Commenters may wish to dig around on this one. Just how precise a correlation is there between media supporters of the illegal invasion of Iraq, and media supporters of the illegal attack on the Gaza convoy?
Take both old and new media into account. I think you will find the correlation is approaching 100% – and is a much higher correlation in the media than among politicians.
Now how do you explain this?
Discuss
“When the US invaded Iraq it was an illegal act far worse than anything Saddam Hussein ever achieved against Iran or Kuwait”
Yes, and on a vastly greater scale than Israel’s relief convoy murders.
“All [Israel and the US]… have left now is that they are each other’s best friends, one small mad dog, and one much larger one.”
This is not, I believe, the nature of the relationship. Both Israel and the US are dominated by the same Zionist imperialist ruling elite.
It is inconceivable that Israel would commit an act of murder, or an act of war or a false flag attack on the US or any other state unless the action was consistent with USIsrael policy.
Why else would President Johnson have covered Israel’s complicity in the sinking of the Liberty?
Why else would Israel honor the surviving perpetrators of the Lavon Affair, an Israeli terrorist atrocity directed at the United States, after President Bush announced that you are either with us or you are with the terrorists?
Why else would the US Vice-President today justify Israel’s latest outrage?
The apparent independence of Israel merely serves to justify some of the criminal acts of the US and its Nato partners: Poor little Israel, anything is justified to ensure that the Holocaust won’t happen again — blah, blah, blah, as Larry would say.
“See, that’s the kind of stupid thinking that one finds on Craig Murray’s blog. It’s not enough to vehemently disagree with the U.S. intervention in Iraq – which would be an arguable position. But you have to go further than that, straight into nut job territory, and define the Iraq intervention as even worse than the aggressive wars launched by Hussein.”
Larry’s technique is based on the assumption that a large proportion of readers do not know much history and that they will fail, therefore, to understand the sophistry of Larry’s argument.
There is much to suggest that Iraq’s assault on Kuwait was a trap carefully laid by the United States. Kuwait, formerly a part of the Republic of Iraq, is a feudal dictatorship, created by the United Kingdom in 1961 as a device for siphoning a substantial portion of Iraq’s oil wealth to Britain, via the Kuwait investment office in London. Thus Iraq had a historic claim on Kuwait.
Moreover, on July 25, 1990, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, “inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion” on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating “we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts.”
So, no, the stupid thinking here is Larry’s, or at least the stupid thinking he would like those here to adopt.
Larry, incidentally, claims not to be working for Israel. But he is clearly a propagandist. So who are you working for Larry? Tell us something about yourself.
Alfred, your very superficial knowledge of the Glaspie matter would benefit from additional learning and consideration. Or, you could continue to be manipulated by Baathist propaganda.
Baathist propaganda?
Facts, Larry, facts.
But as Craig suggested, why don’t you take a break. Your superficial interference becomes tedious.
Two things Israel ought to do, but won’t unless forced by having its billions of US dollars of unconditional, gratis payments stopped immediately and definitively:
1) Get out of the Occupied Territories, and stay out.
2) Admit to having masses of nuclear warheads and take the consequences.
Good article in today’s Herald:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/time-to-talk-to-hamas-with-or-without-israel-s-blessing-1.1032579
“Two things Israel ought to do, but won’t unless forced by having its billions of US dollars of unconditional, gratis payments stopped immediately and definitively”
Suhayl, It is precisely so that Israel can continue to act as it does that it receives billions from the American taxpayer. One will never understand what is happening on the false assumption that Israel somehow controls the US, or for that matter, the false assumption that the US controls Israel. They are one imperialistic thing.
Sure there may be disagreements within the elite, but the elite is comprised of powerful and mostly extremely rich people. They don’t automatically walk in lockstep with one another. They are used to exercising their own authority. But they know if they do not hang together they will hang separately. So they maintain an effective unity, whether they are Israelis or Americans, Jews or Gentiles.
Larry said:”I’m a lawyer, but it doesn’t take a lawyer to figure this one out.
Larry isn’t a lawyer, he is a naughty boy!!!!
A fat middle aged naughty boy, who has never had a girl friend, lost his virginity or had a job.
All he does is write on this webpage or jacks of while watching http://www.ratemypoo.com
What’s a mother to do!!!!
Where did I go wrong?
I knew I shouldn’t have slept with Bernard Matthews, russel grant and Bernard Manning all in the same night.
But he offered me a half priced turkey twizzler! Half price!!!!!
an as yet undetermined number of people were shot in the face a few days ago
in the normal cause of events there would be an investigation followed by, if necessary, a trial
given that the killings did not take place in Israeli territory, that investigation should not be the responsibility of the Israelis
or am I missing something?
Yes, I agree with that, Alfred.
Btw, are you the same as the blogger, ‘Alfred Burdett’, or is that someone else? I got a bit confused at one point.
Hi John
> I am not ‘trivialising’ legality. That’s nonsense. On the
> contrary: the one trivialising it is Murray, by shooting from
> the hip and inventing absurd ‘illegalities’ where none
> exist.
I think this point is about international law, and here I am inclined towards Redders’ perspective, which is that Craig is well qualified to comment here, being a former Head of the Maritime Section of the FCO. I would further say that the distinction between legal and illegal, a state of war and a state of peace, terrorism and war crime are technical distinctions, but you make them emotive. I agree that tensions are undoubtedly raised by this issue, but to remain even-handed, I think it is important to remain dispassionate when analysing the situation.
> Claiming, e.g., that war needs to be declared in order to
> exist is hysterical nonsense
I am inclined towards this view because Craig supports it, and I respect his view. Merely dismissing it with exclamation and denunciation is, I am sure you would agree, insufficient to prove that it is untrue.
> not that the UN has a shred of moral or legal authority left,
> if it ever had one
Do you say that because of the resolutions that come out of the UN on a regular basis, and have done for the last few decades? I include a wikipedia link containing a list of successive motions, many of which are deeply critical of Israel. Is it not possible, in your view, that some of these are justified?
> Calling it ‘peace flotilla’ is like calling Saddam a
> ‘humanitarian’
Now I do have to stop you there. This is hysterical nonsense. Hussein killed hundreds of thousands of people, and was a cruel authoritarian – so evoking him as an equal to aid workers going to Gaza to supply food and building materials ought to be plainly ridiculous. Do you really hate them that much?
> There were quite a few convicted terrorists
> on board
The only sources I could find for +possible+ links between IHH and Islamic terrorism were Fox News (hardly a source of unbiased journalism) and something called “Right Side News” (with lots of Stars and Stripes on it). Both only talked about suspicions. Can you supply links about the terror convictions, and which flotilla members were convicted? If this is true, I would be sure that their names would be in the public domain, and we can analyse such claims for veracity.
[Wikipedia link below]
The reason why the Americans are saying the investigation should be carried out by the Israelis is they mean, no investigation should take place, what Israel says is all that matters.
“Poor little Israel, anything is justified to ensure that the Holocaust won’t happen again”
A disturbing statement.
Israel has said it has sent a nuclear armed submarine to the Persian Gulf. An officer the rank of colonel on-board is able to launch the nuclear missile.
In the UK a Trident nuclear missile can only be launched when two people with different keys unlock the firing circuits and a further launch code is received via a long wave transmission from the Prime Minister. If Britain has been attacked and no signal is received then a safe within a safe on every Trident SSBN contains a hand-written ‘letter of last resort’ with the final launch code from the Prime-Minister and an instruction.
England was, after all, the birthplace of the epistolary novel; should not its last expiring act be sealed in a handwritten letter?
: Mark Golding – Children of Iraq
So what is Israel saying now, the Racheal Corrie is full of nuclear war heads?
Or are they saying that the humanitarian aid contains beans, which palestinians intend to eat to gas Jews?
Disturbing in the fact that the statement is probably true. As I’ve said before, America holds the reins unless Shir HaShirim is silenced.
Yes, Suhayl, I’m AB. I am beginning to think that Internet anonymity is a bad idea, so at least occasionally I spell my name out in full. I should probably do it every time, it would make me mind my manners.
For Larry I suppose it would be impossible, since it would make him entirely unemployable as a lawyer. I mean, what could one expect:
LARRY:
Your Honor,
First, let me point out that the Prosecuting Attorney is fucking nuts.
Second, let me point out that the evidence presented against my client is sheer stupid police propaganda.
Third, in response to the hateful statement by the witness for the prosecution let me say: blah, blah, blah.
JUDGE:
Guilty as charged.
How to be a Pro Israel Troll:
Palestinians cannot be viewed as anything other than a subhuman species, animalistic in nature, incapable of either compassion (they want to wipe us from the face of the earth) or even logic (why did they vote Hamas when they knew we would punish them?).
Damn, their newborns are plotting the destruction of Israel and will be using their dummies to attack the IDF martyrs, which will be resisted with ultimate force. Not that anyone in the world cares. It’s only the terrorists (all of them) Palestinians’ after all ?” they make even the Iranians look evolved! And at the end of the day down the end of a scope it’s just like playing on the x-box only with better graphics.
When I see the corpses on TV, I must not feel doubt. Having doubts and questioning politicians with invested interests makes me very, very bad indeed and I feel I must cleanse myself by bathing in the blood of Palestinian babies to purge myself of impure thoughts against Israel. We are the kings and well, they are scum.
My stance would be unaffected if the IDF killed my family. The IDF martyrs would be acting in self defence because my mum probably would have a knife (even if she was in her own kitchen).
I will call people I disagree with pissants resorting to anyone of the following: race, religion, gender, sexuality, nationality to insult them. This is because I am so secure in my arguments and I am an obvious nice troll.
I will claim I am a lawyer, when the only relationship to a lawyer is that I can argue like Regrev and tell people the sky is not blue, the earth is not round and there is no other fucking way but my way so help me or I will fucking killlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll you…..because violence makes me hard in so many, many ways.
*******
Seriously though trolls, try and be a bit more human and have something intrinsic to us as a species compassion – you might like it instead of being gnarled, bitter, twisted things. Feel some love, not lust.
Ah shit – I just realised I no longer support the ‘official’ line. I must therefore be a holocaust denying anti-semite or a self hating jew.
P.S. I will not feed the trolls any further after this and I feel that everyone should follow suit as Larry and the other trolls are so engorged with incandescent rage that even a wafer thin piece offered to them may be very, very messy.
“JUDGE:
Guilty as charged.
”
LARRY:
All judges are swivel-eyed loons who believe [ insert dementedly provocative statement here ]
You’re right, and it’s reminded me to fill in the ‘remember me’ thing yet again …
It is a good thing, to know who we’re talking with.
Mark Golding
Saddam’s Ba’athism failed because it was Arab nationalism. Racism is inherently unstable and self-destructive. It challenged UKUSIS colonialism, but racism is a negative banner and makes it impossible for diverse interests to unite. Is Ba’athism being used again by the U.S. now to divide a weak and now redundant, Shi’a Arab government in Baghdad from a strong Iranian Shi’a presence in Iraq? The systems and contracts for stealing the oil are running fine, now a new government is needed to make Iraq a better place for colonists to live.
You’d have thought that Obama would have put the lid on the pot of Al Qaida paint. ‘We never have been and never will be at war with Islam.’ Obama’s new turn of policy. That doesn’t stop others from stirring and using the paint. Building up the threat from a non-existent Al Qaida might be a last ditch attempt to persuade the U.S. to retain its army in strength, by the existing government in Baghdad.
Israel and Obama plus poodle Blair, want to move Iraq on, if not to the Disneyland phase, at least to the functioning Muslim state stage. Iraq’s new government’s mission, set by the USUKIS mob, is to repair the bodywork with resin and spray Iraq with moderate Islam paint. To build a Muslim country in which foreigners will be welcome, and safe.
The USUKIS want to use the religious laxity of Shi’a Islam and the undercurrent of youth rebellion in Iran to make Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, Oman etc, a soft porn, easygoing Islamic region, with a whiff of religious conformity, representing moderate Islam and prosperous modernity, as against Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s Sunni authoritarianism.
The threats to Iran are there for the purpose of persuading the theocrats in power to give more freedom to the populace, not to threaten the Shi’a authority, which is their tool to breaking real Islam. The continual violation of Palestine is a permanent threat to the Middle East of what USUKIS could do if they Arab states allow their citizens to breathe one word of resistance. Saddam’s Ba’athism was a lesson against dictator defiance to the UKUSIS plan.
Anyway, your Children of Iraq website is distinctly uninformative about your charity work. Please can you elaborate sometime about what you are doing and how you operate in Iraq?
Richard,
re: “swivel-eyed loons”
You capture idiom well
Here’s the Harvard component of the USIsrael Zionist ruling elite that I outlined earlier stepping in to give Israel legal cover for deliberately shooting US and Turkish citizens in the head multiple times after boarding their ship in international waters.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/israels-actions-were-enti_b_596285.html
And here’s a non-Jewish American political element of the USIsrael Zionist ruling elite stepping in to give Israel political cover for deliberately shooting US and Turkish citizens in the head multiple times after boarding their ship in international waters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/jun/02/joe-biden-israel-gaza-flotilla-raid
“Here’s the Harvard component of the USIsrael Zionist ruling elite”
Here’s your argument:
“Dershowitz is a Joo.
Dershowitz is at Harvard.
Dershotwitz supports Israel.
Therefore, USIsrael Zionist ruling elite!”
“How to be a Pro Israel Troll:
Palestinians cannot be viewed as anything other than a subhuman species, animalistic in nature, incapable of either compassion”
I haven’t remotely said anything like that. Nor has anyone else.
What the fuck is wrong with you anti-Semites? You live in a fantasy world.
Thanks, Alfred.
Yes, why has the shooting-in-the-face of an American citizen not provoked official rage from the White House/ State Dept? Imagine what would’ve happened if, say, an Iranian soldier had shot a US civilian citizen in the face. The bombers would’ve been over Tehran as we speak.
Israel feels able to kill Americans, or anyone, with complete impunity. It is a unique and singular state in that respect. Exceptional, one might say.
Hey everyone. Just dropping in to make the (possibly unpopular) point which Chomsky makes about the Israeli Lobby: whenever a decision in the US comes down to US interests v Israeli interests, US interests always win out.
Can be empirically proven. Israel, therefore, is not in charge.
Here’s a piece from The Scotsman, saying that there are still people missing and that more may be dead:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/Gaza-flotilla-deathtoll-39higher-than.6340319.jp
Hi Technicolour, great to hear from you. It’s an excellent point.
But Chomsky himself has been criticised in some quarters as a de facto protector of, and apologist for, Israel.
It’s not really a question of Israel being ‘in charge’, but more of the undue and distorting influence exerted by fundamentalist Zionists on US politicians of all stripes. There are many in the US body politic and associated organs who have been furious at Israel for many years but dare not say so and dare not do anything about it, for fear of losing their jobs. Look at what happens to any Congressperson who stands up and criticises Israel’s actions; they lose their seat.
George Bush Senior was the last US president who publically – on TV – tried to stand-up to this lobby and he failed.
I’m not saying Chomsky’s position is not a valid one or that his views are not nuanced. Clearly, it’s good that he’s around and vocal in his criticism of Israel, that he gets denied entry to Israel and that he’s persistently critical of US imperial policy.
However, I think that it is appropriate to be alert and astute wrt his position in relation specifically to US-Israel dynamics:
http://www.leftcurve.org/LC29WebPages/Chomsky.html
This piece, by Michael Barker (who has made a very interesting study of liberal foundations and their role in promoting imperialism), focuses mainly on Stephen Zunes but also mentions Chomsky:
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/05/12/stephen-zunes-and-the-zionist-tinderbox/
Here’s Chomsky himself, and his facts, in debate with Omar Badar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U49fMY3C5tc