This morning Sam Kiley, Sky News’ security correspondent, stated bluntly that the large bulk of Afghan heroin and opium production is controlled by members of the Karzai government.
That is a simple truth, and I have been publishing it repeatedly on this blog for the last six years, but it runs absolutely contrary to what has been an extraordinary and monolithic mainstream media narrative. The insistence for ten years by an almost unanimous mainstream media that it is the Taliban who contol the drugs trade has been perhaps the most remarkable example of a massive organised lie in modern media history. The question of how a false narrative like that becomes an accepted mainstream “truth” is a key element in control of the state by a rapacious elite using the brainwashing tcapabilities of modern mass communication.
The truly remarkable thing is the truth has somehow broken through. Then today in Parliament David Winnick, opposition defence spokesman, actually stated directly tthat people know longer believe that the presence of our troops in Afghanistan somehow protects us from terrorism, but rather might tend to inspire hatred of the UK.
Again, a blindingly obvious truth that I have been proclaiming for a decade. But absolutely not admissible as an argument on moanstream media in that period, and a truth whose denial was the dedicated work of Winnick’s party when it was in government.
The counter-productive and ruinously expensive nature of the Afghan War is something a high proportion of people fully understood even when they were never reinforced in their understanding by seeing that view reflected in “mainstream media”. Tens of thousands of children have died while arms suppliers and mercenary commanders got very rich. The last nine to be slaughtered in their beds have helped jolt people in the media and politics to talk some semblance of sense at last.
Urinating on dead Afghans, burning Korans and a nighttime killing spree are not the problem; they are symptoms of the problem. A vicious occupation by religious antagonists who repeatedly and continually launch massive violence on civilians, with the intent of imposing by force elements of an alien culture while establishing a massively corrupt and despised puppet government, is not a viable long term project. There is no way to undo the past. The best thing to do now is leave.
Komodo;
Passerby, these are not new thoughts. And the Yanks evidently believe it. Because they want to believe it. They want to believe in the heroic little guy and Superman and John Wayne and Roadrunner beating impossible odds and shooting a lot of guns to achieve some kind of apotheosis. They haven’t quite realised that what they are supporting is purblind Elmer Fudd, wholly obsessed with protecting his carrots against the local wildlife.
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Brilliant analysis, I have been giggling at this all day long, the visions of Elmer Fudd with anti rocket rockets stammering away and ordering FFFFFFFiirre.
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Mary,
These Olympics no longer reflect the spirit of solidarity and brotherhood of mankind. In fact it is fast becoming to represent the paranoia, mistrust and all that is inhuman.
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Very sad, how very sad.
Where next in Afghanistan? A tough one. After the Kill Team, Body Parts Collectors, Botched Night Raids(ongoing), Botched Drone Raids(ongoing), Wedding Party Wipeouts, Corpse Desecration, Koran Burning and now Child Massacres, there’s few places left to go. Perhaps NATO-organised cannibalism raids?’
Complicity of humanitarian interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq is actually complicity of modern days International Relations. What is good, and what is bad? Western powers who support and deal with dictatorships or “medival” regimes get criticised. If they intervene and yet again they get criticised.
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One thing is certain that in globalised age like modern times, one cannot seat at home and assume that far away troubles would not affect what is going on in his own neighbourhood.
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I supported interventions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Being born under Communist party dictatorship, raised by it, escaping another more brutal and less legitimate dictatorship, I naturally supported any actions that were aimed at putting an end to the dictatorship. It turned out that I was wrong, at least with anticipation of better opportunities and more freedom for those who were oppressed during many generations. It is now clear to me that old time saying “bad peace is better than good war” was very much right. Looking at places like my native Uzbekistan I am now concerned with any sort of liberal prospective and I am now very sceptical of any bright future for many millions of my compatriots and many more billions around the globe who suffer identical fate.
The Israelis could not even keep to the truce. They fired at a funeral.
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Israeli forces fire on Gaza funeral, 3 injured
Published today (updated) 13/03/2012 15:32
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Palestinians carry the body of Islamic Jihad militant Bassam al-Ajla during his funeral in Gaza City, March 13, 2012. (Reuters/Suhaib Salem)
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GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israeli forces opened fire on a funeral procession east of Gaza City on Tuesday, injuring three Palestinians, hours after a truce was agreed to halt cross-border violence.
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Mourners carried the bodies of Bassam al-Ajla and Muhammad Thaher, who were killed in an airstrike in the city’s Shujaiyeh neighborhood on Monday evening, to the eastern cemetery.
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Medical spokesman Adham Abu Salmiyah said troops opened fire at the mourners, wounding three people, who were taken to al-Shifa hospital.
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An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers “operating along the security fence identified around 50 Palestinians gathered and in accordance with army procedures fired warning shots.”
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Four days of Israeli airstrikes killed 25 Palestinians and wounded more than 80 since Friday, and Gaza militants fired a volley of rockets into Israel, wounding eight Israelis.
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An Egyptian official said a truce to end the violence was in effect since 1 a.m. local time (2300 GMT) Tuesday morning.
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http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=467599
A friend sent details of this good website.
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About Games Monitor
Games Monitor is a network of people raising awareness about issues within the London Olympic development processes.
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We want to highlight the local, London and international implications of the Olympic industry. We seek to deconstruct the ‘fantastic’ hype of Olympic boosterism and the eager complicity of the ‘urban elites’ in politics, business, the media, sport, academia and local institutional ‘community stakeholders’.
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Our network operates with an open, dynamic principle, and functions as a discussion forum, research body, press and political lobby. Our website and online group provide hubs for publication, information exchange and solidarity networking. We are also a contact point for local, minority, and specialist interviewees for press and broadcast media.
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‘Among the tasks of a politics of morality [is] to work incessantly toward unveiling hidden differences between official theory and actual progress, between the limelight and the backrooms of political life.’
Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)
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“It appears that the very process of development, even as it transforms a wasteland into a thriving physical and social space, recreates the wasteland inside the developer himself. This is how the tragedy of development works.”
Marshall Berman
From: All That is Solid Melts into Air, the experience of modernity. 1982
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http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/about
The Royal Marines, who led the Libya attacks earlier this year, will be based on the Navy’s largest ship, HMS Ocean, just off Greenwich.
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Additional measures include placing snipers in helicopters, putting rapier air-defence missiles on high alert and positioning fighter jets close to the Olympic site, particularly during the opening and closing ceremonies. Air force jets will be shifted to RAF Northolt to be closer to London.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/8958598/London-2012-Olympics-13500-military-personnel-to-provide-security-for-Games.html
I still wonder to this day why those ‘Muslim terrorists’ waited for the UK to secure the Olympics before blowing themselves up on 7/7.
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If they had only done it 24 hours earlier they could have done some real damage to Britain’s bid. Then again why buy return tickets to a suicide mission? They must have just been really stupid, even the one that was a school teacher and had contacts with a known MI5 asset.
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‘Muslim terrorists’ always seem to act at a time when it suits the powers that be, from Washington and London to Tel Aviv.
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The country could also have been denied ‘Lord Coe’, who is nothing more than a glorified Nike salesman on the fiddle. Witness his overtly defensive posture when questioned by the house of commons committee. He’s like a worm on a hook in front of them.
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Regarding Iran and the Olympics, maybe the long overworked ‘dirty bomb’ scenario will get a public airing. With a global audience of billions it should be an Olympics to remember. The good thing about the dirty bomb scenario is no need for massive destruction as long as everyone believes that invisible, odourless electromagnetic radiation is really giving them cancer. Typical Britain, even doing a ‘global disaster’ on the cheap.
I don’t think the articles represent a great awakening in the mainstream media, rather they represent business as usual, that is the media taking their que from the political elite, and this que is changing, because the “narrative” about Afghanistan is changing. A new story replaces the old one, as circumstances alter. Not least the US elections. And the need to focus on new “threats” like Iran and Pakistan.
By complicity I actualy meant complexity.
Mr and Mrs Charlie Brooks were spared the sight of three racehorses losing their lives today at Cheltenham and it’s only the first day of four. Racing is called the Sport of Kings. Enough said. Poor dumb and magnificent animals.
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Apparently Rebekah now has a daughter called Scarlet who came to her via a surrogate mother.
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Did anyone see Fedorcio the Met’s Press man, at the Leveson Inquiry today? Godfather’s Corleone had nothing on it. His replies came over as croaky whispers in the style of Brando. Perhaps the poor man has a bad throat.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9140926/Leveson-Inquiry-Dick-Fedorcio-let-NOTW-reporter-write-story-on-Met-computer.html
Mark,
I’m not a missile expert but, as far as I can tell, the UK PAAMS variant as deployed on Type-45 Destroyers, does not have ballistic missile tracking capabilities and therefore cannot engage them. Also Britain has not purchased the land variant SAMP/T so shouldn’t have any to deploy around London. Unless we borrow them from France or something.
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Interestingly though I see that BAE Systems is currently testing anti-ballistic upgrades to the Sampson radar tracking system on the Isle of Wight according to defence blogs. Whether this is at an advanced enough stage to be rush deployed either on Type-45s (Windows for Warships) or to some other mobile launch platform is a different question entirely though – but would seem unlikely.
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So if any anti-ballistic missile capability is to be installed around London then what will it be as the UK appears officially to have nothing that works yet?
Apparently Rebekah now has a daughter called Scarlet who came to her via a surrogate mother.
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You have to laugh at the photo she released, trying desperately to look like a woman who has just given birth – even down to wearing what appears to be a nightie.
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I wonder if she used the same surrogate as David Miliband. I wonder who the ‘donor’ was. I watched The Boys From Brazil the other night. Perhaps in 30 years time the world will be run by Rupert Murdoch clones.
I always wondered why Bremner Bird and Fortune were taken off the box until I remembered a sketch they did re: why Afghanistan? And their answer was copper iron diamonds gas oil and the TAPI pipeline: this was way back in 2001 or 2,whoops we can’t have popular comedians telling it like it is ,so out you go. Pity that.Caught Newspeak with Bellusman last night guesting Hutton from Hell frothing on re: degrading Al Queda and how well we had done .Why is the man ,indeed both of them,not in padded calls? To finish, a couple of verses from a wee song I wrote back in 2001 especially dedicated to Torturing Tony and all who aided him.
“Bomb ’em all”
Bomb ’em all, bomb ’em all
Bomb all those Afghans Iraqis and Kurds
Bomb all their weddings their wells and their herds
For we’re pre-empting death to them all
As under their rubble they crawl
Where the D.U. s aboil
In their water and soil
So beer’s up me lords bomb ’em all.
Oh bomb ’em all,bomb ’em all
Bomb all those Afghans Iraqis and Kurds
Bomb all their weddings their wells and their herds
For Nuremberg came and Nuremberg went
Now it s just bomb ‘n buy all in a tent.
Stuff Magna Carta well out of date
It s gun size now it s gun size mate;
So go strike through their soil
And slurp slurp up their oil
It’s beers up me lords it s beers up me lords
Bomb ’em all.
Ad infinitum.
N.B. D.U. is of course Depleted Uranium.
I sang this number,it has many more verses,outside the Labour Party Conference at Brighton,in 04 as I recall.The delegates were on their way to lunch and Mandleson to my suprise looked faintly embarrassed,though it could just have been at my tuneless caterwauling.Later Brian Haw and I ,may he rest in peace, would sing it through megaphones in Parliament Sq: until the sickos passed yet another “law” forbidding it,the megaphones I mean! Democracy, don’t cha just love it.
@Anon 13 Mar, 2012 – 7:03 pm
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Windows for Warships. That’s just great. I brought a bootleg copy of that in China a couple of years ago. It’s the same as Windows XP but comes without minesweep, so as not to cause any confusion on the bridge.
Anon,
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I cannot confirm or deny Britain has just two L-Band SMART-L 3D tracking radar systems and CAMM(L)missile sites will have data links to these two systems.
Mark, interesting experiment if that’s the case. Just hope all these untied combinations don’t shoot down the Israeli athletes plane by mistake and get us all nuked.
Found this genuine Windows for Warships (as deployed on Type-45s) support call
Windows for Warships: Crash Report
Transcript of Support Request RN302896.
WINDOWS SUPPORT
Thank you for calling Microsoft Windows for Warships Support Line. Where do you want to blow up today?
COMMANDER
This is Commander Nelson of HMS Excel. We appear to be under attack and our computer keeps freezing.
WINDOWS SUPPORT
I see. Are you sitting in front of your computer now?
COMMANDER
Yes. Also, our Combat Management System is telling us we need different drivers to fire our missiles.
WINDOWS SUPPORT
OK. Can you click the Start Menu?
COMMANDER
Start menu, yes…
WINDOWS SUPPORT
And select My Battleship…
COMMANDER
It’s asking for my Hotmail password.
WINDOWS SUPPORT
OK Put that in. Now, open the program Microsoft Assured Destruction and right click on Defence Properties.
COMMANDER
Aha. I’m there.
WINDOWS SUPPORT
Select “We’re all going to die”.
COMMANDER
What?
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Rest at http://www.socialscrutiny.org/weblog.php?id=P211
“untied combinations”.
I meant “untried combinations” but maybe the typo is telling me something.
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Oh, and I made up the bit about the support call being genuine. I hope 🙂
Re the consummate Israeli saxophonist & confusionist Gilad Atzon (see above comment from Komodo), this, just issued, needs to be disseminated as widely as possible:
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http://bit.ly/wz5g96
Former US marine Ken O’Keefe describes in horrific detail massive Israeli state barbarism in Gaza:
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http://t.co/M1CgUd1t
Part 2 of O’Keefe at University of Westminster:
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http://bit.ly/AyrpoI
And Part 3:
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http://bit.ly/x2mnH0
WhereItzAtz 14 Mar, 2012 – 12:34 am Re the consummate Israeli saxophonist & confusionist Gilad Atzon (see above comment from Komodo), this, just issued, needs to be disseminated as widely as possible.
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Why does it? Nothing new here. Claims that Atzmon (If your going to smear someone you could at least try and get the name right) is a self-hating racist have been around for ages. I have yet to read anything written by him that supports those baseless accusations.
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It’s odd how the US Palestinian Community Network seems to arrive at the exact same points of view as right-wing Israeli Jews but from the completely opposite direction of claiming to speak for Palestinians, even if using the most tortuous language which seems more concerned with the rights of the Zionist squatters.
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Challenging Zionism, including the illegitimate power of institutions that support the oppression of Palestinians, and the illegitimate use of Jewish identities to protect and legitimize oppression, must never become an attack on Jewish identities, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.
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Even when those ‘Jewish histories’ are clearly and provably inventions made for political purposes? Such as those detailed in Shlomo Sands (Professor of History, Tel Aviv University) book The Invention Of The Jewish People? And, of course, the Settlers have legitimate ‘Jewish identities’ don’t they? So don’t go criticizing them either, right?
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“Indeed, we regard any attempt to link and adopt antisemitic or racist language, even if it is within a self-described anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist politics, as reaffirming and legitimizing Zionism.”
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Antisemitic or racist language? According to who? Oh, I see… back to square one we go. Baseless accusations… a typical recursive argument that goes nowhere. The irony of suggesting that the use of racist language [is] legitimizing Zionism seems to be lost on the author.
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The simple fact is that there is not one single quote provided which shows that Atzmon has been antisemitic or racist. Surely, as a published writer who is ‘antisemitic and racist’ it shouldn’t be at all difficult to let his words speak for themselves, but no. Instead we are asked to take their word for it that he is what they accuse him of. Pathetic (as usual).
On the heels of a people’s victory for freedom and democracy in Egypt, the US Palestinian Community Network-NYC will present the Palestinian Authority with a pink slip terminating its employment as the leadership of the Palestinian people
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How very ‘democratic’ of them.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/us-palestinian-community-network-to-pa-youre-fired.html
Is the Institute of Cultural Democracy (there’s a handle) a CIA run outfit? Any information on funding on the website was vague and any setup that has Chertoff on the board makes me think that might be the case. There were also many other connections to the evil EmPyre, ex Ambassadors and so on.
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One of the fellow speakers at that conference was the nephew of Assad and the son of the Butcher of Hama, now residing in a £10m pad in Mayfair, sold to him by the Duke of Westminster. Rifat Assad who lives next door in similar luxury, runs the UK based arm of the SNC, grandly titled the Organisation of Democracy and Freedom in Syria and equivalent to the Libyan rebel/rabble brigade.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8571164/Syrias-Butcher-of-Hama-living-in-10-million-Mayfair-townhouse.html
@ downwith…
Re. Atzmon:
Quite so. And see also Jenny Tonge, another effective and principled voice the lobby would like to howl down.
I really would ask the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy (as opposed to the I of C *Democracy*, which is an American arty outfit) what they did with your video, Craig. And why.
As the UN becomes increasingly concerned about the extent of torture in Syria, and as our leaders queue up to issue soundbites demonstrating their humanitarian concerns, my mind goes back to the heady days of the Bush administration….
(floaty going-back-in-time music)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,386033,00.html
Another in the “We were such good friends, but it’s time to move on. It’s not you, darling, it’s me” department.
http://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/files/0/105_AMESYS-PROP_GEN_SECU_V2.pdf
People gassin about the deaths of soldiers! What about the innocent familys who have been brutally killed.. The women who have been raped.. The children who have been sliced up..! Your enemy’s were the Taliban not innocent harmless familys. All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! gotta problem go cry at your soliders grave & wish him hell because that where he is going.
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The author faces a “racially aggravated public order charge” for this Facebook comment.
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Hmm, nothing racial there. Nope, can’t see anything aggravating either. Public order seems to be fine – he did only get six likes after all. Still, we need to make an example of him. We can’t have people going around willy nilly saying what they like, what sort of country would that make us?
@ Mary
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Thank you for the info on Rifat al-Asad. Another confirmation of “Money do not smell” truth.
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I wonder how many uzbek “butchers” have purchased properties in EU and in London in particular?