The present problems of Iraq are 100% down to our murderous invasion and occupation. The idea that further western bombing will make things better is so deluded as to beggar belief.
I was surprised to find during my Burnes research that the imperialist powers of Britain and Russia were explicitly exploiting Sunni and Shia divisions to further their conquests of Islamic lands as early as the 1830’s. This has been the major tool of the neo-con Middle Eastern gameplan for some time, spreading disunity and crippling war throughout the Middle East, with the hope that this will benefit the interests of Israel.
The peculiar result has been that in general the West is very actively supporting Sunni armies and miscellaneous forces, but in Iraq is supporting the Shia. ISIS – which is heavily backed by the Saudis, who hate al-Maliki – brings this paradox into sharp relief. The current US and UK strategy is to persuade Saudi Arabia to get ISIS to reconcentrate their efforts against Assad, on the understanding they will be allowed to keep the Sunni areas of Iraq (the old neo-con plan of dividing Iraq is firmly back on the agenda).
The BBC News this morning said that ISIS would not be capable of using the billions of dollars of sophisticated western armaments they have captured. I think you will find the Saudis remedy that one quite quickly. It is quite possible we will see some token airstrikes to kill civilians in Mosul, in order to appease Obama’s domestic backers who are never happy if Americans aren’t killing enough people, but only after agreement has been reached with the Saudis that no serious harm will be done – except to the ordinary people neither Obama, the Saudis or al-Maliki care in the least about.
Ba’al… Ba’al… Ba’al.
Good points you make there, there and there.
With any luck, as it becomes increasingly unacceptable to defend the murderous actions of Bliar it becomes evermore imaginable that we’ll see him dragged to the Hague.
One can but hope.
Open memo to war criminal Tony Blair
Alan Hart
June 16, 2014 4
TB. I think those who described you as a “Bush puppet” and an “American stooge” were wrong. You are a neo-con. And it’s my guess that you colluded with America’s neo-cons to push President Bush to war. Could that be why you and your American neo-con associates don’t want the Chilcot Inquiry to publish the transcripts of your conversations with Bush?
http://mycatbirdseat.com/2014/06/62355-open-memo-to-war-criminal-tony-blair/
A collage of the faces
http://i2.wp.com/mycatbirdseat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Whos-to-blame-for-Iraq-war.jpg?resize=500%2C525
PS I am not responding to Dreoilin/Nuid’s distortions on the previous page. She has form ref myself and I don’t want to see a return to the previous breakdown of the blog.
Kurdish President Mas’oud Barzani spoke on Radio 4 this morning. He spoke beautiful English, I thought. The gist of it was that though Kurdistan was against terrorism of all sorts, if a little benefit had come from the activities of terrorists to Kurdistan, well why not accept that gain?
KIA is a popular model of car in Kurdistan, and so is the CIA. All you need to drive a CIA is to keep the double drivel drooling.
For ‘Cork’, above, maybe read ‘Knock’, as Tony was spotted in Sligo that day – Knock is the nearest with a long enough runway, and misreporting of a radio exchange may be responsible for an error here.
Mods – please retain the last version of the above triplicate. Site was apparently not accepting input at the time – delete the first two tries, and apologies.
Rehmat, Rehmat, you’re doing it again. You used your swivel-eye anti-Israeli spectacles again. You have exceeded the limits of craziness before. But at least you have solved Technicolour’s problem on 17 Jun, 2014 – 12:38 am.
Ban’al
Sorry, couldn’t resist a cheap jibe. I really think the main objection to Blair is moral/spiritual/intellectual. He normalised the practise of blatant lying by a sitting Prime Minister. Mrs Thatcher got away with it because she was a woman and we are programmed to respect women. Us men I mean.
Now lying is seen as a virtue, like poetry. The more bi-focal, bi-tongued and just bi-everything, the more artistic licence is called upon. Speakers of and seekers after truth do not have the talent or mental capacity to hold two versions of the truth at the same time. I never actually slept with any of the guys I’ve been bonking all this time.
Why don’t you go to China and make useful items if you can’t keep up with the modern way of doing things? I’m going.
FACT OF THE DAY ….. delivered with very little evidence but a strong degree of likelihood:
The majority of so-called ‘suicide bombs’ are no such thing. They are false-flag bombs planted by people who live on to repeat the act another day.
banal,,,
That was cruel. And I have no need to be rude to ‘Guano’; which says it all… 😛
But let me assure you that Rehmat’s been doing this sort of thing for years, all over t’interweb. He’s not listening. Hopeless, and probably a jihadi.
My objection to Blair is that he makes my skin crawl. Simples.
DavidH
17 Jun, 2014 – 4:03 am
Craig’s original posting:
“The present problems of Iraq are 100% down to our murderous invasion and occupation.”
DavidH:
“…doesn’t mean we need to automatically ignore the sins of anybody on the opposite side. Beheadings, summary executions of prisoners, suicide bombings specifically aimed at civilian targets, religious law used to further their own business or political aims, utter disregard for the well-being of civilians (particularly women…”
You cannot cover-up the West’s complicity, in unleashing the horrendous crimes now being committed by all sides, through distraction.
“Beheadings, summary executions of prisoners, suicide bombings specifically aimed at civilian targets…”
That’s what the Sunni forces are doing, on behalf of the West, in Syria. They are being funded and armed by the US and Saudi Arabia (a close ally of the UK).
Have you ever heard of cause and effect?
Craig’s statement: “The present problems of Iraq are 100% down to our murderous invasion and occupation” holds true.
You must take the blinkers off and stop trying to blinker others with bullshit.
PS. Civilians, including women and children, are being blown to pieces almost daily e.g. at wedding parties and funerals in attacks by US drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Kurdish President Mas’oud Barzani spoke on Radio 4 this morning. He spoke beautiful English, I thought. The gist of it was that though Kurdistan was against terrorism of all sorts, if a little benefit had come from the activities of terrorists to Kurdistan, well why not accept that gain?
Indeed. Though it wasn’t the terrorism of the PKK in Turkey that did the trick. It was the terrorism of Barzani’s KDP and the US/Israel-sponsored and advised Kurdish Independent Life Party on the Iranian border.
Notwithstanding the credible allegations that AQ was welcomed to Kurdish guerilla bases for training…under the prewar Northern No-fly Zone.
But does he deserve a trial before judges that are persuadable by the likes of him?
Chilcots inquiery was influenced and made into bland soup by the person who was inquiered into.
That both Blair and Straw are still able to twist the news and are amplified shows that they are all fully prepared to do it again in Iraq.
And that they are guilty as toast is golden brown.
Thanks for all the great posts, gotta shoot…….
Well done Ben for digging the Polish story – 17 Jun, 2014 – 2:32 am. True obviously and it hurts…
Our English Page & Material
http://www.iraqsurveys.com/English_Page.php
At the same time we try to bring back our refugee communities together, we try to do our share to remind people that there are over 5 Million Iraqis around the world, because of a war that was based on lies, give us back our country and we will go back, not to the Batista style thieves in the Green Zone, back to us, the Iraqi People.
More Than 30 Top U.S. Officials Guilty of War Crimes, Boyle Says
http://www.iraqsurveys.com/articles/uscriminals.pdf
Plus
15 June 2014, 2:40 pm
The following press release was issued by Lord Maginnis of Drumglass on Friday, June 13, concerning the recent development in Iraq and an important conference at the UK Parliament in this regard
At the invitation of Lord Maginnis of Drumglass and Lord Clarke of Hampstead, a conference was held at the Westminster Parliament on 10 June 2014 to discuss the major concerns in Iraq including the situation of human rights, the lack of security, absence of social developments and Iraq’s international obligations.
Participants in the conference included His Eminance Shaikh Dr. Abdulhakim Al Saadi of the Iraqi Muslim Scholars, Mr Sabah Al Mukhtar, President of the Arab Lawyers Association (UK) and Legal Consultant in UK, Dr Isam Al Chalabi, Former Iraqi Oil Minister, Prof. Saad Naji Jawad, Professor of Political Science and visiting professor at LSE, Dr Subhi Toma, Expert on Minorities and Immigrants, His Excellency Sid Ahmed Al Ghozali, former Prime Minister of Algeria, and Messrs Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, former Assistant Secretary Generals at the UN.
/..’
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1406/S00069/lord-maginnis-of-drumglass-on-the-recent-development-in-iraq.htm
~~
I was given the links to the above but do not know the provenance of Scoop or of the meeting at the HoC.
Oops, not 900 sq km, but 990 square miles.
“That’s the hospital that treated Malala (used for anti-Taliban propaganda)”
Perhaps the Taliban could have been more publicity conscious and not shot her in the first place?
DavidH – you need to get with the agenda – saying that the present problems of Iraq are 100% down to our murderous invasion and occupation is the minimum acceptable quota – the Eminences are aiming for 200% or higher.
Guano sets limits for craziness – well at least he has a sense of humour.
Strange how Tony Blair’s current difficulties bring the Saddam lovers out from under their stone – if only he knew he was a tool of the US before he gassed the Kurds and invaded Kuwait and got all that bad press from Amnesty International – he was good boy and loved his relatives and friends (well most of them anyway).
Someone said Eslo is the same as Resident Dissident? Correct?
The lads are taking turns again.
Having turns more like. I suggest they lie down in a darkened room, drink just water, till they feel a bit better and it passes. What a surprise we should find the US roving lunatic ethnocentric acting President Zbigniew Brzezinski (aka Doctor Death, Prisoner Z on the charge sheet) coaxing, forcing Saddam into war with Iran.
Suggest ESLO informs himself on the activities of Rick Francona during the Iran-Iraq War, and maybe Reagan’s opinion on the possibility of Iran winning. At precisely the time of the Iraqi gas attack on Halabja, the US and Iraq were exchanging intelligence freely. In order to contain Iran. The US was well aware that Iraq was using CW, and let Iraq know it would do fuck-all about it. Saddam knew. He was banking on it.
Strange to think that in its terror of Iranian Shi’a fundamentalism, the US succeeded in creating much more pervasive Sunni fundamentalism in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa (and check for updates on this incomplete list). While at the same time creating a weak Shi’a regime in Iraq.
A clusterfuck, with neocon US policy – or lack of any policy beyond grandiose aspirations, really – the chief culprit.
Habbafook can’t do anything except attack the messenger. Even so inclined, he brandishes only a flaccid member.
The stories were wrong. No Iranian forces had marched into Iraq. While American drones fly overhead and American aircraft carriers stream into the Persian Gulf, Al Qaeda forces – really American backed Takfiris sick of being pounded by the Syrian army – are moving on Baghdad.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/15/367050/playing-iraq-card-again/
quote/
/unquote
alleged Snowden revelation of the VISIT PRÉCIS of Sir Iain Lobban, KCMG, CB
[previous] Director, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) 30 April 2013 – 1 May 2013 to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1150433/lobban-nsa-visit-precis.pdf
“Guano sets limits for craziness – well at least he has a sense of humour.”
Yes. The best comedians have deep social anger.
Whose Magna Carta is it anyway?
June 17, 2014 by Adam Wagner
Yesterday was Magna Carta Day. It is now only 364 days until the 800th anniversary of the sealing of England’s oldest charter of rights, and one of the world’s most influential legal documents.
http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2014/06/17/whose-magna-carta-is-it-anyway/
A good piece which exposes the hypocrisy of the pocket pols who are attempting to own it for themselves and their parteis.
I suggest Ba’al Zevul inform himself on the fundamental moral doctrine of the prime responsibility for one’s own actions being yourself as it is now a little late for Saddam. Such behaviour might be excusable in the case of those under the age of 4 or 5 – but not so much with Heads of State. A bad man/country made me do it doesn’t work for me I’m afraid.
“Well done Ben for digging the Polish story – 17 Jun, 2014 – 2:32 am. True obviously and it hurts…”
_______________
I think that was the story I commented on, wasn’t it (the Little Green Men, aka Polish mercenaries, in Ukraine).
I see I needn’t have bothered to query the narrative, since anything endorsed by Mr Golding automatically loses all credibility without the need for anyone else’s intervention.
Thanks Mark.