The barefaced lie about Gadaffi being killed in the crossfire bodes ill for the openness, transparency and good government we can expect to see now in Libya. But today I am worrying about the effect on our society of human death as entertainment. I have never been an apologist for Gadaffi, but if his regime tortured and murdered, the remedy is not to torture and murder him – even the Nazis were given due process.
This murder is becoming the norm. It was a NATO air strike which took out Gadaffi’s escaping convoy and first wounded him. Two days ago two teenage sons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical US/Yemeni cleric executed without trial last week, were executed by a US drone attack as they had dinner. They were aged 16 and 19. They had committed no crime I can find alleged against them. There has been no publicity.
All this killing brings triumphalist politicians smirking on our screens. We seem to have become as dehumanised as ancient Rome. Little human pity is expressed for the way Gadaffi was killed – indeed there is notably less media reflection of pity or revulsion than there was at the (at least judicial) hanging of Saddam Hussein. Is that a measure of the descent into bloodlust barbarism in our society? The complete lack of empathy towards the traveller families being torn from their homes at Dale Farm is part of the same brutalism towards “the other”. Why don’t we go the whole way and have them eaten by lions in the ring?
History shows that bloody appetite once aroused feeds upon itself. We have already had Defence Secretary Hammond on Sky News today positing NATO action now against Syria, while the current US proto-pretext for attacking Iran – the fantasy plot against the Saudi Ambassador – is as believable as Gadaffi’s death in the crossfire.
More death is on the way, to keep the circus going. Then the crowds may not notice there is no bread – no jobs, and their earnings and income eaten up by huge state enforced transfers to the bankers, whether by bailouts or “quantitive easing”.
Quantitive Easing is the best con of all for the ruling classes. In the UK, the £225 billion of printed money to date under quantitive easing has been – every single penny – given to the bankers. Good money for bad, used to buy up the junk bonds which the bankers bought in their terrible investment decision making, and for which fake assets they had awarded themselves many, many billions in personal bonuses. They are rescued from the consequences of their disastrous judgements by the Bank of England printing (in old parlance) new, good money to buy the rubbish they invested in. The result – more rounds of huge personal bonuses for celebrating bankers!! Hooray!!! For you and I, stagflation.
30 months ago, when I explained that Q.E. was another huge transfer to the bankers and predicted it would lead to stagflation, I was widely ridiculed across the web. Now we have the stagflation and everything I predicted has come to pass.
All of which you would normally expect to make people pretty unhappy at the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.
Quick! More War! More Militarism! More Blood! More Executions! More Victory for Democracy! Keep the Peasants Happy!
Get a Move On There! Come On!! Come On!! More Blood!! More Blood, Quick, Damn You!!
UPDATE
You are not alone. On the average of the last three hours, 900 people per hour were reading this article and fifty others are at this moment reading this, invisibly alongside you. Those who understand what is happening are not given a mainstream media or political voice, but we are more than you may think. Don’t feel alone in your perception of the tricks of those who govern us, and leave a comment so we can start to feel each other’s support.
“have you seen the price of a tin of tomatoes?”
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25 pence
Dear Craig,
I agree with you completely. We are descending into barbarism and the pace is accelerating. Following the film of Gaddafi being tortured and killed I expected our newsmedia to be full of outrage and alarm. Judging from the reaction of the public that is how many (most?) of them feel. Instead tomorrow’s newspapers provide a revolting combination of gloating and self congratulation. I have never felt more disgusted or ashamed.
By the way I also want to say that in this article just as in the work you did in Uzbekistan you show yourself a civilised man.
the father of one of the victims Lockerbie bombing, Dr Jim Swire, said the former dictator’s death means an “opportunity has been lost” to find out the truth about the attack.
“Judging from the reaction of the public that is how many (most?) of them feel. Instead tomorrow’s newspapers provide a revolting combination of gloating and self congratulation. I have never felt more disgusted or ashamed.”
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the govt and the media have read it wrong. they really believed that the british public were about to dance in the streets (as some libyans have in london) cheering, whooping and a hollerin’ on behalf of cameron .
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this disgusting exposure has been by design , entirely political without humanity, humility or good sense.
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as ive said before cameron is as a pr man crap. as prime minister he just doesnt get it.
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one has to consider what the real psyops was /is behind the explicit over exposure of this assassination undertaken by Nato.
“And why so called civilized nations in the West rejoice extra judicial killings these days? Why there is so much eagerness towards extra judicial killing over outspoken enemies of the usukis?”
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its how one builds a fascist state / empire.
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its the whole nature of neo conservatism that has been taught by (israels) zionists to deal ruthlessly with those who present dissent or a perceived threat to their objectives/goals.
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it is where our armed forces, police and politicians go to learn about the methods to fight the “war against terror”.
I don’t often comment on here, but I do read, almost religiously so, despite being an agnostic. Please keep up with the excellent and informative posts. You’re certainly not alone.
@Wendy: You wrote :
—quote
the govt and the media have read it wrong. they really believed that the british public were about to dance in the streets (as some libyans have in london) cheering, whooping and a hollerin’ on behalf of cameron .
—end
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True enough, but then we’ve never been as bloodthirsty as our US counterparts. They really did whoop it up in the streets for many a long hour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5lf2lOk2pY&feature=related
You can also see the ‘related video’ section, showing numerous examples of same.
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There’s a major difference between the USA and civilised countries, in that the US answer to just about any problem is “kill them”. This applies to everyone from the Native Americans to their next door neighbours should they feel the least threatened. They like simple narratives of us = good, the other = bad, just as simplistic as their Hollywood propaganda. Dubbya Bush himself said, “Either you’re for us or you’re against us. Either you’re good, or you’re evil”. It’s ok to kill evil people, they don’t need a trial. The good folks watching the screen will understand.
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Most of the reason they feel so threatened is because they’ve treated others so badly for such a long time, and they are terrified of retribution. Retribution is something Americans know a lot about, because they are very keen on it themselves – so much so, they like getting it in first most of the time. The hatred and fear shown in their racism comes from this.
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‘Why should people take the arbitration into their hands without due process? And why so called civilized nations in the West rejoice extra judicial killings these days? ‘
The killing of Mussolini by Italian partisans, and the subsequent public display of his corpse in Milan, seems to be the closest historical parallel to what has just happened to Gaddafi. That too elicited rejoicing, but the backdrop in 1945 was just so different. Few families in the West (and even fewer in the East), had emerged from the carnage of the previous six years unscathed, so the triumphalism expressed by many after Il Duce’s demise was more understandable. In 1945 moreover, the execution of criminals was the norm in ‘so called civilized nations’, and bloody reprisals against collaborators were tolerated across Europe.
Another big difference between 1945 and today (in ‘the West’ if not in Libya), is that a pessimistic outlook prevails. The economic levers applied by governments & central banks (QE pre-eminently) no longer work in the globalised economic environment. Most of the new ‘free’ money created by QE has helped to fuel speculative bubbles in commodities and certain emerging market currencies (the Brazilian Real mainly). It hasn’t generated ‘growth’ in the domestic economies of the US & UK ,as the Fed & the BoE both claimed it would. QE is, as Craig rightly points out, one of the ‘tricks of those who govern us’. The bloody spectacle in Sirte, which may have been set in train by a NATO airstrike against Gaddafi’s escaping convoy, may well be another.
[Jon/mod – off topic, deleted]
“The only good thing I can say about Gathafi was that he never said that 911 was an inside job.”
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He sure didn’t say bin Laden did it. And he quite specifically ruled out people from Afghanistan.
Anno writes: “I repeat Voila’s question:
‘Stupid Muslims! When will they get together to stand up against tyranny and despots from outside and defend themselves properly?!’”
Answer: Some will follow them; some will fight them and die; and some will escape them.
But your “information,” Anno, includes a lot of disinformation ~ camouflage that diverts the attention of those without knowledge. You’re fighting phantoms and chimeras, mirages and monsters in the closet and under the bed. You need a larger perspective than the one you get on the battlefield. Retire from the field and read the Signs of the times ~ otherwise you’ll remain caught up in the rising flames.
I remember posting somewhere when all this kicked off in Libya that Colonel Gadaffi and his Libyan Loyalists could be mankind’s last hope against the forces of evil.
If indeed he is dead, I hope I am proved wrong and that the good people of this world, who we meet and work with every day, get their eyes opened and find a Leader who will save them from the coming tyrrany.
Didn’t you know, that since you left ICL, the company was taken over by a series of different companies who raided the pension fund and now your pension is almost completely worthless?
They keep sending me letters
Which Basically Say
Did You Know We Have Fucked You Over?
Tony
Editors of newspapers are always swift to say they are giving us what we want. So, these gory pictures of Gaddafi are justified because, we are told, this is what the readership want to see. I’m not convinced. Because really what happens is that clever editors know that shock value can increase readership, and this is nothing to do with what we want, it’s merely a cheap, rather manipulative, piece of click-whoring.
These pictures served their purpose, of course. Personally, I don’t believe the purpose is to spread fear among our enemies\allies\future enemies, it’s more to do with a vaguely shameful corruption of what constitutes journalism. The purpose of the propaganda is to over-ride the ethics of journalism, do this knowingly, and by doing so trumpet neocon values over journalistic ones. And like all corrupting influences, we, the poor saps, are meant to share, become part of, be seduced by, these values.
Or perhaps I am over-analyzing stupid propaganda photo’s. Securitat do provide the sourcing, as Chomsky tells us, and probably some of the journalists too.
Either way, I don’t support any of this liberal intervention schtick, and don’t feel I have to. Dictators are bad people who should be removed, but life is tricky and the big stick is rarely the solution; we’d teach that to your own kids, really, wouldn’t we?
Hajji Dawud
I’m sure there is safety inside the borders of Empire states.
I am in one, and we have freedom of speech although the blog ‘machine’ chews up extreme opinions from time to time. I am hoping that one day I will find some safety inside China, Unfortunately the US accent on the radio is nearly always edited out in my home.
Strangers to a society do not see the same faults that the residents see. I only have to hear Justin Webb on our breakfast program winding up his plummy-voiced, pseudo-US media presentation performance like a jet engine getting ready for take-off to put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Because I know what it means: Welcome to another day on the BBC in which we will steadfastly ignore every important issue and keep you in dream land like the old 1950s British Home Service.
You have been taken in by the US’s image of itself as a champion of independence and freedom. When I leave, quite soon, it will be Eastwards not Westwards, even though I am fully aware that the image of civilisation which the East presents of itself is also a propaganda dream.
The editorial machine is a human.
The human editor of this blog didn’t like this comment:
There are many Muslims who have migrated to this country who enjoy our historical freedom of speech and our benefits from the legacy of socialism. But they themselves detest freedom of speech, preferring a hierarchical controlling system of Islam. they are absolutely opposed ideologically to socialism because it isn’t part of Islam.
These same Muslims justify the killing of the followers of Gaddafi on the grounds that they abandoned Islam for socialism. This ignores the fact that they themselves take the benefits from UK socialism, and that Gaddafi persecuted Muslims.
Why do they not kill themselves for doing the same, keeping mum about UK foreign policy and taking the socialist benefits?
As Craig says, sometimes it’s like teaching children.
USA – IRAQ
US to pull troops out of Iraq by year end
US President Barack Obama on Friday announced a full US troop withdrawal from Iraq by the end of the year. He spoke after talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and said the two were in agreement on winding down the US military’s role.
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Iraq to buy American F-16 fighter jets, say US officials
US officials said Tuesday that Iraq has signed a deal to buy 18 F-16 warplanes from the US. The deal “proves the basis for their air sovereignty”, according to US Army Lt. Gen. Michael Ferriter. The US plans a troop pullout by the end of this year.
28.9.2011
France24.com
, we
Lockheed Martin doing nicely.
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The Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon, the first of the US Air Force multi-role fighter aircraft, is the world’s most prolific fighter with more than 2,000 in service with the USAF and 2,000 operational with 25 other countries.
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Outside the US, Lockheed Martin had a backlog of around 95 F-16 aircraft during the first quarter of 2009.
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Recent orders include Bahrain (ten delivered), Greece (60 block 52 all delivered), Israel (50), Egypt (24 block 40), New Zealand (28), United Arab Emirates (80 block 60, first delivered 2005), Singapore (20), South Korea (20 block 52 all delivered), Oman (12, first delivered August 2005), Chile (ten block 50, first delivery 2006) and Poland (48 block 52, delivered March 2006 – December 2008).
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“The F-16 Fighting Falcon is the world’s most prolific fighter.”
Israel, with the world’s largest F-16 fleet outside the USAF, has ordered 110 F-16I aircraft, of which the first was delivered in December 2003. These aircraft have Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 engines, Elbit avionics, Elisra electronic warfare systems and Rafael weapons and sensors, including Litening II laser target designator pods. Italy has leased 34 aircraft until the first tranche of Eurofighter deliveries are completed. Hungary will acquire 24 ex-USAF fighters.
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http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/f16/
Off topic Craig but thought you would be interested in this essay by John Vidal.
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Ghana’s population explosion
As the world population hits 7 billion, John Vidal returns to the country of his birth to find the midwife who delivered him and to see how Ghana is dealing with a leap from 4 million to more than 25 million people
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“You can’t just pin all the problems on African governments, say demographers. Back in the 1970s, family planning was high on their and western political agendas, but in the 1980s countries such as Ghana were treated by the IMF and Britain as laboratories for enforced economic reforms and debt programmes. Contraception and family-planning programmes, just beginning to have an effect, were sidelined. The free market economy pushed on Africa may have worked for the cocoa farm and gold field owners of Ghana, but there was far less money for health and education. The result was a rapidly growing, ill-educated, fast-breeding generation living in a technically richer but more unequal country where people knew how to save children dying at childbirth but were not able to look after their long-term interests.”
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/oct/21/ghana-population-explosion
Voila
I disagree with your view that no one here is sympathetic to Gadaffi – especially later on you go onto to say that “If Gadaffi was a bad guy”. Well I’m quite happy to answer that question – he was a very bad guy. I could also answer in the same terms about the Saudi king and Karimov. The thing is that many here are not asking questions in a genuine sense of enquiry – they already know what their answers are (some are right and some are distorted) and are using them as a basis for supporting their own pet theories which no amount of evidence and answers will disrupt.
Ordinary Syrians are being murdered and having their human rights abused by a nasty fascist (this is a fact not a question or hypothesis) – so my genuine question is what should be done about it?
Dictators ‘R’ Us – Tony Bliar Associates
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Tony Blair has assembled a high-powered team to advise the controversial oil and gas-rich central Asian state of Kazakhstan after befriending its president during his time in Downing Street.
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The former Prime Minister has brokered a deal with the country’s government to provide advice on improving its chequered international reputation and forging business links across Europe.
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According to one source, the deal is worth as much as $13million (£8.2million) for the companies involved, though last night Mr Blair flatly denied making any ‘personal profit’, saying the figure quoted was incorrect.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052071/Now-Blair-strikes-deal-advise-oil-rich-despot-Ex-PM-sends-team-Kazakhstan-help-friend-president.html
I think we’re in an important historic and cultural shift, led, for the most part by our leaders. It’s away from the humanist values of the enlightenment, rationality, science, knowledge… and back towards “barbarism” with it’s emphasis on faith in the unknown and superstition.
When reality becomes too much of a challenge, we seem to automatically retreat into the comforting world of fantasy and myth, and our beliefs.
What’s virtually cetain, unless there’s a successful revolution, which will be “messy” but is our only real chance to escape our fate, is that our leaders are going to lead us down the gore-spattered, slippery slope to even more war and senseless killing.
Gadaffi’s demise, his ritual slaughter, is the true face of the West, a symbol of what we’ve done to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Massive loss of life and massive material destruction on an almost Biblical scale.
I find it interesting that the press can publish pictures of Ghaddafi being executed yet no pictures of the bigger boogie man in Bin laden were every released. Maybe i’m bveing cynical.
No doubt Obama will no move on to the next target, as predicted in the document PNAC, this guy is more dangerous than Bush could ever be simple because he isn’t Bush.
Craig, we need more people like you in our political systems rather than the lying, smarmy arse holes we have now.
Death notice of a tyrant and thug, direct from the White House Press department.
cf this with media treatment of the end of Gaddafi’s life.
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Saudi heir to throne, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz, dies aged 85
First in line to succeed King Abdullah had colon cancer and was being treated abroad when he died
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/22/sultan-bin-abdel-aziz-dies
Indeed Mary, had to smile when I heard the story of the US retreat from Iraq, where are thyey going to go to? Hmm, next door to Iran? shifting contingencies into the next country to be baldowered.
Libya’s past reliance on foreign labour to do the dirty jobs, throws some light on the needs to train and educate its own people.
Once the guns have gone from the equation, not to talk of the power games being played at present, Libya can look forward to a prosperous future, hopefully not just the ruling classes who pulled all the economic strings in the past.
Anno writes: Hajji Dawud
I’m sure there is safety inside the borders of Empire states.
Tell that to John F. Kennedy’s grandchildren. There’s no safety even in the grave, although in some places the terror is less proximate and thus more effective. People fear the terrorist they don’t see much more than the terrorist that they do see. “Inside the borders of Empire states” there is a more comprehensive illusion of safety because people fear stepping outside of their conditioned domestication and making themselves targets as well as objects of fear among their neighbors.
I am in one, and we have freedom of speech …
“The better to see you with,” said the wolf to Little Red Riding Hood. Speak up and identify yourself as a possible threat to the status quo ~ and these “anonymous” blogs are the best tool for domestic counterintelligence ever devised.
I only have to hear Justin Webb on our breakfast program winding up his plummy-voiced, pseudo-US media presentation performance like a jet engine getting ready for take-off to put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
That’s because you don’t see his role in The Plan.
Welcome to another day on the BBC in which we will steadfastly ignore every important issue and keep you in dream land like the old 1950s British Home Service.
Offering vain hope to the people of The Fire since the discovery of duplicity as a tool of political power.
You have been taken in by the US’s image of itself as a champion of independence and freedom.
No, I was born into it and was freed from it. “Surely you were on the brink of a pit of fire and He saved you from it.” I often reflect “That was the brink of a pit??? There are more such pits? Was that a future shore of the Lake of Fire?” And then I watch as others are freed from it in steadily increasing numbers, as disoriented as I was, too often looking back with a view to extinguishing it, or seeking further escape ~ like you are ~ to another.
What you appear to miss is that The Fire will continue to burn, even as The Garden has grown while surrounded and hidden by it. What you’re watching is containment of The Fire, not the spread of it but quite the opposite. There is no way to extinguish what God has said will burn forever.
From crawling around blind on your hands and knees, you’ve been raised up to where you can see. Stop kicking those who can hardly crawl and instead look up ~ and see what it looks like from above. “These are for The Garden and I don’t care, and these are for The Fire and I don’t care.”
The Garden and The Fire are before your eyes ~ enter whichever you choose. Everyone does.
http://tinyurl.com/63wo3te
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Guardian today –
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Occupy London Stock Exchange camp refuses to leave despite cathedral plea
St Paul’s says it has closed for safety reasons, but protesters insist they cannot be moved on without court order
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{http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/21/occupy-london-stock-exchange-cathedral-plea}
Anno: We’re told in the Qur’an “Give good news to the faithful.”
Read some.
writerman
Welcome to Conservative government. Maybe Craig was not around during the last one, or saw it from the rosy tinted spectacles of Westminster. The change you detect is in my opinion merely a return to the hardness of the Tories, bolted onto Blair’s good work for Zionism.