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.
Always worth a read, William Blum’s last but one Anti-Empire Report:
I’ll be a useless idiot, Habby. A world power with that sort of merciless attitude “everything else is subservient to US being THE BOSS and doing as they please…” would have no right to be a world power. Fortunately, Wolfowitz doesn’t run official US foreign policy. The cold war provided balance for the world because the mad expansionist things in the US and USSR couldn’t get their own way, and they had to negotiate. Would you say the world is a safer place since the demise of the Soviet Union?
“If we don’t fight the terrorists over there, we’ll have to fight them here”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/12/pentagon-mass-civil-breakdown
http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners
Tony @ 5:37
A bevy of convenient partners for ‘Yats’ and friends.
Mary 13 Jun, 2014 – 3:11 pm
Thanks for the Pilger plug. I think it will be the same interview I watched this morning. It followed the RT news, which is the only news reporting Ukraine. This strafing of civilians (20 children killed) in Ukraine reminds me of the prelude to the Iraq War when NATO forces were in their words “maintaining no fly zones” but in reality killing and maiming civilians and imposing crippling sanctions. That was before Blair and Bush engaged in the “Mother of all Battles” – What a sick description from the minds of very sick people.
Peacewisher
“Would you say the world is a safer place since the demise of the Soviet Union?”
_______________________
Irrelevant. Why this obsession with safety anyway – define it; safety from what or from whom?
But the world is a lot freer (try asking assorted East Europeans, and even a few non-European Communist tyrants got the wind up – cf Castro).
Habbabkuk-Turvey,
Hilarious irony you,yersel,bemoaning a lack of reasoned argument!
So you dont lament the passing of the Evil Empire and are happy to cheerlead Team USA.
Team USA; an out of control monster which spies illegally on everything its citizens-and the wider world-do.Where gun ownership is ubiquitous and nary a week goes by without a major shooting incident-usually in schools.
Team USA,who since 1945 at least have intervened,usually disastrously,in so many parts of the world-and usually lost but always a trail of massive destruction.
Team USA, where barely adult former mallrat crewcut steroid droids in underground bunkers in places like Fort Meade press a button to commit deadly extra-judicial drone strikes,commonly on innocent wedding parties,whilst vacuously high 5-ing whilst screaming inane insane mantras such as ‘ my oountry right or wrong dude!’ whilst listening to death metal on 11 and stuffing themselves to belicose ignorant obesity.
Way to go Habba,way to go…high-5 dude,yeah?
You are a clumsily nervous flatulent sommelier Habba,dispensing and spilling sour vinegar-like wine from an expensive bottle.Your unclipped yellow-green toenails protrude from under frayed sandals and your stained old string vest is still visible at the top of an ill-fitting and preposterous maroon shirt.
Have you asked assorted Eastern Europeans, Habby. I remember visiting that fine autonomous republic of Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Yes, there were military planes at the airport but otherwise perfectly relaxed. Found it utterly incomprehensible that this magnificent example of a people’s republic could be destroyed in the interests of “freedom”. Or many it was a coincidence that hostilities started about six months after the fall of the USSR?!
many = maybe
Peacewisher
Don’t be so silly, Peacewisher – you know perfectly well which Eastern European countries I was referring to.
I think I prefer real fools like Jives and Herbie to fake fools like you…. 🙂
Peacewisher
And, by the way, I also knew Tito- and immediately post-Tito- Yugoslavia and cannot say that I was very impressed.
Indeed, the Turks from Germany travelling home for the summer holidays in their thousands seemed positively civilised by comparison.
What did you find so “fine” about the place, Peacewisher?
Rehmat
Your comments about Israel have “exceeded the permitted level of craziness”.
Peacewisher, me too. I visited Yugoslavia (as it was) united under Tito. I was there in the seventies and a fine country it appeared to be long before the liberation. but I’ve also spoken to people in Romania who were much happier under the Ceausescu regime. Some of course, the mafia in particular, have benefited from the liberation. It has now got all the problems of other liberated countries, unemployment problems, a huge national debt and increasing prices in the shops. There was no national debt under Ceausescuu though it had come at a hard cost. When I reached the border of Georgia and Azerbaijan they were telling me how very often they have no electricity but that was not the case when they were part of the Soviet family. How many more examples does my friend H want? Yes, the Russian Federation, from what I have seen in footage looks much more modern. But for some reason it is still the bogeyman! 🙂
Obama says that Iraq has to sort its own problems “we can’t do it for them”. Does that mean the Yanks have learnt their lesson. No. I don’t think so either. The US only creates failed states. It does not sort them out. Obama is considering other options to help support the security services. What a cock up NATO countries have made of the world.
Ed Murray is up to speed on the Ch4 ‘News’ propaganda.
Snowmail…Ayad Allawi and Meghan O’Sullivan…short email to Cathy Newman
Posted by Ed on June 13, 2014, 6:44 pm
Ms Newman,
In tonight’s “Snowmail”(1) you say you will be talking to Ayad Allawi and Meghan O’Sullivan.
Will you be asking Allawi about his terrorist past in the “Iraqi National Accord”?
Will you be asking Meghan O’Sullivan, who was instrumental in the illegal invasion of Iraq, who has worked under all manner of warmongering scoundrels (Paul Bremer, Rumsfeld, Powell to name but a few) and who has been a great advocate of America’s most murderous policies in Iraq, about her own personal responsibility for the ensuing chaos and carnage that has brought Iraq to where it is today?
Or, as indicated in your “Snowmail”, are you really going to go from the sublime to the ridiculous and ask these two lords of chaos what should happen now? Will you explain the perverted logic here?
Ed Murray.
(1)Snowmail – ‘Yet with the Iraqi government losing its grip on northern Iraq, the Kurds have been exploiting the chaos by laying the foundations for an independent state in Kurdistan.
Tonight, our Foreign Correspondent Jonathan Rugman has been inside the strategic oil city of Kirkuk which is now in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The city was deserted by Iraqi government forces, and the Kurds spotted an opportunity among all the chaos to take the city that has always sat just beyond their borders.
And I’ll be speaking to Ayad Allawi – the first prime minister of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein – and Meghan O’Sullivan, the former US deputy national security adviser who helped reconstruct Iraq after the 2003 invasion. I’ll be asking them both if there’s any hope of Iraq being put back together, and what the implications are for the rest of the world if not.’
Maliki reminds me of another US middle east stooge who thought that democratic elections gave him a 5 year sectarian dictatorship: Muhammad Mursi. IF, as Craig believes, the coup in Egypt was planned by the CIA, it might pay for the CIA to train their stooges more carefully in future.
But I believe Mursi was set up to fail and stitched up economically, as was Gordon Brown, by those whose mere mention swivels the eyeballs.
If Craig had written “Obama’s demented bankers” instead of “Obama’s domestic backers” we would all be singing from the same page.
It’s all about whether you want a banker ruled globe or a multi-polar world.
Sovereign Democracy or Global Dictatorship. The EU itself and the democratic deficit in the US are a fine taster of what we’re in for, should the likes of these come to power worldwide.
Habby supports a Dictatorship of bankers ruling the globe.
That’s what the current wars and suffering are all about and indeed why habby and his ilk are unconcerned about the deaths of 500,000 children in furtherance of that objective.
The ends justify the means.
The rest is distraction and waffle.
This book from 1990 explains all you need to know:
https://ia600809.us.archive.org/12/items/ShadowOfPowerTheCouncilOnForeignRelationsAndTheAmericanDecline/ShadowOfPowerTheCouncilOnForeignRelationsAndTheAmericanDecline.pdf
His latest book brings us up to date:
http://jamesperloff.com/truth-is-a-lonely-warrior/
Mr Goss
“Peacewisher, me too. I visited Yugoslavia (as it was) united under Tito..ecc, ecc,…”
__________________________
Perhaps we were in two different Yugoslavias? Mine was the one with an Adriatic coast and it bordered on Greece, Austria, Bulgaria….
Anyway, as you too call it a “fine” country, I extend to you the same invitation as I did to Peacewisher – could you explain what you meant by “fine”?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And on a point of info – and to smash your rose-tinted specs – you say “There was no national debt under Ceausescuu” but you forget to mention the crippling foreign debt the country built up under that old monster. It was servicing the latter that was behind your “though it had come at a hard cost”.
**************************************
No point trying to pull the wool over Habbabkuk’s eyes – he knows too much!
“It’s all about whether you want a banker ruled globe or a multi-polar world.”
______________________
Yes, yes, Herbie, we know – you do keep repeating that silly-clever phrase rather a lot, don’t you.
Where did you lift it from?
And where or what is your personal survival kit?
I think you should share with your friends on here. No good being selfish!
James Perloff, whose books I referred to above, gives a video presentation of his work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_gj1uZ6194
People need to understand local events in terms of the big picture.
Habby and his ilk remain committed to murder, slaughter and misery worldwide to further entrench their parasitic lives.
Disgusting creatures.
Habbabkuk-Turvey,
Well of course i may be Of The Night ce soir.
You could say ive got Friday on my mind.
And lest i be accused of not acknowledging qualities in others permit to say that indeed you do have a certain je ne sais quoi about you…Something Of The Lamp about you ’tis true i openly admit.
But you should know that sunlamps are very bad for your skin,not too mention the vanity involved.
Jives
Are you drunk?
@ Richard Alan Jones. Superb, thanks. I’m repeating it like a mantra.
Habbabkuk-Turvey,
No im not drunk.I havent had a drink yet but i shall step out in about an hour for a few snifters.
And well…its that old saw Habba…come the morn i shall be sober whilst you will remain a troll in need of a clean string vest.
You’re really on fire tonight, Mr H.
If only…
Obama will be “reluctantly” drawn into bombing Iraq – to “protect” a dictator this time. Of course, there may be some cross-border mission creep, on one side of Iraq or the other. It’s hard to predict where these actions will lead…
Oh they’re devious alright. Fiendishly inventive, as they desperately try to protect what is left of the American way of life. One more shot for the petrodollar junkie in whatever vein he can find. War on a drip-feed is the only thing that can keep the US going.
Yet another corporate hack who refers this most bloody war as an ‘adventure’. Oh and by the way, ‘things fall apart’!
Friday 13 Jun 2014
Jon Snow
Things fall apart in Iraq – are we to blame?http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/fall-blame/24073?google_editors_picks=true
Another highly disturbing slice of evidence for anon, from the normally pro-US Aljazeera:
Clue: Iraqi children, cancer, US munitions:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/2013315171951838638.html
Always remember. These guys play both sides.
They’re Hedgies.
Jon Snow (that one, yes, but that is just a rumour) allegedly opined:
“History tells us repeatedly that extreme, violent, neo-fascist religiously fuelled fanaticism has only ever been contained by secular tyrants.”
Any reasonable person would have assumed that description was being applied by Snow to the Anglo-US-Israeli axis, as their common Zionist ideology epitomises religiously fuelled fanaticism and violent, extreme and neo-fascist are also their proud signature traits, to which the world and their dog can attest earnestly. The cap surely fits most perfectly. I’m not entirely certain that history does tell us any such thing about secular tyrant’s unique, apparently meritable powers too, Jon failed (entirely understandably) to give any examples of this phenomenon. I don’t fancy the ruler in any part of the ex-UK being exchanged for a secular tyrant, however much Jon Snow commends it to his viewer. My objections aren’t principled, just practical, I wouldn’t mind at all, for a time if the US and Israel – but not us – were so ruled, they after all, deserve “exceptional” treatment.
Many people might wonder why these “Islamist” cadres, the heavily-armed by the West head-choppers and raw heart gourmets, don’t turn their destructive attentions to the Anglo-US-Zionist beachhead vanity state, with its poor lambs trembling in the middle of all the stampeding cattle, the Ashkenazim holiday village on the Med, that multicultural melting-pot exemplar of perfected democracy, assimilation and co-existence, that needs walls to keep out people eager to join in the celebration of human diversity within -but puzzlingly illogically fall upon their own co-religionists striving, women and men, to secure the peaceful secular moderate socialist Arab lands they long desire and which most once almost had. Didn’t that Bin Laden himself read a script telling us that the presence of US troops in ‘sacred’ Saudi Arabia (but not of US puppets ruling there), and the Palestinian people’s desperate plight, were at the root of his and his band of righteous followers’ excitable drives? The obvious answer is of course that these zealot bands’ orders come down to them from the Kosher Nostra super brains ensconced upon the Tel Aviv sun-loungers, however much they try to conceal their murderous actions and motives in pseudo-religious balderdash, celestial gibberish, the effects of sunstroke and a nasty knock on the head. Another factor is that traditional majority Islam as far as I can gather has no hostility to the Jewish faith or Judiasm, or to other religions in general – a candid, pleasing ‘our’s is bonkers, theirs’ are no doubt all bonkers, too, why worry? attitude’ – they might disdain atheists and apostates, as do much of our own religiously inclined who’re still fulminating over the Enlightenment and The Life of Brian.
What a Completely and Utterly Brilliant, Beautiful Day…
I drove my wife there…and we went for a long walk along The River…
After….we arrived..and I asked her…to order the drinks..and the food…
She asks What Do You Want???
I just want You….so I am not going to lie…
I said to her later in the day…Well .. You… My Lovely Wife – Bought Me The T-Shirt…What Else Do You Expect Me To Do…But Wear It???
They Liked it….
They Had Never Seen anything like it Before…
Even The Band Went Wow – They Loved My T-Shirt
My Wife is a Heart of Gold…
So I wore it all the way home too…
We have done this kind of thing before…
O>K> I Did Look a Bit Like a Walking Jukebox..
They simply couldn’t understand how it worked – and they came laughing and clapping and shouting into my T-Shirt
They all asked – where The F did you get that from….
I replied..well we have just got back from a Rock Festival in Spain…
My wife bought it for me as a Christmas Present around the Year 2007…
So The Girls asked me…But How Do You Wash It??
Tony