The Political Terror Scale 2006 is generated by Mark Gibney, Belk Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Asheville:

http://www.politicalterrorscale.org/.

Gibney uses all available data from Amnesty International and the US State Department to produce a human rights score.

Cuba’s score come out equal to that of the US – which is not particularly good either.

Abe Rene,

you don’t actually *read* Reader’s Digest, do you? I thought you were meant to eat it, for fibre.

“I thought you were meant to eat it, for fibre.”

I thought a digest was the result of having done that ?

But, let’s not be unkind. I’m sure it’s very handy for those who aren’t interested to deal with the whole story.

Cuba vs. the U.S.: “Cuba’s score come out equal to that of the US – which is not particularly good either.”

Well one metric would be free speech, wouldn’t it?

I encourage all of you to travel to Cuba and attempt to exercise free speech against the government.

I encourage people to go to places they like, and enjoy themselves being nice to people there. Sheesh.

“TM and others,

how am I supposed to know that you’re not part of a CIA etc plot to discredit Wikileaks, and scare whistleblowers off leaking via that route?”

How the hell am I suppposed to know what you are supposed to know. And frankly, I don’t care.

My point was this: how is a whistleblower supposed to know whether or not Wikileaks is a whistleblower trap.

And my question to you was how can a whistleblower blow the whistle without depending on a questionable intermediary such as Wikileaks.

It seems to me a simple matter for a leaker or whistleblower to put stuff on the Internet without leaving a trail. So why would anyone but a dupe rely on Assange and his multimillion dollar organization?

The method I suggested above, which is to use a stolen laptop to upload data to the internet via an internet cafe has the weakness that customers of the Internet cafe may be recorded on videotape. However, it should be possible to find an unencrypted wireless Internet connection, just by driving around town. Then you’d upload from your car, ditch the laptop and the source of the data would be untraceable.

Incidentally, Clark, how do I know you are not working for the CIA?

LOL

Oops, the above was posted by TM, as is this:

“Well one metric would be free speech, wouldn’t it?

I encourage all of you to travel to Cuba and attempt to exercise free speech against the government.”

Hey Larry, does Fidel claim the right to assassinate Cuban citizens? I mean, I know he probably does – assassinate Cuban citizens, I mean. But does he openly proclaim the right to do it? You know, like Bam claims the right to kill Americans without charge.

Michael Moore’s TV Nation and comparisons b/w healthcare systems in the USA, Canada and Cuba: censored by the US TV network because Cuba came out on top. So they had to lie and tell the viewers that Canada won. Moore admitted this in the book about the programme, ‘TV Nation’. Political censorship at work in the USA.

The truth is, the elites in the USA don’t care a hoot about (anyone else’s) freedom, wealth, health and the pursuit of happiness. They’re very happy for countries to be like the Democratic Republic of Congo. What they hate about Cuba, Venezuela, etc. is the lesson of a good example for other ‘Latin’ American countries – or indeed any other ‘Third World’ countries. The hate is undiminshed, even after five-plus decades, it comes steaming off the sentences.

Viva Cuba!

Clark: I read Reader’s Digest mainly when I was a juvenile. It was there, in the “condensed book” section at the back of the magazine, that I first discovered the story of Kaarlo Tuomi. A few years later I was able to read the unabridged account in John Barron’s book “KGB: the secret work of Soviet secret agents”. It would be great to make a film based on his story!

Suhayl: My guess is that you have never been to Cuba. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

That was me at 5.19 pm.

TM,

a whistleblower could use the method that you outline to upload to WikiLeaks. I’m not sure that your method is so secure anyway. The originating IP address will be traceable, giving a rough geographic location. There probably wouldn’t be many people in that region that had access to the leaked information. The leaker could use something like The Onion Router, but WikiLeaks use that anyway. WikiLeaks post advice on their site on how to send information anonymously, via the Internet and via post.

The main advantage of leaking to WikiLeaks is that they will publish it on their system where it can’t be censored. It will be displayed where many people, including journalists, look for sensitive information.

Of course, you do not know that I’m not working for the CIA etc. However, I am contactable via my link, and I am open to scrutiny. Are you?

I’ve never been to Uzbekistan, Russia, Palestine/Israel, Germany, Australia, Mars or C19th either, but it doesn’t stop me commenting on any or all of these.

Look, I’m not suggesting that Cuba has an ideal system. What I am suggesting is that is has made a number of crucially important step-changes in the face of continuous, proximate, unreasoning superpower bullying. In the face, really, of ongoing neo-colonialism.

I think also that the Cuban Revolution – in the context of the equally continuous disinformation peddled by Uncle Sam-and-pals – gives downtrodden people a sense of hope, esp. in the context of ‘Latin’ America, that it is possible to face down a superpower and its various Mafias, that its is possible to change the distribution not just of wealth but of life. Cuba also helped militarily defeat apartheid South Africa (which was avidly supported by the USA) in southern Africa. That is a major historical event.

One almost never hears anything about Cuba in the UK which is not laced with the same arrogant cynicism that willy-nilly dominates coverage of those places in the world who are ‘our enemies’. There is seldom any attempt to be objective. In essence, what we get is largely propaganda.

The media and peoples of ‘Latin’ America – and many other countries – do not view Cuba in the same way as it seems to be viewed in the USA and (to a lesser extent) the UK. Much broader and deeper analysis is to be found elsewhere, not here in the UK.

There are real problems in Cuban society. And centrally-controlled state economies don’t work, and more than centrally-controlled corporate economies. I don’t agree with having political prisoners, etc. It’s abhorrent. But the USA has its own political prisoners – not only all the (often innocent) ‘rendered’ people held in ‘black sites’ throughout the world, but disproportionately it’s own African-American population (having a black president does not alter this basic social dynamic, an ongoing legacy of slavery). This is in spite of the USA’s fabulous and constantly-trumpeted wealth. We see the deleterious effects of extremist neo-liberal economics all over the world – here, right now, in the UK as once again, millions lose their jobs and homes.

So I think that we can learn from places like Cuba, learn from their mistakes and their successes. We can learn that another way of living is possible. We can learn this, whether or not we’ve been there.

‘Somebody’, that was a brilliant post of yours at 9:06am. Well written! The USA exports terrorism to Cuba (and many other places too).

Hello again everyone! *waves*

Suhayl: We _must not_ learn any lessons from Cuba, none whatsoever, which is why it’s so essential to demonise Cuba, Cubans, every aspect of their way of life, and most of all (of course) Castro.

Except maybe the lesson “Socialism – BAD, capitalism – GOOD” and various other sundry bumper-sticker slogans.

Old Abe was asking Suhayl if he’d been to Cuba. Sadly, it appears he has not. But I have – several times – so please ask away if you feel I might be able to answer a question for you.

Hey, Glenn! Good holiday, I hope?! Well, tell us something about Cuba, man.

As it happens, I had access to a magazine containing reports by travellers, and the latest issue was about Cuba. I was not too surprised to learn that things generally in this impoverished Communist country work poorly if at all. I would still be interested to learn about Glenn’s experiences, though.

But there are at least two things that we could learn from Cuba

1. Every state should provide at least basic and emergency health care for its citizens. The USA should have a ‘public option’, and Medicare for everybody.

2. Every country should protect civil liberties. The state needs to be restrained. Here Cuba serves as a _negative_ example.

I would also take a leaf out of Suhayl’s book: it is not necessary to visit Cuba to thoroughly disapprove of this repressive godless Communist regime, which may Providence bring a speedy end to.

Actually, Abe, I agree with your points 1) and 2) and I sense yet again that you’re a thoroughly civilised person (at the risk of sounding like Hughie Green, I mean that sincerely), though needless to say I don’t agree with your conclusion!

Hi there Suhayl – yes, not bad thanks. I didn’t get as far into that novel as hoped, though. Don’t even know who Joseph is yet, but don’t give it away.

Abe – countries like Cuba, particularly like Cuba in fact, have been so thoroughly victimised by the very powerful bully to its north, that it’s impossible to see it in isolation. Had it not been for that malignant influence, we would no doubt see an entirely different type of country flourish.

As it is, particularly given the massive blockade unprecedented in the history of the world, it is struggling. But the people struggle together. There are no multi-billionaires, but also nobody starving or without very good health/dental care etc., free access to excellent education and basic needs met.

“Godless” you say? Wth, Abe? Why do you think it’s necessary to introduce sky-spook delusions into a political apparatus? If people want to waste time and energy bowing to the Sun, ancient Greek gods, cloud-beings or whatever, they’re welcome to do so in Cuba. There are plenty of rather impressive churches about the place.

The human rights record is not perfect, but then neither is ours, and particularly not that of the US. And if you start to compare it with our good friends in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel etc. etc., your singling out of Cuba for complaint makes no sense at all.

How many countries has Cuba invaded (apart from with doctors or aid), bombed or threatened? When did it ever export or encourage terrorism, even though it’s been a very regular victim of terrorism from the US.

If you want to see what a Cuba without Castro would look like, take a good hard look at Haiti next door.

“If you want to see what a Cuba without Castro would look like, take a good hard look at Haiti next door.”

Hah! Ignore every other Caribbean example, and just pick the nation with the most trouble historically. You do know the DR occupies the same island, right?

What an insult you make against the Cubans for stating that they never would have survived without Castro.

Has anyone been on a hunger strike in the U.S. lately?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_dissident_march

Clark,

Re: “a whistleblower could use the method that you outline to upload to WikiLeaks.”

Yes, with suitable precaution, Wikileaks might be one destination — among others, for leaked info. But to make Wikileaks a sole destination would in my view be rash.

Re: “The main advantage of leaking to WikiLeaks is that they will publish it on their system where it can’t be censored. It will be displayed where many people, including journalists, look for sensitive information.”

But my contention is that Wikileaks may not publish a genuine leak with implications for the security state, but merely pass it to a security service that might seek to take care of the leaker.

Does Wikileaks not demand the identity of the leaker? I mean, they don’t want to be spoofed do they.

I do not see, therefore, how a prospective leaker could be sure, or would be wise to assume, that Wikileaks is what it purports to be.

Re: “Of course, you do not know that I’m not working for the CIA etc.”

Any more than you can know that I am working for the CIA. So why did you raise the issue? It suggests a rather wild attempt at a smear.

Re: “However, I am contactable via my link, and I am open to scrutiny.”

Well you post a link somewhere on the Web. But if we’re talking real spooks, I think such a link does not mean much: not that I intend to imply deceit on your part, but merely to show that this kind of validation is questionable.

What I would say is that we should judge one another’s comments according to their logic and factual content.

Likewise, I suggest that people, particularly prospective leakers, would be wise to judge Julian Assange and Wikileaks on strictly rational grounds, not according to whether Assange won a medal or has been smeared by a Swedish lesbian.

Glenn: “your singling out of Cuba for complaint makes no sense at all.” I don’t single out Cuba. Human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Abu Ghraib are to be condemned as much as in Cuba. Perhaps more in Israel and the West because their practice ought to live up to their proclaimed principles. And there’s genuine freedom to criticise the government in the West. Which is why life in the USA for most people is better than in Cuba. Which is precisely why Cubans flee North more often than the other way round. So that they don’t have to ‘struggle together’ under a misconceived repressive regime, but be free to build a good life!

Suhayl: your kind compliment is much appreciated, thank you. Maybe you should visit Cuba one day, so you can tell us first hand what kind of a place it is.

That reminds me of a story of the Soviet Union. I’m not sure whether I read it in Solzhenitsyn or John Barron. The USSR were trying to get immigrants who were valuable as labourers. Three of them made a pact with their parents: they would send back a photograph. If things were fine, they would be standing up. If not, they would be sitting. The photograph showed these new citizens of the workers’ paradise lying on the floor. Behold the wonders of Communism!

TM,

you suggest, and yet provided precisely zero evidence, that WikiLeaks would (a) sell out whistleblowers and (b) fail to publish. You also call WikiLeaks a multimillion dollar concern – again no evidence – though I thought they were short of money.

You say that whistleblowers should choose rationally, but you seem pretty keen on the smear tactics yourself.

My link includes an e-mail address, through which I am contactable. That is not meaningless, it is the first link in a chain by which you could verify my identity and character, should you so choose.

Glenn,

welcome back!

Abe Rene,

I haven’t visited Cuba either, but I had a girlfriend who was considering moving there. Maybe one reason that more people wish to leave Cuba than move there is that people move to places of greater wealth.

I grew up ‘knowing’ that the Sun never shone in the USSR, where everyone was permanently miserable. Now, of course, I realise that this impression came from Cold War propaganda. When Russians started coming to Britain in the ’90s, I was surprised to discover that the Russian ‘phone system was free to use, as were the swimming pools. Swimming pools! My impressions of the USSR certainly didn’t include swimming pools!

My point is not that these places are better than the UK or the US, but that we are presented with an unduly negative image of them. I don’t think that this is government propaganda so much as commercial propaganda.

Yes, some of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib went on hunger strike. There was also that Al Jazeera journalist, Sami al Hajj – see link below. And does anyone remember the IRA prisoners who died on hunger strike in the UK in the 1980s? So yes, there have been, and are, hunger-strikers in various countries. It’s a tactic used not uncommonly among especially political prisoners, in fact, to seek better conditions or whatever.

Cuba under the USA was a Mafia island. It would still be a Mafia island is the Cuban Revolution hadn’t happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_al-Hajj

Abe, with all respect your point is incredibly simplistic. Of course some Cubans want to flee their country rather than the other way around, precisely because of the economic hardship caused by the blockade. I’m sorry you can’t see past that.

Isn’t it odd to you that any Cuban making it to the Florida shore automatically becomes a US citizen, while a starving Haitian in a leaking wreck of a boat is turned back?

How many other peoples become a US citizen automatically, by dint of just showing up without prior permission? So the enticement is blatantly obvious.

*

But you didn’t ask me a question about Cuba – I thought you wanted to know something about it from someone who was familiar with the country. Perhaps it takes someone of Suhayl’s eloquence to do it justice for you?

Ironically, our resident teabagger isn’t at liberty to tell us what it is like even if he wanted to. Because he is forbidden by the US government from going there.

Clark: Thanks! And we certainly got the glowing reports about how dandy the US was compared with anywhere else, as a counterpoint to the dark, dismal Russian empire (in which it always snowed, even indoors, as I recall).

Having traveled extensively in both countries, it’s clear to me that poverty – in parts – was more intense in America than anywhere in Cuba. And the disparity between the wealthy and the poor was orders of magnitude greater in the US.

“How many other peoples become a US citizen automatically, by dint of just showing up without prior permission?”

Since when ?

glenn,

Welcome back!

somebody,

Good post at 9.06am your contributions are indeed becoming more powerful.

Cuba has developed a unique cooperation with Iran based on trust and mutual respect. This trust and economic relations is a blueprint that Britain can use to develop her relations with Iran, moving away from conflict and restoring a balance desperately needed to unite East with West.

Cuba supports Iran’s program to develop nuclear technology for PEACEFUL purposes and both countries agreed to work towards the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Former President of Cuba Fidel Castro spoke admiringly of Iran “increasing its ability to confront the big powers by the day.”

Iran has given Cuba ‘a credit line’ to improve it’s infrastructure and there exists lucrative contracts that Iran lacks in skills which Britain could demonstratively fulfil which would provide revenue for a declining manufacturing base, improve our trade balance and reduce the colossal debt incurred supporting America in her imperial campaigns.

We have to change or die, instead of trying to wipe out our adversaries as we did under Blair, now is the time for Britain to show leadership and start building the framework of a united world.

Comrades – you asked what my experience was of Cuba. Thank you, I’m very glad you asked. Almost as soon as you arrive, you get the impression that this is a special place. it’s not just that things are rather run down (which they are), or that there’s a lack of modern technology on display. Things are often shabby, but the people are not. There is a pride about them, and – dare I say it – a solidarity which I’ve never found anywhere else.

It’s about the safest place in the world. There is traffic, but it’s not reckless, and there is not a disregard for pedestrians/ cyclists. A part-time travelling companion was a single lady in her late thirties. She had travelled between towns, having not making any plans in advance. When it was time to leave, they asked if she wanted a contact in the next town – if not, fine. No pressure, and no sense of being in danger.

It’s not often one can appear as a tourist in the back-streets of any major city and feel no hostility, or hungry eyes at your back. The most hassle I received was a furtive offer of cigars – there were quite a number of such offers. A polite refusal would suffice, every time.

There is no advertising. It takes a little while for that to sink in – no billboards, no exhortations to enhance your life or fill the void with this or that product or drink. There are billboards promoting the revolution, praising the workers, and reminding one of the importance of the struggle.

Co-workers greeted each other with such affection, we mistook them for lovers or close family members before realising that this is just how they get along. Strangers are quick to co-orporate if there is a problem, beyond the somewhat enforced assistance that the police encourage when it comes to car-pooling.

The education level among the most ordinary of people appears uncommonly high. Teeth were of a higher standard than one might find outside Beverley Hills. People generally looked fit, far more so than in the UK/US, and had a genuine sense of pride in their country and what it had accomplished. Not the belligerent, swaggering nationalism one finds all too often in the US and sometimes the UK, nor the rather aloof superiority often found (quite justifiably, actually) in northern Europe.

Racism appeared entirely absent. There was no discrimination that I could discern in play anywhere. Perhaps this was because races mixes so freely – it was not uncommon to find an individual having entirely dark skin, but with strikingly green eyes.

The cars are amazing if one has a fondness for 1950s vintage American automobiles. These are family heirlooms, and no inconsiderable ingenuity has been applied to their upkeep. The same is true for everything else – the Blockade is a way of life, and has been for generations. Music is a passion, and there’s little to match the enthusiasm of Cuban musicians when they get going. Anyone making a visit should pack their bags with spares for instruments (guitar strings in particular, classic and acoustic), and if you bring strings for the double bass too, you will have friends for life. Let me know if you’re visiting, and I can provide advice on what’s needed.

It’s all the little things that they lack, but which make life so much easier for us. Tampons, make-up and electric pick-ups. Pens, baseballs, tennis rackets. Baseball caps, toothbrushes, western clothes. Ask them what they need, and they’ll tell you with a hearty laugh and a shrug, “Everything!” The much bigger things, which some of us lack greatly in the west, are available – electricity, clean water and heat is not a problem. Health care and education is not a problem. Dental care, basic food needs and crime, too, are not problems.

Possibly most striking is the fact that Cubans are generally extremely well informed about world politics, and with the odd exception have pride in their country and genuine affection for Castro. Some expressed regret for not being able to leave, but understood that if those able to make a life elsewhere were to all leave, then the country would be lost. If there were no embargo, as many people would arrive as leave, as they became more prosperous. It was also striking that Cubans hold no hatred to Americans for their situation because of the Blockade, nor against Americans for not liking them. They understood that Americans are terribly misinformed, and huge numbers of Americans have deep problems themselves caused by their own government. They understand that the US administration is the problem, not the people. Perhaps this enlightenment is because of their absence of racism.

Perhaps the most striking of all, beyond the people, was the sheer natural beauty of Cuba. An explosion of sounds, smells, sights and the feel of warm sun, pure air, gave me the most accurate approximation of what I’d imagined, as a child, to be paradise. Given the farming is nearly all organic now, the food actually tastes as it should (as God intended, if you will).

*

There are police about, but the police at home were far more intimidating as far as I was concerned. When meeting with a group of Cubans, one would occasionally swing by, my impression was to make sure I was ok, rather than looking for a reason to cause trouble. One could stroll around at night without seeing a police presence, and without feeling intimidated. (The sense that one _should_ feel intimidated has picked up for me aplenty in numerous places around the world, but never here.)

That’s probably enough rambling about Cuba for now. Let me know if there’s something specific, and I’ll do my best to relate what I gleaned there. I would advise those in free countries where one is allowed to see for themselves what a socialist country can manage to give to its people, on maybe 5% of US per capita income. It is striking, that the basics can all be met with so little, when fairly distributed. No millionaires or billionaires produced in the process, but it can be done. If another 5%, 10%, 50% were put on top of that, we should be living in utopia ourselves. Little wonder the US just cannot abide such a terrible threat to the American fantasy.

Glenn: “But you didn’t ask me a question about Cuba?”

My message of 8.27 pm, 1 September said: “I would still be interested to learn about Glenn’s experiences.”

“Of course some Cubans want to flee their country .. because of the economic hardship caused by the blockade. I’m sorry you can’t see past that.”

People wanting to flee poverty and repression for freedom and prosperity? There’s enough to see right there. Good luck to those who escape.

Your account is similar to that of Paul Robeson who described the Soviet Union in the 1930s in glowing terms such as yours. He was duped.

As a visiting Comrade (as witness your greeting), of course you have seen Cuba through rose-tinted glasses and been treated well, as was Robeson. Your fellow Comrades (including the ‘co-workers’)in Cuba would speak well of the system. But secret police would have followed you everywhere at a discreet distance. No one with any sense would say anything against the regime, since after you left, they would have had to bear serious consequences. Expressing regrets at not being able to leave but dutifully qualifying their statement would be as far as they could safely go. You can bet they’ll be on the escape boats first chance they get.

Fortunately Castro is visibly losing his marbles, thinking that Osama Bin Laden is an agent of the CIA, so Communism in Cuba will probably collapse before children born there now there have reached the age of majority, and possibly much sooner. Then indeed, we may see a large Southward migration – to a free state, not a dictatorship!

Sure, Abe. A free state, just like Haiti.

Haiti has harmed itself with Voodoo, for example the Bois Caman ceremony:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bois_Ca%C3%AFman

The people should wholeheartedly repent and burn all articles associated with their black magic.

Abe Rene wanted a view of Cuba from someone who has visted. He gets a really good factual and interesting one from Glenn but continues the attempt (failed!) to demonize the three ‘Cs’, Cuba, Castro and Communism.

The old game of tricks.

For anybody who’s interested in impressions of Cuba, rather than the merits of their favourite ideology, I’d recommend (again, but I think I was anon. last time) Dervla Murphy’s “The Island That Dared”.

She has a nicely straightforward & idiosyncratic way of doing these things – decide where to go, write about what it’s like getting there; on arrival, find somewhere to drink beer, get into conversation with people, write about the conversations. Much opinion, very little bullshit.

I think I agree most with Suhayl, that the best comparison is not with other places having different histories, it’s with wondering what it would be like by now had Batista and his ilk continued.

somebody at September 2, 2010 12:26 PM:

I haven’t denied that Glenn’s account was interesting, apart from its political sympathies. Real people, including Cubans, are interesting in their own right. The same applies, for example, to Michael Moore’s account (in his film Sicko) of a group of Americans who were given medical treatment gratis in Havana – a genuine humanitarian gesture. Or the very interesting book “Justice in Moscow” by George Feifer. All this does not alter my disdain for Communism and esteem for democracy. In my view, once the Castro brothers have passed on, the USA should consider lifting sanctions against Cuba to encourage the new politburo to democratise the country.

PS. Re-reading Glenn’s article: I regret that, thanks to our previous debate, I didn’t sufficiently appreciate it as an article. I now apologise and try to put that right.

Apart from its rather obvious left-wing sympathies, this is a well-written piece, filled with small but interesting observations, for example the quality of people’s teeth. IMO, it might go well in a travel book or magazine, if a determined attempt were made to remove political polemic. I would encourage the author to try doing that. He might also include meetings with dissidents, if these occurred.

Abe – that’s very kind of you to say so. And I did notice before writing it that you had indeed asked me to provide some feedback on my experience there, so had Suhayl, so that’s what I did. It wasn’t really supposed to be an attempt to justify the regime, although perhaps I did do so to some extent, but rather give my personal ‘take’ on what I’ve found, over several visits. I could probably rant on all day about Cuba, I find it the most fascinating place.

Does anyone rmmebr Beslan tragidy in which so many children perishes and whose amstermind was being protected byt he british govt ?

this is 6th anniversary of beslan tragidy . if usa can destroy afgansitan and iraq on flimsest of evidence for 9/11 then Russia is jsutified in eliminating england as any serious pwoer player fromt eh world for its support of chechan terrorists so that this scumbag of a country pirate england never dare spread terorism the world over again.

=============================================================================

october, 2002.

So according the the Guardian editorial on 2nd of Decemebr 2002 The british should try to topple, if they could have the power, the persons like daddam hussain, Dr. M. mahathir of malasia. Mr. Mugabe of Zimbawe, and Mr. Jacque Ciraque Of france. All of these people have one thinmg in common-they have all challneged the english bastardy and bully tactics . In fact their oppesition ot english intersts must make them heroes for the rest of world becasue entglish are the curse of this world and are real pestilence which should ebe eliminated. Remmeber when israel had bombed Iraques nuclear reactor in summer of 1981 days befor it going critical then it was the english media and their stooge english media who wre doing anti israeli propaganda along with Iraq-ofcourse at that time english thought that the only way to get ARAB MONEY WAS BY LICKING ARAB’S ARSE.- when america is kicking that arse then english like a hyena-that they are-have joined them. In fact english are actively sabotaging and spying european trade secrets-english are enemies not only of coloured population of the world but all other whites of Europe and of even america-english infiltration inside america has ensured that america foreign policy and even domestic policy is run for english benefit and small number of anglosaxonx(who are basically plumber class in america just like in england)-english is a race of pirates turned blumbers)That is why english have infiltrated media and hollywpood and are boring the rest of the world with their rubbish actors and actreess-who are more of whores than anything-that too ugly english whore. That is why though england does not produce anything worthwhile-may be infected beef?-it is still not under recession while japan .far east and whiole of europe has been made to live in prolonged recession by the english manipulation of stock market world bank and all unproductive financial transations.

The French prseident is right is demanding that britain give back to E. U. what it has been taking

unfairly for so long. After all it was never entitled to those money . Besides it has n=been britain who has been vociferous in wanting the enlargement of europe. The prupose why england wanted enlargement was basically to derail european integration and create a rift amonst partner states so that wiht the hepl of america braitain can As a pet dog of super=power(but never a power in itself though

propaganda would be about engand being some sort of power) this rubbish thirld rate country would terrorize and hopefully rule_as american proxy over other countries outside europe. In opther word england is harbouring an ambition of proxy empire(with american help_If it could do on its own then it owuld not have cared for america). tHAT ABITION OF enGLAND MUST BE CRUSHED.

eUROPE SHOULD DEMAND NOT ONLY MONEY BACK ABUT IF POSSIBLE SHOULD KICK ENGLAND OUT OF E.U.

eNGLAND IS ENNEMY OF NOT ONLY EUROPE BUT ALOS THE ALL OF THIRLD WORLD AND EVEN AMEIRCA. LOOK HOW RUBBISH ENGLISH PLUMBERS AND FOOTBALERSLAND UP SUSHY JOB IN HOLLYWOOD WHILE THE REST OF WORLD HAS TO GET VISA TO ENTER AMERICA AND WHILE MOST OF AMERICANS(WHO ARE NOT DESCENENDETS OF ANGLOSAXONS) HAVE TO FACE DISCRIMINATION.).

tHE SOONER THE WORLD REALIZE THIS AXIS OF EVIL(ENGLAND AND ANGLOSAXONS RACE) THAT SOONER IT CAN THWART THE EVIL DESIGN OF THIS ENGLISH-PIRATE TURNED SHOPKEEPRES TURNES PLUMBERS RACE).

25th october 2002

On the day chechnyan terrorists tokk hostage of 500 civilains in

A Moscow theatre, The headline of BBC was not about that but about sharp shooter terrorist being suppsedly caught in washington> In fact theis chechnyian news was fifth in item(including head line) . These days atlast the british media even say about chechnyian terrorist as terrorist otherwise 2 years ago they were always calling them freedom fighters(which they are -but that is another story). In fact the british media and england as a country had been actively supporting and giving material help to checnyaina terrorists9aided by cia and british spy and british media aswell).

If you lok at the report of british media then you realize the british involvemnt in terrorism by the chechnyian terrorists. When three multistory falts were wiped pout by terrorist in central Moscow a few years ago there was a gleee in british reprting and a criticism of later security arrangemnt by Russian forces in Moscow. ofcourse the british media would have been horrified and bar=king like a dog(which they are) if the Russians had decided to destory checknian civilians as the americans did in afganistan. Then you realize the humbug of british propaganda against terrorism-it is selective and meant to facilitate british infiltration in other countries, In fact the afganistan govet(after fall of Taliban) was oppsed to british tyroops (after all americans fought -what have british got?)presence in afgansitan-but armtwisting by british through american help ensures that rbtitish troops are there in afgansitan0they are forgeing infioltrators and thus should be eliminated(they have less legal reason to be in afgansitan than the soviets who had been primarily invited by the govt, of the day). the british involvemtn in international terrorism is not confined to agasnt Russian interset only.

When the kashmiris killed several Indian soldiers(regular phenomenon) the british paper(independent) blamed India for being a target of terrrism and not talking enough with what it called freedom fighters.(terminology changes according to british interts). Infact during the 80s when India was really relatively stable and srtongatlest the govet, was) then the british decided to destabilize India by sponsoring Sikh terrorismand taliban terorism aswell(agasnt INDIA AND AFGANSITAN). It is only when India has virtually been subjugated to look after british and american interst in economics and (with rteal weakening of india as military power) that the british decided to take supprt for terrrism somewhere else.

The whole world is being put under sieze by theis thrird rate power-england-a nation of plumbers(graduation from a nation of pirates turned shopkeepers) The modus operandi of english is by propaganda and spying through british media-paper, bbc and television-they have infiltrated american media and holly wood and are taking jobs from real americans too, They are real enemy of europe and are the main peple respnisnble for truning nations into thrild world and putting them down to status of thrirld world. Look ate how they destryed japansesw economy through manipulative stock market-while their market never crashes and their low life living in factory turned apartmnets-so ugly-never gets busted.

The world has to rise against this anglosaxon who are waging race war agasint all non anglosaxonas -, That evil can be defeated and eliminated -only people have to recognize real enemyaand then eliminate them.

==============================================================================

april 2007 —

“starroute said…

I also noticed that reference in the French documents to Chechen rebels — and what it immediately reminded me of was not Feith’s and Perle’s adventures, but Peter Dale Scott’s “The Global Drug Meta-Group.”

I’ve never felt I’ve fully understood Scott’s article, bit as a result I get something new out of it every time I look at it. In this case, what jumped out at me was these paragraphs:

(The goal of splitting up Russia attributed here to Surikov is that which, in an earlier text co-authored by Surikov, is attributed by Russian “radicals” to the United States:

The radicals believe that the US actively utilizes Turkish and Muslim elements….From Azerbaijan, radicals foresee a strategic penetration which would irrevocably split the Federation. US influence would be distributed to the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, to Chechnya and the other North Caucasus Muslim autonomous republics of T[at]arstan and Bashkortostan. As a result Russian territorial integrity would be irreparably compromised.) . . .

In my conclusion I shall return to the possibility that U.S. government might share common goals with Hizb ut-Tahrir and the meta-group in Russia, even while combating the Islamist terrorism of al-Qaeda in the Middle East and the West.

Most major media outlets have spelled out with a profusion of details the “exact” events that led to the death of what some claim to have been hundreds of people in the eastern Uzbekistan town of Andijan on May 13. Led by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the world media condemned much-maligned Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov for yet another bloody and ruthless suppression of “public dissent”. Yet, all the details so far provided do not explain who the real players were or their end objectives.

It is certain, however, that the puzzle cannot be solved unless the London factor is understood. The answers lie in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Liverpool. The old British colonial establishment, with former intelligence officer Bernard Lewis as its mentor, appears to have set in motion a series of events that will bring endless bloodshed to Central Asia. London’s objective would appear to be to keep both China and Russia under an open-ended threat. At this point, there is no one who can better serve this “Lewis Doctrine” than Muslims nurtured in Britain – the Hizbut-Tehrir (HT). . . .

Apart from various Islamic preachers, two major Islamic groups function in the Ferghana Valley, whose common objective is to change the regimes in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. These are the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the HT. While the IMU openly thrives on violence, the HT is strongly promoted by the United Kingdom, where it is headquartered, as peaceful. But records indicate that that the IMU and the HT work hand-in-hand. Most of the IMU recruits are from the HT, according to Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on world terrorist outfits. Gunaratna claims that Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian of Chechen origin who has remained active in the Iraqi insurgency against the US occupying forces, were both once members of the HT. . . .

The West’s policy – in other words, the policy of the Anglo-Americans, as the European Union does not have a policy worth citing – toward the Middle East has long been formulated by Bernard Lewis. The British-born Lewis started his career as an intelligence officer and has remained in bed with British intelligence ever since. Avowedly anti-Russia and pro-Israel, Lewis reaped a rich harvest among US academia and policymakers. He brought president Jimmy Carter’s virulently anti-Russian National Security Council chief, Zbigniew Brzezinski, into his fold in the 1980s, and made the US neo-conservatives, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, dance to his tune on the Middle East in 2001. In between, he penned dozens of books and was taken seriously by people as a historian. But, in fact, Lewis is what he always was: a British intelligence officer. . . .

The recent developments in Uzbekistan have all the hallmarks of the same process. This time the objective is to weaken China, Russia, and possibly India, using the HT to unleash the dogs of war in Central Asia. It is not difficult for those on the ground to see what is happening. The leader of the Islamic Party of Tajikistan, Deputy Prime Minister Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, has identified HT as a Western-sponsored bogeyman for “remaking Central Asia”. . . .

It is not a lack of understanding on the part of American neo-conservatives associated with the Bush administration, but their keenness to use the “Lewis Doctrine” to achieve what they believe is justified that promises untold danger. How important a brains-trust is Lewis to the neo-conservatives? Just read the words of Richard Perle, a leading neo-conservative who remains a close adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “Bernard Lewis has been the single-most important intellectual influence countering the conventional wisdom on managing the conflict between radical Islam and the West.”

So — we end by coming back round again to Richard Perle, but hopefully in a larger context.

It ain’t really about the Middle East, boys and girls — it’s about world domination, by any means necessary. The only question is one of identifying the moves as they happen, instead of many years later.”

Oh dear, the return of the genocidal, anglophobic terrorist nutter, avatar Singh, who says:

“entglish are the curse of this world and are real pestilence which should ebe eliminated.”

I thought even liberals were intolerant of intolerance. Or is there an exception in the case of advocacy of extermination of the English race?

Here’s Julian Assange’s highest academic credential, in case anyone is interested:

http://edu.npo.eu/news/

You have to scroll down a bit.

Obviously, he’s a genius.

LOL

Avatar Singh: I don’t recall any of my mates or family members advocating terrorism, even though they’re not English while still being British. I asked my English wife, just to be sure, and she doesn’t recall doing anything to encourage Chechen activity against the children of Beslan.

Could you explain then why we should all have to die according to your logic?

Gklenn, that was a beautiful – and deeply eloquent – passage. Thank you so much for sharing your experience of Cuba with us on these beoards. Much appreciated.

I’ve just had some correspondence from a recent visitor to Cuba. Here is the relevant text from his message (translated into English):

“My experience is, that the people are poor, but not too unhappy. Travelling by bus is cheap, for example .. I talked to young Cubans, who apparently are not very interested in politics. They are interested in overseas countries, and would like travel like us, but in my view the poverty is a bigger problem than the politics. Also there’s a lot of propaganda.”

corrected:

“My experience is, that the people are poor, but not too unhappy. Travelling by bus is cheap, for example .. I talked to young Cubans, who apparently are not very interested in politics. They are interested in overseas countries, and would like to travel like us, but in my view the poverty is a bigger problem than the politics. Also there’s a lot of propaganda.”

Avatar, as before, you make some powerful points wrt covert operations, global hegemony, etc. but – as I’ve said before – I think you get carried away and tend towards the essentialising of entire peoples, calling, as you seem to do, for their extermination.

Look, if the UK sank into the Atlantic Ocean this very evening, does one imagine that the imperial wars and other heinous activities undertaken by the MI complex would cease? No. It’s not about ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ or whatever one wants to call it, it’s about money, power and the political and philosophical systems that buttress the acquisition and maintenance of those goals. Tribalisms of various sorts are utilised as vehciles for the pursuance of those neoliberal/ neocolonial aims. Do not mistake the husk for the kernel (as the Sufis say in an entirely different context). This fixation with ‘Anglo-Saxons’ (what, Ethelred the Unready?) and call for genocide is every bit as uncalled-for as similar exhortations wrt ‘the Jews’, ‘the Arabs’, ‘the Chinese’, or whatever.

he is a damn rapist ok? i have the proof:

http://www.cerntruth.com/?p=88

(-;

“This fixation with ‘Anglo-Saxons’ (what, Ethelred the Unready?) and call for genocide is every bit as uncalled-for …”

Uncalled for?

UNCALLED FOR?

LOL

Well, anonymous poster at 9:51pm, I’m using politesse, humour and understatement as a contrapuntal means to point-up what are, if taken on face value, horrendous statements. Without attempting to be an apologist, I sense that avatar tends to use hyperbolic rhetoric. Nonetheless, if, as I suggested, we were to substitute most other groups of people for ‘Anglo-Saxons’… so what’s the difference? There isn’t one.

Avatar Singh – the main effect of your bizarre post was to make me want to defend the English – and i’m Scottish.

The Russian government and its forces have killed as many or more civilians than the Chechen terrorist groups and rebels.

You condemn the British for backing Chechen terrorists and calling them “freedom fighters” while simultaneously saying that in your opinion the Chechen terrorists are indeed “freedom fighters”.

What in hell is your point (in less than 500 words please)?

Anyway, Aethelred the Unready was much-maligned, yet he was credited with commencing trial-by-jury. So, in the long picture, maybe not so unready. He was facing a juggernaut of Vikings. Horns, rape, pillage and all that.

… the ritual of the Blood eagle… of course, the Vikings, too are much-maligned (though in war, they were fearsome), yet they exhibited a rich culture, eg. the Norse epics and the poetry of the Skalds.

Orkney is replete with Viking remnants. It’s fascinating.

Nonethless, if you were a monk on an island, the shape of a longship rising over the horizon was a fearsome sight indeed. No amount of Buckfast would sate those warriors.

Here you are Clark, some info. on Wikileaks finances.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/wikileaks-fears-funding-network-and-sources-may-be-targeted-says-assange/story-e6frg90x-1225908983516

They are struggling financially, apparently, despite raising $1.1 million in the first eight months of this year, which justifies my description of them as a multi-million-dollar operation.

And I did not smear Wikileaks, although you seem to be attempting to smear me by suggesting that I did.

What I said was:

“…Wikileaks may not publish a genuine leak with implications for the security state, but merely pass it to a security service that might seek to take care of the leaker. …

I do not see, therefore, how a prospective leaker could be sure, or would be wise to assume, that Wikileaks is what it purports to be.”

This is clearly hypothetical. I am open to facts that refute the hypothesis. So far you have offered none, merely gone off at a tangent about personalities. Therefore, I remain of the view that a person contemplating the transmission of state secrets to Wikileaks should think carefully about the potential hazards of such action.

Frankly, I don’t care if your name is Kilroy or Kamaluddin, and your web page proves little since the fabrication of identities on the web is not difficult — which is not to say I doubt what you say. Why, after all, should you lie? But in a remote discussion such as this, it is only content that seems to me to be of interest.

more seriously, bottom line is that smearing campaigns always work, because let us face it we live in a world in which the people who really try to save it are so few, they are easy prey of an arrogant lot of humans who care for nothing but thier big job/money. And the mass sees reality as a cricus and cares nothing. In an age of automatons and a market whose only objective is to evolve machines and make moneyw with them peopel like assange should have a better treatment. But the owners of the world and the mass of sheeple slaves couldnt care less and so if humans dont care why the Universe should let us stay anylonger ‘man is a mush on the surface of a rock in a corner of the Universe, departing of these facts we can talk about him’ schppenhauer

“Reality as a circus” with passive spectators: Yes, indeed, Paul, I agree. The Situationists predicted this.

TM,

so far, WikiLeaks seem to have done very good work. All that I’ve seen and read so far confirms that WikiLeaks does exactly what it says it does. The background of Assange and the Wau Holland foundation strongly contradict your assertion that WikiLeaks could be an intelligence agency front.

Sorry if I appeared to smear you. Assuming that they are genuine (which I do), Assange and the other members of WikiLeaks have placed themselves in the firing line of some of the most powerful organisations on Earth. I respect that, and I think you should be more careful about propagating these rumours; encouraging mistrust of WikiLeaks works to the advantage of the secretive and the powerful.

My little web page proves nothing in itself, but I am CONTACTABLE through it; what more could be asked of someone who is not publicly known? Do come round and ask my neighbours how many men in trenchcoats and dark glasses come to visit me. I’ll let you try out the ejector seat in my Aston Martin and let you fire harpoons at my sharks.

159.172

Paul,

I agree that high-profile opponents of the propaganda and war machines are a small minority. However, there are many people that oppose oppression in less conspicuous ways. I also disagree that the majority do not care. There are many that would care if they knew, but they are not exposed to informative media, and they lack the time to find out. There are also many that do care but feel that they are powerless to change things.

I find the UK political and mass media systems very disheartening; it seems so difficult to change anything. But I think we should try to nurture our optimism and encourage people to get involved.

Hi Suhayl – that’s extremely kind of you to say so, please let me know if you have specific questions about the place. Thank you for overlooking the odd grammatical howler and clumsy wording which must make a real author like yourself cringe.

somebody: I’ll second that, about the demonisation of the three ‘c’s, as you rightly put it. I’d also like to remind old Abe that Cuba is not 1930s Russia, and Castro is not Stalin.

“I remain of the view that a person contemplating the transmission of state secrets to Wikileaks should think carefully about the potential hazards of such action.”

Well, good lord. A person contemplating the transmission of state secrets should think carefully about the potential hazards of such action. Yes indeed. It’s hardly open to doubt, is it ?

Clark,

“I think you should be more careful about propagating these rumours; encouraging mistrust of WikiLeaks works to the advantage of the secretive and the power”

I am not propagating rumors. I stated a logical inference from limited knowledge. Your knowledge is possibly greater but evidently no more definitive than mine, otherwise you would have stated why the possibilities that I referred to can be definitively ruled out by a leaker contemplating using Wikileaks as an intermediary.

Further it is illogical to say that such reservations as I outlined about the wisdom of using Wikileaks as an outlet for classified or proprietary information necessarily “works to the advantage of the secretive and the powerful.”

On the contrary, if the hazard I postulated is real, then the concern I have expressed works exactly contrary to “the secretive and the powerful”, i.e., those who might have set up Wikileaks as a trap for leakers.

If, I were intent on leaking information in contravention of, say, the Official Secrets Act, I would certainly consider alternatives to Wikileaks as a channel to the public. One of the most spectacular leaks in recent times was of the “Climategate emails”, an operation that was conducted with great effect without the aid of Wikileaks.

In fact I really don’t see what useful function Wikileaks serves. They claim to assess and edit material, but a conscientious leaker should know the material much better than Wikileaks and would likely not want to be second guessed by people about whom they likely know rather little.

A further point is this: Wikileaks are best known for the release of tens of thousands of classified Pentagon documents on the Afghanistan war. What has been the effect? To allow the mainstream media to publish stories stating that Osama bin Laden is alive and well, living in Pakistan and directing the war in Afghanistan. Since bin Laden was near death with kidney failure nine years ago, I find these stories hard to believe. It is not hard to believe, however, that Wikileaks has either been duped or has acted as an accomplice to an intelligence agency seeking to promote extension of the War on Terror to Pakistan.

While I don’t doubt your personal information, I can only take it on trust, unless I hire a gumshoe to make enqiries in Chelmsford, an expense I an presently ruling out.

To Anonymous: You attention span may be limited, but do try to understand things in their context.

TM

I agree with you. There’s something very odd indeed about WikiLeaks’ release of the Pentagon documents. I see it as a stunt to get WikiLeaks as much publicity as possible in order to rein in potential leakers to the one site and thereby control the leaks – a logical step by such corrupt governments fearful of exposure.

TM,

I agree with you. There’s something very odd about WikiLeaks’ latest releases. I think the intention is to gain as much publicity as possible in order that the site gathers in potential leakers thereby placing leaks under covert government control. To me it’s quite a logical step for the US/UK governments to take in light of their corruption and the possible growing alienation of their employees.

I am always reminded of the BT ads when the boy is telling his gran (Maureen Lipman) how he got an’ology’ in his exams.

Seems Dr Hunt chose the wrong ‘ology’.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308509/David-Kelly-doctor-Nicholas-Hunt-cautioned-breaking-GMC-rules.html

and

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306524/Dr-David-Kelly-inquiry-Doctors-accuse-pathologist-preventing-investigation.html

Climategate, “an operation that was conducted with great effect”.

It was, wasn’t it ? Of course, if you can be sure that your information is going to be given big headlines all over the English-language press, then the problem’s sorted. Apart from worrying about possible journalistic cherrypicking, anyway. (Incidentally, did anybody do any work on how that hacking was done, or who by, just a couple of weeks before the big conference ?)

Are these things exclusive, could one not send the stuff to Wikileaks and do whatever else one can think of, at the same time ?

And, anybody else that offers to take such potentially problematic info, are they not equally to be careful of ?

This is not to support Wikileaks particularly, of which I have no more knowledge than is publicly available,

it’s just to point out that this is indeed potentially a serious business, and one’s hard thinking should deal with that problem in its entirety. Trust tentatively, but verify just as hard as you can. *All* possibilities, not just the ones that we sudenly have people turning up telling us to distrust.

And, of course, to note that Wikileaks’ getting all this attention and argument is a function of its success in publishing a vast amount of info. Of varying value, of course. Its being on a website means that people can go look at it for themselves, in years to come; if you give it to a newspaper it’s likely to disappear along with the headlines.

Aand, from a different angle … to run a website holding such stuff, and keep it running, you’d need some people with fairly mighty sysadmin skills. They’re not necessarily in such great supply.

Just so’s the discussion doesn’t become unecessarily narrowed down …

It’s a pity Craig’s so busy, he might have some interesting stuff to say on the problems of getting stuff published.

TM,

I really can’t find any reason to distrust WikiLeaks. Reasons to trust them include Assange’s background in hacking, activism and Free Software, the involvement with the Wau Holland foundation, the host of material on the WikiLeaks site, and the lack of warning from the Cryptome site.

Whether Osama bin Laden had died or not has been a matter of controversy for years (though not in the Mainstream Media). Yes, of course the Mainstream has seized upon Osama bin Laden, whose name I expect sells many newspapers. Not having read the Afghan War Diaries, I do not know if they include evidence that Osama bin Laden actually still lives, or merely that US forces believe that he does.

We need skepticism, but ‘Divide and Rule’ has always been a technique of the powerful, and without some degree of trust our efforts could become hopelessly fragmented.

Still, if you have any actual evidence against WikiLeaks, I’ll read it with interest.

What’s all this nonsense about a ‘gumshoe’? You could just e-mail me. If I were to prove evasive then you’d have some reason for suspicion. All I have to judge you are the initials “TM”. The same goes for Assange; he’s prepared to stand up and be counted. As such, he’s more open and accountable than yourself.

Clark – I’m certainly suprised by the suggestion that Wikileaks “allowed” the publication of noise about ObL. Remembering such stories from way before I’d ever heard of Wikileaks, I don’t think the headline writers needed its permission. Indeed, what wouldn’t ‘allow’ them to write such things, if they think it’s going to sell some copies ?

Incidentally, I’m not sure that involvement with “Open Source” guarantees a wonderful personality, but as a technique, yes. Let people see how you reach your conclusions, show why you think you’re right (“many eyeballs make any bug shallow”, to borrow from someone I’m not altogether hugely impressed by, just as a case in point). More specifically, in this case, I see many people making assertions about what the material says, but very few urls showing where it says it.

Bleargh, did it again. Me at 1:01

I agree with Clark and his logic of assessing Wikileaks from passed history and the actions of its co-founder.

With respect to TM and Ruth, I personally believe, somewhat inevitably and repeated again, that the Pentagon papers were purposely leaked to Julian and his people; of course right now I have no evidence to back this claim which is based on intuition and a wry look from an intelligence friend who remained silent.

As an aside, during this recent conversation I learnt that Ayman al-Zawahiri is a Russian agent. Interesting!

Paul,

Spot on about smearing campaigns – in a recent argument with our friend tomk in another place I have been extremely careful not to become too embroiled in ‘propaganda and war-machines’ as Clark points out, I am in a minority at present, therefore vulnerable; however a dedication to data-mining and persistent inquiries will I hope increase that minority and enable me to confront lies and government conspiracies head-on.

Still going on about Julian Assange? If you’re such a caring man, Mr Murray, why did you become a British Ambassador and help implement British foreign policy, which is all about helping British corporations pillage from poor nations.

As an atheist, you claim death is the end, that you’re just a mass of atoms moving about. But if your entire existence is nothing more than particles moving about, then you don’t exist. How do particles moving about create what doesn’t exist in the matter universe – conscious experience? THEY DON’T!

If death is the end, why are you alive? Before you were born, you were particles in space. When you die, you become particles in space again. You were dead before you were born! Who’s to say you won’t be born again – religious pun not intended.

*** UPDATE ON BRADLEY MANNING ***

IF PEOPLE DESERT MANNING, YOU WON’T HAVE ANY MORE WHISTLEBLOWERS OF SUBSTANCE, AND WIKILEAKS WILL GO DOWN THE PLUG-HOLE. Stupid idiots!

“[Manning's] attorney…says Manning is currently receiving treatment, including a regimen of prescription drugs, for depression and insomnia.”

ww w dot bradleymanning dot org

If you want, make a donation to buy Manning a good legal team – or you can just send him a card, so that he knows others give a damn about him.

Alternatively, keep reading Mr Murray’s posts and remain spectators – exactly what the politicians want!

If Bradley Manning did leak the video of US soldiers killing Iraqis, he gave WikiLeaks a big boost – donations surged in after that video was released.

If you want WikiLeaks to stay around, support the whistleblowers when they end up in dire straits and on suicide watch.

My Existence Isn’t Real,

You made a good point on whistle-blowers but you weakened your argument by being unkind to Craig Murray; everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

Thank-you for the update I am concerned that he is being given a ‘regimen’ of drugs. Is this to obtain a false confession? see my last post.

Clark said:

“I really can’t find any reason to distrust WikiLeaks.”

Famous last words.

LOL

Or as Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, remarked “only the paranoid survive.”

I don’t know if that was strictly true at Intel, but it must certainly be true in the intelligence world.

You mistake a lack of proof of dishonest intent for proof of honest intent. Or you are deliberately promoting what may be a trap for leakers and a channel for US pro-war propaganda — which I suppose would be a perfectly honorable thing to do for a citizen of the UK, which is a loyal ally of the US and partner in the War on Terror.

I am not able to judge Dr. Assange’s character from the fact that he is a “hacker” etc. However, judging by his academic credentials (see http://edu.npo.eu/news/, as posted above), he looks a bit flakey to me.

Oops,

When I said supporting the War on Terror is an honorable thing for a UK citizen to do, I should have said “patiotic thing to do.”

Patriotism being the “last refuge of the scoundrel” and all that, it is clearly not necessarily equivalent to honorability.

Mark,

When you say “I personally believe… that the Pentagon papers were purposely leaked to Julian and his people” you are implying that Wikileaks is, at best, a dupe of US intelligence, at worst, an accomplice.

How then can you agree with Clark that there is “no reason to distrust Wikileaks”? Either they are incompetent in what they claim to be doing or they are entirely fraudulent.

TM (Confused)

Re: Wikileaks funding

They claim to have raised over $1.1 million this year. That would mean one hundred and ten contributions of $10,000 each. However, they have had only one such contribution, they say. So to achieve the reported fundraising total they would have needed 110,000 contributions of $10 each in the last eight months.

I find such success in fundraising hard to believe. I mean, how many of the Wikileaks supporters here donated even ten bucks?

However, to claim a brilliantly successful fundraising campaign would mask any income from other sources, e.g., to fund Assange’s global travels, his legal fees, etc., etc.

The CEO of Intel is one Paul Otellini.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/bod.htm

I don’t give a stuff what the CEO of Intel has to say. The Zionist Hasbara trolls are always keen to mention the name when they are boasting about Israel’s technological achievements. They also mention phamaceuticals but never their weaponry used to kill the Palestinians.

TM,

Sorry you are confused – see August 26th 4:18 and somewhere I wrote (forgotten) that Julian was at one time in Iraq helping DoctorsforIraq get ‘death squad’ casualties info out of Iraq using his cypher. Good man – good man.

But yes he/they was/were duped – Bradley’s leaked video was followed by crap to undermine WLs and I suspect they will get an admission from Bradley he was the source or maybe I’m losing it? You judge.

NB

Julian claimed that WikiLeaks had offered to let U.S. government officials go through the leaked documents to ensure that no innocent people were identified.

They did not respond? – now there is the clue.

Clark said: “I really can’t find any reason to distrust WikiLeaks.” Well, I agree with Clark. Indeed distrust in wikileaks is just what the intelligence services would want to generate, and I expect that they have a heavy duty PsyOps team working on doing just that ?” to the extent that it has caused many decent people to have false doubts. Indeed, all these discussion on Wikileaks may also serve to partially mask other incidents. I found this story about the recent tragic murder of MI6 Code breaker Gareth Williams to be very interesting.

http://news.uk.msn.com/world/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=154535696

Is it coincidental that William Hague, the Cabinet Minister responsible for oversight of MI6, has been so heavily SMEARED in the press just following reports (some accusatory) of the murder of their code breaker in mysterious circumstances??

Give Wikileaks a chance ?” You need them!!!

“TM” is Alfred.

Angrysoba, how do you know? Is Alfred into transcendental meditation? Or are you…? (!) Do reveal all, please.

“Indeed distrust in wikileaks is just what the intelligence services would want to generate, and I expect that they have a heavy duty PsyOps team working on doing just that…”

Richard, you are making the same mistake, or the same deliberately false inference, that Clark is making, which is to infer that the absence of evidence of dishonest intent is evidence of honest intent.

What you are asking people like Bradley Manning to do is to put their life and liberty in the hands of those who they cannot be sure are trustworthy. And for what purpose? What can Wikileaks do for a leaker that the Climategate email leaker was unable to do for himself?

You talk about causing “many decent people to have false doubts.”

But in fact that is either counsel based on false logic or deliberate deception. How do you know the doubts are false? You don’t you can’t. Therefore, why encourage people to risk their life and liberty to leak information via Wilileaks when they can leak it as effectively and with greater personal safety in other ways.

You talk of the “tragic murder of MI6 Code breaker Gareth Williams,” but you fail to grasp the obvious point that if his death had anything to do with leaking intelligence information it could have been the result of seeking Wikileaks as an intermediary.

What no one here has so far done, and what I believe no one here can do is demonstrate that Wikileaks does anything that is necessary to the enlightenment of the public or the protection of liberty.

So far, according to Mark, Wikileaks has scored an own-goal with the Afghanistan papers.

A common coin on this blog seems to be the smear and the illogical or irrelevant inference.

For example Somebody said:

“The CEO of Intel is one Paul Otellini.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/bod.htm

I don’t give a stuff what the CEO of Intel has to say. The Zionist Hasbara trolls are always keen to mention the name when they are boasting about Israel’s technological achievements. They also mention phamaceuticals but never their weaponry used to kill the Palestinians.”

Apparently, I’m a Zionist troll because I quoted a Jew, Andy Groves, who is not best known as a Zionist.

LOL

Any how, I did not say Andy Grove is the current CEO of Intel, but if anyone doesn’t know that he was one of the founders of Intel and long-time CEO, they don’t know much about silicon valley.

But I did not know Groves was a Jew, merely that he’s a very smart guy. It is interesting, though, to add his name to the rather long list of members of the rather small expatriate Hungarian Jewish community who proved to be geniuses.

“”TM” is Alfred.”

Intriguing thought, angrysoba – how do you reach it ?

The styles of writing and reasoning do look similar, now you mention it, but … 14 posts, on this thread, and not a trace of the usual idee fixe ? And that (rather unpleasant IMO) “patriotism” jibe against Clark doesn’t seem to sit very well with the Great British Mitochondria stuff ?

“Avatar Singh – the main effect of your bizarre post was to make me want to defend the English – and i’m Scottish.”

Good on you Duncan.

But you should bear in mind that to the Anglophobe Indian, there is no distinction between Scotland and England, which means that you are as much in the firing line as any other citizen of the UK.

And in this context, no distinction between England and Scotland is justified.

The Scots voted enthusiastically for the Act of Union because it let them in on England’s profitable trade in slaves, sugar and tobacco, etc., their own tropical colony, The Darien Scheme, having failed.

My own view, as noted elsewhere, is that posts by Avatar Singh should be expunged from this blog: they infringe the Race Relations Act, they infringe the Anti-Terrorism laws and they constitute an incitement to violence.

Although Avatar Singh’s case may be more psychiatric than political, his postings deserve the attention of the security services.

Finally, does anyone know who Angrysoba is?

The above was posted by me!

TM, you are quoting the wrong person. I didn’t make the remarks that you offer to debate with me.

Curiously, following angrysoba’s comment, I remember Alfred making the same mistake. Roderick Russell has the same initials.

Sorry, me at 7:04

Avatar Singh: “entglish are the curse of this world and are real pestilence which should ebe eliminated.” I can’t do that. One of them invited me to lunch a month or two ago. You see, it would be downright ungrateful.

ON the WIRE

I’ve heard David Cameron wants to break with the Blair neocon legacy, pare down British presence in Afghanistan, and build new relations with emerging powers.

Yiks! Does that mean he is moving away from the CFR’s and good ‘ol Henry Jackson’s Society interventionalist policy or Jose Maria Aznar aasumption that all is lost without undying support for Israel?

All this deserves a few gold stars, the Government does seem to have the right aim in Afghanistan.

Cameron’s attack on Israel in Turkey was an eye opener, severely let down by doing the same to Pakistan in India.

Does this mean MI5 are at ‘war’ with SIS? – they should be after the crap intelligence on Iraq.

Is a deal with Iran in the offering? – that would be the clincher for me – not Euro membership remaining open or talk that poor William Hague has had an affair with ‘chrith-toffer.’

Richard,

My apologies for misattributing Roderick Russell’s comment to you.

My apologies to Roderick Russell too.

It occurred to me at the time that the remark I was commenting on did not seem consistent with Richard Robinsons’s earlier comments.

I should have checked. But as you can see, there were a number of things going on at the same time and I made several mistakes including forgetting my own name, or at least forgetting to sign my name to my comment.

it is actually rather easy to mistake who said what on this blog because the software does not position responses in relation to the comments to which they refer.

Anyway, in signing this TM, I think I have the correct identity — if anyone cared, and I don’t really see why, unless it helps those who engage in smear tactics to have a clear identity to smear.

“Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media. For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.”

John Pilger, ‘Flying the Flag; Faking the News’ 3 Sept

http://www.truth-out.org/flying-flag-faking-news62920

Here’s a question about the recent cricket scandal. The Pakistani High Commissioner raised the question of the News of the World video being faked after the event. Here’s my question: how would it be possible to prove that they were genuine? Did the NOTW have them seen by police and make sworn statements before the match, or what?

Dreolin,

A brilliant piece of truth that was also portrayed in a similar documentary recently.

One has a certain sense that Bernay’s assumption that propaganda is ‘an important element of modern society’ is passed its ‘sell by’ date. My great grand-father was a telegraphist and became ‘all knowing’ because of ‘the wire’ and near instant news and opinions, although severely filtered for public consumption.

I am convinced the Beeb and Rupert Murdoch et al still believe in a dumb gullible public although it seems from this report the CIA are moving into the reality of public critical intelligence, backed by the Internet, whistle-blowers and even the loose mouths of engineers working for the intelligence services .

Popular resistance works – WE can prove it – Right here!

Thanks, Dreoilin, much appreciated. Go for it! Yes indeed, Mark and Dreolin, we won’t ever be fooled again. Not that ‘we’ (you, me, the hearth cat) were ever fooled in the first place.

Well, angrysoba, tell us how you know – know, not imagine – that TM is Alfred. Come on. And as someone said, who are you? I ask this literally, not rhetorically.

Alfred, are you TM? TM, are you Alfred?

Anonymous poster at 7:02pm, tell me, will you be informing “the security services” on bloggers here? Are you the same anonymous blogger who seemed to infer that my ‘Aethelred the Unready’ comment was not strong enough? Are you Alfred, too?

Alfred, do reveal yourself, there’s a good man. I can’t see the trees for the wood.

I am me. I am. Me.

I’m with you, Mark … No wonder the Pentagon is spending millions (billions?) trying to find ways to police the net, while the Australian Government (before the election) tried to introduce a net “filter” on spurious grounds (even if it was going to be unworkable). We have a plethora of sources that our parents didn’t have, and an ability to organise the likes of which has never been seen before.

Vive le WWW

dreoilin,

Pilger makes some good points. However, the bit about the documents “released” by Wikileaks (like they have some official function to release classified documents) is a little odd. It certainly gives me little reason to trust Wikileaks that they “release” such trite stuff.

Everyone who applies their mind to political events knows that politicians rarely move their lips without lying and that most government actions are justified on the basis of false premises.

If the CIA have only just tumbled to this and think it can be acknowledged only in a classified document, they might as well give up.

But of course they’ve known this to be a problem all along. Hence, plans for false flag terrorism to intimidate and panic people who would otherwise oppose government policy (e.g., Operation Northwoods).

And hence also those Haliburton detention centers.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/42458/

Evidently, US Government has been prepared for some time to lock up large numbers of people who fail to succumb to the usual propaganda.

Then there was that UK report on the potential of the middleclass to revolt. Does anyone have a link to info. on that?

Wahhh! don’t mention the hearth cat, Suhayl, she died on me.

TM

Pilger is an excellent journalist, has been around a long time, and I’ll warrant he has some impeccable sources. If he’s not suspicious of Wikileaks, then neither am I. For now.

“(like they have some official function to release classified documents)”

I think you’re reading something into that that’s not necessary. Assange has made it clear that they hold info until they can evaluate it, possibly unencrypt it, check it out. Then they “release” it. Nothing odd about the word at all.

Anonymous poster at 7:02pm, tell me, will you be informing “the security services” on bloggers here?

Suhayl, I said it was me at 7:03pm

And I said that Avatar Singh’s remarks should

“be expunged from this blog, because they infringe the Race Relations Act, they infringe the Anti-Terrorism laws and they constitute an incitement to violence.”

I also said that they deserved “the attention of the security services”, which is quite different from saying that I would report them to anyone. My object was to draw to the attention of those connected with this blog the vicious content Singh’s post.

But do you not agree. I mean, Singh appears to be a genocidal maniac. So if he is not of interest to the security services, who is? Don’t you want those bums to do anything useful. I mean, you help pay they wages, don’t you?

Abe,

I believe the Pakistani High Commissioner suggested that the video tape was not dated.

“Did the NOTW have them seen by police and make sworn statements before the match, or what?”

Wasn’t the cricket match the day following the video taping? There would have been little time, if the tape was genuine. I gather the cricketers have been released by police, without charge, and without restrictions.

Ok, I’m off, had a sick tummy all day and got nothing done. Something I ate … See yez later.

Dreoilin, very sorry to hear about your cat.

And ought not we and everyone to be focussing on the content of the leaks from Wikileaks, rather than on whether or not so-and-so might be an asset. Ultimately, what intriguing on one level, that’s a somewhat circular form of activity and possibly ultimately fruitless, since it’s very difficult to prove a negative.

Having said that, and I know it’s an entirely different situation, but the allegation that Simon Weisenthal worked for Mossad left me… saddened.

While I feel that it was right to bring Nazi murderers to justice, for anyone to work with the murderous organisation that is Mossad is a negation of their own humanity. This is emblematic, surely, of the paradox of Israel.

Yet it is perhaps a salutory reminder, firstly that it is facile for people to yell, “Paranoia!” at the mention of covert activity (if during his lifetime anyone had claimed that Wiesenthal was working for Mossad, they’d have been ostracised) and secondly that sometimes one ought to consider questioning one’s own assumptions and those assumptions which at a particular historical juncture seem to construct received wisdom.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/02/simon-wiesenthal-worked-f_n_703629.html

Dreolin, try natural ‘Greek’ yoghurt.

Oh gaggg! Blair is on our Late Late Show! I’m running for the ‘Greek’ yogurt …

I take your point, Alfred. Thanks. Yes, I do agree that such comments are unacceptable.

Now, are you indeed TM?

And what do you think of Aethelred the Unready?

“Oh gaggg! Blair is on our Late Late Show! I’m running for the ‘Greek’ yogurt”

I don’t think he meant to throw it at the telly ? Ah well, never mind.

Sorry to hear about the cat.

“… the links between the security services and British business run deep…”

The Daily Mail, 26 August 2010

Indeed. As Roderick Russell and others have been telling us for ages.

Dreoilin: my point is that if the tape wasn’t examined by the authorities before the match (even if they sat up at midnight to do it), I didn’t see how they could prove that the taps wern’t forged afterwards.

Suhayl is a doc, so I’m sure the Greek yogurt will work .. one way or the other. Personally if my stomach were upset I would make some strong tea.

For the cosmos of the night, here’s a beautiful, crystalline song, by the genius, Gene Clark. A hymn.

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

What a load of bollocks from “My Existence Isn’t Real”, apart from the bit about supporting Bradley Manning. Yes, support Bradley Manning.

Somebody,

good point. Incidentally, I never liked Intel much; their processors use too much power and get too hot. I wouldn’t pay for one. The 6800 derivatives and the ARM are my favourites.

TM,

I retract my apology. I believe that you are deliberately trying to smear WikiLeaks and incite fear of them. Go to hell.

Richard Robinson,

no, I don’t believe that involvement with Open Source / Free Software guarantees a good personality, either, but it does suggest a commitment to openness.

Dreoilin,

I’m sorry about your cat. I hope your tummy feels better soon.

I see the anti wikileak trolls have been in abundance. Discrediting at every opportunity. Smoky mirrors and foggy paths lead to nowhere. Let’s all go there?

Wouldn’t it be a rather good idea if Craig himself set a ‘WikiLeaks’? It would really complement his blog but most important of all there wouldn’t be any dispute whether he was a CIA/MI6 asset. His reputation would be a huge draw.

I’d gladly contribute and I’m sure lots of others would too.

Another interesting article about Wikileaks from Online Journal:

Wikileaks’ CIA release — say what?

By Michael Collins

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6283.shtml

dreoilin: I’m also sorry to hear about your cat. Sorry too that you had to watch Blair on TV without some “advisory content” warning or whatnot.

“TM” sounds more to me like Angry than Alfred under another identity, particularly after trying to throw the scent like that. Alfred doesn’t strike me as one who has any need for alternative guises, whereas Angry has long since blown any personal credibility.

Clark said

“TM,

I retract my apology. I believe that you are deliberately trying to smear WikiLeaks and incite fear of them.”

The easiest thing to say, Clark, would be eat shit buddy, since you seem to unable to understand a simple argument. But I’ll put it one more time.

If a person is about to commit the serious crime of revealing state secrets and possibly committing treason, they’d be smart to think seriously about how they go about it.

If they want to introduce an intermediary about whose integrity they know virtually nothing beyond your unsubstantiated opinion, by all means let them go ahead.

But if they want to minimize the risk of substantial jail time, or perhaps a well-stuffed sports bag, they might think how to do it all on their own, and certainly without putting their trust in a flake with a Ph.D. from Moffet U. and a multi-million dollar budget — all from small donations.

Incidentally, not a single person here has acknowledged making any donation whatsoever to Wikileaks.

How about it Clark? Why not send ‘em something, even if it’s only five quid.

LOL

My sense of identity has unravelled to such an extent that I no longer who or what I am. Every morning when I wake up I just feel dirty inside. I urgently need some professional psychiatric help and am going to get it. I hope you will all wish me well and support me in my quest for a healthy existence. Screw the Agency!

“TM” and Alfred both have the same tendency to wail on and on about being smeared while unself-consciously spending most of their time indulging in the same behaviour they deplore.

I do not KNOW they are the same but they sound the same and they make the same comments. This one is a dead giveaway for me:

“Anyway, in signing this TM, I think I have the correct identity — if anyone cared, and I don’t really see why, unless it helps those who engage in smear tactics to have a clear identity to smear.”

This is pretty much the same as what Alfred said on the other thread. Apparently, my request that Alfred stop posting anonymously was considered by him to be so that I could smear him more easily. No, it was because it is very confusing to have a conversation with several people who may all be the same person and confusing to have a conversation with “anonymous” if the posts come from several different people.

Strangely neither TM nor Alfred has denied being the same person.

One way a person might catch themselves out using sock puppets is if what the two socks are saying is too similar. On this thread, however, Alfred hasn’t really talked much about Wikileaks whereas TM hasn’t stopped going on about how Julian Assange is an intelligence asset. He lists such stuff as Osama bin Laden being alive, something about Halliburton, education level of Assange etc…

Over on Alfred’s blog we find:

“”Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.”

This is hardly a secret. Why else did the Bush administration pay Haliburton hundreds of millions for the construction of those mass detention centers.”

“Wikileaks Founder Wins Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence

So does that mean that Trikileaks founder Julian Assange is in intelligence? And if so, shouldn’t the award be for integrity in counter-intelligence — yer know, conning the public about having to bomb the Pakis because they’re providing refuge to Osama bin Laden and generally assisting the Taliban in the war to terrorize those poor cowering sods in America?”

“.

4 September 2010

Flying the Flag; Faking the News

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, “Propaganda,” published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country.” Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism “public relations.” …

“Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.”

This is hardly a secret. Why else did the Bush administration pay Haliburton hundreds of millions for the construction of those mass detention centers.

Obama And Family Tied To CIA Over Three Generations

EeeYoo Subsidizing the Albanian Mafia

Paul Craig Roberts: The True Cost of the War

Stef: Ah, the Good Old days (before Magna Carta and all that crap)

Paul Craig Roberts: Death By Globalism?conomists Haven? A Clue

Canada’s Tory Gov’t. welcomes Tamil boat people

Serco: The model of the modern multi-national (Flash Vid)

Nigel Farage: Rubbishing the EU’s unelected leaders

Loonie Israelis on the need to kill innocent goyim children

Glenn Beck to 9/11 Victims — SHUT UP

Steve Keen: What Bernanke doesn? understand about deflation

INTERMISSION: A little light entertainment

UK Government Think Tank Calls For Infiltration of Conspiracy Websites

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

United States Constitution

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Paul Craig Roberts: Death of the First Amendment

Whoops! Looks like I quoted quite a bit more than I intended.

“”TM” sounds more to me like Angry than Alfred under another identity, particularly after trying to throw the scent like that. Alfred doesn’t strike me as one who has any need for alternative guises, whereas Angry has long since blown any personal credibility.”

No Glenn. TM sounds a lot like Alfred and nothing like me. I don’t, for example, believe that Assange is an intelligence asset. Both TM and Alfred do think so.

Maybe you need another holiday in Cuba.

“Well, angrysoba, tell us how you know – know, not imagine – that TM is Alfred. Come on. And as someone said, who are you? I ask this literally, not rhetorically.”

Hi Suhayl. A few posts up is where I give my explanation. I don’t KNOW TM is Alfred but it looks pretty clear to me that they are, so I wouldn’t call it pure imagination. Their views on Assange are identical anyway.

When you ask me literally who I am, you mean you want to know my name? My occupation perhaps?

Well, Clark has my name and I give him permission to forward it to you but I’d rather not put it online. Far too many weirdos around.

I think I’ve also given you my occupation before. You’ll just have to take my word for it. I could PROVE it but I’d rather not and especially not online for the same reason as I’ve given you about my name.

Apart from that I’m really not sure what else you want by literally asking who I am.

Thanks, angrysoba, much appreciated. It had occurred to me that (as far as I could tell) Alfred had not expressed his views on Assange on this thread, which seemed odd.

I understand, too, about your identity, my question wasn’t meant to be a challenge, just an assonant expression of my own confused negotiation amidst the ‘Looking-Glass-like’ quality of webversation. Much appreciated.

Weirdos is right! Of course, I am completely and utterly sane. On my days off, though, they (the voices in the light-bulbs) call me Napoleon… (!)

Now, Alfred, although earlier, I’d tried to suggest that the main focus now ought to be on the substance of the ‘leaks’, rather than always on the qualities of the leaker, please do feel free to impart to us your views on Assange/ Wikileaks. The floor is yours. Thank you.

Mark Golding

Now has been the time for Britain to show leadership etc for the last thousand years. Unfortunately, all we get is more of the same, Mrs T. Let’s gamble instead of working. Gordon Brown, Let’s gamble against our gambling losses. David Cameron, Let’s borrow a bit more, we’ve got to hit the jackpot sometime soon.

It requires a whiff of common sense to achieve leadership, but our leaders do not possess more than a whiff of hair gel. The answers lie in Islam.

Thanks everyone for your kindness about my little cat. I had her for 18 years.

Suhayl and Abe, thanks for the yogurt and tea recommendations.

Can’t comment on how Ryan Tubridy dealt with Blair on the Late Late Show, as I missed the greater part of the interview. I gather there were protesters outside RTE and that there will be more today at his book signing. No citizen’s arrest, sadly, but that was never on.

Blair was followed by ‘Jedward’. From the sublime (?) to the utterly ridiculous.

“my point is that if the tape wasn’t examined by the authorities before the match … I didn’t see how they could prove that the taps wern’t forged afterwards”

Agreed, Abe. I assume the police will be examining it. But, whatever about scurrilous rumours about sex lives and all that jazz, would the NOTW make up something like this from scratch? I don’t know anything about cricket. Never read the NOTW either, only know it by reputation.

No problem, Suhayl.

And, Alfred, as it IS a claim made on your site that “The leaked documents …claim that Osama bin Laden, who was reported dead three years ago by the late Pakistan candidate Benazir Bhutto on BBC, was still alive, conveniently keeping the myth alove for the Obama Administration War on Terror” maybe you could back up the claim that Benazir Bhutto claimed Osama bin Laden had been murdered on the BBC.

I realize, of course, that it is an axiom of certain theories that Osama bin Laden is no longer alive but as has even been pointed out here the view is not one that is common in the mainstream press and the reports from Wikileaks that there had been “sightings” of Osama bin Laden were not widely picked up on. I certainly didn’t read about them until conspiracy theorists began claiming it means Julian Assange is an intelligence asset. Maybe I should spend more time reading the MSM.

“that Benazir Bhutto claimed Osama bin Laden had been murdered on the BBC.”

Or less ambiguously, “that Benazir Bhutto had claimed, on the BBC, that Osama bin Laden had been murdered.”

Where did he day “murdered”?

Didn’t you quote it yourself as “reported dead three years ago by the late Pakistan candidate Benazir Bhutto”? Are you at your twisting again?

“the view is not one that is common in the mainstream press”

I’m not so sure about that. Jon Snow for one has stated that he has believed him dead for ages.

Angrysoba,

good work. “TM” is revealed.

Anno,

I agree with your assessment of British political leadership. However, I think that there are other routes to the answers than Islam, and Islam does not guarantee a route to the answers. It seems more a matter of personal integrity. We see some people that seize upon a belief system, and use its dogma to justify their actions. Others display a humility in their acknowledgement of something greater than themselves.

Glenn,

I think you’ve been unfair to Angrysoba there. As I’ve said before, I get frustrated with his argument technique, but I think he just gets a bit carried away with his enthusiasm to argue for what he believes is true. But he’s a good researcher and he really does do some reading.

“Or less ambiguously, “that Benazir Bhutto had claimed, on the BBC …”

Awww, disappointed now. *grin*.

I think that we need some kind of reconciliation of skepticism, suspicion and ‘paranoia’, and also of ‘Left wing’ and ‘Right wing’.

‘Left wing’ and ‘Right wing’ seems easier, so I’ll start there. Many people end up defining themselves as being on the side of either socialism or capitalism. They then come to see themselves as opposed to the people in the opposite ‘camp’.

My own view is that competition and altruism are instinctive (ie evolved) urges that exist to varying extents in all people. Similarly with attraction to and fear of different cultures and races.

We attempt to make to make sense of a vast world of highly varied human behaviour and belief with our limited brainpower, so we simplify and categorise into ‘Left’ and ‘Right’. We each tend to ally ourselves with people of similar outlooks to our own, and thus the ‘opposing camps’ are formed, leading to a polarisation that is only partly justified.

A similar argument applies to individual issues, like what people believe about some specific event, 9/11 being a particularly vivid example.

The matter of trust vs suspicion is related to this polarisation. Members of each ‘camp’ come to be suspicious of the motives of their ‘opposite’, or come to suspect a deficiency in the ‘opposite’s’ thinking abilities.

Again, trust and suspicion are both essential human attributes. Both began as evolved instincts. Possibly they define opposite ends of a spectrum, or possibly they are independent mental functions.

The categorisation and alliance processes works on these differences, too. At the most extreme, the camps thus formed refer to their opposites with the derogatory labels of “sheeple” and “conspiracy theorists”, and call each other’s sanity into question.

I’m sorry that this description is vague and inaccurate; these concepts exist in my mind as a combination of graphs, venn diagrams and shadings of colour. Putting them into words is something that I find difficult.

Clark,

I’ve taken this “test”, which is anonymous. I know where I’m placed on it. Take it yourself and I’ll tell you later where I was placed, if you wish.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

I’m just about to do it again, more for fun than anything.

Angrysoba,

those reports of Osama bin Laden were picked up on immediately. On the day that the Afghan War Diaries were released I saw such an article on either the Guardian or the Telegraph’s front web page, maybe both. It’s pathetic, really, but I suppose the papers need their bogeyman.

How much does Osama bin Laden’s continued existence really matter? Could it be a case of “Strike me down, and I’ll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”?

“I think you’ve been unfair to Angrysoba there”

I agree. He can make some good points, and argues them sensibly.

I get the impression he gives way to frustration from time to time ? A tendency to the ad hominem rant (though perhaps less these days than in the past) ? I can certainly sympathise with feeling like that, but the resulting feedback loops don’t really get anyone anywhere. IMO.

But, tentatively, I don’t agree on the Alfred=TM thing. It seems to me that if the person who, a hndful of threads back, can fling out allegations of ‘treason’ concerning the construction of a ‘semi-genocide’ in Leicester can also write that sneer at ‘patriotism’ somewhere upthread, then either they are sockpuppets on a hand that suffers from severe internal dissonance, or Occam’s razor fails completely. Which may be so, but I’m inclined to argue against until the necessity is proved. (Necessity is necessary).

The overquoting above is unfortunate, I can’t see the wood among the trees. I’ve looked at his website too, and can’t really spot much coherence among the jumble.

Hi Dreoilin,

I did that test a while ago. My result was in the bottom-left quadrant, left – libertarian, quite near the Green party. I had some difficulty answering some of the questions; I wanted to say “it depends”, or “could you give me more details, please?”.

That’s where I am, Clark. Slap-bang in the middle of the bottom-left quadrant.

BTW, the fan on my laptop is going mad, but only when I’m on this site. I can’t scroll up and down the page too well either. Weird.

Dreoilin,

disable Javascript, clear the cache and try again. Tell me what happens.

Dreoilin,

it could just be that the page is getting really long – you could try another long page for comparison.

Waste of good eggs or perhaps they were bad and sulphurous like the intended recipient.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11187320

Wish that house in Ramsgate was finished. I miss Craig’s commentary esp on the ConDem cuts and the way in which we are being anaesthetized by the BBC ready for the amputation in October. Did you read about Mark Thompson’s visit to No 10 with a e-mail about the news management strategy from Helen Boaden in full view?

Quick update from @SkyNewsBreak on Twitter:

“Shoes and eggs have been pelted at Tony Blair in Dublin as he attended his first book signing.”

Will disable Javascript and clear the cache now.

Somebody,

thanks for the Blair update. Yes, I miss Craig, too. Do you have a good link for the Helen Boaden issue?

Dreoilin,

I have to go out now. You could also try your other browsers – not Internet Explorer, unless it’s *really* locked down!

“BREAKING NEWS: Former PM Gordon Brown arrested at Dublin Airport, wearing only one shoe.”

——-

No, it’s only this website, Clark. I’ll leave it be now.

Clark – on Medialens

BBC defends impartiality after Downing Street meeting over cuts season

Posted by spike on September 3, 2010, 5:47 pm

The BBC helping right wing ideologues soak the poor? Never!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/03/bbc-spending-cuts-mark-thompson

BBC defends impartiality after Downing Street meeting over cuts season

The BBC has been forced to defend its impartiality after Mark Thompson, the director general, was photographed yesterday going into a meeting in Downing Street to discuss a season of TV and radio programmes about the government’s spending cuts.

Thompson was photographed carrying an internal email from Helen Boaden, the BBC News director, saying that she had had lunch with Andy Coulson, the coalition government’s director of communications, at which he had expressed concern “that we give context to our Spending Review Season”.

Boaden’s email went on to provide Thompson with briefing notes on the season ?” which begins next week across BBC TV, radio and online services ?” for his Downing Street meeting yesterday. The subject line of the email was “Briefing for Steve Hilton meeting”. Hilton is David Cameron’s director of strategy.

She said she had responded to Coulson’s concerns about context by saying “that’s what we always try to do … inform the public about the whys and wherefores”.

In the email, which was CCed to Mark Byford, the BBC deputy director general and head of journalism, Boaden also defended the corporation’s spending cuts coverage over the summer, saying it had “mostly been driven by news lines”.

Boaden cited examples including the billionaire retail mogul Sir Philip Green’s appointment to head an external review of the government’s spending cuts and the Institute for Fiscal Studies report claiming the poorest would be hardest hit by the measures.

“The director general has made it repeatedly clear that the impartiality of the BBC is paramount,” a BBC spokesman said.

“The director general in his role as editor-in-chief discussed the possible participation of a number of members of the government in the BBC’s coverage of the spending review this autumn. The BBC has regular meetings with both government and opposition parties. Both he and colleagues will also be talking to all the main political parties on this issue.”

However, Thompson’s PR gaffe prompted unease within BBC News, where correspondents and programme editors face regular pressure from all the main parties over their political coverage.

One senior BBC insider said: “What the ####’s he doing going in to see Hilton anyway? Management and editorial should be completely separate.”

The BBC will also be keen to avoid any appearance that it is soft-pedalling on its coverage of the government in the build up to next year’s negotiations about a new licence fee deal.

The Labour MP Michael Dugher told the Daily Mail: “The political independence of the BBC should be absolutely sacrosanct and it is very odd that the director general is going into Downing Street for this kind of meeting. The BBC is within its rights to publicise the cuts to public spending in whatever way it sees fit.”

Thompson said in an interview with the New Statesman earlier this week that the BBC had become “increasingly tough-minded about the concept of impartiality” since the Hutton report in early 2004.

“If you wanted to criticise us you would say we are becoming increasingly tough-minded about the concept of impartiality. In a sense we are becoming more explicit,” he said. “That is a post-Hutton change in the organisation. Impartiality is going up and up the agenda.”

He also defended the BBC against accusations that it had given Cameron an easy ride in opposition.

“It’s easier to cover opposition politics when you’ve got an opposition with a clear leadership and clear agenda. We are doing our best to cover the Labour leadership competition, but, in a way, normal politics will only resume in the autumn [when there is a new opposition leader],” he added.

Newsnight and Radio 4′s Today programme will be running special features on the spending review, while the BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, is travelling around the country to find out what are the key issues affecting voters.

Next Thursday BBC1 will be broadcasting 12 simultaneous regional The Spending Review – Making It Clear debates across England. Jeremy Vine will be hosting the London debate.

The debates will feature local politicians, public sector workers business leaders and members of the public.

In BBC blogpost published late yesterday, Byford said: “This kind of comprehensive programming, providing real public service is what the BBC is here to do and we will continue to follow the story throughout the autumn. We hope it will help our audiences understand the full context of the spending review and what it may mean for them.”

___________________________

Re: BBC defends impartiality after Downing Street meeting over cuts season

Posted by pete f on September 4, 2010, 12:37 pm, in reply to “BBC defends impartiality after Downing Street meeting over cuts season”

“In BBC blogpost published late yesterday, Byford said: “This kind of comprehensive programming, providing real public service is what the BBC is here to do and we will continue to follow the story throughout the autumn. We hope it will help our audiences understand the full context of the spending review and what it may mean for them.”

those that lose jobs and homes as a result of ConDem cuts are unlikely to need the BBC to put that into ‘context’ for them.

______________________

For a laugh look up Dugher quoted. Was a SPAD to Byers and Hoon! ‘Did a spell’ with EDS.

http://www.fishburn-hedges.co.uk/election/ones-to-watch/michael-dugher?filter=labour

Dreolin:”would the NOTW make up something like this from scratch?” Indeed, it sounds improbable. And there’s stronger evidence on the way – today’s papers reported banknotes being found by police in the players’ rooms. Here’s the Guardian report:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/aug/30/international-cricket-council-pakistan-surveillance

Dreoilin,

I thought of two causes for what you describe:

(1) ‘Code injection’ – this is when someone posts a comment or links to text that could be interpreted by a browser as a script. Disabling Javascript should stop this affecting your browser. Code injection is a malicious technique, and the reason that I use the NoScript Firefox extension. The script gets cached, that’s why I suggested clearing the cache. Internet Explorer has vulnerabilities other than just Javascript, that’s why I suggested not using it.

(2) Avatar Singh’s post made the page go wide. There are coding errors in the old software that this site is based upon. This could be giving your browser a headache. This is why I suggested trying a different browser.

Has anyone else been having problems? All’s fine on my system (Ubuntu 8.04 / Firefox 3.6.8, scrips enabled per-site).

Dreilion: “Where did he day “murdered”?

Didn’t you quote it yourself as “reported dead three years ago by the late Pakistan candidate Benazir Bhutto”? Are you at your twisting again?”

Quite right. Well spotted. We’ll just have to see what Alfred comes up with.

Clark: “I think you’ve been unfair to Angrysoba there. As I’ve said before, I get frustrated with his argument technique, but I think he just gets a bit carried away with his enthusiasm to argue for what he believes is true. But he’s a good researcher and he really does do some reading.”

Thanks Clark!

“those reports of Osama bin Laden were picked up on immediately. On the day that the Afghan War Diaries were released I saw such an article on either the Guardian or the Telegraph’s front web page, maybe both. It’s pathetic, really, but I suppose the papers need their bogeyman.

How much does Osama bin Laden’s continued existence really matter? Could it be a case of “Strike me down, and I’ll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”?”

Well, like I said, maybe I need to pay more attention to mainstream media but most of the time I simply don’t read the Telegraph, the Guardian or the Mail.

I don’t know how much Osama bin Laden’s existence matters, per se, but what clearly is important is that IF he is no longer alive and yet videos and messages are being released in his name then who is responsible for producing them?

Angrysober,

Thanks for the links – hope you are well? Unfortunately I am also confused with the ‘over-quoting’ although to be fair I did enjoy the research on North Korea.

somebody,

I miss Craig’s commentary and I too hope he is back soon.

The Beeb spending review reminded me of the ‘Star Chamber’ reintroduced by Mrs Thatcher and recently revised to determine spending cuts.

Mmm I heard the starry chamber has been revised to deal with ‘soft treason’ or anyone opposed to ‘state terror’ or those of us immune to government propaganda.

I might be wrong but I will report back if I am whipped or have my ears cut off.

Among those obsessed with personalities, does anyone know who Angrysoba is?

Not that it matters, obviously.

Incidentally, TM, Clark is not a dumb as he seems. He argues like a commie tosser because he is a commie tosser: screw the argument, spew the defamation.

And Suhayl, what the hell has Aethelred got to do with this thread? And which Aethelred do you mean?

Discussion of Alfred’s older brother Aethelred, who died of wounds received in a battle with the Viking pirate bastards in Somerset in 871, obviously belongs in a thread on illegal immigration.

‘I don’t know how much Osama bin Laden’s existence matters, per se, but what clearly is important is that IF he is no longer alive and yet videos and messages are being released in his name then who is responsible for producing them?’

Oh come on Angrysoba, don’t be disingenuous! You know who is producing them, the same manufacturers that produced that classic false flag operation 9/11

Oh, I see Angrysoba’s identity is known, but it’s a secret. LOL

Suhayl,

You demand to know what I think about Assange. But I really don’t know anything about him, so what can I say.

I intervened here only to object to the racist, anglophobic genocidal rant by Avatar Singh, since no one else seemed to find it objectionable. Indeed, you seemed to find considerable merit in it.

On the question of leaking, I would say the honorable way to do it is as Clive Ponting did it, in one’s own name:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Ponting

Ponting was charged under the Official Secrets Act and although he

“… fully expected to be imprisoned ?” and had brought his toothbrush and shaving kit along to the court on 11 February 1985 ?” he was acquitted by the jury. The acquittal came despite the judge’s direction to the jury that “the public interest is what the government of the day says it is”.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Ponting

“Oh come on Angrysoba, don’t be disingenuous! You know who is producing them, the same manufacturers that produced that classic false flag operation 9/11″

Well, the “9/11 was a false flag” theory is indeed a popular theory with the “fake bin Laden videos” theory as a necessary corollary but I am sure you know by now that I don’t subscribe to the former so have no need for the latter.

Re: KingofWelshNoir on 9/11

Here’s a comment by a US Congressman, directly attributing foreknowledge of 9/11 to George Bush.

How, one wonders would Angrysoba spin this.

Sorry, I forgot the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow84BoZjLjU&feature=player_embedded

Alfred, with inimitable lack of self-awareness, again condemns name-calling and smearing through the medium of name-calling and smearing:

“Incidentally, TM, Clark is not a dumb as he seems. He argues like a commie tosser because he is a commie tosser: screw the argument, spew the defamation.”

Actually, when I say “inimitable” I forget that TM has imitated his style quite convincingly.

“Here’s a comment by a US Congressman, directly attributing foreknowledge of 9/11 to George Bush.

How, one wonders would Angrysoba spin this.”

Alfred, you know where the 9/11 thread is. So the video of a Congressman essentially accusing Bush of incompetence (not collusion) should be taken over there.

Besides, I asked you about Benazir Bhutto claiming Osama bin Laden was dead. Do you have a source for that?

Angry, I know you don’t subscribe to the former and thus have no need of the latter but since you were seemingly willing to entertain, at least temporarily, the hypothesis that the bin Laden videos were false I presumed you were thereby flirting with the troof to see what it felt like. Felt good huh?

And anyway, if bin Laden is shooting them how come he can’t afford a decent video camera?

“I intervened here only to object to the racist, anglophobic genocidal rant by Avatar Singh, since no one else seemed to find it objectionable. Indeed, you seemed to find considerable merit in it.” Alfred

That is really completely untrue, and you know it. You persist in doing this, Alfred. Duncan MacFralane and I – and others – have all criticised avatar singh’s posting and you jolly well know it.

“You demand to know what I think about Assange. But I really don’t know anything about him, so what can I say.” Alfred

Now that, Alfred, is an evasion. You are opinionated on many matters, yet on the subject of this thread – Assange and his work – you have no opinion? Well, okay. I think that really answers my question and also would tend to reinforce angrysoba’s contention that you and TM (?trademark) are one and the same – something which you seem to neither confirm nor deny. Just like MI6.

For what it’s worth, here’s a story from the Washington Post in which former CIA agents claim to have faked a bin Laden video, albeit one that wasn’t released.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/05/cia_group_had_wacky_ideas_to_d.html

Good on Dublin and Kate O’Sullivan!!!

Dreoilin, you were going to throw yoghurt at the TV last night.

I wish the eggs had hit him.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100904/tuk-protester-attempts-citizen-s-arrest-dba1618.html

Suhayl,

Blair is signing again at Waterstones Piccadilly this Wednesday coming unless it is cancelled.

I saw Kate O’Sullivan interviewed a while ago. Blair’s security whisked her away toot sweet.

Ali Abunimah (ElectronicIntifada.net) posted “Long live Ireland!” on Twitter earlier today, with a link to the BBC report. I hope the protests in London will be even better.

The latest issue of Time magazine has a very interesting article by Tony Blair about recent American presidents as people. Its value IMO lies in the fact that it’s based on first hand encounters:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2015409,00.html

I agree BTW with those who say that the invasion of Iraq was planned badly, and Rumsfeld and Bremer deserve much of the blame. Jimmy Carter in my view was right in condemning Britain for not being more active as a restraining influence.

“Obama’s Iraq Speech:

An Exercise in Cowardice and Deceit”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26289.htm

Suhayl:

Re: “Duncan MacFralane and I – and others – have all criticised avatar singh’s posting and you jolly well know it.”

Yes, that’s right. But neither of you said anything critical of Avatar Singh before I pointed out that his statements were racist incitements to genocide. But you did commend Avatar Singh on the merits of his post.

So what I “jolly well know” is not what you imply.

So now may I have an apology for your charge that I am a speaker of untruths.

You again demand my opinion of Assange, but I repeat, I know nothing of him other than the very limited amount of information provided here and in the media. Clark says we should trust him because he’s a “hacker,” but I’m not convinced either way.

Again, my view is that a leaker should leak publicly. That way they have no need of Assange or anyone else: They need just send a package of papers, a disc or whatever, and a signed cover letter to the editors of mainstream and alternative news sites.

Of course, if you act publicly you have to take the consequences. But as in the case of Clive Ponting, who no one here seems interested in, the jury decided against the judge’s advice that the government was the sole judge of what it was in the public interest to keep secret.

‘Tony Blair’s autobiography becomes crime book after Facebook campaign’

http://bit.ly/cPSd0k

‘Love letter to America: Gushing tributes to Obama and Bush in U.S. version of Blair memoirs’

http://bit.ly/cex4l1

The above was my post, obviously.

And Angry, Clark told me he was a Commie (God knows where on this site that exchange occurred.)

True he didn’t say he was a tosser. But the one thing implies the other. He also said he was an admirer of that Commie Jack Straw.

Oh, and Clark still owes me an apology from way back, so I am free to be as rude as I like.

Abe Rene, in what way was the Iraq war badly planned?

BP are now drilling there. Wasn’t that the purpose? And could that have been achieved without total distruction of Iraqi society as it existed before the war?

Just kicking Saddam out wasn’t going to change much. The whole structure had to be smashed. That’s what happened.

Iraqi turned against Iraqi, millions of middleclass Iraqis driven from the country, many of the intellectual elite murdered. It was a brilliant operation, that turned over the World’s second largest pool of oil to the western oil companies, insured the price of oil continues to be denominated in dollars, and most important of all, kept Iraq’s oil wealth out of the hands of Iraq’s Arab nationalists.

Not that I supported the war, of course. But if it were to be done, then the way it was done was the only way it could have been done.

“Oh, and Clark still owes me an apology from way back, so I am free to be as rude as I like.”

Oh, grow up.

And while Angry is promoting my website, I might as well join him by expanding on my response to Abe Rene with a link to my evaluation of US policy in Iraq.

http://canadianspectator.ca/stuff/WWIII.html

The Intro is a bit convoluted but the message is in the text box below.

Abe Rene,

Jimmy Carter condemned Blair’s lack of leadership and timid subservience to George W Bush. Carter is against pre-emptive strikes. I am. Blair is a war criminal, a cold blooded murderer who recently tried to justify the Iraq war as essential to rid us of bad man Hussein and the *capabilities* he possessed for manufacturing WMD.

________________ .. ________________

The neighbours across the street are a ‘foreign’ bunch. One has a relative who is a biochemist. He has a library of books on bioterrorism and some say a laboratory. He has no precursors, no deadly virus strains, no chemicals, no nuclear materials. Their leader issues no threats to you, no acts of violence, no threats of invasion. In fact he has never ever entered your part of the street or your house.

Your name is Blair and the neighbour is an old mate known as Saddam. Blair tells everyone in the street that Saddam is dangerous.

Blair calls his associates, saying join me in a ‘coalition of the willing’ to get rid of Saddam. Even while the local ‘bobbies’ are searching Saddam’s sheds for evidence and against all laws, a date is agreed to strike.

As dawn breaks on March 20th 2003 and all the neighbours kids on that side of the street sit down for breakfast and a neighbours wife puts her baby to her breast for the early morning feed, the ‘willing’ strike, with fire, searing heat and deadly smoke.

A baby and her elder sister are burnt to death, boys who once played football in the street lose their arms and legs and teenage girls have their beautiful faces burnt beyond recognition.

We named the strike – ‘shock & Awe’ and it was over in days. Blair made millions from the associates glad to see the back of Saddam.

And the orphaned kids – hey they struggled on…

“Twenty years of people — first withering, wilting away, like flowers never allowed to see the light, never allowed to turn their faces to the sun, then from fading into shadows, faltering into a colorless background…bombed, massacred, slaughtered into a nothingness…the same nothingness that inhabits you daily…the same nothingness that makes you rush to your shrink, the same nothingness that you feed with your junk, the same nothingness that you fill with your consumer products…the same nothingness of your void, of the pit, the deep pit that you all live in, and I throw up some more, from the pits of my belly….

“So you “sacrificed” for us, so you liberated us from “tyranny”, so you “lived up to your responsibilities” — like you did in Falluja, Haditha, Mahmoudiya, Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Ramadi…

dreoilin

Thanks for the link on ‘Tony Blair’s autobiography becomes crime book after Facebook campaign’

‘Bookshops have reported finding copies of A Journey moved to the crime section, as well as to the fantasy section.’

Ha ha very funny. Poetic justice.

Okay, Alfred, here again is my initial comment on avatar singh’s long post (why are we spending so much time on this?):

“Avatar, as before, you make some powerful points wrt covert operations, global hegemony, etc. but – as I’ve said before – I think you get carried away and tend towards the essentialising of entire peoples, calling, as you seem to do, for their extermination.

Look, if the UK sank into the Atlantic Ocean this very evening, does one imagine that the imperial wars and other heinous activities undertaken by the MI complex would cease? No. It’s not about ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ or whatever one wants to call it, it’s about money, power and the political and philosophical systems that buttress the acquisition and maintenance of those goals. Tribalisms of various sorts are utilised as vehciles for the pursuance of those neoliberal/ neocolonial aims. Do not mistake the husk for the kernel (as the Sufis say in an entirely different context). This fixation with ‘Anglo-Saxons’ (what, Ethelred the Unready?) and call for genocide is every bit as uncalled-for as similar exhortations wrt ‘the Jews’, ‘the Arabs’, ‘the Chinese’, or whatever.”

Suhayl Saadi

My post – and I think all the other critical posts referring to it – Glenn, Duncan, etc. – came after yours, because I hadn’t been on the boards until after you. I’ve already stated that I agree with you on the point you made that such views are unacceptable. I don’t know why you seem repeatedly to hit me with this particular stick. I make a point of criticising his views on ‘The English’ and then all I get is you, accusing me of not criticising his views on ‘The English’. It’s circular and pointless.

Are you trying to suggest, by this constant harping-on about it (and on previous threads too) that I hold secret anti-English fantasies? Well, (as I have explained on numerous occasions on previous threads) I can honestly say that I do not. Not even about Morris (Moorish) Dancers. Apart from anything else (and there is much else), the idea has no meaning for me. As I said, I don’t believe in tribalism in any case.

I really do not wish to spend any more time discussing avatar singh’s views on the English. I think that any reasonable person would agree that calling for the extermination of anyone is unacceptable.

Thank you for answering on Assange.

Now, can we get back to TM? Are you, or are you not, TM? There is a yes or no possibility here. Most people, when someone says, ‘was that you who posted that post?’ would say, ‘no’ or ‘yes’. It would only be if someone didn’t want to be seen to be misleading in writing that they might avoid answering the question. I have no problem with it if you were ‘TM’. It’d be quite funny, actually. Several people who regularly post here have adopted alternative pseudonyms from time-to-time (eg. crab/ sandcrab) and there have been other entities who seemed to drift in and out of the webverse, eg. D-A-L-E-K – who one assumes is busy out at the edge of the cosmos, fighting Time Lords.

Btw, if anyone’s interested in the venerable tradition of Morris Dancing – I think it’s a wonderful dance, redolent of paganism and much else besides, possibly of Berber origin, in fact – here’s a fascinating website ah, I see there’s good-old-bad-old-Cecil Sharp again!):

http://www.icknieldwaymorrismen.org.uk/morris_dancing.html

Hmm… for such a great researcher I’m surprised this wasn’t found fairly easily by Angry, instead of repeatedly demanding it from others:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg

Go on to 2:13 and Benazir Bhutto mentions Omar Sheikh, “The man who murdered Usama Bin Laden.”

Concerning TM – I don’t think Alfred is so shy that he’d find the need to invent an alternative identity to put forward a point of view.

Good point, Glenn.

So, ‘Trade Mark’, reveal thyself! At least, say, “I am not Alfred Burdett”, or “I am the ghost of Ingrid Bergman”, or “I am your greatest fan. Play ‘Misty’ for me”. On second thoughts…

Also, in the clip, did Benazir Bhutto mean to say, ‘Daniel Pearl’ and instead said, ‘Usama Bin Laden’? Did Frost pick up on it? The clip doesn’t show us what happened after her bit of dialogue on this.

Alfred: The war on Iraq was badly planned from the point of view of its ostensible objectives: get rid of Saddam and set up a democracy. There was no planning for the aftermath. I regret that the story of Rumsfeld literally binning a 900 page report from the State Department on managing the aftermath is believable.

I don’t believe that it was Blair who instigated the war on Iraq, but rather that he was too ready to go along with the decision of Bush & Co, and failed to exercise a restraining influence to ensure at least that te planning would be good enough to prevent the chaos that followed.

Recently I have finished a very good book about the war in Iraq, “Joker One” by Donovan Campbell. It is written from the perspective of a young U.S. Marine officer in Ramadi who had known about (and disapproved of) the abuse in Abu Ghraib. The story of his platoon is one of trying to maintain ideals under immense pressure. Here is the website with some reviews:

http://www.joker-one.com/reviews

Any news when your holiday ends stupidlamby? Oops, I mean angrysoba. That was a serious question. Just curious…

I agree, Abe. Essentially, when Bush came to power, Blair ceased to be the leader of an independent country.

One could argue, though, that the UK’s independence was compromised decades earlier. But this brought it out more starkly. Blair seemed in thrall, like a madman or like someone with a gun to his head. There was no gun and he was not mad, he was (and is) just plain bad.

Of course, following the invasion of Kuwait and the war to reverse the invasion, there was the whole decade-plus of sanctions (and their effects) and covert air-strikes during the Bush Senior and Clinton years. Major and Blair were part of that, Madeleine Albright’s “…the price is worth it”, mass death, etc.

But it was a definitive, and I believe shameful, moment in British history when, as you suggest, Blair went along overtly and evangelically with a war of aggression based on patently hollow premises.

Sounds like a very interesting book, too. I’d much rather read a book written by a soldier who was on the ground than one by a discredited and obnoxious politician like Tony Blair.

Did you read what he is alleged to have said? It was something to the effect that (I paraphrase): ‘They [the soldiers] are dead, but I am alive’ – as though he were the Messiah and could redeem their loss by his very continuing existence, by bearing witness. It was in one of the ‘papers, I forget which, The Indie or The Herald, this week.

No, Mr Blair, it is the widows, the orphans and the fatherless children – in Iraq, the USA and the UK – who will bear witness. They will bear witness to the monstrosity of your crime.

Wotcha. Oh, someone attacking angrysoba for no reason; they must be bored.

Hey people. How’s life?

Bonjour Monsieur Zionista.

Hi Tech,

Just finished watching “The Ghost” – Ewan McGregor hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister, played by the awfully boring Pierce Brosnan. Not bad. Bit of a romp given the day that’s in it.

Jaded, why do you put a full stop after your name?

Alfred,

the importance is not in “personality”, it’s in identity. I succeeded in contacting Angrysoba by making myself contactable, via my web page. I went to Angrysoba’s blog:

http://angrysoba.blogspot.com/

and asked him to contact me via the e-mail address on my web page, which he did.

Indeed I am a tosser. I don’t consider myself ‘communist’, though I do believe in the virtue of good community, and I think that the option to live more communally would be a fine thing.

I accused you of ‘subtle trolling’, I believe, for want of a better description of your bizarre habit of making indefensible arguments and then defending them with strained logic, and eventually resorting to some grammatical get-out clause.

Nowhere have I had anything good to say about Jack Straw; if you don’t post a link I’ll assume that you must have dreamed this.

I really appreciated your observations on globalisation and how it affected your publishing business.

I have more important things to think about. If I end up analysing such little trivialities, then I may end up going stark raving bonkers like that Larry guy. Sorry dreoilin!

Maybe it is something I will one day address in my memoirs…

Technicolour: Hello!

Alfred: Good points about the Iraq ‘war’.

Dreoilin: Thanks for the quote of Layla Anwar.

Jaded.: Chill out, for goodness’ sake!

“Any news when your holiday ends stupidlamby?”

“I have more important things to think about.”

Don’t we all.

night night folks

Technicolour,

“Life is not a spectacle or a feast. It is a predicament”. George Santayana.

Suhayl: “Blair seemed in thrall”. I would say; he may have been en-thralled by the White House, without the latter needing to work too hard. I’m more wary about saying he was ‘plain bad’, because I ask: which of us has conquered our own worst selves?

An Iranian Communist had shared a jail cell with Ayatollah Khamenei under the Shah and they agreed that ‘come the revolution’ there would be no more such treatment. Look at Iran now. Here’s his website:

http://houasadi.wordpress.com/category/a-look/

Suppose that from the group comprising Craig Murray, yourself, Dreoilin and a few others came the President of the United States, Secretaries of Defense or State, and PM, that 9/11 happened, and none of the people I mentioned had any memory of the past 15 years or the personal memories they have now but others leading up to those positions. I wonder how history would have developed.

That’s exactly it though dreoilin. He clearly stated he was on holiday from work and, if anything, has spent more time on Craig’s site since then. Considering the time he does spend here is centred around spreading disinformation and covering up government terrorism, then I think the act of exposing him to all is rather more important than full stops after names. Ha ha. Unless of course you disagree… Have a good kip. Or rather, sleep on it.

Clark, people helping to cover up government terrorism need to be exposed in my view. If we disagree, then we disagree. I’m not going to argue with you.

Jaded,

I don’t believe Angrysoba and the utterly obnoxious Larry to be the same person. I find Angrysoba’s faith in mainstream accounts frustrating, but he does engage in argument and he does references sources, unlike Larry, who mainly just contradicts and slings insults. Angrysoba has also criticised Larry twice, very strongly. If that’s how it looks to me, then it may appear the same to others. Thus you may weaken your credibility by treating them as the same person.

Also, I don’t find Technicolour to be a supporter of Israeli atrocity. If you know of any posts to the contrary, please reference them for my benefit.

“”Life is not a spectacle or a feast. It is a predicament”. George Santayana.”

Life is like a bowl of All-Bran.

You wake up in the morning and it’s there”.

Small Faces

Clark: That may be, but AS is _so_ forgiving with people with whom he feels he has a common enemy – and that means us on the whole. Remember all the high-fiving and towel-flicking AS and the larry creature enjoyed, while the latter was being every bit as obnoxious as he was consistently before and since. Same with that Tom thug he fawns over. AS likes ad hominem attacks to smear his opponents (and come on, they are always ‘opponents’ not ‘debatees’, if you do not readily agree with him).

Don’t forget he told you that he wouldn’t care if he were on the same side of a position as Mengele, it’s the facts of the point in question that matter. Fair enough, but not when he gets all excited in declaring that teabaggers think 9/11 was an inside job, and now that fine principle of his suddenly doesn’t apply. (Teabaggers don’t, incidentally, as AS doubtless knows – he’s being dishonest again. Or incredibly lazy.) AS tries to associate his opponents (not fellow debatees, note) with positions they’ve never uttered, to try to bring discredit on them.

The guy is lousy, Clark, I’ve got no respect at all for him. No disrespect to yourself, you’re a great diplomat. But it doesn’t pay to give people like that any benefit of the doubt, where motive cannot be trusted, nor word relied upon, nor any standard upheld.

Abe – “”Blair seemed in thrall”. I would say; he may have been en-thralled by the White House, without the latter needing to work too hard.”

Yes. One possibility is: vanity.

We heard it all over the place, “suave subtle Brits with all their colonial experience, so not like those barbarous Yanks”. He thought he had enough influence to make it better than it would have been without him.

And Claire Short, said she’d resign and then didn’t, because they were going to do it anyway but if she was part of it she could make it less bad than it would have been otherwise.

And this horrible cascading vision of people doing things they knew shouldn’t have been done because they knew they were Good People.

But I’m not sure there’s much evidence they made any difference at all.

Time to retire, so here’s some peaceful and uplifting music: the national anthem of Namibia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcs-F9RIjjY

Blair will be imprisoned by bodyguards for the rest of his life.

Hi Suhayl: I find it hard to imagine Benazir Bhutto would just slip in Usama Bin Laden instead of Daniel Pearl… it’s not as if we’re talking about the same class of individual at all. Three names instead of two, a western name instead of eastern, and a white reporter instead of the most stupendously famous Saudi royal. It’s hard to imagine the two would become interchangeable in one’s mind – particularly in one as collected and sharp as Benazir Bhutto’s.

That particular interview clip might not have included it (I just searched for “benazir bhutto frost”, checked it included the relevant bit being demanded as proof by a lazy interlocutor, and posted the link), but Benazir was claiming she was in fear of her life above all from Omar Sheikh. Mentioning him as the man who murdered UBL is one reason why she should have every right to fear him – after all, if UBL could be murdered by this man, nobody could be safe. That Omar Sheikh had merely killed a reporter would not have made such a strong point.

As for Frost, it blew right by him, apparently. But then, and no disrespect to his illustrious career, he is getting on a bit.

Clark,

Thank you for your kind comment. Sorry to have been hyper aggressive about whatever it was.

Cheers,

“I accused you of ‘subtle trolling’ …”

Clark, I’m scrolling through comments backwards.

the thing about “trolling” is what I was not prepared to accept because I do not see that what I post as inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic — well not more than most.

Possibly you could make a case that a particular statement was obnoxious, but I was not convinced that you’d made a case.

But anyhow, I am sorry that my mind is so muddled that I confused you with someone who did declare a Communist leaning. I should have researched the point, challenging though that seems on this site.

So, I withdraw without reservation my claim that you are a Communist, and apologise in addition for my impulsive use of a derogatory epithet, which I regetted almost immediately and the more so now. I am sure what I said was entirely unjustified.

Suhayl,

Re: “Okay, Alfred,

… My post – and I think all the other critical posts referring to it – Glenn, Duncan, etc. – came after yours, because I hadn’t been on the boards until after you.”

OK, Suhayl, sure, I was being unreasonably aggressive.

I was chairman of debates at school and, briefly, at university. It was bad training — I’m inclined to say almost anything to get a reaction, although with complete sincerity in the heat of the moment. In writing, errors and insensitivity seem worse than in the cut and thrust of debate. I am sorry if I attempted to score a point unfairly.

“I’ve already stated that I agree with you on the point you made that such views are unacceptable.”

My point Suhayl was not particularly addressed at you although you were directly in the firing line.

There is a discrepancy between the way some people here react to opposition to mass immigration, yelping racist and other nasty terms (see the nasty things said about me on this thread based on what I am supposed to have said on the subject of immigration elsewhere), and their, initially, mild reaction Avatart Singh’s expression of explicit and virulent Anglophobic racism, e.g., by yelping “uncalled for”!

As to your views, Suhayl, I wish to suggest nothing. I accept the truth of whatever you say. But your views do not always seem to me to be entirely clear.

What I have witnessed here, is a tendency to call opposition to mass immigration racism, while at the same time the assertion of the existence of the British race is ridiculed as a nonsense. But you cannot have it both ways. We are either all the same, in which case opposition to mass immigration cannot be racism, or we are not all the same, in which case the British nation has a right to a homeland where they will not be swamped out by other ethnicities.

For advocating the latter view, you have, in the past, called me a “racialist” which is no damn different from calling me a racist. Now you seem to be saying that we are all the same (“Apart from anything else… the idea [of the English nation it appears from the context] has no meaning for me), therefore, your allegation of “racialism” seems illogical and hypocritical.

Having come under so much fire and having had to retract and apologise for so much I have decided to change my name.

Ruth,

yes, of Blair, I think that I cannot wish upon him anything worse than to be what he so obviously already is.

Glenn,

those are all valid points about the way that Angrysoba argues; this is what I mean when I complain about his argument technique. The reason that I’m forgiving of this is related to my points about polarisation; September 4, 2010 12:13 PM. Angrysoba is in a small minority here and he gets insulted quite a lot, so maybe he fights rather desperately in compensation. If the polarisation could be ameliorated maybe he’d be more mellow. I just get the feeling that Angrysoba wouldn’t support any mass slaughter or gross injustice, and even though he may fight dirty in an argument, he wouldn’t support people actually suffering.

I watched the video you linked to. In the related windows were others that apparently show Benazir Bhutto talking about Osama bin Laden as if he was alive, after the Frost interview. This does make it look like she just said the wrong name to Frost, or is there something more that I don’t know?

Somebody,

thanks for the MediaLens link, which I forgot to mention earlier.

Alfred,

yes, I shouldn’t have written ‘trolling’; you weren’t obnoxious. I got very annoyed with you when you couldn’t see or refused to admit that you’d pre-selected your sample when you compared the wealth of the UK and India, many threads ago. I think I remember the bit about Jack Straw now; it was someone else who had some respect for him back in his Student’s Union days, I think.

Nevertheless, you are one of the stranger fish on this site.

“Hmm… for such a great researcher I’m surprised this wasn’t found fairly easily by Angry, instead of repeatedly demanding it from others:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg”

Well, it obviously had been found by me, as is evinced by my use of the word “murdered” when it wasn’t used by Alfred himself (Dreoilin picked up on that!)

One of the reasons why I asked Alfred for his source is that he had said Benazir Bhutto had made this claim on the BBC. The video of the Frost interview comes from, of course, Al-Jazeera. So was there another video from BBC? Alfred still hasn’t produced it if there was. Clearly, the video from Al-Jazeera is very poor evidence of Benazir Bhutto believing Osama bin Laden to be dead. If she knew of Osama bin Laden being “murdered” then this would be a massive story not just casually remarked on in the middle of an interview. Anyone with any sense knows that she actually meant to say “Daniel Pearl” as Omar Sheikh is famous for being responsible for his murder.

“Also, in the clip, did Benazir Bhutto mean to say, ‘Daniel Pearl’ and instead said, ‘Usama Bin Laden’? Did Frost pick up on it? The clip doesn’t show us what happened after her bit of dialogue on this.”

BINGO!

Actually, the interesting part of the interview is when she is talking about a retired member of the security forces that she thinks is threatening her and responsible for the horrific suicide bombing that killed so many people on her return to Pakistan. She is talking about Hamid Gul, right?

Clark, I spelled out all my logic about all on the other thread. It’s serves no purpose to tell you a second time. I would advise listening to the wise words of glenn, as he seems to know what’s up. They are launching wars and taking over the world. Millions will die and it will all be a pointless disaster anyway. And people are taking me to task for insulting their envoys on Craig Murray’s blog? It’s surreal. I’ll go and fetch my red carpet for them then.

In a nutshell, if anyone thinks that angrysoba isn’t a paid shill that works in online propaganda full time, then they are seriously a few cans short of a six pack. The guy would make the 9/11 Commission look legitimate. My opinion!

Clark: “I watched the video you linked to. In the related windows were others that apparently show Benazir Bhutto talking about Osama bin Laden as if he was alive, after the Frost interview. This does make it look like she just said the wrong name to Frost, or is there something more that I don’t know?”

No, I think you’re completely spot on there Clark.

There’s this video, which I think you are referring to, which explains it quite well and he comes to the same conclusion as I did and as Suhayl did independently. And again, I will just point out that I think the “retired military officer” Benazir Bhutto refers to is Hamid Gul just as evidence that I know what Benzair Bhutto had meant without having to know the name. So many of these conspiracy theories seem to rest on hearing one isolated quote taken out of context and repeated without any apparent understanding of the wider events the speaker is talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IIn_UnLO9I&feature=related

Me/Alfred,

yes, there is indeed a difference between spoken and written debate. In speech, what is said is gone in a moment, but when writing it is fixed upon the page and will be used as reference, so one should be more careful.

I think you may need to mark yourself in a bit more clearly on your map of the world. It wasn’t just that you were advocating a homeland for the British; you were claiming that there had been a “genocide” in Leicester! If you will write things like that, you’ll inflame the conversation.

Jaded,

look at the above about Benazir Bhutto. Angrysoba is clearly right. There is NO point basing our anti-war arguments upon fictions, we will undermine our own position. Angrysoba’s arguments can help us refine our own.

Glenn said: “AS likes ad hominem attacks to smear his opponents (and come on, they are always ‘opponents’ not ‘debatees’, if you do not readily agree with him).”

Then:

“The guy is lousy, Clark, I’ve got no respect at all for him… But it doesn’t pay to give people like that any benefit of the doubt, where motive cannot be trusted, nor word relied upon, nor any standard upheld.”

Glenn also said: “AS tries to associate his opponents (not fellow debatees, note) with positions they’ve never uttered, to try to bring discredit on them.”

Yet, you were the one who said Larry and I were “tea-baggers” and “birthers” when neither of us ever expressed any tea-bagger or birther opinions. I simply pointed out that many of the original teabaggers were actually 9/11 conspiracy theorists so it blunted your own accusations to call us teabaggers in the first place. And you’re STILL doing the whole “guilt by association” thing again yourself by saying the worst thing about me is that you associate me with Tom and Larry. So these are the famous double standards of Glenn rising again.

Angrysoba,

hey, don’t pick a fight. You’ve made an important point since your September 4, 2010 10:23 AM post. Like I just wrote of you, Glenn would be opposed to mass murder and injustice, you disagree about ‘facts’ but probably aren’t far apart on morals.

And you actually countered my points against _you_ how, apart from trying to deflect them with yet more personal attacks? Heh! You know the Tu Quoque attack is not actually a refuting of the original argument… right?

It’s this confounded polarisation thing again – I think it’s partly to do with writing comments in an Internet environment where people are anonymous and probably widely dispersed across the globe – people are much more likely to be aggressive in such a situation than they would be face to face or if identities were declared.

I saw an article about chat-room bullying amongst teenagers which said that in face to face interactions, when the victim cries, most people will stop picking on them, but on the Internet such body language is hidden, and the attack is likely to be pursued much further.

You are too modest, AS – it’s nothing to do with 9/11. You tried to associate me with some 2012 end-times Mayan nonsense which had never even been discussed on any thread here, until you pretended that I supported such notions.

It’s very, very sad to see someone spend a lot of time and effort, trying to build their own blog up an’ all, but all they’ve got at the end of the day is innuendo, smear tactics and cringe-worthy partisanship.

Glenn,

don’t fight; you’re not on opposite sides! Friendly fire warning!

“It’s very, very sad to see someone spend a lot of time and effort, trying to build their own blog up an’ all, but all they’ve got at the end of the day is innuendo, smear tactics and cringe-worthy partisanship.”

There, there.

*pats Glenn on the head*

Glenn,

yes, Angrysoba pushes too hard. Forgive him, he’s human.

Angrysoba,

that’s patronising! You’re BOTH sinners. And so am I.

Aww, angry! That’s feeble even by your miserable, flakey standards.

*

Clark: I’m not so sure. I think you’re too kind… AS will excuse all too many establishment atrocities. I cannot.

Glenn,

I think it’s a matter of belief. Angrysoba doesn’t believe that such bad things have happened. Sorry, clumsy language. He thinks they’ve happened, but he estimates the magnitude lower than you do, or he estimates that the alternative would have been worse, and he’s no better at admitting that he was wrong that you are.

Glenn: I think you should admit that you were wrong about Benazir Bhutto.

Angrysoba: I think you should apologise for accusing Glenn of 2012 stuff.

We’re all just humans; it’s our diversity that gives us strength. Evolution’s lesson.

Clark: I’m not sure where I was wrong about Benazir Bhutto, nobody apart from yourself to date has even suggested I made an incorrect assertion (not even AS, amazingly enough). If I made one, I’d be happy to correct it. You leave me somewhat puzzled about my culpability regarding the subject.

Glenn,

sorry, I probably got it wrong. It’s up there on the thread, somewhere…

My point is that Benazir Bhutto made a mistake in her interview with Frost – she meant Daneil Pearl, not Osama bin Laden. That’s what I think you were wrong about in your September 5, 2010 1:38 AM comment.

Well folks, I’d best get at least a bit of sleep. I should mention, in case anyone tries to contact me, that the e-mail address on my web page is not working properly right now – TalkTalk are ‘improving’ their service.

Goodnight.

Glenn: “And you actually countered my points against _you_ how, apart from trying to deflect them with yet more personal attacks? Heh! You know the Tu Quoque attack is not actually a refuting of the original argument… right?”

It wasn’t actually an example of “Tu Quoque”. I was pointing out your double standards as this “AS tries to associate his opponents (not fellow debatees, note) with positions they’ve never uttered, to try to bring discredit on them” is exactly what you do. Whereas the stuff about Mayan prophesies was, if I remember correctly, something of an interpretation of my remarks to you. After all you said that the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was going to spin so far out of control that we’d all be dead in 2012. I referred to it as a 2012 Apocalypse scenario, which it is, and you got all agitated about me misrepresenting you.

“Clark: I’m not sure where I was wrong about Benazir Bhutto, nobody apart from yourself to date has even suggested I made an incorrect assertion”

Actually three of us have pretty clearly said we think you are wrong. But I’ll say it again, “YOU ARE WRONG!”

Benazir Bhutto was obviously talking about Omar Sheikh killing Daniel Pearl not killing Osama bin Laden. It was a slip of the tongue because she had just been talking about Osama bin Laden. Your justification for believing she really did mean Osama bin Laden is just special pleading:

“Hi Suhayl: I find it hard to imagine Benazir Bhutto would just slip in Usama Bin Laden instead of Daniel Pearl… it’s not as if we’re talking about the same class of individual at all. Three names instead of two, a western name instead of eastern, and a white reporter instead of the most stupendously famous Saudi royal. It’s hard to imagine the two would become interchangeable in one’s mind – particularly in one as collected and sharp as Benazir Bhutto’s.

That particular interview clip might not have included it (I just searched for “benazir bhutto frost”, checked it included the relevant bit being demanded as proof by a lazy interlocutor, and posted the link), but Benazir was claiming she was in fear of her life above all from Omar Sheikh. Mentioning him as the man who murdered UBL is one reason why she should have every right to fear him – after all, if UBL could be murdered by this man, nobody could be safe. That Omar Sheikh had merely killed a reporter would not have made such a strong point.”

Why should confusing an “Eastern name” with a “Western name” cause us to apply different standards? What does it matter if Osama bin Laden and Daniel Pearl are of different ethnicity? And what’s with the argument from incredulity, “It’s hard to imagine… ” No, it’s very clearly not difficult to see that Benazir Bhutto could confuse the two.

If you remember the one about Dick Cheney saying “Osama bin Laden” instead of “Saddam Hussein” which all of us accepted at the time as a simple error you’ll find that Saddam Hussein also has two names instead of Osama bin Laden’s customarily used three names (actually both have longer full names but never mind that.) Osama bin Laden is a radical Wahabist whereas Saddam Hussein was an Arab nationalist ?” “how could the two be confused?” you might ask! And, whatever else you might think about Dick Cheney, most of us don’t deny the man is very smart so your other special pleading and argument from incredulity “It’s hard to imagine a mind as collected and sharp as X’s… ” also fails.

As for your, I think, rather snide “That Omar Sheikh had merely killed a reporter would not have made such a strong point”, as mere as Daniel Pearl’s murder was to you, it was still a massive story. The deaths of journalists are very often big news stories.

Actually, one thing Benazir Bhutto gets wrong in the interview is that she says Omar Sheikh had killed some British and American tourists by beheading them. This is not true, they were never killed. He was only convicted of kidnapping them.

There is a chapter in Jason Burke’s book “Al Qaeda” (chapter 6 “Militants”) in which some of his story is told.

The story around Omar Sheikh is very mysterious and probably explains her fear that some people in Pakistan’s security services are highly untrustworthy. I think I may have mistaken the retired officer she was talking about. It could instead have been Ijaz Shah (though she does think of Hamid Gul as being a co-conspirator). Ijaz Shah (or Ejaz Shah) was the investigating officer into the Daniel Pearl murder and Omar Sheikh had turned himself in to Shah saying that Daniel Pearl was already dead. A week later, while Omar Sheikh was still in custody, President Musharraf had said he expected Daniel Pearl would turn up alive. Shah appears to have kept Musharraf out of the loop. If you can find it in the library there is an interesting discussion of this in Ahmed Rashid’s Descent Into Chaos (pp.151-154). Musharraf, for his part, has made a string of claims that Omar Sheikh was with Indian intelligence or with MI6.

It’s also not completely certain that Omar Sheikh was the actual killer of Daniel Pearl either. It is pretty clear he was involved in the kidnapping, but Khaled Sheikh Mohammed has claimed responsibility for the killing. He was tortured of course, so the confession is hardly reliable:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer?printable=true

“Angry, I know you don’t subscribe to the former and thus have no need of the latter but since you were seemingly willing to entertain, at least temporarily, the hypothesis that the bin Laden videos were false I presumed you were thereby flirting with the troof to see what it felt like. Felt good huh?

And anyway, if bin Laden is shooting them how come he can’t afford a decent video camera?”

Ha ha! Yes, King of Welsh Noir, it is a bit fun to engage in conspiracism and that, I think, is one of its attractions. But I think Clark has said it best here:

“There is NO point basing our anti-war arguments upon fictions, we will undermine our own position.”

angrysoba at September 5, 2010 7:34 AM

I don’t think this guy is widely read, I think he’s widely briefed.

————————————

As for bin Laden being dead, as far as I know it’s not all based on Benazir Bhutto making a mistake in her interview with Frost. There have been various reports from various sources (Taliban?) and didn’t one guy say he knows where his grave is? I’m not going Googling, the references are on the net.

As for Angry’s assertion that “the view is not one that is common in the mainstream press”, I wonder what mainstream press he’s referring to. I suspect he’d talking about the USA (which wouldn’t be surprising). I already pointed out that Jon Snow of Channel 4 News has stated that he has believed him dead for quite some time. Is Jon Snow better informed than Angry? I would imagine so – unless Angry is being ‘informed’ from elsewhere of course.

“Have a good kip. Or rather, sleep on it.”–Jaded

I’m one of those people who cringes when she sees “turnip’s” for sale in the local shop. I’ve been looking at your full stop for ages, and wondering what it signified (if anything). But never mind, I’m not on a crusade about punctuation – I was just momentarily curious.

“And people are taking me to task for insulting their envoys on Craig Murray’s blog?”

No, I think Angry is a right slippery character, and his arguments always lead to the same conclusion: whatever the government said is correct. And boy, does he put in his time here. Why? And what’s his blog all about? It looks like padding to me. And hasn’t he just recently stopped linking to it with his name? Why is that I wonder?

“by saying the worst thing about me is that you associate me with Tom and Larry”–Angry

Why wouldn’t he? You were always chortling along with Larry on the 9/11 thread, egging each other on, and who brought Tomk here only you?

“it is a bit fun to engage in conspiracism”

So that’s what you’re at then.

Thanks, Alfred (or ‘Me’!), angrysoba and Clark. Angrysoba, yes it seems incredibly murky, doesn’t it, the ISI, etc. Thanks for the book recommendations. Another good one is ‘Military Inc., by Ayesha Siddiqui. Like Craig Murray, she knows what she’s talking about, having worked within the system.

http://www.amazon.com/Military-Inc-Inside-Pakistans-Economy/dp/0745325459

Clark,

You were right about it being one browser. The temp goes up, the fan goes crazy, and the CPU is very high, but only when I visit here with one particular browser. The others are fine. ["Speedfan" is a handy little yoke.]

I suspect that Jaded’s full-stop is a subtle sign that Jaded is working for the Finality School of Iteration, a shady group said to have been put together by one of the cardinals in the court of Pope Gregory IV and rumoured later to have re-located to a wind-blown isle off the west coast of Scotland. Their acolytes are disseminated throughout society and always use full-tops in unexpected places. It is the sign. Beware.

Jaded, come clean now, you are Gregory’s girl, no?

(!!!)

Richard, life is indeed a bowl of All Bran, as Stanley Unwin, Mad John, Rene and the Fly knew all too well. ‘Ogden’s Nutgone Flake’. Fantastic album.

‘Song of a Baker’ had a Sufi inspiration.

Why is their no archive access on this site?

To keep up with chronological issues it’s usually de rigeur to be able to look back at recent events and comments.

This site hasn’t included that facility within its design. Free or cheap it’s a very poor effort..

Why did the BBC have to censor Benazir Bhutto’s statement that Bin Laden had been murdered?

http://twitpic.com/2l7v00

(not a reply to you, Ruth)

“I don’t think this guy is widely read, I think he’s widely briefed.”

Not sure if you’re flattering me with that one or insulting everyone else. (“Two books are being cited? No man alive has ever read two books!”) I just happen to have them on my shelf and looked through them again.

By the way, as someone who cringes at “turnip’s” I should point out that you used a comma splice there; it is considered a sign of poor grammar. The most unwittingly hilarious moments are when you see “carrot’s 50p”! Ha ha! How can a carrot accrue wealth?

“As for bin Laden being dead, as far as I know it’s not all based on Benazir Bhutto making a mistake in her interview with Frost.”

No, it isn’t and no one claimed it was. I was responding to Alfred’s claim that Benazir Bhutto had said, on the BBC, he was dead. I just asked Alfred if he would produce a source for this. Given that the Al-Jazeera video is the only source anyone can find, it would appear that the claim is probably false.

“As for Angry’s assertion that “the view is not one that is common in the mainstream press”, I wonder what mainstream press he’s referring to. I suspect he’d talking about the USA (which wouldn’t be surprising). I already pointed out that Jon Snow of Channel 4 News has stated that he has believed him dead for quite some time. Is Jon Snow better informed than Angry? I would imagine so – unless Angry is being ‘informed’ from elsewhere of course.”

Well, this is confusing two issues. One, the fact that one journalist, namely Jon Snow, believes Osama bin Laden is dead doesn’t show that it is common. Two, when it comes to the point of who is the most informed I have no way of knowing how Jon Snow came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden is dead. Presumably Dreiolin knows, although she hasn’t produced any evidence, because otherwise she is making the laughably simplistic argument that “Jon Snow is a news broadcaster and therefore he’s a trustworthy authority and if he says he’s dead then he’s probably dead.” It’s funny how you so selectively treat “mainstream media” as the word of God!

“Why? And what’s his blog all about? It looks like padding to me. And hasn’t he just recently stopped linking to it with his name? Why is that I wonder?”

Are you saying I am being paid to write on blogs?

“Angrysoba, yes it seems incredibly murky, doesn’t it, the ISI, etc. Thanks for the book recommendations. Another good one is ‘Military Inc., by Ayesha Siddiqui. Like Craig Murray, she knows what she’s talking about, having worked within the system.

http://www.amazon.com/Military-Inc-Inside-Pakistans-Economy/dp/0745325459”

Thanks for another book recommendation. I’ll look out for it.

“Life is a predicament” – thanks, Clark. It seems to explain a lot. And Richard, thanks for the Small Faces, always good to remember. Still, I gave up All Bran after realising it was a) corporate and b)horrible. Just had eggs from own roaming happy chickens on home made bread so it can be a feast too, in fact.

Maybe I’ll stick at “life is” at the moment.

Angrysoba: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alfred substantiate any of his claims, but you’re welcome to try. Maybe, given his overwhelming air of innocence when challenged, he’s transubstantiating instead? Alfred?

dreoilin: apart from disagreeing somewhat about Mr Soba and his motives, we do indeed have much in common, including Ireland (yo, Blair!) and an ancient much loved cat. They leave a huge cat shaped hole. I can’t find your original post, though I add my sympathies: are you getting a kitten?

Suhayl: good letter! And Gregory’s Girl, indeed

Friendly waves to all.

various:

“rumoured later to have re-located to a wind-blown isle off the west coast of Scotland.”

A tiny little place just east of San Serife ?

Bullying – yes, this is such a narrow channel of communication. We don’t see the expressions on the faces, the bodylanguage, we don’t hear the voices. On the other hand, a point I’ve seen recently is, that a lot of physical-world bullying derives particular nastiness from happening behind backs; people can be isolated, and harrassed in ways that no-one else sees. That can’t happen here, it’s all public. But preventing it depends on the emergence/building of that much-overused word “community” – common agreements on what’s acceptable and what you Just Don’t Do.

Which, ISTM, is the wider problem here. Not wrt bullying, just the question of how to argue/discuss things.

I thought I had things to say, but when I try to write them it all gets too big for just-now, and anyway Clark’s already said most of them.

“Angrysoba’s arguments can help us refine our own”. Yes. This is not unalterable religious dogma (or if it is, I’m not interested & have no comment); if someone can show where an argument falls down or could be improved, this is a good thing. Of course, this is easier to see if it can be pointed out in a respectful way rather than as an insult.

Name-calling just doesn’t help anybody understand anything. If you don’t like a point that someone else makes, showing why you think it’s a bad point gets us somewhere, saying that they’re a bad person for it doesn’t.

Good on you, Clark. Thanks.

Oh, and dreoilin on punctuation – it was you pointed out that quirk with the hardbacked macho-name group of postings, wasn’t it ? That was very useful.

Thanks to Sara from Saudi Arabia for making her apt points in a land that needs exposing its own hypocrissies.

The thread is heavy and in parts shows the ups and downs of our lifes, for whatever reasons.

The house renovations are coming on a treat and many volunteers have given their time and expertise. Just come back from there and can report that everyone is in good spirits, in all its connotations.

I’m looking forward to Jullians next exposee and hope that he has planned his PR trip, ideally short and to the point, meticulously.

I have not had access to a computer for two weeks and find it somehow strange to blog, unnatural with a nagging thought in the back of my head that I could be doing something else, with far better satisfaction to boot.

Take care all.

BTW. Like the idea of shifting Tony’s journey into Waterstones ‘crime’ section of books, lol, would be great to walk up to a signing and then turn around when its your turn, saying that you rather donate the money to Martk Goldings charity and campaign, directly and without his catholic ideas of delivering charity, which are sick and inconsequential, as they do nothing to alleviate the outrages and hurt resulting from crimes committed on Iraq’s civilian population.

Hello Everyone!

I’m just dropping in to see how things are – got to go out again soon. The e-mail address on my web page seems to be working again today.

Ruth, I guess the BBC cut it out as it was an obvious mistake, and to leave it in *and* point out that it was an error would both have cost air-time.

Friendly wave to Technicolour. Hey, you’ve got chickens! Excellent!

Dreoilin, thanks for reporting back on your browsers, though I’d be interested to know which one was throwing a wobbler. I like that picture you linked to. Thanks, but I won’t be needing ‘Speedfan.exe’, as ‘sensors’ and ‘fancontrol’ are available from one of the Ubuntu repositories.

Richard Robinson, thanks for your agreement. Don’t let my manic posting put you off, human diversity ensures that your perspective will differ from mine.

Suhayl Saadi, I love the idea of “the Finality School of Iteration”, you make me laugh!

Ingo,

your post came in when I was writing mine, or I would have said hello. It’s good to hear from you. Thanks for the update, and please wish Craig and all the volunteers well.

Hi Clark, hope you are well, shall forward your best wishes when I return south at the end of next week.

“By the way, as someone who cringes at “turnip’s” I should point out that you used a comma splice there; it is considered a sign of poor grammar.” –Angry

I think you might find that you’re referring to American rules.

http://grammartips.homestead.com/splice.html

(We don’t use the Chicago Manual of Style, either.)

“One, the fact that one journalist, namely Jon Snow, believes Osama bin Laden is dead doesn’t show that it is common.”

Not necessarily, no. I also queried what you meant by ‘mainstream media’. My guess is that most of what you get is from the USA. Please note (before you reply) that I said “most”. Was I right?

“when it comes to the point of who is the most informed I have no way of knowing how Jon Snow came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden is dead. Presumably Dreiolin knows, although she hasn’t produced any evidence”

He said it in an email, which I have since deleted. I’ll see if ‘Snowmail’ is archived online.

“because otherwise she is making the laughably simplistic argument that “Jon Snow is a news broadcaster and therefore he’s a trustworthy authority and if he says he’s dead then he’s probably dead”.”

Not at all. I have read Jon’s book Shooting History (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shooting-History-Personal-Jon-Snow/dp/0007171846), and I’m aware of the enormous number of contacts he has made over 30 years in journalism, both at home and abroad. I would guess that they are many more, and more varied, than yours. However, I didn’t SAY, “if he says he’s dead then he’s probably dead”.” I was simply quoting someone from the mainstream media, something you mentioned. Stop putting words in my mouth please. I have not stated anywhere that bin Laden is dead, but I do think it’s highly likely.

“It’s funny how you so selectively treat “mainstream media” as the word of God!”

It would be if I were doing so. But my guess is that some mainstream journalists are far better informed than you are. (And they don’t say everything they think on air. Cf Snowmail.)

“Are you saying I am being paid to write on blogs?”

Typical ‘Angry’ question. If I want to say you’re being paid to write on blogs, I’ll say that. Until then, don’t continue to try and put words in my mouth. You seem to do it to everyone with whom you argue.

“They leave a huge cat shaped hole. I can’t find your original post, though I add my sympathies: are you getting a kitten?” — tech

The worst of it was that she got cancer and on the vet’s advice, I had her ‘put down’. Another damn stupid euphemism. I still haven’t got over the guilt. But yes, I’m getting a kitten soon.

“it was you pointed out that quirk with the hardbacked macho-name group of postings, wasn’t it?” — Richard

Do you mean the lack of a space after the full stop? Yep, I think that was me.

Clark,

I’m getting Ubuntu from my son shortly.

“which of us has conquered our own worst selves? ”

Abe: I guess you are focusing on ‘enlightenment’ which to me is not so obscure, or particulary subtle or even difficult to comprehend if we think in terms of an infinate, limitless consciousness instead of a finite ego or self.

Since the greatest ever conspiracy called 9/11, a force rising from souls of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has emerged from the strength of ideology rather than the atoms of destruction. That force is opposed to the corruption of humanism and liberalism that once formed the bed-rock of Western society.

We move backwards and forwards along a time-line of brutality and torture, while turning blind eyes to the speculation of Western billionaires that drives up the price of rice, wheat and the essentials of living causing the brutal death for millions, much in the same way as nature’s forces of destruction shown to us as tsunami and flood.

In a pragmatic world the concepts of good and evil, divine and satanic, with us or the terrorists, are mute.

Hostility towards the West is grounded in a hate for Western imperialism that has caused the drifting masses of China, Iran and Russia to amalgamate on the waters of discontent, shame and deception.

The concept of an Islamic global hegemony and nuclear confrontation is a vision in the West’s eyes only, scared by it’s own history, of it’s own nuclear holocaust and of it’s own bloodshed and murder.

Angrysoba,

Re: “One of the reasons why I asked Alfred for his source is that he had said Benazir Bhutto had made this claim on the BBC. The video of the Frost interview comes from, of course, Al-Jazeera. So was there another video from BBC? Alfred still hasn’t produced it.”

What are you talking about? In particular, what is “it” I am supposed to “produce?” Or are you just in a muddle and your repeated references to me were, in fact, intended for someone else?

Clark,

You call me a “a strange fish.”

Making such comments is a strange way to establish good relations. Maybe you are engaging in a little “subtle trolling” or being a “strange fish” yourself.

In fact you method is quite consistent. To talk with a degree of reasonableness and then, like an irritable nanny, declare someone’s belief unacceptable without presenting a rationale.

You did this with TM, declaring it unacceptable to raise the irrefutable possibility that Assange is an agent of disinformation. You have done it with Glenn “I think you should admit that you were wrong about Benazir Bhutto.” (That’s the entire argument — i.e., it’s not an argument, at all).

And then you tell me to “mark yourself in a bit more clearly on your map of the world.” How old are you, kid?

True you offer this argument from another thread: “It wasn’t just that you were advocating a homeland for the British; you were claiming that there had been a “genocide” in Leicester.”

This is inappropriate. I’m quite prepared to argue about what proportion of the indigenous population of Britian, or of a part of Britian, has to be replaced by immigrants as a direct result of government policy for it to count as a policy of genocide. But that is not the issue here.

Your trouble Clark is that you are a young fellow who thinks he knows everything but who will find, if he keeps his brain working, that in a few years much of what he thought he knew is not so.

You might be well advised, therefore, not to lay down so many marks of your own present limitations in knowledge and thought.

Mark Golding: ‘Abe: I guess you are focusing on ‘enlightenment’

I wasn’t, actually. But you reminded me of a Zen story that goes something like this. A Master said ‘I have something here with no name, not graspable. Do any of you know what it is?’ A brilliant student replied, ‘It is the original source of all the Buddhas.’ The Master turned on him in anger and said ‘I told you that it has no name, and yet you say that it is the original source of all the Buddhas!’ His point was that unless the student experienced it for himself, talking about it would be of little use. But in any case, that is not what I was talking about.

My point was that very few of us succeed in conquering the hidden weaknesses of human nature that are liable to lie behind unwise decisions by people in power. That’s one reason to be careful about getting too self-righteous at them.

Glenn,

Whatever Mrs. Bhutto said or intended to say about Bin Laden, there are good reasons to suppose that he is no longer alive.

First, he was suffering from end-stage renal failure in 2001. The annual mortality among such patients is 22%. The mortality among such patients living in a cave in Afghanistan must be considerably higher than 22%, probably not less than 100%.

Second, since the 2001 interview in which bin Laden stated that he did not undertake the 9/11 attacks or approve of the killing of innocents, there seem to have been no authentic statements from him. Given his personality, that is inconceivable if he is both at liberty and in command of his faculties — particularly in view of the absurdly bad fake bin Laden videos that have been diseminated by the media.

Suhayl,

Reverting to the topic of this thread, I have, at your earlier promting, thought more about Assange and would add this:

Assange is merely another source of information. He joins Rupert Murdoch, Alex Jones and all the rest in, as Stanley Baldwin put it, “seeking power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

But by their fruits will Wikileaks be judged. So far, they have done quite well, gaining if not power, at least massive publicity for the Afghanistan Papers, while Bradley Manning takes the responsibility.

And what have we learnt from those papers: that Bin Laden is alive and well and directing the War of Terror against the United States and every citizen of every NATO country from his base in (a cave?) in Pakistan.

Do you think that’s a big deal. I don’t.

Oh, and Wikileaks have just leaked a CIA paper that says that the “people don’t trust us”.

Good grief, the bastards know that we know their bastards.

I honestly believe that Craig Murray has made a serious mistake in giving such enthusiastic endorsement to this “mighty organ.”

Legally, Assange seems to take care to take no risks — in the area of intelligence, anyhow. He is not a “whistleblower” as I understand the term, but a mere intermediary.

Of course, I will have to revise my opinon if he winds up in a sports bag, but that seems most unlikely unless he can juice up the stream of leaked data with something worth knowing.

dreoilin – “Do you mean the lack of a space after the full stop? Yep, I think that was me”

Yes, that was what I meant.

I used Ubuntu for a while, I found it pretty friendly. I was impressed by the way you can run from the boot CD without touching the hard disk at all, and then if you like it … the “Install” button just does what it says. The trouble with switching between systems is that people have probably put some work into learning how to run their current one, and that all goes to waste. But things you learn about running Linuxes tend to stay learnt for longer, they don’t dump everything in favour of a brand-new one every couple of years. It’s still work, though.

News from Afghanistan

There is a run on the Kabul Bank which is run by Karzai’s brother. It is being said that the US will have to bail it out. Withdrawals are limited to $10,000. Good God what next?

A UK soldier has died in Birmingham one month after being wounded and another was killed yesterday when hit by a rocket propelled grenade. The surge in military casualties is going well.

Ms. Bhutto, coming up in conversation with my Pakistani employer during the general election this year, was described as a corrupt liar, nothing like her father and in it for herself, whatever she may have said on various BBC/Newsnight interviews, when in opposition,to paint herself as a democratic leader and legitamite ruler of Pakistan, is not something all Pakistani’s see her as necessarily.

Her assassination was seen as inevitable by them and they see tyhe current state of pakistans political flux during a state of national emergency as changing Pakistan forever.

If the Taliban is able to support many floodvictims the current show is over, we will see an widening of a front, as envisaged by the war on terror merchants.

Bin Ladens death or life is inconsequential as his idea was to create a randomly self perpetuating movement, one that always has deputies and others who learn on the job so to speak, he is not needed so I do not understand the focus on him anymore, bar his historical significance?

“I do not understand the focus on [ObL] anymore”

People like heroes-and-baddies, it makes for a better story ?

ingo,

I don’t understand the focus either other than Osama represents the figure-head of a ‘war on terror’ and is useful as the lead in terror videos released when governments feel the need. I was not fooled by the video put out to ring-fence the Benazir Bhutto RIP statement that contained rather obvious and classic psych manifestations to convince viewers that she fluffed the name o s a m a b i n l a d e n lol

In America Osama is the perfect fit for America’s fascination with outlaws and gratuitous violence generously depicted in real life scenes like the real time bombing of a romantically lit Baghdad.

Some say Osama is like Robin Hood but that sounds too grotesque and contrived.

“our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people and neither do we.”

GW Bush August 5th 2004

2010 is deadliest year so far for US troops in Afghanistan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/afgh-s03.shtml

somebody – Juan Cole had a good piece on the Kabul bank a couple of days ago: http://www.juancole.com/2010/09/collapse-of-kabul-bank-points-to-terminal-corruption-of-karzai-government.html

If release of the the Afghanistan Papers was a disinformation operation, how come Bradley Manning came to be involved? Were his actions dictated by conscience or was he induced to become the fall guy in an operation the nature of which he was mentally incompetent to understand?

Contemplating this question I did a Google search for “Bradley Manning” +”mental health”, with interesting results.

For example:

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/203776.php

“A civilian defense attorney hired recently by alleged WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning says the Army was so concerned about his client’s mental health prior to the alleged leaks that supervisors removed the bolt from his military weapon, disabling it.

“Attorney David Coombs told CNN, however, that other than sending Manning to a chaplain for counseling, the Army did little to address its concerns about him.

“The unit has in fact documented a history, if you will, from as early as December of 2009 to May of 2010 of behavior that they were concerned about,” Coombs said, adding that Manning’s immediate supervisor “did document prolonged periods of disassociated behavior, quite a bit of nonresponsiveness from Pfc. Manning. And, again, that progressed from the very beginning of the deployment and deteriorated somewhat toward the end.”

It appears that Manning was very much the sort of person one might chose to make the dupe in the leak of fraudulent or misleading information: a person in a delusional or paranoid state who could be persuaded to commit a crime in the belief that they were acting in the public interest.

The google search noted above yields much more on the subject of Manning’s mental health before he leaked the Afghanistan Papers.

“I do not understand the focus on him anymore, bar his historical significance?”

You are entirely missing the point of the Afghanistan Papers, which show that OBL is running the war against the US from a base in Pakistan.

If in fact, he is dead, then we have very good reason to believe that the release of the Afghanistan Papers is part of a disinformation operation.

And you would take stuff from a hate site like

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/203776.php

as gospel would you?

Do you understand the meaning of the term ‘smear’?

Ingo, I’d be wary of what anyone – including me – tells you (or me) about Pakistan. The government is far from perfect. The political class is far from perfect. To put it mildly.

But right now, there is a massive, unremitting campaign by extremely reactionary forces in Pakistan to bring down any semblance of civilian rule. They never allow civilain rule – even corrupt civilain rule – to remain and so every few years, the Army takes over. The Army sits behind the civilians, pulling the strings, stopping any shift in power away from the men in uniform.

But the Army is as abslutely as corrupt and has much more economic (it has placemen in ever sector) and of course more military power than the civilian politicians and it simply halts any maturation of the political process.

Yes, that maturation may take decades, but with the Army, it will never happen. That’s what India discovered during the Emergency of Indira Gandhi.

The ‘chattering classes’ tend to support the Army because in Pakistan the chattering classes benefit from the Army and many are in the Army or in areas which serves the Army. It’s a bit like those who supported military rule in South America. I don’t recall Musharraf getting such a rough ride, two years into his tenure. The Army gets a long honeymoon. Pakistanis (and diasporic Pakistanis especially) of the chattering classes (the upper middle classes and above), like people from most other social groups, are understandably frustrated and feel deeply ashamed of their politicians, the state of their country. They look at India, they look at Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. All different political systems, all with big problems, but doing far better.

But fascism – the concordance of Army and corporate/feudal juntas which has ruled that country for around half of its existence, simply exacerbates the problem.

The problems in Afghanistan/ Pakistan to do with religious extremism are partly – and in local terms, largely – because of the Army creating the ‘Mujaheddin’ and then ‘the Taliban’, because of their obsession with India and strategic depth. It’s like, for … sake, the infant mortality rate, literacy rate, economics (Musharraf’s early regime was a bubble creatde by the corporate bankers who were his PMs), every-rate-that-matters about a country is absolutely shite-on-wheels, and they’re worried about an Armageddon scenario with India! Ah, but of course that’s the thing, the Army doesn’t want an educated, relatively healthy population because unlike with the chattering classes, PROPERLY educating the peasants would leda to a movement for redistribution of everything.

And so, there are two types of depressingly predictable conversation one has, commonly, with people from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK or USA today.

One is as above: ‘bring in the Army, whip ‘em all into shape (again)!’

The other view, popular among the physically, but not mentally or emotionally, urbanised descendants of peasants (I do not use the term pejortaively, merely sociologically, as, say, Lenin or Kerensky might have used it in Czarist Russia), is that they want a perpetuation of what they have been brainwashed to believe is ‘Islmaic’ Law, blah-blah-blah, more Nawaz Sharif and hypocritical holy joes and locking up women for being raped and all that crap that General Zia and his cohorts (it wasn’t just him) brought down upon that country from 1977 onwards: Islamisation, it was called. Bullshitisation was the truth.

Every govt in Pakistan will be a US stooge – short of popular redistributive revolution (which sadly aint gonna happen!), there is no alternative except ‘The Taliban’ (‘Uber-Bullshitisation’).

Even if civilian govt is dominated by corrupt landowners, the more people are able to demonstrate and criticise their action WITHOU always calling for Big daddy (The Amy) to step in, the more likely things are to gradually change. maybe then there will be a tipping-point, when land reform is demanded. Land reform is central.

Who bombed the various rallies last week? I’d bet it was the ISI. Divide-and-rule, they learned too well! The Army, in other words – for those in control of both are the magician’s apprentices. Guess who the magician is?

Sorry, ingo, I’m not ranting at you. Just at the situation. Thanks for all your help with Craig’s situation and for your superbly humane and centred posts.

Somebody: Seriously, the US are going to bail out Karzai’s brother’s bank? I shouldn’t laugh, but I did. Raucously.

Dreoilin: Excellent argument to Angrysoba; Glenn and Jaded take note of how it is done! Congratulations on getting Ubuntu; you’ll be delighted at how unstressful browsing can be. I do recommend the NoScript firefox extension, whether you use Ubuntu or Windows. A dodgy script can’t penetrate nearly so deeply into Ubuntu as it can into Windows, but it can still perform mischief within your browser’s cache – as Mark Golding can confirm!

Alfred: really, lighten up! Perhaps I should have added to my “strange fish” comment, which seemed pretty innocuous to me. You don’t have something against fish, do you? If so, I’m very sorry, I didnn’t guess. Arsalan likes fish. Really, it’s TM’s argument that is without a rationale. Precisely ZERO evidence was presented that WikiLeaks is an intelligence agency front. This is indistinguishable from smear tactics.

Sounding a chilling note, journalist Alan Hart has said recently that the U.S. is in grave danger of an Israeli-instigated false-flag nuclear attack, using an American nuclear weapon stolen from Minot Air Force Base during the “loose nukes” rogue operation of August, 2007.

The motive would be to trigger a U.S. war with Iran, and perhaps to finish the ethnic cleansing of Palestine under cover of war–which Hart is convinced the Zionists are planning to do as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

When a warning this serious is delivered by a messenger with the stature of Alan Hart, people had better find a way around the news blackout imposed by the Zionist-dominated corporate and pseudo-alternative media. The only thing standing in the way of an Israeli false-flag nuclear attack on America, a disastrous US war on Iran, and a horrendous acceleration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, is the awareness of the people. Please copy, post, and mass-email this story.

http://www.alanhart.net/

Mark,

Who the fuck is “journalist” Alan Hart?

What’s his evidence, you idiot?

So … to be clear … the sneaky Jews are just about to attack America, and the Jew media are covering it up. Is that about right?

This blog is full of morons who are painfully consumed by Jew hatred.

OK, just looked up “journalist” Alan Hart. Apparently he thinks 911 was a Jew job. Doesn’t that conflict with your religious belief that 911 was an inside job?

Also, are you and Mr. Hart of the view that the Jews started WWI and WWII?

Mark, do you have a more precise reference ? I can’t see the article you refer to.

I was wondering what it would take to resurrect Larry…

Alan Hart, former presenter of BBC Panorama, first Western correspondent to reach the banks of the Suez Canal with the Israeli army in 1967, at times on friendly terms with Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal, Jordan’s King Hussein, and both Egyptian Presidents Nasser and Sadat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hart_(writer)

“I was wondering what it would take to resurrect Larry…”

Voodoo rituals.

Richard Robinson,

I found the following link on the Wikipedia article above. There’s a video, but ytimg is streaming it very slowly.

http://norcaltruth.org/2010/05/26/alan-hart-breaks-silence-about-911-on-kevin-barrett-show/

However, the article above cites infowars as its scouce – infowars is Alex Jones, isn’t it?

“Not necessarily, no. I also queried what you meant by ‘mainstream media’. My guess is that most of what you get is from the USA. Please note (before you reply) that I said “most”. Was I right?”

No, you’re wrong. I get most of my mainstream news from the Daily Yomiuri, the BBC, the Economist, the Independent and, until my subscription ran out earlier this year, the London Review of Books. I wasn’t talking about US mainstream news but I do occasionally (and please note – before you reply – I said “occasionally”) buy the International Herald Tribune, which is the New York Times.

“I have read Jon’s book Shooting History (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shooting-History-Personal-Jon-Snow/dp/0007171846), and I’m aware of the enormous number of contacts he has made over 30 years in journalism, both at home and abroad. I would guess that they are many more, and more varied, than yours.”

So it IS an argument from authority, as I said. Well, so what if Jon Snow thinks Osama bin Laden is dead? I said that it is NOT A COMMON VIEW in the mainstream press. I didn’t say that nobody holds it. So, let’s take an overview of the MSM. As you’re including broadcast news such as Channel 4 then we’ll include the BBC, ITV and cable such as Sky. We’ll include the four standard broadsheets and the tabloids and news magazines such as the Economist. (I’ve left out the Yanks as they trouble your parochial mind). Now, can you honestly tell me that it is commonly opined on those news outlets that Osama bin Laden is dead?

The answer is “NO!” and that in fact, if anything, the view that is expressed is that he is alive (witness the Telegraph and the Mail’s latest articles). And if you do want to hide behind an authority such as Jon Snow and for him to go toe-to-toe with my contacts or whatever then I invoke a second as well and that’s Robert Fisk who has met bin Laden three times and believes he is still alive.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-on-bin-laden-at-50-438729.html

I’ve read the whole of his Great War OF Civilization (Yes, I read the whole thing and turned each page, I didn’t have the plotline “briefed” to me!) and I’m aware of the enormous number of contacts he has made over 30 years in journalism, both at home and abroad. I would guess that they are many more, and more varied, than yours, Dreiolin!

“However, I didn’t SAY, “if he says he’s dead then he’s probably dead”.” I was simply quoting someone from the mainstream media, something you mentioned. Stop putting words in my mouth please. I have not stated anywhere that bin Laden is dead, but I do think it’s highly likely.”

Right, you don’t think he is “probably dead” you just think it is “highly likely”. Could you split that hair any finer? And why do you think it is highly likely? You used a ouija board, perhaps? You felt a disturbance in the force? Or perhaps you were relying on seasoned journalists of the calibre of Jon Snow. In other words, I put no words in your mouth at all. What I said you were implying is exactly what you were implying.

“But my guess is that some mainstream journalists are far better informed than you are. (And they don’t say everything they think on air. Cf Snowmail.)”

I don’t doubt it at all. That’s their job, after all. Or at least I think that’s their job. (According to some people their job is to further the “Zionist agenda”). But if they don’t say these secret opinions on air then these can’t be considered commonly aired views on the mainstream media. Is this not obvious?

“Are you saying I am being paid to write on blogs?”

“Typical ‘Angry’ question. If I want to say you’re being paid to write on blogs, I’ll say that. Until then, don’t continue to try and put words in my mouth. You seem to do it to everyone with whom you argue.”

And there you go again. You engage in a flurry of innuendo and then, when challenged, you scurry off behind a curtain of plausible deniability and faux-outrage, “Ooh! How dare you accuse me of making accusations, XYZ! I only ever say what I mean! Stop putting words in my mouth… !”

Then why don’t you explain what you mean when you said you don’t believe I have read very much but that I am being briefed? “Being briefed” is a typical use of the passive voice for people who want to avoid being clear as George Orwell could have told you. If you could explain who you think I am being briefed by and for what purpose and then explain the rest of those innuendo-laden questions then I wouldn’t need to jump to the conclusions that your weasel words quite obviously point to.

And as for putting words in my mouth, you made this comment: “I think you might find that you’re referring to American rules. (We don’t use the Chicago Manual of Style, either.)”

I never referred to the Chicago Manual of Style. I’m not even sure if I have ever opened it. Michael Swan, the famed author of Practical English Usage which is a manual of natural spoken and written English advises: “We do not usually put commas between grammatically separate sentences.” This is another description of “comma splice” even if the term comma splice isn’t commonly used in the UK and Eire.

Now, here’s Lynne Truss (no Yank she) on comma splices:

“Done knowingly by an established writer, the comma splice is effective, poetic, dashing. Done equally knowingly by people who are not published writers, it can look weak or presumptuous. Done ignorantly by ignorant people, it is awful.”

But let’s abandon such pedantry; it is tiresome beyond words.

“However, the article above cites infowars as its scouce – infowars is Alex Jones, isn’t it?”

Yes, of course.

I’ve been telling you this all along: American Right-Wing Nuts = British Left-Wing Nuts

Clark, yes, InfoWars is Alex Jones.

But this one,

“I found the following link on the Wikipedia article above. There’s a video, but ytimg is streaming it very slowly.

http://norcaltruth.org/2010/05/26/alan-hart-breaks-silence-about-911-on-kevin-barrett-show/”

Is even worse. Kevin Barrett makes even Alex Jones look sane. He’s the guy who was going ballistic at Noam Chomsky and fabricating quotes from Chomsky in that email exchange I showed you on “The Other Thread”.

Alan Hart himself is also famously pretty nutty. I think he did a bit of a David Icke.

“What are you talking about? In particular, what is “it” I am supposed to “produce?” Or are you just in a muddle and your repeated references to me were, in fact, intended for someone else?”

Alfred, stop playing dumb! (Or are you playing?)

On your site is the reference to the video in which Benazir Bhutto claimed on BBC that Osama bin Laden was dead. I asked you what video you were referring to. I saw the Al-Jazeera video but was sure that even you couldn’t be dishonest enough to pass that off as evidence of bin Laden’s death so I wanted to know where the BBC one was and could you produce it.

No point now as I can see you really were trying to pretend that bin Laden’s death was being confirmed by Benazir Bhutto and you had obviously got your information second-hand that she had said it on BBC because you were referring to the re-broadcast in which her comments about “bin Laden” had been edited out.

So it seems it is you who is desperately muddled.

By the way, what happened to TM?

Angrysoba,

the trouble is that expressing certain viewpoints is what ‘nuttiness’ is judged by – the argument gets circular. Hmm. I suppose now I’ll have to read that long e-mail exchange.

Hey, the link I posted to norcaltruth.org is redirecting to a different page now…

Angry: It’s hard to tell what you’re disputing here (unless it’s just everything on general principles), but the BBC did broadcast Benazir Bhutto claiming UBL was dead. Perhaps you don’t believe that, but here’s a discussion by BBC editors on their decision to edit out that comment:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/01/post_8.html

“During the interview, first broadcast at the start of November last year (more info here), Ms Bhutto made what was, on the face of it, an astonishing allegation – that Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. The claim was brief, and went unchallenged by Sir David Frost.

Under time pressure, the item producer responsible for publishing the video on the BBC website edited out the comment, with the intention of avoiding confusion. The claim appeared so unexpected that it seemed she had simply mis-spoken. However, editing out her comment was clearly a mistake, for which we apologise, and it should not have happened.”

Are you actually trying to claim that never happened, and that the Al-Jazeera re-broadcast of it was some sort of fake?

OK, here’s the link to the start of Alan Hart interviewed on the Kevin Barrett Show. Six parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux8_20tf-a4

Glenn, well found. It was clearly a BBC programme, even if it was only broadcast in its entirety on Al-Jazeera.

Hi Clark… my understanding is that it was originally broadcast in full, and was captured by Al-Jazeera, but was subsequently (and quite quickly) altered by the BBC to remove the comment. The transcripts still do not show it (despite the BBC stooge claiming it was “a mistake”), and the BBC website links still do not show it.

I don’t want to go chasing off looking at other stuff on youtube, and anyway it’s giving me shit about about how my flash is out of date, yet again . mark said there was something on http://www.alanhart.net/ , so _that’s_ what I want to read to chase it up. Simples.

and, I really must learn not to put stuff in anglebrackets here. Never mind.

Good night.

Angrysoba said,

“Alfred, stop playing dumb! (Or are you playing?)

On your site is the reference to the video in …”

Sacre bleu. We’re discussing what’s on my site?

So you’re demanding that I produce a link that you say is already on my site?

Or are you saying the link on my site is not the link I say it is, or what?

And who cares?

My recollection confirms Glenn’s report of what Mrs. Bhutto said in an interview with David Frost. So what’s to argue about?

And what’s the reason for your perpetual insults? “Shit for brains” “playing dumb (if you are playing).”

Is that how you learnt to reason when you studied in philosophy?

To the person too timid to leave their name who said:

‘And you would take stuff from a hate site like

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/203776.php

as gospel would you?

Do you understand the meaning of the term ‘smear’?’

You can find the same information in Wired Magazine.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/manning-mental-health/

Is that a hate site too?

The site I quoted came up first in a Google search. But maybe you don’t know how to use Google with the search terms I specified and were uanble to verify the story for yourself.

God! What’s wrong with you people?

Clark: “Glenn, well found. It was clearly a BBC programme, even if it was only broadcast in its entirety on Al-Jazeera.”

On the very same link that Glenn provided:

“In the past week or so, the BBC – and more specifically, the News website – has been accused on various websites, blogs and bulletin boards of censorship.

The claims relate to an interview with the late Benazir Bhutto, originally conducted by Sir David Frost for the al-Jazeera channel, and later rebroadcast in part on this website (the BBC has an agreement with al-Jazeera which enables both broadcasters to share certain news material).”

It was an al-Jazeera programme! Follow the bloody link!

Glenn: “Angry: It’s hard to tell what you’re disputing here (unless it’s just everything on general principles), but the BBC did broadcast Benazir Bhutto claiming UBL was dead.”

Jesus! She didn’t think OBL was dead. She made a mistake!

“Are you actually trying to claim that never happened, and that the Al-Jazeera re-broadcast of it was some sort of fake?”

Of course I don’t think that and I never said anything remotely like that.

I already told you. She made a mistake on the original broadcast which was for al-Jazeera and it was subsequently edited out of the BBC rebroadcast for the obvious reason that it was a mistake and would cause confusion to the likes of you who would be squealing, “OOOOOOOh Bin Laden’s dead! She said it! She said it! Can’t go back on that!”

“My recollection confirms Glenn’s report of what Mrs. Bhutto said in an interview with David Frost. So what’s to argue about?”

The link Glenn provided proves you both wrong. Go to the bloody link!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/01/post_8.html

I’m going to post the whole bloody thing here including the bit that Glenn deceptively left off.

Christ! You people are so blatant in your fabrications and you cast aspersions on MY credibility:

“In the past week or so, the BBC – and more specifically, the News website – has been accused on various websites, blogs and bulletin boards of censorship.

The claims relate to an interview with the late Benazir Bhutto, originally conducted by Sir David Frost for the al-Jazeera channel, and later rebroadcast in part on this website (the BBC has an agreement with al-Jazeera which enables both broadcasters to share certain news material).

During the interview, first broadcast at the start of November last year (more info here), Ms Bhutto made what was, on the face of it, an astonishing allegation – that Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. The claim was brief, and went unchallenged by Sir David Frost.

Under time pressure, the item producer responsible for publishing the video on the BBC website edited out the comment, with the intention of avoiding confusion. The claim appeared so unexpected that it seemed she had simply mis-spoken. However, editing out her comment was clearly a mistake, for which we apologise, and it should not have happened. There was no intention on our part to distort the meaning of the interview, and we will endeavour to replace the edited version currently available via our website, with the original interview as broadcast by Al-Jazeera, which, in the meantime, you can find on YouTube here.”

Larry said,

“Also, are you and Mr. Hart of the view that the Jews started WWI and WWII?”

Well, they do seem to have been the first to declare war in the leadup to WWII.

http://wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/jdecwar.html

And most likely, Larry, Israelis were involved in 9/11, which is quite different from saying that Israel did 9/11. No one in their right mind thinks Israel would do anything to the United States, unless it were approved by the United States.

How the Hell would they survive the response to a preemptive terrorist attack on NY?

It is the case, however, that Israel is very closely tied to the United States. It is a de facto member of NATO, its air defenses are integrated with those of the US, its intelligence services are closely allied with those of the US, and it receives a multi-billion-dollar arms subsidy from the United States.

Therefore, to postulate Israeli participation in 9/11 (hey, do tell us what those dancing Israelis were doing hi-fiving to the backdrop of the burning Twin Towers) is merely to say that Israel was involved in a manner that was not antagonistic to the US government.

It is equally silly to suggest that Isreal controls the US Government. However, it is true to say that American Zionists who differ very little in view from the Israeli Government, are influential in the US Government: hence a Zionist vice president and an Israeli citizen and IDF veteran as WH Chief of Staff.

So if you want to talk about 9/11, don’t just gives us sneers and jeers. Give us some real idea what you think the reality was.

“Well, they do seem to have been the first to declare war in the leadup to WWII.”

Oh Jesus! That ole chestnut. “Judea Declares War on Germany” is a sensationalist headline from the Daily Express and beloved of neo-Nazis such as at the Barnes Review which your link goes to.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar11.html

How many Tanks did Judea possess in 1933? You stupid fool, the Nazis were a virulently anti-semitic political party and the boycott was a response to their coming to power. It wasn’t literally a declaration of war!

“So if you want to talk about 9/11…”

Do it on the Other Thread!

Angry said: “I’m going to post the whole bloody thing here including the bit that Glenn deceptively left off.”

“Deceptively left off?” You paranoid twat. I’d put the link there so everyone could see it. If I’d over-quoted, that might have been a problem too. If you honestly think I’m trying to hide something, while including a link to it in the same post, you need to get your head examined.

“You paranoid twat.”

Glenn said: “It’s hard to tell what you’re disputing here (unless it’s just everything on general principles), but the BBC did broadcast Benazir Bhutto claiming UBL was dead…Are you actually trying to claim that never happened, and that the Al-Jazeera re-broadcast of it was some sort of fake?”

Glenn’s link says: “The claims relate to an interview with the late Benazir Bhutto, originally conducted by Sir David Frost for the al-Jazeera channel, and later rebroadcast in part on this website (the BBC has an agreement with al-Jazeera which enables both broadcasters to share certain news material).”

Of course, Glenn didn’t post that part which directly contradicts his claim. So that leaves us with the possibility that he didn’t read it and got it wrong by accident, in which case he may like to admit he was wrong.

Or:

He read it and decided to deliberately leave it off because it contradicated him and he’s now been exposed as a liar.

Which is it Glenn?

Angry, you really are reaching. It’s not at all clear what the heck your shrill denunciations are even about any more. It’s pretty clear you’re getting desperate, but nobody is clear about what your point actually is these days. Do you know? Has paranoia really got the better of you, as your recent posts would strongly suggest?

Let’s recap – Benazir Bhutto claimed that UBL had been murdered. You, of course, know what she _really_ thought, but regardless – I’ve mentioned her quote, and subsequently referenced a BBC discussion about the editing of this quote.

Now what they heck are you raving about? Why are you spraying foam around regarding my “claim”, when all I’ve done is discussed and referenced indisputable quotes?

Angry – you’re losing it. You are obsessed with “gotcha” debate tactics, and punching at shadows. Maybe you should take a holiday – may I suggest Cuba?

“Has paranoia really got the better of you, as your recent posts would strongly suggest?”

Glenn. You are a 9/11 Truther and you’re calling ME paranoid.

Of course, like most 9/11 Truthers you are, ironically, a liar.

Now, let’s go slowly.

Where was the interview first broadcast? On BBC or on al-Jazeera?

Angrysoba,

Re: “You stupid fool…”

I was not addressing you. Nor do I ever wish to address you, since you cannot address any comment to me without a gross insult, which bears in no way on the facts. In fact, the smear seems to be your only arguement about anything.

You may not like the Daily Express, whose proprietor served in Churchill’s wartime government as Minister of Munitions and who must, therefore, have been responsible for the deaths of more than a few German Nazis, but the issue is not what you think of the Daily Express or what links you find from the page that displays the the image of the March 24, 1933 Express headline, but the facts conveyed by that image.

Anyway I was addressing Larry, not you. Who knows, he and I might be able to conduct a polite exchange that would establish on what we agree, if anything, and on what we disagree and why.

So why don’t you just take a valium and take a rest for now.

“the issue is not what you think of the Daily Express or what links you find from the page that displays the the image of the March 24, 1933 Express headline, but the facts conveyed by that image.”

And what are the facts conveyed by the image?

OK, Alfred, as a regular contributor on Craig Murray’s blog, it seems that the Jews were responsible for WWII. No surprise there. I imagine Craig Murray, given his otherwise odd beliefs, his Jew hatred, and the company he keeps, secretly harbors such cultish views.

But let’s expand this.

I don’t think the Jews did 7/7. Any thoughts?

rather, it seems that you think that the Jews were responsible for WWII

“rather, it seems that you think that the Jews were responsible for WWII”

Come on, Larry,

Of course I don’t think that.

And I’ve said a good deal about the causes of WWII somewhere on this blog –basically a rehash of the history of the 20th century as recounted by Carrol Quigley (“Tragedy and Hope”) who, if he mentioned the Jews at all, did so merely in passing.

But maybe you don’t do real discussion. in which case, lets not even pretend to pursue the points I made about Israel and US action and policy.

The above was by me, obviously — if this goofy software will let me say so.

“Come on, Larry,

Of course I don’t think that.”

Right. But you cite Neo-Nazi sources.

You’re such a coward that you can’t admit to your beliefs. You run away when challenged. Stand up for yourself, you Jew-hating Nazi 911 truther.

Why has this thread now come to focus about the usual circlet of ‘Lowest Common Denominator’ subjects? Alfred invoking Larry and the immediate response. Here we go round the mulberry bush. A jig, a reel.

As angrysoba said, there is the other thread, which is dedicated solely to such dances.

“So it IS an argument from authority, as I said.”

–Angry

You brought up the mainstream press in relation to bin Laden. Not me. You said, “the view is not one that is common in the mainstream press”, and I replied that Jon Snow, for one, thinks he’s dead. And now you say I’m making an argument from authority? The fact that I think OBL is dead has nothing whatsoever to do with Jon Snow.

“If you could explain who you think I am being briefed by and for what purpose”

I voiced an opinion that didn’t include the words “being paid to write on blogs”. That’s all you need to know. I happen to think there’s something odd about your presence here. I’ve said it before.

“But let’s abandon such pedantry; it is tiresome beyond words.”

I didn’t bring up your famous comma splice. Yes, let’s abandon it along with your misquoting, your sarcasm, and your twisting of arguments. I have neither the time nor the energy to wade through your convolutions or be dragged around a mulberry bush by your slippery tactics.

Mulberry bush! Must have picked that up from Suhayl as I was scrolling down. Such is the power of suggestion.

Alfred, be a dear and don’t reply to Larry. He’s banned here.

I do like Wikipedia for this sort of thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_We_Go_Round_the_Mulberry_Bush

Is it/was it sung by Irish children Dreoilin?

Not these days, somebody, but yes, I remember it from when I was a small child. Pop goes the weasel.

Look at this:

“Tony Blair may cancel London book signing”

http://tinyurl.com/32ojecc

He’s citing the “hassle” to police!

I meant, Pop goes the Weasel too.

“You brought up the mainstream press in relation to bin Laden. Not me. You said, “the view is not one that is common in the mainstream press”, and I replied that Jon Snow, for one, thinks he’s dead. And now you say I’m making an argument from authority? The fact that I think OBL is dead has nothing whatsoever to do with Jon Snow.”

Oh my word!

This is like playing the game “Whack-a-mole”.

If I say, “Jon Snow is only one person so it hardly indicates a common view” you say: “Oh, well I think he knows more than you do.”

Then I say, “Well, maybe he does, but others have said they think he is alive” then, you say, “I’m only saying him because you said it isn’t a common view.”

I say, “Citing one commentator doesn’t mean it is a common view.”

Then you say, “I think he knows more about it than you.”

I say, “That’s irrelevant. The point was that it isn’t a common view. So the fact that one commentator, Jon Snow believes it still doesn’t show that it is a common view.”

Then you say…

“I voiced an opinion that didn’t include the words “being paid to write on blogs”. That’s all you need to know. I happen to think there’s something odd about your presence here. I’ve said it before.”

Okay, you also voiced the opinion I am being briefed.

What does that mean?

“I didn’t bring up your famous comma splice. Yes, let’s abandon it along with your misquoting, your sarcasm, and your twisting of arguments. I have neither the time nor the energy to wade through your convolutions or be dragged around a mulberry bush by your slippery tactics.”

I’ll have you know I am a perfect gentleman. I never drag ladies around mulberry bushes, with or without slippery tactics.

“(hey, do tell us what those dancing Israelis were doing hi-fiving to the backdrop of the burning Twin Towers”

It was straight out of Mossad Operating Manual vol. 1. Once you’ve carried out a massive false-flag terrorist attack which will change world politics for years to come, make sure you celebrate in public, drawing as much attention to yourself as possible. Dancing is an optional extra.

“Pop goes the weasel

…

Tony Blair may cancel London book signing”

From the photos, I’d say he looks more like my idea of a goblin than a weasel.

Hello Richard Robinson, Suhayl Saadi, Somebody,

pointless fighting has broken out again. People are slagging each other off instead of addressing the issues or presenting evidence. Ho hum.

Clark: I realise I made a mistake. Frost used to work for the BBC, of course, but then he started working for al-Jazeera, and that’s where the original interview was held. Not that this actually makes any difference, of course. Nonetheless, my making this Huge Confession could bring pleasure to some correspondents here who are desperately in need of a little.

David Frost says, in this video, that he thought Benazir Bhutto had “mis-spoken” in the al-Jazeera interview. She had been talking about Osama bin Laden in the present tense off-camera and that the idea she would think Osama bin Laden had been “murdered by Omar Sheikh” was so obviously whack-o that he didn’t think it worth correcting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23HQFWw4Tro&feature=related

Maybe someone should tell Sir David that there is no way a mind as sharp as Benazir’s could have used Osama’s name instead of Daniel Pearl’s and the more obvious explanation is her sharp mind had just casually blurted out the biggest secret of the “War on Terror” and thought it hadn’t been worth commenting on before or after.

Once again I wasn’t the first person to bring up 911 and the idiots at this blog who think it was an inside job in conjunction with a Jew job.

This is like playing the game “Whack-a-mole”.

–Angry

Yes indeed, you’re still popping up with “quotes” that are a load of bull. So I’ll revert to what I said some time ago, and ignore you from now on.

Have a nice day.

Hello, Clark.

Yes, so it has.

I don’t really have any agendas or fixed ideas about what “should” be happening here, but I can’t escape the feeling that it needn’t be as bloody futile as this endless playground squabble.

I hope it isn’t costing our host very much money to provide the facilities for it, because if it is I’m not sure we (collectively) are giving good value for it.

Ach well, “good in parts”.

(musing aloud) I find it very odd that someone claiming to combat anti-semitism would use derogatory phrases like ‘a Jew job’ when no-one else here would, or tolerate it. No wonder that poster was banned.

Otherwise, anyone been listening to Blair on Iran? Does anyone take him seriously?

If you don’t understand the humor in making fun of anti-Semites for thinking that 911 and 7/7 and the underwear bomber and World War II were “Jew jobs,” then I can’t help you.

From @SkyNewsBreak

“Tony Blair pulls out of his high-profile central London book signing on Wednesday, after his first public appearance was met with protests.”

So he’s done it then.

And meanwhile he pimps for Israel on Iran.

There’s a man who knows which side his bread is buttered.

(small note) not ‘for Israel’; just for the paranoid maniacs in power. Think Shminitsim, think Yuri Avnery…

Jeez the world is in a terrible state of chassis. And am currently contributing my own small personal chaos, so am not feeling too good either. Rats.

Technicolour,

you don’t seem to be creating any chaos here. The stupid row seems to have burnt itself out for now, thank goodness. Hey, I think when we refer to a state, we sort of assume it’s the collective leadership decisions that we’re talking about. We say “Britain and the US invaded Iraq” without specifying Bush and Blair, and pointing out that millions of us were opposed. I don’t think that we should make a special case for Israel, just because certain people shout “Antisemitism!” if we don’t.

Jaded, take note: Technicolour just called the Israeli leadership “paranoid maniacs”. So probably not “Monsieur Zionista” then…

Clark; true, though actually I get quite annoyed when people refer to the UK as though we were/are behind those idiots. All those polls showing 70 percent or so against!

Dreoilin: “There’s a man who knows which side his bread is buttered.” That may be true about lucrative speeches, but I understand that the proceeds from his book “A Journey” are going towards the rehabilitation of injured British soldiers. I plan to wait for a cheap paperback edition to come out.

Larry said:

“You’re such a coward that you can’t admit to your beliefs. You run away when challenged. Stand up for yourself, you Jew-hating Nazi 911 truther.”

The current incarnation of Larry appears to be a Zionist spambot. It seems to rely on keywords to generate the usual “you blame Jews for WWI, WWII, 7/7, whatever.”

But when you challenge the thing to deal with a real question, it makes no sense. It fails the Turing test.

So guys, over at Mossad Central, more work needed.

Suhayl,

Re: “Why has this thread now come to focus about the usual circlet of ‘Lowest Common Denominator’ subjects? Alfred invoking Larry and the immediate response.”

As indicated above, I invoked Larry for the specific purpose of performing the Turing test. The result was very satisfactory.

‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’, starring Judy Geeson and Barry Evans. Good fun! Anyone remember that film? It was also an album, which I have, in LP form: Spencer Davis Group et al.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_We_Go_Round_the_Mulberry_Bush_(film)

It’s fascinating and somewhat sad that even though Our Man in the Mid West knows he’s not welcome hereabouts, he seems still to be keeping one (or four, perhaps) on the blog and seems able, rather like the proverbial Jumping Jehosaphat, to leap in the moment an allusion that lies within his ‘remit’ appears.

Responding to the hopes expressed by several for more relevant comment, I have been looking at Web coverage of the Wikileaks story and find that opinions fall mainly into two out of three possible camps:

(a) That Wikileaks is doing a useful job exposing American war crimes, etc. (Spiegel, Guardian, NYT — all sharing Assanges contempt for 9/11 Truth)

(b) That Wikileaks is an anti-American propaganda outfit (e.g., Pajamas Media — who the heck are they:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-wikileaks-hoax-part-i/?singlepage=true)

And

(c) That Wikileaks is a US intelligence operation to both trap would be leakers and to diseminate US propaganda (advocated by TM here and very few others).

All of the evidence I have seen is consistent with any interpretation. I think (c) deserves closer consideration, especially as the MSM have no time for it.

Certainly the bunglingly stupid charges of rape against Assange could very well have been designed to “backfire”. i.e., make Assange appear to be the target of a smear, and thus by inference, a good guy.

And the way in which the leak of Afghan war papers has inspired stories to justify the War-on-Terror narrative is consistent with (c).

Eyes, that is, eyes. And yes, I agree with technicolour that the use of such horrible terms as “Jew job”, “raghead”, etc. suggests that deep-down, the enunciator himself is profoundly anti-Semitic in the truest sense and is using various techniques to mask his visceral anti-Semitism. Anyway, enough on him.

What’s new with the Pimlico murder? Sherlock Holmes onto it yet?

Well not all of the MSM rejects my hypothesis (c). See this, for example, from the Pakistan Daily:

http://www.daily.pk/wikileaks-a-cia-disinformation-front-19278/

“We know there are thousands of videos which already exist on the internet which have captured American soldiers crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, but for some mysterious reasons the video which was released by the Wikileaks was propagated with a zeal, the mainstream media projected Wikileaks as a authentic source, which is working to propagate truth, without any involvement with any intelligence services, to build this public image of Wikileaks, Wikileaks released video was used as a building block, thus the public mindset was now ready to except anything Wikileaks published. CIA propaganda through Wikileaks about the Pakistan (ISI) and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a follow up on the United States Secretary of State Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton claiming that Amir ul Momineen Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahid and Sheikh Osama bin Laden were in Pakistan.

In these ludicrous and sinister disinformation campaigns against Pakistan is hidden a very dangerous agenda of Israel and America.”

Well who knew it, Hillary Rodham’s middle name is Diane?

A Q. about Greek yogurt for Suhayl (as medical expert) & Dreoilin (as guinea pig – er, person with First Hand experience). Suhayl, I am curious about how it might help upset stomachs. Does Greek yogurt kill germs responsible for food poisoning, or does it counteract their poisons? Dreoilin: did it actually work, better than string tea?

PS. That should be strOng tea.

Pauper tea is thrift.

Alfred, it’s a valid argument. But as I said last night, one has to be careful when reading or listening to some Pakistani outlets/ people. If one looks at the website of the above-mentioned newspaper, it is quite clear that they are intensely pro-Army, every second article is a celebration of the former military dictator, Musharraf and the current army. Also, while the body of the quote is sensible, the end of it gives the game away. There is an intense and unthinking reflex in Pakistan, cultivated in recent times, to blame everything – everything – on Israel. This conclusion at the end weakens the argumentation wrt Wikileaks. It appeals to facile emotional cadences. The very fact that they refer to ‘Mullah Omar’ (Taliban Leader) in such deferential tones is also a giveaway.

http://www.daily.pk/category/headlines/

Yoghurt – I think it’s because it helps commensal bacteria (‘goodies in the gut’) multiply, so re-balancing the internal environment of the intestine (as they might say in certain clinics in California).

But whatever works, Abe, whatever works! Grren tea is good for the digestion, so black tea probably contains some chemical constituent that aids the process; one would have to consult with a herbalist or Chinese Medicine practitioner or text to find out how these things work.

GrEEn, I meant, green tea! ‘String tea’ is a new one on me, Abe – perhaps to do with the comsic strings which bind everything and nothing together? But if the strings are strong and the grren is green, then we’re all fine and dandy just like peppermint candy.

I think a mug of string grren tea is completely in order at this point.

Of course, that was a tautology by me, earlier, as by definition, a reflex is ‘unthinking’.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100906/tuk-police-appeal-for-information-on-dea-dba1618.html

“Mediterranean appearance…”. Hmn. Echoes of the Dubai hit? Except, of course, no-one waved at the cameras this time. And while that assassination was a broadcast event to Hamas-and-anyone-else, this has been more elusive. Let’s wait for the toxicology. It may reveal nothing.

Suhayl: “Green tea is good for the digestion”. Now you mention it, whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant, my practice is to order a pot of Chinese tea instead of beer or coke. It can last the whole evening (between solid food helpings, that is).

I think pepperming can be nice for stomachs, too.

Argh. The misspeelings are taking over.

But, Suhayl, re com (sic) strings, I saw an intriguing thing on Dr. Hawking, etc – http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2010/09/first-it-wasnt-then-it-was.html

(I’d never heard of this “Huainanzi” he refers to, I think more people would recognise it as the Tao te Ching)

Suhayl,

Re: ” But as I said last night, one has to be careful when reading or listening to some Pakistani outlets/ people.”

No, doubt.

I cited the Pakistan Daily not for the validity of their argument but as a rare example of MSM support for Hypothesis (c). And it is an example because the agenda of the Pakistan media is presumably different from that of the Western media.

So which bunch of lying media outlets are you gonna believe?

LOL

garlic’s the thing for bacterial stomach upsets. one of the six ‘alternative’ medicines proven to work – anti-tumour, antiseptic, pro healthy stuff. one or two raw cloves a day. also works on dogs & cats against fleas (though dosage according to body weight).

others included St John’s Wort instead of pharmaceutical antidepressants & valerian tea, instead of sedatives (knocks you right out)

can also vouch for manuka honey for wound healing & comfrey for the same (not for deep wounds as it heals the surface too quickly but also works for tendons)

“are you gonna” – is this the same Alfred? Thought you were a ‘respected elder’? Or are you gettin down wid da kidz?

http://www.wikileakileaks.org/

Richard, interesting!! Abe, yes I do that too. In fact, years ago when I started writing creatively, I used to drink green tea for the purpose because I felt it cleared my head and didn’t make me too hyper. Later, only extremely strong coffee would do. The slippery slope, eh? Alfred, yeah I know what you mean, good point.

God, technicolour, I knew about garlic and St John’s Whatsit, but the rest… that’s super – I’ll know now who to come to when I need advice on all things natural! A veritbale compendium, Mrs Craik, a veritable compendium! And Dude Alfred is a man for all ages.

“What’s new with the Pimlico murder? Sherlock Holmes onto it yet?”

They didn’t find any “routine drugs” in him, which is a phrase I hadn’t heard before.

Back to the original Assange issue, it turns out that Craig Murray’s fantasies about secret agent men turn out to be just that. I never doubted it for a second.

This is in line with Murray’s other fantasies.

http://gawker.com/5624854/wikileaks-founders-molestation-police-report-leaked-his-top+secret-moves-revealed

hahahahaahahaahahahahah!!!!

“Again she bought his £10 train ticket because he had no cash and said he didn’t want to use his credit card in case his movement was being tracked.

He spent most of the 45-minute journey surfing the internet on his laptop, reading stories about himself and twittering or texting on his mobile phone.”

Bwwwaaaaa-hhahahahahahahahahahaha!

Angrysober,

Did you post September 6, 2010 1:57 PM?

dreoilin: yes well spotted, Blair called off the signing. I wrote to Waterstones and Tate Modern – we wait to see if Blair’s ‘secret party’ goes ahead…

Hamid Mir who is writing Bin Laden’s biography is a slippery character in my opinion. Robin Cook did not trust him. Check out the interview with David Dastych.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/dastych050906.htm

Mir works for Geo TV headed up by Azhar Abbas brother of Major General Athar Abbas who is in charge of the Pakistan Army information unit.

Go figure!

Tin Foil hats promoting Wikileaks as a double bluff? Pull the other one.

Rule one of counter-espionage, discredit the enemy.

Suhayl, seriously, they were going to amputate my father’s (arthritic) toes as they said the deep ulcer caused by rubbing was untreatable – but regular application of manuka honey cured it (and it turned out the nurses were using it in the local hospital without telling anyone too)

there is more in heaven & earth, horatio…

Let’s not confuse where the initial revenue from Blair’s book is going with the peddling of the book itself.

Would there still not be something obscene in his using the British Legion to effectively justify the dissemenation of his perverse version of the invasion of Iraq?

Polo: of course, it is all obscene, what are we going to do?

Get on, make babies, make beauty, make art, make trouble is my idea.

?

Time to retire, and tonight, the national anthem of Namibia in a slightly different style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlYKZ7mnN44&feature=related

Heh Craig Murray: here’s your secret agent man: http://gawker.com/5619931/meet-wikileaks-founders-alleged-sex-victim

There. I’ve done more to expose the NWO than any of you combined!

“Tin Foil hats promoting Wikileaks as a double bluff? Pull the other one.”

Is that Stephen Jones sniping from a thicket?

gawker. It makes money for its incestors by selling advertising ? And it has some shockhorror exposes ? There’s a thing.

aarrgghh. typos rule. Accident, honest. in*v*estors. But funny enough (IMO) that I’m not deleting it.

Yes, Richard, it is a going concern that sells advertising in order to publish. That sort of thing has been going on for years.

Does anyone still seriously believe that the CIA set up Julian Assange?

Heh Craig Murray … regarding Assange, it would be best at this point to publicly admit that you were wrong in believing that the little guy was framed by the CIA. I think your credibility will be needlessly damaged by your knee-jerk “secret agent man” theory, unless you admit to your mistake and promise to hereafter engage in a more discerning thought process.

technicolour, that’s a wonderful account, I’m very pleased indeed about your father! What a relief that must’ve been for him and you. Yes, in China they run two parallel medical systems – people can train in one or the other but both learn about both – and are busy exploring the scientific basis for traditional Chinese medicine. That seems a sensible attitude. We, on the other hand, seem blinded by ‘the evidence-base’, good in principle but in practice with its own dogmatic limitations and provenances. Heresy! Make trouble! A good motto.

Abe, thanks very much for the links to the lovely songs!

Mark, yes, Geo TV – while it had its good points during the Musharraf era – the explosion of private TV channels did enable a somewhat different set of views and entertainment from State TV to emerge – they have seemed very anti-the current government.

The Musharraf regime, during whose regime these outelts were established, attempted to use media liberalisation (good in and of itself) as a front to demonstrate his commitment to ‘civil society’ and plurality’.

Some of the media outlets are tied very strongly with the military. The film, ‘Khuda ke Liye’, about rendition and radicalisation, a very good commercial film (which I would thoroughly recommend you watch; it can be obtained with subtitles), was part-financed by the Army. This meant that while it slated the CIA and the Taliban, it did not (could not, would not) criticse the Pakistan Army, but showed it in a helpful light. That was the film’s major flaw. Mind you, it, and similar elisions, also often are major flaws in the standard Hollywood film, esp. ones starring right-wing reactionnaries like Harrison Ford! George Clooney films are much better, aren’t they?

During the Musharraf regime, underneath the window-dress of liberalism, of course, the hard facts – guns and butter – continued to define the nature of the Pakistani state.

Re, Assange, even the Daily Mail report seems to point towards either a groupie infatuation, “I’m your greatest fannery”, or else an array of honeypottery. If the account is accurate (a big pinch of slat and slab of Cheddar), all its suggests is that he was naive. So what’s new? As Craig Murray delineates in his books, personal sexual morals actually have nothing to do with political morality. As whistleblower or journalist who facilitates/ disseminates whistleblowing activity can be Don Juan, Casanova, Lady Gaga or Anais Nin, for all I care. What is important is the content of the information which the organisation for which he works disseminates. It is valid to argue around that. The fact that Assange-the-person suddenly has become the subject of such sustained and widespread smear tactics by various levels of state asset suggests that they have something to gain by discrediting him and thence the information purveyed by Wikileaks. They have also succeeded to some extent in drawing attention away from the actual information and towards personalities.

Don’t buy it.

“has become the subject of such sustained and widespread smear tactics by various levels of state asset suggests that they have something to gain by discrediting him and thence the information purveyed by Wikileaks”

No, he’s not become the victim of smear tactics. He’s become the victim of silly Swedish law.

What’s your evidence of the smear tactics against Assange? Just the fact that this woman had a problem with him? Do you believe, as Craig Murray seems to believe, that she was a CIA asset?

Anonymous poster at 7;49am, if you actually read my post of 7:18am, you may discover that I have suggested two possibilities and that one of those possibilities concords your assertion in relation to the woman allegedly involved. Thank you.

‘accords’, I meant! or else, ‘concurs’. Or else, ‘is in concordance with’.

“The fact that Assange-the-person suddenly has become the subject of such sustained and widespread smear tactics by various levels of state asset suggests that they have something to gain by discrediting him and thence the information purveyed by Wikileaks.”

Where’s “the fact” of a smear? Where’s the evidence?

Are you really immediately running away from what you state as a fact?

No. I’m proposing a number of possibilities. I’m saying that I try not to be dogmatic. It’s an opinion, just like yours.

In my view, the coincidence b/w Wikileaks’s release of the files and the typical accusations against Assange is suspicious to say the least. We’ve seen this type of thing, uhm, how many times before? It is a typical tactic used to discredit dissidents, as Craig Murray explained – kompromat. It’s been used against him and many others! What makes you (whoever you are) so very convinced of the opposite? Where’s the evidence?

You completely ignore the evidence.

Well, anyway, in the spirit of avoiding dogmatism, I think you and Craig Murray set him up. You two needed something to write about. So you two went to Sweden, found two women to play ball, and Craig used his street cred to set him up.

That’s as good as your silly (potential) CIA theory.

I do have to admit that space aliens might have done all of this.

My central point is that the aim and/or effect of scandals like this is not necessarily to obtain a conviction but simply to generate heat. Heat which diverts attention away from the information and onto the personalities and which also serves to discredit the purveyor of the information and the media organ, political party, or whatever it is in a specific case, for which he works.

So, focus on the information about the wars, and critique the evidence that, not on Julian Assange.

But this thread is about the fantasy of a CIA plot against Julian Assange.

And you’re still sticking with the notion that there was a CIA plot against Assange, even when the evidence (as rational people predicted) turns out to completely undermine the men-in-black theory.

This horrible Swedish woman could show up in Scotland tomorrow and admit to you that she did something terribly wrong, and you, Suhayl, would still believe that the men-in-black theory is completely viable.

This is faith-based for you, Suhayl.

The old word for comfrey is ‘knitbone’and Honey’s antiseptic properties have been known for centuries.

I also heard of what garlic can do. Going round the world it is used for various medical ailments, I’ve heard that it cleanses the pores, helps upset stomachs, enhances your circulation and blood condition??

Yoghurts bacterial properties, speaking from personal experience, are a good working remedy against trush, although somewhat awkward to dress and cold for a little moment it proved itself to be successfull.

“I do have to admit that space aliens might have done all of this.”

“This is faith-based for you, Suhayl.” –anon

Is that Larry posting anonymously?

(I’ll be back later, folks)

Cheddar, is it ? He went to Sweden and had to make do with Cheddar ? That’s scandalous.

“Tu veux un camembert ?” …

dreoilin: I spotted the unmistakable style too

“Yes, Richard, it is a going concern that sells advertising in order to publish. That sort of thing has been going on for years.”

OMG, has it really ? I’m shocked, shocked ! You mean they’re under commercial pressure to get people looking at their stuff even if they don’t have anything particularly interesting to say ? That’s terrible, why does nobody do anything about it ?

To put it another way, it’s a reprint from the Daily Mail.

Suhayl,

Thanks so much for your piece on Geo TV; it has furthered my understanding of Hamid Mir a rather complicated man who seems to sit between the Taliban and the CIA. Mir has made many video reports but I am struggling with Urdu to understand them.

Posted by: at September 7, 2010 8:19 AM: “I do have to admit that space aliens might have done all of this.”

I see that you have heeded the warning of Criswell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_DEtfvv9MU

PS. If that weren’t enough, here is the trailer in COLOR (sic). What more could one ask for?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjL9ZqSNxs&feature=related

Hi, I’m just posting this with no name to try and start a pointless argument. Suhayl Saadi said this and Dreoilin said that, and you’re all wrong because you’re silly. Please all argue like hell.

You think they really said this, that and the other ? Bwahaahaa ! You credulous fool !!!!! And anybody who says it’s pointless is a nutter who agrees with Isaac Newton.

Tech,

Yes, I should be more careful about “not ‘for Israel’; just for the paranoid maniacs in power”. I talk similarly about the USA, and I tend to assume people know what I mean. But that’s not good enough, really. (Irish people didn’t agree to troop or rendition flights going through Shannon Airport, and of course they were never asked.)

BTW, you have chickens? That’s fabulous. You should see what passes for Xtra-large eggs around here … Marbles.

Abe,

Yes, yogurt can help. I eat it whenever I’m on antibiotics which clobber the good bacteria as well as the bad. But there’s something very comforting about a cup of tea! I had both on Friday night (with a gap in between.)

Richard,

Thanks for the comments on Ubuntu. Haven’t started yet, but I will. I’ve been on a steep learning curve since my son finished his degree and headed for London, leaving me his PC and my first email address, neither of which I knew how to use.

Hope I haven’t overlooked anyone – it’s not intentional.

Anyone who might want to watch the Late Late interview with Blair should be able to get it here

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1079720

“That’s terrible, why does nobody do anything about it?”

*a titter ran around the room*

dreoilin – “… Irish people didn’t agree to troop or rendition flights going through Shannon Airport, and of course they were never asked”.

Yes, quite. It’s the sort of reason why “Not In My Name” seemd so important to say, perhaps ? It was to me, anyway. But I can make the same mistake myself, it’s very easy to do – and saves a lot of typing, if only it can be taken as intended.

Ubuntu – I’m not a great one for the advocacy, but if you are thinking of it anyway I definitely second the idea. One advantage of Ubuntu, as opposed to all the other flavours of Linux there are out there (they’re all the same programs underneath, just different ideas about how to bundle them up and make it easier) is that lots of other beginners use it, and have done for quite a few years now; all the obvious questions have already been asked, and – the whole thing being Free – the answers are public and can be found through the usual search engines. There’s a vast amount of help out there (and, I think, more than one of us here who’d help if necessary).

Yay for Free Software, basically. Free Software is a Good Thing.

It’s also really nice that it doesn’t cost money, of course. Oh, and it works.

Once you get used to it. …

at September 7, 2010 1:41 PM: “Please all argue like hell.”

Now you mention it, this alternative trailer to Plan 9 in color (sic) does mention creatures “from the bowels of hell” (0:34):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjmFLx9bGeI&feature=related

It even shows a skeleton in clothing that is pink on the inside (1:45)! Could there be a connection with current events? Even Bela Lugosi isn’t immune, vampires being impotent in the face of people armed with garlic and Greek yogurt.

i imagine everyone in hell gets on quite well…

technocolour: “i imagine everyone in hell gets on quite well…”

I thought they weep for themselves, and curse and swear on being told that George Bush and Tony Blair have escaped that fate..

“In my view, the coincidence b/w Wikileaks’s release of the files and the typical accusations against Assange is suspicious to say the least. We’ve seen this type of thing, uhm, how many times before? It is a typical tactic used to discredit dissidents,”

So if you were setting up a fake dissident, you’d follow the same routine wouldn’t you — “the typical tactics … accusations …”

So the suggestion you are making that Assange is likely on the up and up because he was set up appears to have no weight at all.

And the feebleness of the alleged “smears” and the way they have disintegrated suggest either that they were not “smears” at all, just the side effects of Assange’s way of life or perhaps phony “smears” designed to fall apart thus providing the basis for allegations of of a smear, which would redound to Assange’s credibility.

And then again, that might be what They want you to think ? or perhaps They want you to think that they want you to think that they want you think that they want you to think that ?

http://search.ubuntu.com/

A great starting point for all Ubuntu questions. The public forum is extensive, and the official documentation is also searched from the same link.

The bit of Ubuntu installed on your PC is just the tip of the iceberg. Ubuntu connects securely to various ‘repositories’ which contain nearly thirty times as much software as the default install, all maintained for security and reliability. No hunting the Web for bits of freeware that could contain trojans. I’m through with Windows, I have no need of it.

That’s called something, Richard, isn’t it? I remember reading somewhere recently… ah yes, here it is. Third, fourth or fifth order intentionality. From Richard Dawkins, who got it from Daniel Dennett.

Faith-based??? Me?? Ha!! That’s a real joke. That’s a pie-in-the-face joke like Oliver Hardy. Right now, I’m reading Dawkins’s ‘The God Delusion’.

Are our agencies (and particularly those of the US) really that competent? Could they all appear so genuinely outraged that the lives of Afghans not blown up by us in wedding parties could be endangered by these leaks, and just run that right-wing hate machine at Assange even while he’s in on the game?

Could they have got the Swedish woman to besmirch her personal reputation with a withdrawn accusation, and get the Swedish authorities to make a show of taking it seriously, for a short while? Would they have thrown Pvt Manning in jail as a willing accomplice to a sham exercise?

All seems kind of unlikely to me. It also seems unlikely that some AQ or Taliban types hiding out in caves or their notorious “compounds” would be furiously downloading and pouring over 90,000 raw intelligence documents in terse military jargon, then go chasing off around the country to find the “Ahmed Abdulla” or “Mohammed Mohammed” that was named as having provided possible assistance to the Americans.

The earlier revelations by Manning about the helicopter’s murderous adventure in killing Reuter’s journalists caused a great deal of official upset – for good reason. Gung-ho and reckless the US military may well be (and indeed is), but having it made public is terribly unwelcome to authorities. (And to the UK,for that matter, for aiding and abetting their crimes.) The “black unit”, the “kill or capture” without trial on a subsequent massive leak in Afghanistan too – highly unwelcome revelations, to say the least, that seriously undermines any remaining faith in entire mission and its execution.

This is a huge price, and an enormously sophisticated operation that has ran without a hitch to date, if it is indeed just a giant fishing exercise, to trap unwary genuine whistle-blowers. So much so, that the idea is terribly unlikely. Wikileaks and Assange seem genuine to me for these reasons.

Glenn, I think the rubric you portray is the most likely one. Sums it up. Good post.

Very well put, Glenn.

I sometimes wonder if we give the “secret services” far too much credit.

Glenn,

I am not sure that the price, for the US militarists, of the release of the helicopter murder video is really that high. There’s plenty of other stuff as brutal already on the Web, and much of that will already have been seen by most of those who will see the helicpoter murder video.

And there’s nothing new in that video. The US military announced before “Shock and Awe” that they’d kill journalists who were not embedded (“we’ll bomb your radio uplink”) and we saw that they did so, by the dozen (including Jon Snow, almost):

http://cpj.org/reports/2008/07/journalists-killed-in-iraq.php

We know that they also killed between 100,000 and a million civilians, drove four million from their homes, made two million into international refugees and poisoned the air, soil and water with uranium. Does watching them shoot a few innocent women children and journalists make any difference? Not to me.

But if you are setting up a fake leak operation, you’ve got to provide window dressing, which means leaking something that looks important. And certainly cold-blooded murder, which is what US foreign policy involves on a massive scale, is important.

But as you say, all is hypothesis. it’s just that I am beginning to lean to a different conclusion to you. I also think that Craig’s post provides a poor analysis. It’d be OK for the Guardian or some other pillar of the Neocon state, but it hardly rates as the work of a serious intellectual. Of course, for a man with drywall dust in his hair, we can make allowance.

It seems to me that the Zionist spambot, Larry, is telling us something. The description it refers to of Assange’s relations with two Swedish women provide the simplest hypothesis as to how a fake smear could have been arranged. Assange, knowing the absurdity of Swedish law, exploited a couple of groupies by treating them in a way that was all but guaranteed to produce a violent reaction: Assange organized the smear himself.

“Faith-based??? Me?? Ha!! That’s a real joke. That’s a pie-in-the-face joke like Oliver Hardy. Right now, I’m reading Dawkins’s ‘The God Delusion’.”

Congratulations on reading skeptical literature – although I would suggest that you apply the same skeptical tools to other fantasies concocted by weak minds.

Your opinion on Assange is faith-based because it’s unfalsifiable. I would have better luck convincing a homeopath that homeopathy is bullshit.

In any event, it’s good to hear that you’ve abandoned religion.

“Assange, knowing the absurdity of Swedish law, exploited a couple of groupies by treating them in a way that was all but guaranteed to produce a violent reaction: Assange organized the smear himself.”

Now this sort of crazy is exactly why I keep coming to this site.

Alfred, why on earth would Assange bother to do that? He and Wikleaks are already regarded by many as genuine – it’s a minority, I think, who are convinced that he’s not – and even if he had planned such a hare-brained scheme, what guarantee would he have had that it wouldn’t have been taken seriously and led to prosecution and the destruction of his reputation?

And it would’ve come out, too, in such a prosection, if he’d arranged the scam himself. So either way, it’d have been pointless for him. Why toss away the credibility he’s been granted (whether or not you agree with it) simply to gamble in this way, what, just to convince some skeptics? I am no more or less convinced after the honeytrap episode (or whatever it was) than before. It’s the issues that count, in any case – and you rightly point out the magnitude of death that has been caused by these wars.

Alfred: Nothing could be further from the truth. No human being likes to be accused of rape, and in the same way no human being likes to be accused of molesting children. Only an insane person would intentionally scheme to have themselves falsely accused of either. It is however exactly the sort of thing you would use to frame someone.

In this case it is the timing that is very suspicious to people. But the secret services do understand that the general public are not that stupid or gullible. I believe what really happened was when these women were cross examined their stories were just not convincing enough and they were advised to withdraw, secure in the knowledge of a reasonable pay-off. Remember also that Assange is wanted for questioning and not so stupid to rape/molest/harass one woman let alone two.

No Julian needs to be careful of ‘the unfortunate accident’ – please drive yourself and do not charter private planes.

Here is an interesting link to a piece on Gareth Williams – it also mentions Assange – on the excellent Wikispooks:

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/Gareth_Williams

Suhayl: from wikispooks

“Williams was a geek, or boffin as the British call them, and he took a dim view of setting off a nuclear device in downtown Manhattan to assist Israel in her domestic and area problems. The redoubtable Dr. Kushner, a specialist on Israel and a contract worker for various government agencies, has written a very clear, and very frightening, analysis of the current situation.”

Hence my warning Suhayl – I only hope I do not end up in a modern day Aesop fable.

Here’s the full article by Professor Kushner, who also wrote what looks like a fascinating book:

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Israel_v_the_United_States_and_Iran

I hope he’s not correct. The scenario he posits is monstrous.

Suhayl: “Faith-based?..That’s a real joke..I’m reading Dawkins’s ‘The God Delusion’.”

There was a famous (and quite amicable) discussion on the BBC between the atheist Marghanita Laski and the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Anthony, published in the book “God and Man”. You might find it interesting, but I make no claim to the archbishop’s level of spirituality!

Suhayl – “Third, fourth or fifth order intentionality”

I could have gone on longer …

Suhayl,

What i find puzzling is the way that so many people insist on reading the evidence only one way. For example,

“why on earth would Assange bother to do that (fake a smear against himself)?”

So that people will think, as you do, that Assange is being smeared by one of the security services and, by implication must, therefore, be a genuine dissident. And, obviously, if you’re any good at the intelligence racket and you are setting up a phoney leak organization you must know how people like you think!

“He and Wikleaks are already regarded by many as genuine – it’s a minority, I think, who are convinced that he’s not”

Hey, stop waffling. You have no means of knowing what most people think. But in any case, its the others, minority or not, who are not already duped who have to be convinced by further window-dressing.

“and even if he had planned such a hare-brained scheme”

What’s hare-brained about it. It worked didn’t it!

“what guarantee would he have had that it wouldn’t have been taken seriously and led to prosecution and the destruction of his reputation?”

What reputation? He’s a nobody and a nothing as far as 99.99% of the world’s population are concerned. So what’s to risk. And anyway, there are plenty of apologists for his louche behaviour — you and Craig, for example.

“And it would’ve come out, too, in such a prosection, if he’d arranged the scam himself.”

It would come out that like any psychopath he uses girls like kleenex. But what’s wrong with that? Only that it brings one into comflict with some goofy Swedish law. That’s how you’re spinning, isn’t it?

“So either way, it’d have been pointless for him.”

No, it would only have been pointless if it had not resulted in a stupid prosecution, which proves (as opposed to merely raising the possibility), to some gullible people, that he is being persecuted.

“Why toss away the credibility he’s been granted”

Granted by Craig Murray? That’s proof of incredibility to most people (Sorry Craig, but let’s be real about this.).

“I am no more or less convinced after the honeytrap episode (or whatever it was) than before.”

Well, then, why all the talk about it? You seem to think other people should be more convinced after it.

“It’s the issues that count, in any case – and you rightly point out the magnitude of death that has been caused by these wars.”

Absolutely, and so far Assange has managed to justify further carnage in Pakistan by providing supposed evidence that Osama bin Laden, who had terminal kidney disease nine years ago, is alive and well and directing the War of Terror against the West from a haven in Pakistan. How many Pakistani deaths will that justify in the stupified minds of the readers of pseudo-libertarian blogs and newspapers. Many thousands, I would bet.

And when one finds the “Assange was set-up” account by Israel Shamir on the CounterPunch (no 9/11 inside jobbers here) site, the implausibility of the postulated security services smear is greatly enhanced.

http://www.counterpunch.org/shamir08272010.html

Mark

You say:

“No human being likes to be accused of rape.”

Well, I’m no expert on psychopathia sexualis, but to claim that no human being likes to be accused of rape” seems sweeping to me. We had a guy here in BC who boasted of killing 49 prostitutes and said he was disappointed to have been apprehended before he could reach his half century.

you say, “in the same way no human being likes to be accused of molesting children.”

I dunno, we had another guy here named Clifford Robert Olsen, Jr. who — well I spare you the sordid details. But in any case, Assange was not accused of child molestation.

What’s more, he was not accused of rape as that term is normally understood. According the Israel Shamir’s account, a woman named Ardin “invited Julian Assange to a crayfish party, and they had enjoyed some quality time together. When Ardin discovered that Julian shared a similar experience with a 20-year-old woman a day or two later, she obtained the younger woman’s cooperation in declaring before the police that changing partners in so rapid a manner constituted a sort of deceit. And deceit is a sort of rape.”

Two girls in two days? What’s to worry about that? Nothing according to Craig and Suhayl. Nothing according to most Richard Dawkins followers. We all have a contempt for old fashioned ideas about sexual morality don’t we?

So your conclusion, that “Only an insane person would intentionally scheme to have themselves falsely accused of either” doesn’t stand up.

Alfred: “who had terminal kidney disease nine years ago”

Where’s the evidence that Osama had terminal kidney disease? What sort of kidney disease?

The response to Mark above was mine, thus the place referred to as “here” is British Columbia.

To Anon, there is an abundance of evidence that OBL had terminal kidney failure and was being treated in both American and Pakistani miltary hospitals (which is understandable, since OBL was a western intelligence asset).

Here’s a report from CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/18/gen.musharraf.binladen/

“Pakistan’s president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.

“I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient,” Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.

Musharraf said Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. “One was specifically for his own personal use,” he said.

“I don’t know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. … I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan.”"

Alfred – “So your conclusion, that “Only an insane person would intentionally scheme to have themselves falsely accused of either” doesn’t stand up.”

Is it possible that your counter-examples _were_ insane ?

Richard,

“Is it possible that your counter-examples _were_ insane ?”

You have a point there. I guess that, by definition, such people are considered insane. But in that case, Mark’s argument was merely tautological.

Alfred, so you think that spotty intel is absolutely true if it benefits you, correct?

Do you take Musharraf at his word on everything else?

Except that I see that Mark said nothing about insanity. So, I am not sure of your point Richard.

I missed this:

Alfred: “there is an abundance of evidence that OBL had terminal kidney failure”

If you think third-hand accounts of hearsay upon hearsay is an “abundance of evidence”, I’d hate to have you on a jury.

Is there any form of documentary evidence that shows bin Laden has fatal kidney issues?

Off topic for this post, but concerning human rights in Ghana:

http://www.indiegogo.com/witch_camp

Do you believe in witches? Older women (for the most part) in Ghana are being driven from their homes and confined to camps as “witches”, by “priests” who charge a fee for their services.

I received this from my friend Zoe some days ago, but I’ve been preoccupied with other things, and, to my shame, I have permitted the likes of “TM” and Alfred to draw me into defending WikiLeaks against their totally spurious accusations.

Zoe and her group have so far raised only $255 of their $5000 target, with only four days left to go. If you can’t donate yourself, please try to publicise the campaign. If any of Craig’s helpers see this, please draw his attention to it as he may be willing to help.

Alfred,

it’s in Marks very next sentence: “Only an INSANE person would intentionally scheme to have themselves falsely accused of either”. You are lying.

All:

Alfred is wasting our time. There is no more sense to this stuff than there is in his “genocide in Leicester” argument.

Suhayl, did you notice the derivation is contested by Kushner. I have come to believe that British intelligence are aware of an attack on Iran this year.

Warships in the Persian Gulf according to my source are on defence alert (damage control state 2 Zulu) and I await state 1.

Williams may have known an attack is imminent – I cannot be sure.

oops – me above.

“Except that I see that Mark said nothing about insanity. So, I am not sure of your point Richard”

“No sane human likes …”. What you ‘see’ now is one thing, but you did quote it yourself, in what appeared to be a reply to him. If you can’t see how my reply bears on the point of that reply, then I can’t understand you either, so nyer.

Yes, Clark, I think it’s a waste of time too.

Thanks, Mark, that’s interesting. Yes, the whole thing is very concerning. Abe, I’ll check it out. Alfred, where were you in the ’60s, man? (!)

Time to retire as the body tireth. To end with tonight, a combination of religion, science and crystalline beauty – literally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHHVz7csWoI&feature=fvst

Rape accusations: I prefer to not judge too quickly. Every alleged rape victim should be taken serious. Every alleged rapist should be innocent until proven guilty.

Nevertheless when Assange was accused of some kind of rape or sexual … whatever my first thought was “smear”.

“Here’s the full article by Professor Kushner, who also wrote what looks like a fascinating book:

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Israel_v_the_United_States_and_Iran ”

–Suhayl

There’s a note on that page saying

Document Provenance

“The article is a forgery – ie it is NOT by Dr Phillip L Kushner”

and

“The real Dr. Phillip L. Kushner is Head of Mathematics Dept., University of Texas-Austin

“The forged article was published on the TBR website on 4 September 2010″

and

“More info on this forgery and its use to connect Mossad with the Gareth Williams murder soon.”

and at the bottom

“This page was last modified on 7 September 2010, at 20:41.”

Suhayl Saadi,

Mark Golding,

regarding Suhayl Saadi’s September 7, 2010 8:16 PM post and link:

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Israel_v_the_United_States_and_Iran

I think that article may have been updated since Suhayl’s visit. It now begins with an e-mail exchange between Dr. Kushner and John Young of Cryptome.org indicating that the article is not by Kushner.

Dreoilin,

Ah, I see you beat me to it! See also:

http://cryptome.org/0002/israel-v-us-ir.htm

German Girl – yes, that’s about it.

Stuff like “proper investigations” and “fair trials” are among our better ideas, I think.

Finally you creepy conspiracy theorists have a monument:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/construction-complete-on-911-truther-memorial,18034/

Yep, we’re all in the same ward, drooling into our porridge and talking conspiracies.

“Right now, I’m reading Dawkins’s ‘The God Delusion’.”

It’s quite good and clearly not as strident as some have made it out to be. But I remember thinking, when reading it, this is all very good but who’s going to read it except the already converted. A woman from Belgium who saw me reading it said, “Oh, my dad read that recently and converted to atheism. He’s eighty years old!”

Wow! That’s a bit of an argument against interest, I thought.

Alfred: “What reputation? He’s a nobody and a nothing as far as 99.99% of the world’s population are concerned. So what’s to risk. And anyway, there are plenty of apologists for his louche behaviour — you and Craig, for example.”

Ha ha!

“It would come out that like any psychopath he uses girls like kleenex.”

I do that too. They keep yelling, “Oi! Don’t wipe your bogies on me!”

“Assange, knowing the absurdity of Swedish law, exploited a couple of groupies by treating them in a way that was all but guaranteed to produce a violent reaction: Assange organized the smear himself.”

Y’see, kids? This is what happens when you inhale too much tinfoil.

Dreiloin: “Very well put, Glenn.

I sometimes wonder if we give the “secret services” far too much credit.”

Ya think?

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post.html

Clark said,

“Alfred,

it’s in Marks very next sentence: “Only an INSANE person would intentionally scheme to have themselves falsely accused of either”.

Oh, OK but so what. You are just attempting to bury the argument I made with a huge pile of extraneous crap.”

“You are lying.”

Did I ever call you a horse’s arse before, Clark? If not I do now.

“All:

Alfred is wasting our time.”

God, Clark is either an intelligence asset charged with protecting Craig Murray’s credibility – a job he does with the subtlety of a bulldozer, or he’s a deluded groupie.

Here’s the argument, which noone has so far demolished:

If you adulate Julian Assange, you must believe that

(a) Assange is an honest man, which he could well be(I have never said otherwise);

(b) That anyone possessed of secret information (whether state secrets or proprietary information, or whatever) that, if released, would promote an important public interest, they have a moral obligation to leak that information (this being a contention that I would judge on a case by case basis, but which in certain circumstances could be justified even though the leak would be a serious breach of the law);

(c) that Wikileaks will in some way either help publicize you leak or protect the leaker from the consequences of his or her action.

And if you so admire Julian Assange that you are determined to force acceptance of the above assumptions on everyone, as Clark does, then if your assumptions are wrong, you you will:

(1) Giving credibility to an agent of the secret government;

(2) Encourage naive persons to place themselves in the hands of a agent that seeks either to destroy them or at least to nullify the effectiveness of their effort to leak.

(3) Distract prospective leakers from alternative routes to publicize their information.

This, if rather hastily stated, is simple logical analysis that is, for some reason, beyond Clark’s grasp.

“There is no more sense to this stuff than there is in his “genocide in Leicester” argument.”

Did I already say your are a horse’s arse, Clark? Well for the sake of certainty, let me say here: Clark, you are a horses arse.

Anon, you shrinking violet,

Of course I don’t think that “spotty intel is absolutely true,” whoever it benefits.

Unfortunately, I do not own the MI6 file on OBL, otherwise I’d leak it right here and now.

The fact is there were many reports at the time of OBL’s kidney disease and hospitalization for dialysis in 2001. So why not look them them up for yourself you lazy bugger.

Are those reports true? How the hell do I know? But it is more likely that they are true than otherwise since there have been no authentic statements by OBL since 2001. And that is consistent with the fact that the mortality rate among Afghanistan patients with end-case kidney failure is likely close to 100% per year.

Look Richard,

Your point was pointless. It was just part of the cloud of irrelevance thrown up here if anyone deals with the logic and facts of the case.

Concerning the individuals I mentioned, neither pleaded insanity during their trial and neither is incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane. Therefore, technically, they are not insane, though to common sense they probably are. However, to common sense they are probably no more insane than Dick Cheney, George Bush or Tony blair.

But anyway, did I say, your point was pointless since it does not negate the point I made, which was that the rape charge against Assange was ludicrous, based on the indignation of two women on finding that he’d screwed them both with 24 hours. If you think boasting of screwing two girls within twenty four hours constitutes insanity, then you have to classify every wannabe Don Juan (about half the human race) including our hororable host Craig Murray as insane.

“Nevertheless when Assange was accused of some kind of rape or sexual … whatever my first thought was “smear”.

Yeah, maybe that’s what you were meant to think.

glenn at 6:12 – Yes. That seems a lot more likely and sensible. But

“It also seems unlikely that some AQ or Taliban types hiding out in caves or their notorious “compounds” would be furiously downloading and pouring over 90,000 raw intelligence documents in terse military jargon, then go chasing off around the country to find the “Ahmed Abdulla” or “Mohammed Mohammed” that was named as having provided possible assistance to the Americans.”

I’m not quite so sure of that bit. I can’t see that it’d necessarily be beyond them if they wanted to.

(“Badly enough”, possibly. Question of cost, how expensive it would be; hard to be sure without looking at the things. But they’re not exactly penniless, are they ?)

Okay, Alfred, I think I have you this time. If someone takes a position that to you is unreasonable, then you don’t think the arguments in favour of it stand up. Is that it ?

“The fact is there were many reports at the time of OBL’s kidney disease and hospitalization for dialysis in 2001.”

How did they stack up against the many, many reports that year of UFOs and crop circles and the effectiveness of homeopathy?

I think you’d better come up with something better than what could easily be bad intel on the part of Pakistan.

Oh, Angry… always trying to come up with a 9/11 angle, you old campaigner

*

But Alfred… surely if there was no accusation of deviancy, that too could have been construed as making us continue to think as we were meant to think (about Assange)? i.e., no accusation – Assange is a decent fellow, as we thought. But if there are accusations – well, it has to be a smear! It would work either way. The operation was a bit too smooth to be anything but the standard practice fairly incompetent smear tactics (as with Scott Ritter, Craig Murray, etc.). By too smooth, I mean too smooth for a “false-flag” smear operation.)

Your point about the atrocities already well documented are very valid and of course perfectly true, however, such documentation does not show the unalloyed glee with which the military thugs go about their business. “Can we shoot? Can we _pleeeease_ have a decision?”, together with the enthusiasm with which they went about killing the “enemy”, the bored indifference to others trying to rescue them with the casual assumption that anyone rescuing another must also be a terrorist, by dint of their first assumption. The fact that they had clearly shot up children was dismissed as the collective fault of the reporters, sorry, “terrorists”, with no remorse shown at all (“What do you expect if you take your children along to a terrorist operation?” or words to that effect). On the contrary, a hand-waving indifference to the fact that they were _knowingly shooting at children_ when the American gunmen were in no danger whatsoever themselves, and nor were their comrades, did not bother these filthy murderers in the slightest.

That is not the way the proud and glorious heros, to whom it is almost obligatory to say, “Thank you for your service”, want to be regarded when returning to the US, having supposedly just rescued it from the savage hordes at the final hour. Yet again.

For “fake window dressing”, it certainly looks pretty bad! Do you think a couple of privates (and the crews under investigation for this particular war crime) were thrown under the bus for this fake-window dressing operation, or were they in on it too? The reporters and children murdered and wounded were not.

What sort of whistle-blowers do you think the Wikileaks alleged cover organisation wants to flush out? Is there anything worse than just material examples of what we already know, or do you think the operation is to catch someone coming forward with video evidence of a cackling Barbara Bush remotely piloting a plane into the Pentagon for example?

(For the severely humour impaired (viz – AS), the above was a joke.)

*

Always appreciate arguing these things with you, Alfred – glad you’ve returned.

“For the severely humour impaired (viz – AS), the above was a joke” (glenn)

That onion article that someone posted above is pretty funny, too. It’s a pity the illuminatifaqs.com they refer to doesn’t exist, really.

Hi Richard… We might be having a leftover idea of the organisational powers of AQ, from the time that damned fool and liar Rumsfeld showed cut-away diagrams of mountains which acted as their headquarters. SPECTRE had nothing on them. These futuristic dug-outs included air conditioning, nuclear refinement areas, WMD factories… they might not have benefited from bikini-clad babes, but it certainly had the rest.

In “The Great War for Civilisation”, R. Fisk recounts his meetings with the same people. They were very eager to pour over old editions of The Independent and various other obsolete documents Fisk was carrying, very far removed from cutting edge military intelligence, trying to get some clue as to what was going on in the world. And that is when they were completely free to go about their business, with nobody really troubling them at a serious level.

[Note to self: Must get beyond chapter 1 of that 2000 page book sometime.]

Certainly, they’ve gained a lot of money and weapons material through our various alignments and bribing them, but a sophisticated intelligence gathering and enforcement agency? It seems hard to believe that AQ would be faster off the mark than all of the US (and sundry stooges such as the UN, UK etc.) intelligence collective could move in to protect them. If, that is, we were genuinely as bothered about these translators/facilitators as we intimated, as we jumped up and down in horror and outrage while contemplating their security.

“Certainly, they’ve gained a lot of money and weapons material through our various alignments and bribing them, but a sophisticated intelligence gathering and enforcement agency?”

What kind of sophistication is needed to download the Wikileaks files? Someone in ISI must have a computer.

glenn – “could move in to protect them”. Yes, that’s a worrying thought. I don’t think their equivalents in Iraq always got the best of help, did they ?

Tora Bora James Bond, yeah, maybe. I think I just find it hard to believe that a) a saudi ex-construction squillionaire with a personal dialysis machine ever finds himself utterly penniless, or b) that if he’s dead nobody else got their hands on any of it.

and, yes, as angrysoba points out, there are other interested parties too.

“What kind of sophistication is needed to download the Wikileaks files? Someone in ISI must have a computer.”

Of course, Angry. But sifting through raw intelligence requires a heck of a lot more than that (your shifting from AQ to Pakistan intelligence notwithstanding). These are basic reports, not the collated and cross-referenced documents that easily point to this or that person being collaborators, if you will.

On the other hand, we (being the US/UK/UN) will already have this information processed long since, and will surely know what it meant, and the context therein.

Are you seriously suggesting that grabbing this mass of unprocessed raw-intel info will allow AQ/ Taliban types to get the jump on us in protecting our helpers? Or are you just making mischief, as is your wont?

Glenn,

Re: But Alfred… surely if there was no accusation of deviancy, that too could have been construed as making us continue to think as we were meant to think (about Assange)? i.e., no accusation – Assange is a decent fellow, as we thought. But if there are accusations – well, it has to be a smear! It would work either way.”

Thus far I agree with you.

but when you say,

“The operation was a bit too smooth to be anything but the standard practice fairly incompetent smear tactics (as with Scott Ritter, Craig Murray, etc.). By too smooth, I mean too smooth for a “false-flag” smear operation.)”

I don’t follow. Why was the operation “too smoothe”. There was really nothing to it except Assange having sex with two women within 24 to 48 hours. I think Assange would be capable of that, and he does not deny it. He merely said that he did not have “non-consensual sex”, which is true according to his accusers!

The whole thing’s a joke.

You say, “atrocities already well documented are very valid and of course perfectly true, however, such documentation does not show the unalloyed glee with which the military thugs go about their business. ”

But Glenn, the glee with which military atrocities are celebrated has been shown on the Web, almost certainly many times. Recall that U-Tube vid of a missile strike, with commentary by a bunch of soldiers? Sorry I don’t have the link, but I’ll post it if I find it. The commentary was blood curdling.

You say, “That is not the way the proud and glorious heros, to whom it is almost obligatory to say, “Thank you for your service”, want to be regarded when returning to the US, having supposedly just rescued it from the savage hordes at the final hour.”

But a lot of those fighting for the US in Iraq are psychopaths, like the Black and Tans the British sent to Ireland at the beginning of the last century — and still remembered bitterly when I was in Ireland in the 1960′s (that’s where I was Suhayl, often under a bush sleeping off a surfeit of Guinness). And many of the contractors (100,000 of them in Iraq today versus 50,000 US soldiers) are not Americans althought they will gain citizenship in return for serving the US in Iraq. What their morality is one can only speculate, but many are probably criminals who find serving the US millitary an avenue back into society without jail time.

Re: “For “fake window dressing”, it certainly “, I’m not sure I follow and sorry I don’t have time to study the cause of confusion. But it was never my intention to suggest that the helicoper murders video was anything but genuine. What I would say, however, is that if you are setting up a fake leak site you have to give it authenticity, and the helicopter murders video provided that very effectively (irf, and this is as we agree all hypothetical, Wikileaks is not what it seems).

You ask “What sort of whistle-blowers do you think the Wikileaks alleged cover organisation wants to flush out? Is there anything worse than just material examples of what we already know…”

One can postulate many things about Wikileaks. One is that it aims to intercept information that would let the public realize that the war is a far more criminal enterprise than most now realize. For example, before the seige of Fallujah, I heard an American intellectual, I’m sorry I forget the name, speaking regretfully of the fact that when the British occupied Baghdad in the 20′s they were free to kill a hundred thousand people, i.e., that’s what they did. Now supposing Rumsfeld or someone hasd written a memo saying we really need to crush the Iraqi nationalists and the way to do so is kill as many people as we can — a hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, a million, I don’t care…”

Now that could lead to political instability in the us and perhaps a war crimes tribunal.

But everything I say about Assange is hypothetical, I don’t know the truth. But neither does clark! Or if he does, he is not what he says he is.

Thankws for your encouraging comment. I’d almost reached the conclusion that I should leave before I was voted off the island.

Cheers

“Are you seriously suggesting that grabbing this mass of unprocessed raw-intel info will allow AQ/ Taliban types to get the jump on us in protecting our helpers?”

Sure. The newspapers can read the reports so why can’t the Taliban. And if people are named in the reports or the location of the people is clear to the Taliban then why wouldn’t they be able to identify the people who have been assisting the ISAF?

Is this just more spurious special pleading from you?

“I’d almost reached the conclusion that I should leave before I was voted off the island.”

Well, you’ve already left for good a number of times. You still find your way back, though.

And if you feared getting kicked off the island maybe you have yourself to blame for making proggressively more ludicrous claims each time you post. Now, you’re suspecting Clark of being an intelligence asset! Ha ha!

“But everything I say about Assange is hypothetical, I don’t know the truth. But neither does clark! Or if he does, he is not what he says he is.”

But isn’t this exactly what a smear is? It isn’t always an outright accusation but, in the case of Assange being able to associate him with rape without having to prove anything. The initial accusation is enough because in many people’s mind it will stick: “Isn’t he the bloke that raped them Swedish girls?” It doesn’t matter for him that the charges were dropped and yet now you and “TM” before you amuse yourselves by implying that Clark and Assange and intelligence assets.

Are you unhappy that Assange is actually doing something or, in your mind, would you rather a dissident be a big useless ball of fantasising paranoia?

Just Asking Questions…

Sigh… Angry, I take it you’ve decided to ignore my points above, in favour of the establishment line on the whole business. How entirely unlike you.

“Sigh… Angry, I take it you’ve decided to ignore my points above, in favour of the establishment line on the whole business. How entirely unlike you.”

Your points? They weren’t very clear. They seemed like some handwaving about how intelligence is much more complicated than I imagine. You didn’t exactly explain why and you didn’t explain what “we” could do about it you just suggested that “we” could make contingency plans to counter any intelligence the Taliban gleaned from the reports. All very vague and I doubt you have read all the reports so I have no idea how you can know what information the Taliban could possibly get from them. Without anything more than a half-hearted attempt you just suggest they wouldn’t even bother or couldn’t possibly find the reports useful.

So, have you read all the reports?

Do you have as much on the ground intel as the Taliban?

Do you know that members of the ISI are not helping the Taliban despite what Benazir Bhutto has explicitly said on a number of occasions and has been backed up by numerous journalists in Pakistan and also been confirmed by the London School of Economics (that famed school of neocons, eh?)?

Instead of arguing about whether the Afghan War Diaries contain material that endangers Afghans etc, maybe someone should go and read the leak and actually find out.

Alfred, there could be invisible fairies at the bottom of my garden, and you wouldn’t be able to disprove it. You keep focusing on *Assange’s* bona fides, but *WikiLeaks* is a small team. There is masses of material on their site that is hugely embarrassing to many different organisations. You don’t like the War Diaries, so suddenly you’re claiming that WikiLeaks *could* be a front. Cryptome.org have complained about WikiLeaks funding, but not about their authenticity. And I *really* think they would.

When you do something as important as the people that you’re besmirching, I’ll stop slagging you off. And if you think I’m not what I seem, well, you must know someone in the UK; put us in touch and they can check me out.

The significance of WikiLeaks over YouTube videos is that WikiLeaks is far more difficult for the Mainstream Media to ignore or dismiss. WikiLeaks have been criticised, on this thread I believe, for giving the War Diaries to Mainstream newspapers. But doing so forces those newspapers to acknowledge this information. They *can’t* say they didn’t know, or that their journalists can’t be expected to trawl through every video on YouTube.

There is also the matter of authenticity. The Collateral Murder video was decrypted from the US military’s own recording. It’s not something shot on a camcorder and possibly dubbed subsequently. It *proves* that US command knew what happened in the field.

alfred – “But everything I say about Assange is hypothetical, I don’t know the truth. But neither does clark! Or if he does, he is not what he says he is.”

angrysoba – “But isn’t this exactly what a smear is?”

What this is, is exactly what Alfred does. Time and again, he waves these things in peoples’ faces and then shows how he can deny responsibility for saying them.

” maybe someone should go and read the leak and actually find out”

Yeah, Clark, go to it: 70,000 documents, or is it over 100,000 with the second batch.

LOL, that’ll shut you up for a bit.

In the meantime, all anyone else will know is what the mainstream media tell them the leaks say.

“When you do something as important as the people that you’re besmirching…”

Do you really think the truth can be established merely by assertion — A person creating their own reality needs a psychiatrist.

Richard, go to bed. You make no sense.

Yes, I see that article to which I linked last night is disputed and is likely to be a fake, which is somewhat of a relief… at least, I think it’s a relief. Sorry, I should’ve checked properly.

Alfred, give my regards to the Hibernian bush!

Angrysoba, though I haven’t finished it yet, the ‘God’s Delusion’ book is excellent and is a very useful and enlightening for agnostics/atheists/people with doubts (which means a lot of people) and as you illustrate with your vignette, one can never discount the memetic (!) impact of such things.

Having said that, I don’t think the disclaimer was up on the site when I posted the link, otherwise I’d have seen it since it’s right at the top of the requisite page. Just illustrates how much disinformation and sheer nonsense there is out there. It must be difficult for websites to know. The waters are muddy from the surfeit of ‘information’; a product of our hyper-connected age and the facility for anyone to type-up something and post it under the name of an academic/other respected person. In more ways than one, then, identity itself has become a commodity, a moveable asset. In this morass, where is truth?

“Here’s the full article by Professor Kushner, who also wrote what looks like a fascinating book:

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Israel_v_the_United_States_and_Iran

I hope he’s not correct. The scenario he posits is monstrous.”

What does it matter that the article is a hoax. I mean, who the hell is Professor Kushner, and why would it matter whether he wrote it?

It’s a silly collection of paragraphs without any citations or even an attempt to document its claims.

It doesn’t illustrate just how much “disinformation” is out there – but it does demonstrate what sort of person will fall for absolute faith-based crap because he or she really wants to believe it.

I thought you were smarter than that, Suhayl. You’d fall for anything.

Suhayl Saadi,

Mark Golding,

looking at the timings of the posts, it seems very likely that the discovery that “Kushner’s” article was actually fake was posted shortly after you’d looked at the article.

“it seems very likely that the discovery that “Kushner’s” article was actually fake was posted shortly after you’d looked at the article”

–Clark

Looks like it was uploaded AND edited by “Peter”

http://wikispooks.com/wiki/User:Peter

and is he Sabretache, who posts here or used to?? See bottom of the User page. There’s a link to

http://sabretache.blogspot.com/

Mark said above

“Suhayl, did you notice the derivation is contested by Kushner”

at September 7, 2010 10:52 PM

(Who’d be Kushner eh? Being impersonated on the web.)

“The Collateral Murder video was decrypted”

That was the word. I wrote ‘unencrypted’. Grrrr …

You can tell I’m no spook.

Dreoilin,

well spotted.

I’ve been looking around the WikiLeaks site. I can see why it is such a disappointment to single-minded conspiracy theorists. Mostly it exposes the all pervasive influence of money and lobbying upon various decision making processes. There is plenty that illuminates the self sustaining nature of the military-industrial complex. But I’ve found one particularly juicy article so far, which includes hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, and beryllium:

http://www.sunshinepress.org/wiki/The_%22dirty_bomb%22_that_disappeared

On WikiLeaks, that well known CIA front, we find the following:

The CIA: Drugs & Thugs International

As noted above, U.S. destabilization programs and covert operations rely on far-flung networks of far-right provocateurs and drug lords (often interchangeable players) to facilitate the dirty work for U.S. policy elites and American multinational corporations. Throughout its Balkan adventure the CIA made liberal use of these preexisting narcotics networks to arm the KLA and provide them with targets. In their public pronouncements and analyses however, nary a harsh word is spoken.

911 conspiracy theorists might like to pore over the six reports from the 9/11 Commission to Congress that wouldn’t have see public exposure but for that well known hoax, WikiLeaks, available by doing a search on “9,11″ (please include the comma) on this page:

http://www.sunshinepress.org/wiki/Category:Congressional_Research_Service

The more I look around the WikiLeaks site, the more obvious it becomes that the various intelligence agencies set it up to give themselves much needed and deserved publicity and public exposure. As a spook myself, I can tell you that it’s a thankless task, influencing international politics all day behind the scenes while the idiot ‘elected representatives’ hog all the limelight, so I’m eternally grateful to Assange, and I would never dream of having him accused of rape.

PUBLIC MEETING: AFGHANISTAN – TIME TO GO

WEDNESDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 7PM

HOUSE OF COMMONS (RIGHTSIDE ENTRANCE):

Speakers include CAROLINE LUCAS MP, JEREMY CORBYN MP, PAUL FLYNN MP, JOAN

HUMPHRIES (Military Families)

(Tony McNulty’s doppelganger)

‘Guests invited to a party at the Tate Modern art gallery in central London to celebrate the publication of the former prime minister’s autobiography, A Journey, have been told that it has been postponed, a spokeswoman for Blair’s publishers, Random House, said.’

http://tinyurl.com/2ucod5o

(Guardian)

That Onion parody of a report of a “Truthers monument” is very good. It might make a good April Fool joke.

Dreoilin: “Yep, we’re all in the same ward, drooling into our porridge and talking conspiracies.” D, I would never accuse you of such bad table manners. Besides, you might prefer soda bread for all I know.

The 9/11 commission reports tell me this:

The US is willing to spend $5.6 billion promoting the ‘American brand’ in Pakistan but when it comes to flood relief we witness a s-l-o-w $50 million relief aid when 14 million Pakistanis are now without homes.

Ahh sorry – hegemony and US bases are more important than famine, disease and displacement. Past history confirms only £60 million of a promised $150 million has been available in Iraq to directly help the 4 million Iraqi families displaced by an illegal war.

Figures!