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430 thoughts on “Baghdad Conference Photos”

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  • English Knight

    I have always suspected this anecdotal epidemic of short-term memory loss in entire populations, including even the young, has something to do with all our synapses swimming in a sea of mobile telephony waves? Ama?

  • Cryptonym

    I think you might have a point English Knight … about, whatever it was.

    It doesn’t mean I agree with you at all on anything else however –this shouldn’t require saying but this is the internet after all.

    If you regard it as simply more electromagnetic radiation, then we’ve been bathed in it really since widespread radio and tv transmission began, everything from high-powered police and military radio comms to CB and taxi radios contribute, but theres also been a certain amount of it coming from space, with bursts from solar activity and electrical storms, static and rays from space. Proximity to high voltage lines and transformer stations for power distribution also factor in, as does every piece of wire and appliance in our homes. We’re swimming in a thick broth of electromagnetic soup; the brain and the nervous system even the heart and muscles certainly rely on the faintest of electrical signalling, but the high-powered bombardment we get now, attributable to mobile phones is unprecedented; I’d certainly never use a mobile phone for those and for reasons connected with privacy, and try to minimise my exposure to mobile phones and their users. Lead-lined walls and traditional lead roofing might be of use, but would tinfoil hats and those foil ponchos wrapped round marathon runners screen it or simply act as perfect antennae?

  • Mary

    Boxing Day emetic.

    Charles pays tribute to troops serving abroad Charles recorded the message in London for broadcast from Camp Bastion

    The Prince of Wales has told British forces fighting in Afghanistan that the nation owes them “an everlasting debt of gratitude”.

    He thanked them for their “fortitude and relentless courage”.

    [..]

    He said: “I… wanted to pay tribute to the extraordinary contribution made by those of you who belong to our Armed Forces, in all sorts of different parts of the world.

    “Nowhere is your fortitude and relentless courage more clearly on display than in Afghanistan, where your resilience, patience and determination to see the job through – usually in impossibly difficult conditions and circumstances – is, quite simply, humbling.”

    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20844245

  • Fred

    “An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
    An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!”

  • mark golding

    Mary – Sadly in the game of war it is recursive thinking and the sense of entitlement that has brought us this far. The apparent short-term memory loss since the killing fields of Iraq is really a cognitive map reworking of the colonial conceptualisation of space that deems it right, acceptable and necessary that unpleasant things take place in far away places so that a certain lifestyle dominated by Queen, country and bullshit can be aspired to at home.

  • Kempe

    What would you expect him to say? “It’s all utterly futile and the deaths and maiming of your mates has been a complete waste”?

  • macky

    “I… wanted to pay tribute to the extraordinary contribution made by those of you who belong to our Armed Forces, in all sorts of different parts of the world.

    “Nowhere is your fortitude and relentless courage more clearly on display than in Afghanistan, where your resilience, patience and determination to see the job through – usually in impossibly difficult conditions and circumstances – is, quite simply, humbling. It would all be utterly futile, the deaths and maiming of your mates, a complete waste, except it is acceptable and necessary that such unpleasant things do place in far away places, so that a certain lifestyle dominated by Queen, country and bullshit can be aspired to at home.”

    There, fixed it by merging the last Posts.

  • Anon

    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/story.html?id=7742746

    DND removes report on killing of Canadian soldier by Israeli forces

    he Defence Department has quietly removed from the Internet a report into the killing of a Canadian military officer by Israeli forces, a move the soldier’s widow says is linked to the Conservative government’s reluctance to criticize Israel for any wrongdoing.

    Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and three other United Nations observers were killed in 2006 when the Israeli military targeted their small outpost with repeated artillery barrages as well as an attack by a fighter aircraft.

    IN early 2008, the Defence Department posted on its website a 67-page report from the Canadian Forces board of inquiry into the killing. The board found Hess-von Kruedener’s death was preventable and caused by the Israeli military.

    But less than a year later, the report was quietly removed from the DND website and has since remained off-limits to the public through official channels.

    Hess-von Kruedener’s widow, Cynthia, told the Citizen that the decision to remove the document from the public domain was made by DND and the government in an effort to protect Israel’s reputation.

    “They don’t want people reading about it,” she said. “It’s embarrassing to the Israelis and, as we know, Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper has given his unconditional support to the Israelis.”

    The circumstances surrounding Hess-von Kruedener’s death and the attempts by DND and the Canadian Forces to limit access to the board of inquiry report are outlined in an article in the new edition of Legion magazine, an Ottawa-based publication sent to members of the Royal Canadian Legion.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/letters/peacekeepers/

    Hello, my name is Cynthia Hess von Kruedener – I’m the widow of Major Paeta Hess von Kruedener. My husband was killed along with 3 fellow Peacekeepers during the Israeli bombing of the UN Patrol Base Khaim, in southern Lebanon on July 25th, 2006

    I’m speaking to you today following the release of our Department of Defence / Board of Inquiry. I’ve prepared this statement, instead of an interview – because it’s important to me to address the central issues – at this time – without being misspoken.

    I thank the members of the Board of Inquiry: I believe they did a thorough job investigating, within the bounds of their mandate. I encourage all interested parties to review the findings of the BOI, available to the public (almost in their entirety) on the National Defence Website. (http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/focus/hess-von-kruedener/index_e.asp)

    First, I want to make it clear that it’s not my intention to place inappropriate blame for the events that led to my husband’s death; and

    Secondly, I want to draw attention to the questions that have not been answered through this investigation.

    I direct your attention to Paragraph 72, indicating that the Israeli Defence Force has clearly accepted responsibility for the incident that killed my husband and his colleagues.

    Just so we’re clear “the incident” refers to the 500 lb, precision guided bomb that was dropped on the UN bunker containing my husband and his fellow Peace Keepers; who were unarmed and serving the world community in the pursuit of peace.

    The IDF have attributed the targeting and subsequent attack to an operational error; but offer no explanation of how that error occurred.

    Further in paragraph 72, we find that the IDF acknowledges receiving multiple protests regarding their artillery rounds hitting the post. They even acknowledge communication from the UN Force Commander stating: “You are killing my people” – and yet; the IDF fail to explain why the subsequent J-DAM Bomb was NOT halted.

    There are questions unanswered:

    · If 6 hours of artillery shelling was an operational error – and bombing a UN bunker was an operational error – what are the odds that two operational errors (land and air) occurred within an hour of each other and in the same place? Keep in mind, that the UN Patrol Base was a solitary structure; not surround by any other buildings; painted white; marked UN in big, black letters; flying a UN flag; well mapped; and located in exactly the same place for more than 30 years!

    This, and many other questions, will never be answered unless, and until, the IDF reveals the complete findings of its own internal investigation. (An investigation that we know has been performed.) Without complete disclosure, we (the rest of the world), don’t have the necessary information to draw lessons and prevent further, similar loss of UN Peacekeepers:

    · It’s clear, and sad, that the sanctity of the UN was not respected and provided no protection to the UN Peacekeepers.

    · The Board of Inquiry, conducted by our Defence Department must be the first – NOT the last, step in the process of searching for truth and accountability.

    The world needs to know: What were the ‘rules of engagement’ for the IDF pilot who dropped that bomb? I believe that, the IDF lost the privilege of secrecy, on this issue, when they targeted a UN Post.

    I call upon the House of Commons to debate the findings of the BOI; and through our Foreign Minister, take this issue to the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly:

    · This was not an accident.

    · Paeta’s death, with his fellow Peace Keepers: Hans of Austria, Jarno of Finland, and Du, of The Republic of China: was entirely preventable.

    · The Security Council (as an instrument responsible for maintaining international law, international peace and security) must condemn violations of UN Protection – in no uncertain terms.

    I ask Canadians not to turn away from this issue; as if it doesn’t concern you. The security of Peace Keepers, in this extremely distressed world, affects everybody.

    Join me, by contacting your Members of Parliament; ask them to “Make the Safety of our World’s Peace Keepers a Priority!”

  • Karel

    To the dark knight and cryptonym,
    unless you hear voices, like many US residents nowadays do, there is no sufficient evidence that an antenna has been implanted into your brains. The subhuman and subsequently human brains have always happily bathed in a soup of electromagnetic radiation and their bearers have against all odds succeeded in developing from clever monkeys to stupid hominids. Our brains do not normally contain anything that can serve as an antenna capable of pickin up external signals. This mishap of nature makes them pretty resilient to any electromagnetic radiations (the destructive x-, gamma and cosmic radiation excepted)unless their owners become voracious consumers of websites run by Alex Jones or Jeff Rense.

  • doug scorgie

    The Prince of Wales has told British forces fighting in Afghanistan that the nation owes them “an everlasting debt of gratitude”.

    He also said that to Jimmy Savile when he presented him with gifts:

    “Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that.”

    Then Royal humbling appears spread throughout the MSM:

    Charlie boy said to the troops:

    “Nowhere is your fortitude and relentless courage more clearly on display than in Afghanistan, where your resilience, patience and determination to see the job through – usually in impossibly difficult conditions and circumstances – is, quite simply, humbling.”

    And earlier our humble Queen:

    The Queen has used her Christmas message to reflect on a year of major events in the UK, saying she was “humbled” by the public’s response to her Diamond Jubilee.

    So, now that the Royals have realised that they have an exaggerated sense of self importance, is it not time to kick these parasites and their managers at Clarence House onto the streets and let them fend for themselves in these difficult times. I’m sure they could afford bed-and breakfast accommodation and if not they could join the queues at the food banks. We’re all in this together after all.
    Or, perhaps we could just deport the bastards.

    Meanwhile; Prince Harry has proved himself in battle by pressing a button, whilst sat on the knee of a real helicopter pilot, and killed someone in Afghanistan.

  • Fred

    Let’s face it, our troops are not in any way defending our country, they are corporate mercenaries. They are not risking their lives defending the people of Britain, they are defending the route from one of the most energy rich regions of the world to one of the fastest growing economies.

    Afghanistan wasn’t going to be invading Britain any time in the foreseeable future.

  • Mary

    ‘So, now that the Royals have realised that they have an exaggerated sense of self importance, is it not time to kick these parasites and their managers at Clarence House onto the streets and let them fend for themselves in these difficult times.’

    Quite so Doug Scorgie. A case in point. The newly weds too. I happened to see the Mail online photospread of Kate looking wan and William serious, plus the Middleton sister, mother and brother, leaving the local church on Christmas Day. Now these photos have been erased by royal command and the Mail pretend that they never published them.

    ‘MEDIA ASKED TO ‘RESPECT THE PRIVACY’ OF WILLIAM AND KATE

    The media were requested to ‘respect the privacy’ of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge despite their decision to attend church with family and friends in Berkshire yesterday.

    All national media acceded to the request.
    But a small number of freelance photographers turned up, including representatives of the Reuters international news agency.

    The couple’s Scotland Yard police protection officers made no attempt to stop them taking pictures, as they often do, and even moved their vehicles to provide a clear view of William and Kate.

    The photographs subsequently went round the world but St James’s Palace requested British newspapers not to publish them.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2253040/Hundreds-wishers-Sandringham-wish-Queen-merry-Christmas-William-wakes-celebrate-day-laws.html#ixzz2GF0fknmZ

    Pathetic liars.

  • Mary

    A terrible story Anon and pity that Canadian widow and all the others left bereaved from yet another example of Israeli planned murder and mayhem called Operation Grapes of Wrath. They excel at naming their killing sprees.

    Shelling of Qana /Qana massacre
    Location UNIFIL compound, Qana, Lebanon

    Date April 18, 1996

    Attack type 155 mm gun shelling

    Deaths 106 Lebanese civilians

    Injured 116 Lebanese civilians and 4 Fijian UN workers

    Perpetrators Israeli military

    More information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_shelling_of_Qana

    The bombs used.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition (Five references to Israel within)

  • Mary

    The plight of the Palestinian refugees.

    ‘Before the US invasion of 2003, a small community of 35,000 Palestinians resided in Iraq. They were intentionally shielded from any political involvement in the country and unlike Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were treated well. But when the US invaded, they became an easy target for various militias, US forces and criminal gangs. Many were killed, especially those who couldn’t afford paying heavy ransoms haphazardly imposed by gunmen. Most of the refugees fled, seeking safe havens in Iraq and when that was no longer possible, they sought shelter in neighboring countries.

    Allowing Palestinians entry into Arab countries is not so simple. For this reason thousands were stranded in newly constructed refugee camps at the Jordanian and Syrian borders. They subsisted, some for years, fighting the elements in punishing deserts and surviving on UN handouts. Finally, many of them were sent to various non-Arab countries. It was a pitiful spectacle of an Arab betrayal of Palestinians. The more passionate Arab regimes seem to speak of Palestine, the more inconsiderate they actually are of the plight of Palestinians. History has been consistently cruel this way.’

    [..]

    ‘If the tragedy of the refugees in Iraq seemed insufficient to iterate the centrality of the Palestinian refugee crisis, and the inalienable right of those refugees, the unfolding calamity that has befallen them in Syria should leave no doubt that the refugee issue is an integral part of the Palestinian narrative as it should in any serious political discourse.

    The Right of Return is not simply a reminiscent discussion of sentimental history and memories of a dying generation. It deserves to be treated as an extremely urgent political priority with an equally pressing humanitarian dimension. Palestinians are once more dying and on the run and all sincere actions have to be geared towards helping those refugees cope with the conflict in Syria and return to their homeland in Palestine.’

    http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/12/nakba-revisited/
    Ramzy Baroud

  • Vronsky

    Merry* Christmas to all.

    *I prefer this to ‘Happy Christmas’ as I believe ‘merry’ is cognate with ‘Marian’ in the ‘Maid Marion’ sense – a pagan, pre-Christian, woodland goddess. I think it’s suggested somewhere in Robert Graves, maybe ‘The White Goddess’. It’s a solstitial greeting that runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds.

  • Habbabkuk

    I agree with Kempe, what else would you expect the heir-apparent and the next head of the armed forces to say, for God’s sake?

    I also note, in, passing, that at least the royal family – although certainly not the instigator of our military adventures (that’s our government) – is at least not afraid to put its younger members into operational theatres and thus, potentially, into harms way. I do not, on the other hand, recall either of Mr Blair’s sons, or Jack Straw’s son, volonteering to do their bit in the armed forces; not, I suspect, did their fond parents suggest that they should.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Well, there is some good news in the world. A nascent beginning……

    “Since the dark days of 1999 and 2000, when the Taliban forbade girls’ schooling, there has been very substantial progress. Over 3.2 million girls are now in school, and via UNICEF programs the Afghanistan government expects a 20% increase in primary school enrollment in 2013. Since 2001, female literacy has tripled. But it still stands at only 13%, among the lowest in the world.

    Despite the hatred for UN agencies among the US right wing, especially the Neoconservatives, UNICEF is among the main drivers of increased female education and literacy in Afghanistan, and deserves our support”.http://www.juancole.com/

  • Habbabkuk

    Well, like Ben Franklin, I find the figures about how many girls are now able to go to school in Afghanistan to be GOOD NEWS. Civilisation as against obscurantism and barbarity, I should say.

    I now of course look forward to at least one poster telling me that it’s not good news at all and that I’m just a filthy neocon (or worse).

  • mark golding

    Unlike the suffering of Palestian refugees in Iraq Mary, some communities like the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq are useful to British colonial ideology despite killing Americans in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992.

    The MEK according to my source is operating in Syria against government soldiers by infiltrating Iran’s Quds forces who are attempting to provide intelligence on foreign terrorist interference in Assad’s attempts to fight the incursion. It is of course part of the effort to win a now strong propaganda based Western driven revolution designed to implode similar to Libya.

    In the words of Robin Cook, the MEK is now another ‘product of Western intelligence’ in the fight against a revitalised and reformed Soviet Union called ‘Putin’s Russia’ that is moving with the economic strength of China to compensate a soulless, unexceptional America; a country that has done more harm than good over the last 70 years.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Well, I was just looking for a needle of hope in the haystack of tragedy.

    I got into an imbroglio with my antagonists on the subject of LBJ’s presidency. They were trying to mitigate Obama’s imperfection by comparing him to the Texan. They touted his success in Social safety nets (medicare, social security) and the Civil Rights Act, while at the same time expanding the war in Viet Nam. I say he paid for those things in blood by enlisting the help of the war mongers (Joint Chiefs) promising; “Just get me elected [1964] and I will give you your war.”

    58,000 American dead later, of which 20% where African Americans, one of the chief beneficiaries of the safety net and civil rights.

    Quid Pro Quo

  • A Node

    @nevermind 27 Dec, 2012 – 10:15 am

    As yet have not found out who Margarita Rojas was. remember reading of a journalist of that name, some time back.

    Seems she was a grandmother who went to incredible lengths to look after her severely handicapped grandson …. a role model for those who take on huge responsibility when there is no-one else to do it.
    Hard for an English-speaker to extract much information about her … any Spanish-speakers out there?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSycSf8ttK0

  • mark golding

    WebCameron I believe was conceived in 2006 as a video blogging site modelled on YouTube – At some ‘recognised’ risk it was unveiled with a clip showing Cameron, ‘the family man’ at his home washing the dishes while the children ate breakfast. In 2007 Cameron morphed into ‘Agent Cameron’ when he was witnessed on several occasions entering a side entrance at Thames House and after a spook called ‘theRealElvis’ seemed to be a permanent visitor to the WebCameron ‘open blog’ with vacuous, insipid, purposely puerile questions like, ‘You seem to know a lot – tell me more but only if you have time…’

    The name ‘Agent Cameron’ was also spawned it seems after aPayback speech to ‘Friends of Israel’ recently when Agent Cameron said:

    “We promised to stand up for Israel and in Government that’s exactly what we’ve done. We said it was ridiculous that Israeli officials felt unable to visit Britain because of the malicious and unfounded use of arrest warrants so we changed the law to end it.”

    I have no need to remind readers here that Tzipi Livni, was responsible for launching the pre-meditated blitzkrieg four years ago which caused the deaths of 1,400 defenceless Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) and thousands more horribly maimed. Livni was proud of Operation Cast Lead and speaking later at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”

    I simply ask, is that, “unfounded” !?

  • David

    Ben and Habbabuk

    Both the CIA factbook and Wikipedia have Afghan female literacy at 12.6% in 2000. I’m not quite how Juan Cole’s tripling of female literacy from the “dark days” of the Taliban only gets us to 13% female literacy today. Doesn’t seem much of an improvement to me, but then I already know that US involvement there had nothing to do with improving the lives of women, girls, or anyone else for that matter.

    Isn’t this then just propaganda and not good news at all and indeed wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude that anyone touting it might not unjustifiably be described as just a filthy neocon or dim or ill-informed or something worse?

    Literacy rates amongst Afghans male and female are the lowest in the world, and it seems they remain so.

    Of course if the Americans and British were only to murder illiterate Afghans, they may in time increase the overall literacy rate and then certainly that would be something to celebrate.

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html

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

  • David

    It’s very easy for media to make up stories about Harry in Afghanistan. There’s simply no one to gainsay them.

    And make them up they do. All the lads love him. He’s so ordinary. He’s in mortal danger. The Taliban have targetted him specificly. His dad’s worried, just like so many dad’s up and down the country. He feels their pain, and on and on ad nauseam.

    It’s all simply made up. His only function is to put on a uniform, avoid the nightclubs for a few weeks and serve his class.

    Look at this “story” from February, “Harry’s first kill”:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/9070895/Prince-Harry-in-Afghanistan-I-watched-Harrys-first-kill.html

    Now, look at this story from a few days ago, Harry’s first kill, AGAIN:

    http://www.indianexpress.com/news/prince-harry-kills-taliban-commander-in-afghanistan/1049365

    You see, it doesn’t matter what they say – they don’t even care what they write- so long as it’s hagiography of some description. They know it’s all fiction. It’s all bollocks. Made up, but to a purpose, most recently for Christmas and all those worried families up and down the country.

    “A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: ‘We do not comment on an individual’s deployment in Afghanistan.'”

    Course ya don’t. Funny though the way there are so many syndicated stories in media just when they’re useful to the monied classes.

    This is media 101!

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