Pulling Imran Khan off a plane in Canada, and making him miss his Eid fundraising lunch in New York, is pretty crass of the United States, a country that claims its foreign policy is motivated by freedom. The idea that low level US immigration operatives needed clarificiation on Khan’s well-known views on killings by US drones in Pakistan is plainly nonsense. But this wasn’t routine or an error; Khan wasn’t questioned at a desk on arrival in New York, he was pulled off a plane by US operatives in Canada. It was an exercise in humiliation.
But if you look under this event you find some interesting, creepy crawly creatures.
From the Toronto Sun report linked above:
The American Islamic Leadership Coalition from Phoenix, Ariz. wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week, pressuring her to revoke the U.S. visa granted to Khan because of his sympathetic views towards the Taliban.
The American Islamic Leadership Coalition followed this up with a press release with the notably un-Islamic contact name of Gregg Edgar of Gordon C James Public Relations.
From Wikipedia on Gordon C James:
James grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and moved to Iowa in 1969 where he served several years in the Iowa National Guard. James worked in the real-estate management business in Des Moines, renting space to presidential candidates in town for the caucuses. In 1978, he met and rented space to former President of the United States George H. W. Bush (then Ambassador Bush).[1]
After the 1988 election James worked as Lead Advance Representative at the White House for two years under President George H.W. Bush and Director of Invitations and Ticketing for the 51st Presidential Inaugural Committee.[2] James was also employed as deputy director of events for the 54th and 55th Presidential Inauguration.[3] In 1990 he founded the public relations firm Gordon C. James Public Relations.
In 2004, James was employed by former U.S. Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to improve U.S. public relations in Iraq during the transition of governments.[4] For more than five months he served as the Director of Advance and Special Events in the Office of Strategic Communications and Director of the Presidential Palace Studio for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq. While there he advised Ambassador Paul Bremer and was responsible for coordinating the Ambassador’s relations with Western and Pan-Arab media outlets and produced several events including the signing of the Tal (Iraq’s Declaration of Independence) and 100 Days to Sovereignty, the countdown to the transfer of power from the CPA to newly founded Iraqi government.[5]
In 2004 James assisted in several political stops with the Bush-Cheney campaign and in 2005, he was employed as lead advance representative for President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton’s tour of the Tsunami-hit regions of Indonesia.[6]
James has traveled to five continents as a lead advance representative for President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.
There are some Muslims in the American Islamic Leadership Coalition. In Phoenix with Gordon C James is M Zuhdi Jasser, of Syrian origin but for eleven years a medical officer in the US Navy. And the AILC has another interesting Syrian, leader of “The Reform Party of Syria”, Farid Ghadry. The AILC website includes the quote:
“Gossip is he is the next president of Syria”
Ghadry lives in Washington and is the author of such fascinating blog posts as “Israel Builds for Nobel Prizes, Arabs are Suicide Bombers”.
Like the Quilliam Foundation in the UK, doubtless the AILC has hoovered up plenty of public funds for its useful work for the security services. BUt the idea that it genuinely represents a strand in Islamic thinking is ludicrous. It is marvellous what being an establishment shill can do for your media profile though. Zuhdi Jasser addressed his largest mass rally of supporters – highly optimistically estimated by the media as three dozen – in a New York rally in support of NYPD’s controversial surveillance and agent provocateur operations against Muslims. Rather than laughing at it, the tame mainstream media covered it infinitely better than they cover anti-war rallies 1,000 times larger, and portrayed it as a genuine sign of Muslim community support for the surveillance.
Just as none of the mainstream media reporting the current Imran Khan story – most of whon quote the AILC – say anything about who the AILC really are. What do people working in the mainstream media think the purpose of their existence actually is?
….and Baroness Tonge.
“All the goyim can do” – yeah, because the ‘goyim’ are sooo nice, in comparison. What has happened to this thread? Does anyone here really believe that if Israel somehow ceased to exist (and by even saying that I see dead babies) that the arms dealers and their stooges and the military industrial complex in general would somehow disappear? That they would not be looking at fomenting war and strife to increase profits anywhere else (cf the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam etc etc etc).
Course not. Trouble is, what to do about it all. Only Nevermind, I think, has any real world answer at the moment.
PS thatcrab, appreciate sentiments about guilt free foods, but you could possibly look at this:
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/chickens/happy-eggs.htm
The RSPCA were thinking of suing them for their undercover report, apparently.
The Chakrabarti clan,the Dimblebys et al…
All part of the brainwashed Common Purpose,Fabian,Chatham House shitrain.
Who do they think they’re fooling now?
The times they are-a-changin’.
What is going to change when we know it all?
Not forgetting,of course,the CIA/Rand/Reagan mindfuck blackmailees of “The Successor Generation” that ensnared most of NuLabour.
Tech, thats too veggie for me. Farms which feed lots of people are always going to be farms, not zoos or pet yards, for the foreseable future.
It is a pity for veggies to join in on the apparent PR attack on enhanced welfare food. A Sky News sensation no less. Usual business of fractional reporting, inducing division instead of integrating the natural concerns. So the RSPCA have no integrity.. the adverts are sham.. may as well just buy the cheapest then, or become a guilt free recycling vegetarian with a minimalist needs, a life dedicated to feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Bye family and friends, im popping off to guilt free valleys where your fashions and consumptions are not welcome…
interesting piece by freelance writer in nov 3 spectator, tho i don’t believe Leveson Inquiry had anything whatsoever to do with his being rebuffed by the MSM:
Spectator: Miles Goslett: Leveson and Jimmy Savile
Did the press inquiry scare newspapers away from a major story?
Last December I received a telephone call concerning Jimmy Savile’s apparent sexual abuse of underage girls in the 1970s. The details I heard were pretty chilling, but the negative reaction when I tried (unsuccessfully) to report the claims in the national press was equally troubling..
Over two weeks I contacted six national news desks. One after another rejected the idea. I consistently suggested that it would not be necessary for anyone to accuse Savile outright of abusing children, simply to report that Newsnight had jettisoned its exposé despite significant-seeming findings, of which I knew quite a bit. Newsnight’s groundwork could then be developed, or perhaps other victims would come forward.
Yet it was futile. Some papers told me that because Savile had been dead less than two months the story was ‘in bad taste’, whatever its provenance. Others said that if the police hadn’t prosecuted Savile in his lifetime, it wouldn’t be worth pursuing him
now. And a couple of news desks judged that material like this was ‘best avoided’ for the time being..
Last April I made a freedom of information request to the BBC asking for any records of written communications or meetings among four BBC executives, including the then director-general Mark Thompson, concerning the Newsnight investigation and allegations that Savile had molested underage girls on BBC premises in the 1970s.
On 18 May the request was denied so I rang Mr Thompson’s office and told an aide, Jessica Cecil, that I wanted to talk to him about the request and also about claims made to Newsnight that girls were abused on BBC premises by Jimmy Savile in the 1970s. Ms Cecil referred me to the BBC press office. Last week she admitted that she did not pass on the details of my call to Mr Thompson. Instead, she told the BBC director of communications, Paul Mylrea. He did not pass word of my call to Mr Thompson either…
The irony is that Lord Leveson is focused almost solely on the press, whose commercial fortunes are diminishing all of the time. The BBC, with its guaranteed income of £3.5 -billion a year, has largely avoided this televised inquiry. And yet the BBC, like many newspapers, made use of private detectives, spending £310,000 on them over 230 separate occasions in six years…
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8743711/leveson-and-jimmy-savile/
There was supposed to be disarmament after World War 1.
It was a condition of Germanys surrender.
Technicolour, at 12:19am, on 1.11.12:
The world would be a lot better off without the Saudi/Islamist alliance in Riyadh (an alliance which actually is heavily supported by the USA and – in spite of its anti-Semitism – also by Israel) whose main exports are oil and religious and social psychosis and better off, too without the heinous Islamist regime in Iran (but with Iran but with Iran remaining as a single, united country, not a larger version of the disaster that is Iraq) and yes, without the xenophobic militaristic increasingly apartheid regime in Tel Aviv as well – but a resolution of all of these and many other other world problems would not, on its own, inhibit arms-dealers and the MIC.
It – wrt Saudi/Iran – might help to lessen the dissemination of reactionary dogmas and mass social regression, oppression, etc. in majority Muslim countries and elsewhere.
Allowing the various MICs and the arms industry in general dominance over political processes, so that their imperatives determine or have inordinate sway over policy formation has contributed significantly to the massive exacerbation of current juncture and to wars/conflicts in general. I guess the economic system is a major driver.
****************
One persistent problem on these, and other, boards, it seems to me, is that as soon as one makes a rational criticism of some or other Israeli policy, some commentators seem to take it as license and there is a flood of anti-Semitic nonsense which tars the rational critique by association. By default, this dynamic actually serves to protect Israeli interests in the public sphere. To put it another way, Anti-Semitism is the Israeli regime’s best friend.
Thatcrab, it wasn’t just that phrase. It was the way Rudling argues. Most people use ‘don’t understand’ as a personal criticism ‘I don’t understand’ whereas Rudling uses it most often as a criticism of others, that is, ‘you don’t understand’. That was not the only lexical and grammatical analysis I did either, but there is a limit to how much time I can devote to Mr Rudling. It is not conclusive, agreed, but it would be surprising if the two were not the same.
Hey these Captchas are getting more difficult. I’ve just had 7 x 3 and had to get my fingers out of my pockets! When it gets in the realms of higher calculus I’m dropping out.
Which, (Suhayl) brings us back to AILC. If the organisation actually practised what it preached, it would be looking to reconcile ” moderate” Muslims across the Sunni/Shi’a divide and isolating the extremists on both sides in Saudi/Iran respectively.
And this could be something of an own-goal for the American hegemonists who set AILC up as a front organisation and packed it with useful (but right-minded) idiots for cover.
However, with the Arab League as a model for ME co-operation, I am keeping my eyes peeled for flying pigs.
Technicolour,
“What has happened to this thread?” Actually it was only a single ludicrous anti-semitic post, and I have now seen it and deleted it.
I do not know whether such things are posted by real anti-semites or by others seeking to discredit the blog. Most of them, like that one I just deleted, seem to me too obviously ludicrous to be genuine. But rather than useful commenters like you characterising “the thread” by them, it would be very helpful if people when they see a bit of daft racism let me know through contact at the top, then I can consider it for deletion.
Somewhat bewildering but rather interesting account of the Wahhabis, fascinating sidelight on their special relationship with the British in India. Rather technical for a non-Muslim, but give it a go; relates to earlier debate with Guano in which he thought I was using the term “wahhabi” perjoratively. I wasn’t, but if he prefers “salafi” or “najdi”, I’ll go with that.
http://www.alahazrat.net/islam/wahabi-salafi.php
The Prince, the brutal dictator and a friendship he just won’t give up
Duke of York continues to request briefings on Azerbaijan despite losing his trade role.
‘His lavish spending of taxpayers’ money on private jets, not to mention his numerous uncomfortable friendships with questionable world leaders and a convicted paedophile, forced Prince Andrew to step down as the UK’s Special Representative for Trade and Investment, amid claims that he had become an embarrassment to the Government.
But now, more than a year later, the Duke continues to take an interest in the affairs of Azerbaijan, where he is friends with President Ilham Aliyev, regarded as one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers in the world. He has held talks at Buckingham Palace with the UK’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Peter Bateman. It is understood that the Prince requested he be kept informed about developments in the country, and Mr Bateman asked for a meeting with him when the ambassador was in Britain last week.’
/..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-prince-the-brutal-dictator-and-a-friendship-he-just-wont-give-up-8270022.html
Seems the Saudis have a long tradition of zealotry –
An attribute recurrently ascribed to the Tamimites (principal tribe of Najd -K) in the hadith literature is that of misplaced zeal. When they finally enter Islam, they are associated with a fanatical form of piety that demands simple and rigid adherence, rather than understanding; and which frequently defies the established authorities of the religion. Imam Muslim records a narration from Abdallah ibn Shaqiq which runs: ‘Ibn Abbas once preached to us after the asr prayer, until the sun set and the stars appeared, and people began to say: “The prayer! The prayer!” A man of the Banu Tamim came up to him and said, constantly and insistently: “The prayer! The prayer!” And Ibn Abbas replied: “Are you teaching me the sunna, you wretch?”’ (Muslim, Salat al-Musafirin, 6.)
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/najd.htm
Looking for info on Azerbaijan on Boy Hague’s website, saw this which I have subtitled ‘War criminal speaks to another’.
Foreign Secretary meets with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak
31 October 2012
Foreign Secretary William Hague and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak discussed the Middle East Peace Process, Iran, and peace and stability in the Middle East.
Speaking after the meeting the Foreign Secretary said:
“I had a useful and constructive meeting with Defence Minister Barak today. On the Middle East Peace Process our government sees an urgent need to return to negotiations and to make progress towards a two state solution, and we will work intensively with the US and our EU partners in the coming months to support that goal. The only way to ensure Israel’s long term security in the region is through agreeing a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians. In that context, I expressed our serious concern about continued settlement building that threatens the viability of a two state solution.
“I underlined the UK’s continued commitment to preventing Iranian nuclear proliferation, and we discussed the latest round of sanctions announced by the EU on 15 October. Iran’s leaders face the choice of meeting their international obligations and settling their dispute with the international community, or facing further pressure as sanctions continue to bite. I emphasised the UK’s commitment to a peaceful, negotiated solution and to increasing the pressure on Iran to engage.”
What peace process? War criminal speaks to another.
I had a useful and constructive meeting with Defence Minister Barak today. On the Middle East Peace Process our government sees an urgent need to return to negotiations and to make progress towards a two state solution, and we will work intensively with the US and our EU partners in the coming months to support that goal. The only way to ensure Israel’s long term security in the region is through agreeing a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians. In that context, I expressed our serious concern about continued settlement building that threatens the viability of a two state solution.
I had to translate this, using Bagelfish. Herewith:
” I had a big lunch with my old mate Benny. We will continue to make the right noises, as some of the plebs are getting restive about your divine right to steal land. However, nudge, nudge, wink, wink and thank you very much for your help developing weapons. Stop building settlements, no, not really. More wine? Don’t mind if I do.”
http://barrylando.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/saudis-backrolling-israels-mossad.html
Well, it’s credible.
Also credible-
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/10/world/meast/iran-bans-bahai-university/index.html
And see:
“Kathir ibn Qays said: I was sitting with AbudDarda’ in the mosque of Damascus. A man came to him and said: AbudDarda, I have come to you from the town of the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) for a tradition that I have heard you relate from the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him). I have come for no other purpose.
He said: I heard the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) say: If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, Allah will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise. The angels will lower their wings in their great pleasure with one who seeks knowledge, the inhabitants of the heavens and the Earth and the fish in the deep waters will ask forgiveness for the learned man. The superiority of the learned man over the devout is like that of the moon, on the night when it is full, over the rest of the stars. The learned are the heirs of the Prophets, and the Prophets leave neither dinar nor dirham, leaving only knowledge, and he who takes it takes an abundant portion. (Translation of Sunan Abu-Dawud, Knowledge (Kitab Al-Ilm), Book 25, Number 3634)”
http://www.answering-christianity.com/education.htm
Thanks for the url Komodo, not the NABU report though. They flew till late last night here.
Technicolour, thanks for the accolade, were do I apply for benign green dictator?..:)
@ Mary, do you reckon Ms Chakrobati is being invited to answer questions about child sex abuse and Jimmy Saville?
BTW. the latest gizmo, which will obviously be supported by the catholic church, is the new Halloween shock mask’s 2013, guaranteed to get the children scarpering, the Jimmy Saville mask.
It would put an end to Halloween…., or, bad luck, you could get your house set alight. Is there a market for Halloween deterrents?
NABU’s website seems to have abandoned waste burning issues. Couldn’t find anything relevant there last night. Much activity over us last night too. F15’s, and some very tight turns inferred from the noises. Now I wonder if they’ll be going to Cyprus? If so they’ll need to beef up the RAF Regiment presence a bit, I’m guessing.
Re. Halloween – is Mace spray legal here?
U-2 (with added radome) taking off from Akrotiri last year:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/military-photos-multimedia/99226-operation-odyssey-dawn-libya.html
Please note, NO U-2’s – or SR67’s – have EVER taken off from Akrotiri*, and what you are seeing is in fact a WW2 Harvard trainer cunningly painted to resemble one.
*officially
Whoops. Image link here…
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/tt104/vor033/6b8143d0.jpg
I might have to bite the cherry and buy the book…
yep F 15’s here too and loud.
looks like the US elections are the culminating event.
Yes probably Nevermind. Shami, the ex Home Office barrister will have something to say on every topic. She is so keen on ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Civil Liberties’. She is Chancellor of Oxford Brooks University, is on the Leveson Inquiry, an alumni of the British American Project, governor of the British Film Institute, Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple.
She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2007 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
In a graduation ceremony on July 21 2010, she received an honorary doctorate from the School of Law at University of Southampton.
On July 13, 2011, Shami Chakrabarti was recognised by the University of Glamorgan] with an Honorary Doctorate for her contribution to “the protection of civil liberties and promotion of human rights in the United Kingdom.” She became an honorary graduate of Middlesex University on 18 July 2011.
On July 27, 2012, Shami Chakrabarti was one of eight Olympic Flag carriers dressed in white at the London 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, and saluted for her integrity, but erroneously described as, “the founder of Liberty.”
In other words, she is very well embedded in the establishment.
I have turned over another stone and found some slimy things. Look at ISRS’s advisory board. Chertoff and ex admiral Lord Boyce are there and Reid is on the ‘staff’ as Chair. The latter should have been locked up a long time ago with Blair.
~~~~
Blair to address new UCL war blood money group next week
Tony Blair will be the headline speaker for the inaugural conference of University College London’s Institute for Security & Resilience Studies (ISRS).
If you would like to attend Building an ethos of Resilience – A new Manifesto for Business, it costs just £714 a ticket — or £354 at the “not for profit” rate.
This is a departure from Mr Blair’s recent public engagements, which have focused more on the religious community. It is, however, perhaps more in tune with his employment by the government of Kazakhstan, who currently pay him £8 million a year to whitewash their human rights record.
The ISRS was founded in 2008 by former MP John Reid. Reid was a key Blair ally in the run-up to the Iraq war and an ‘enforcer’ within the Labour Party. He was appointed Home Secretary following Robin Cook’s resignation to ensure few others would follow suit.
Reid was known in Whitehall as ‘Minister for Newsnight’ for his skill in pushing the Bush/Blair line in media appearances. The invasion of Iraq may well be remembered as ‘Blair’s war’, and not without some justification. But there are many people who bear a great deal of responsibility for that criminal act. John Reid is one of them.
In its corporate brochure, the ISRS presents itself more as a consultancy for hire than a serious academic endeavour.1 Full of corporate jargon it offers services in “event driven scenarios” (war games) and securing an “authoritative media presence” (spin).
The ISRS sits alongside several other academic institutes and university groups up and down the country that have close links with arms companies and the military. It reflects a trend in higher education to be active participants in legitimating imperial state power, not to mention providing subsidised research and much needed credibility for the arms industry.
/..
http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/tony-blair-watch/1996-how-tony-blair-and-friends-help-arms-dealers-get-into-bed-with-britains-universities
The advisory board {http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isrs/about/advisoryboard}
The outfit {http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isrs/ISRStrifold}
Max Keiser @maxkeiser 2d
“Every deal Blair has done since leaving office has been blood for oil”
My quote has been censored from an Independent story out on Nov. 4
http://mobile.twitter.com/maxkeiser?p=s
One thing about Blair, Mary, is one day he will be dead, like the rest of us. Money is his god. yet a simple process will separate him from the blood money. However will he manage?
More to that than meets even the mildly critical eye, Mary. See here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/1625/1625vw.pdf
Page 19 contains the ISRS’s contribution to what looks like some very antidemocratic thinking:
Page 5 (William Dutton*) has this gem:
In order to capture distributed
intelligence, networks of individuals must be cultivated and managed.
*Professor of Internet Studies**, Oxford Internet Institute
I may be getting the wrong end of the stick, though, Most of this offering is written in the most turgid of management bollox, and I am not fluent in it.
**And stuff