Even the neo-con warmongers’ house journal The Guardian, furious at Trump’s attempts to pull US troops out of Syria, in producing a map to illustrate its point, could only produce one single, uncertain, very short pen stroke to describe the minute strip of territory it claims ISIS still control on the Iraqi border.
Of course, the Guardian produces the argument that continued US military presence is necessary to ensure that ISIS does not spring back to life in Syria. The fallacy of that argument can be easily demonstrated. In Afghanistan, the USA has managed to drag out the long process of humiliating defeat in war even further than it did in Vietnam. It is plain as a pikestaff that the presence of US occupation troops is itself the best recruiting sergeant for resistance. In Sikunder Burnes I trace how the battle lines of tribal alliances there today are precisely the same ones the British faced in 1841. We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that invaders face national resistance.
The secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component. The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran is the most important geo-political factor in the region today. It is high time this alliance stopped both funding ISIS and pretending to fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.
There has been no significant Shia Islamic terrorist or other threat against the West in recent years. 9/11 was carried out by Saudi Sunni militants. Al Qaida, ISIS, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, these are all Sunni groups, and all Saudi sponsored. It is a matter of lunacy that the West has adopted the posture that it is Iran – which has sponsored not one attack on the West in recent memory – which is the threat in the Middle East.
The origin of this stance appears to lie in the fact that the Shia group Hezbollah proved to have the only military force among Israel’s neighbours capable of halting an Israeli invasion. After the disastrous invasion of Iraq resulted in an Iran friendly regime in Baghdad, the US decided for balance of power reasons to back Saudi regional power plays, only for Saudi Arabia to fall into the hands of the psychopathic warmonger Mohammed Bin Salman who escalated an already flawed policy to breaking point.
The chaos of this incoherent and counterproductive strategy is, peculiarly enough, what the neocons actually want. Perpetual war and destabilisation in the Middle East is their goal. One of the findings I had not expected to discover in writing Sikunder Burnes was that the British had been deliberately exploiting and exacerbating the Shia/Sunni divide as early as 1836 to the Imperial purpose. Today, by keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly do facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of the region, as we see in destabilised Iraq and Libya.
The Clintons and Blair were the apotheosis of the capture of the mainstream “left” political parties by this neo-con Imperialist agenda in the Middle East. Sanders, Trump and Corbyn were the first politicians with any chance of power for many decades who did not pay lip-service to the neo-con agenda. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for Cold War politics has been neutralised from any possible action on his part by the ludicrous lie that Russia hacked his election. Furthermore his greed has led to deals with Saudi Arabia which have largely undercut his declared preference for non-interventionism. And now in Syria, the very hint that Trump may not be fully committed to the pursuit of perpetual war has the entire neo-con establishment, political media and NGO, screaming in unison, both sides of the Atlantic.
I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now. For a non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a full on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the equation.
It is also very helpful in revealing the startling unanimity of our bought and paid for political, media and NGO class here in the UK.
Last May there was a government move via its stooges in Ofcom to shut RT down.
Russian broadcaster RT faces three new Ofcom investigations
Latest alleged broadcasting code breaches mean channel has 11 cases pending against it
https://web.archive.org/web/20180614075050/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/21/russian-broadcaster-rt-three-new-ofcom-investigations
Ofcom have just made their ruling.
Russian news channel RT broke TV impartiality rules, Ofcom says
News channel RT, formerly known as Russia Today, broke TV impartiality rules in seven programmes after the Salisbury nerve agent attacks, UK media watchdog Ofcom has ruled.
Ofcom may now fine the station for its reporting in the aftermath of the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
The seven breaches took place over six weeks between 17 March and 26 April.
RT said it was “extremely disappointed by Ofcom’s conclusions”.
It described them as “almost all self-initiated investigations into RT by the regulator”, adding: “We operate under rules outlined by the regulator, and always strive to abide by them.
9 mins ago
“https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46633082
Neil Clark who writes for RT and the Daily Express among other publications has asked viewers and readers to write to Ofcom in support of RT as he fears it could be banned. I have already done so.
Sorry John 2o2o that I missed your post on the same subject.
There is creeping fascism in the UK.
My definition of fascism –
‘The subjugation of the individual’s will and freedom by an overweening state.
Humanity withers, freedom of speech is stifled and the soul dies. Self preservation becomes a dominant drive.’
It wont be banned because in that case Russia will respond and ban british news org. working in Russia.
TV impartiality rules
I thought they were only supposed to apply to BBC because it is funded by Compulsory Tax as a State broadcaster ? Are Sky and RT and ITV also held to that standard ? It would be lovely if the BBC could mange to be “impartial” as an example to the others !
I think an interesting debate might be made of: “What can be done about the BBC?”
It considers the appalling soap opera Eastenders to be the jewel in their crown, which at least gives us an idea what they consider the rest of the drivel they put out to be.
Smug and conceited, they regard the licence payer with utter contempt.
As long as they continue to serve the propaganda requirements of the establishment, we the public will be forced to pay for them.
So on the one side we have Trump that want to END the war and on the rest the whole establishment of the west.
And they claim Trump is the nutter?
I hope Trump could accomplish this without being fooled by his neocon advisors to keep bombing. I wont hold my breath.
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Yes, a thousand times. Great.
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Excellent piece Craig.
Many thanks for this and the rest of your continued work which I’m sure is widely valued and appreciated.
Let me also take this opportunity to wish you a merry and peaceful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
I cannot believe that Bolton approves of this. Hopefully, there will be a big row and Bolton will leave.
He is the one behind Trump’s dangerous decision to withdraw from the INF treaty. The question of Russian compliance is a convenient smokescreen because that could be resolved just as a number of issues were resolved about other treaties by the Reagan administration.
The lack of sincerity on the issue is clear from the fact that Bolton advocated withdrawal from this treaty in 2011-some 3 years before the questions of Russian compliance first surfaced. And there is also the fact that this year’s Pentagon budget includes funding for the development of new missiles.
I think 2 courses of action are open to us:
1. Try to save the treaty. Please ask your MP to sign EDM1744 on this issue:
https://cnd.eaction.org.uk/inftreaty
2. Leave NATO. The withdrawal clause is clause 13 of the treaty which set it up. We could then form an alternative security alliance with other European countries.
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Bolton works for corporate arms dealers?
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together with them, dunno if he profits financially directly.
Bolton is reportedly furious at the decision to withdraw from Syria, although one commentator has pointed out that this may be linked to an earlier Pentagon call to establish a no-fly zone in north-eastern Syria as an easier way to continue to influence events there. Perhaps Trump’s decision was influenced by another recent Pentagon statement that it intended to stay in Syria permanently, which is contrary to Trump’s election statements. In the face of Democrat control of the House of \representative, Trump needs to reassure his voter base that he is implementing what promises he can.
I believe an important aspect of USA’s animus against Iran is the Iranian Embassy Siege. The USA bitterly hates international humiliation; their tormentors face the USA’s permanent enmity (unless regime change occurs). This happened to Vietnam. It is happening to North Korea. Forgiveness is not a trait that the USA exhibits in international relations.
I haven’t tried to stretch this narrative to South America; I don’t think any South American country has humiliated the USA, so I think the reasons for US hostility to e.g. Venezuela are quite different.
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Hegemony?
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Shrubberymony?
I think it’s more about their puppet Shah being deposed, the US Embassy siege was just salt in the wound. Today’s animosity is largely due to Iran’s recent decision to sell Iranian oil to China in non-dollar currency. This is what done for Saddam Hussein (using the Euro) and Gaddafi (using gold).
I suggest that Israeli pressure and Saudi pressure keep Iran as the Bogey man. There are electoral advantages in posing as Israeli’s defender-mainly in the religious right. The commercial advantages of supporting Arabia are obvious.
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Also, reference Scotland (17.12.2018). . . . words words words.
Barely 50 years ago. . . .
“Nearly the entire Kikuyu population of 1.5 million was. . .herded by the British into various gulags.”
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Colony 2:
“If Australia had not been settled as a prison and built by convict labor, it would have been colonised by other means; that was foreordained from the moment of Cook’s landing at Botany Bay in 1770. But it would have taken half a century longer, for Georgian Britain (the kleptocracy) would have found it exceptionally difficult to find settlers crazy or needy enough to go there of their own free will.”
― Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding
Colony 23:
Book review in NYT:
“…. unforgettable catalog of atrocities and mass killing perpetrated by the British. “Imperial Reckoning” is an important and excruciating record; it will shock even those who think they have assumed the worst about Europe’s era of control in Africa. Nearly the entire Kikuyu population of 1.5 million was, by Elkins’s calculation, herded by the British into various gulags. Elkins, who assembled her indictment through archives, letters and interviews with survivors and colonists, tells of a settler who would burn the skin off Mau Mau suspects or force them to eat their own testicles as methods of interrogation.”
Britain’s Gulag: the brutal end of empire in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/britains-gulag-the-brutal-end-of-empire-in-kenya-by-caroline-elkinshistories-of-the-hanged-by-david-748263.html
Colony Ireland – ditto
Colony/Proxy Middle East – ditto
(please add to the list)
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Colonising greed and its facilitating, accompanying murder continue to coerce and poison.
Name the criminals. Shame all the perpetrators. No more polite fence-sitting.
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Not just these examples. As Craig mentions exploiting the Sunni/Shi’a split in Afghanistan is but the first of a standard British policy. India with the cultivation of the Hindu/Muslim split, Cyprus (Greek/Turkish), Malaya (Malay/Chinese), Palestine (Jews/Palestinians), Ireland (Protestant/Catholic). Always split the local population to make imperial rule easier.
Just cherry-picking by Craig to make Trump look good.
The USA has 200,000 military people in 177 countries in the world where there are no wars, and only has 2,000 in Syria.
It is making terrorists everywhere, not just in the Middle East.
What’s the real solution?
To be fair i think Trump would like nothing more than to reduce that number substantially, but it’s not that easy. He’s focusing on the Middle East because that is where the damage has been most evident.
Why not mention that North Korea will not denuclearize unless the US removes its threat – i.e., the 28,500 troops in South Korea, and the US nuclear umbrella over the whole area?
This is a much bigger problem than Syria.
Trowbridge, I think the solution is multifaceted. The USA is working away steadily to destroy itself. We can’t yet tell how long that will take, but it’s apt to happen very suddenly once the trend accelerates.
China is working away steadily to become the world’s leading economy and financial power – and, by some metrics, it has already got there.
Russia has already succeeded in making itself one nation that the USA cannot hope to overcome by military power.
Others, like Iran and Venezuela, are trying harder and harder to get out from under.
I think the overall strategy is to wait for the USA to crumble, as is inevitable once the petrodollar ceases to predominate and the vast amounts of paper that have been printed come back home to roost. That will cause serious inflation, if not hyperinflation. The USA’s credit will cease to be good, and it will become a third world country. (From rags to riches to rags in three centuries).
Meanwhile Russia and China are arming themselves to repel any desperate attacks. More and more countries are getting Russian fighters, missiles and tanks. With luck and good management, Asia will increasingly become a Yank-free zone. Just today, I read about the proposed agreements to exclude all foreign military outposts from the -stans. Then China, Russia, Pkaistan and maybe even India and Iran can get together to thrash out a peaceful settlement for Afghanistan. Between them they can afford a good few billion to build infrastructure and ensure security.
Everywhere, the first step is to squeeze the Americans out – without any violence if possible.
Craig clearly demonstrates the ‘tools of chaos’ in the Syrian position have failed thus triggering I believe French/British military chiefs to extract the devil in the US detail that might provide strategic keys to engage their special forces in supporting and upholding the terrorist alliance in eastern Deir Ez-Zo – I would expect conflict intensification in this area.
Trump recently had advice from the UK Chiefs of Staff and I again believe he has thus promised to continue transferring intelligence and information essential to mostly French assisted aerial and ground offensives against the SDF and the Syrian government.
I guess Trump had to concede something under pressure from France; doubtful his godly America would have won the war for independence without French direct/indirect military and financial aid in which France paid a heavy price since an ensuing fiscal crisis started the French revolution.
French cement firm suspected of paying nearly €13m to Isis and other militants
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/28/lafarge-charged-with-complicity-in-syria-crimes-against-humanity
It has been said that the French have been using Lafage Syrian cement to build military airports in Syria.
Well spotted Michael – I will follow the legal case with interest – Thank-you.
Financing a terrorist group is seen through a myopic lens by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – an intergovernmental body based in Paris (Ha!) that has pointed a diseased and fleeting finger at Saudi Arabia’s failure to tackle international terrorism financing.
The FATF report clearly high-lights the UN’s impotency to impose penalties and monitor the path to elimination of ISIS funding in Iraq and Syria.
http://www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/mutualevaluations/documents/mer-saudi-arabia-2018.html
“We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that invaders face national resistance.”
When the same national resistance (mostly Pashtuns) was fighting the soviets and led by CIA asset and Saudi billionaire Osama Bin Laden they were called the Mujahadin. They were so beloved by the US that Ronald Reagan dedicated a launch of the space shuttle to them.
Adam Curtis made an excellent documentary about the West and it creation and support of extremist Islamic groups to further it’s own geopolitical agenda called the Power of Nightmares. It’s available on Youtube and is an excellent primer for understanding the mess that has been going on in Syria.
Back then General Zia was funneling funds, and hardware to the Mujahadeen, courtesy of the CIA.
Later Zia would die in a mysterious plane crash.
Another former Pakistani leader who also met an untimely death was Benazir Bhutto, a few weeks after going on a David Frost talk show and stating categorically that Osama Bin Laden had died in 2002.
Yeah General Zia had her father executed in 77 I think, in 84 he released his daughter from prison, and as you say she was assassinated in 2007.
Believe it or not, I recall watching her assassination on tv.
So some SIS personnel are having an easy day today flying a drone over Gatwick, is it a head turning exercise, away from the 600 dead homeless folk in England and Wales, one homeless person , even died right under Westminster’s nose near Big Ben, or should I say the Queen Elizabeth tower. Millions can be found to refurbish that but not combat homelessness.
Or is the drone saga, a head turner away from Putin’s mega world Q&A session, or something else the establishment doesn’t want you to cotton on to?
Watch out next year for strict drone licencing, or at the very least registration, with a fee of course added in.
“…and America adopting racist immigration policies…”
And it was all going so well!
Not sucked in by the neocon bullshit re Russia, but sucked in by the snowflake/SJW bullshit re open borders. Just as the “Left” are giving themselves away with their support for the former, so their alliance with big business over immigration is similarly revealing.
For your “amusement”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER43fQSUi5k.
The alliance is a bit of a moveable feast. That vid reminds us the #Resistance had no problem with hardline anti-immigrant policies, so long as they were being enacted by politicians with great smiles. They rely on people having the memories of sand gnats.
Whatever else Trump has done/does do, good or bad, he has already left the future two precious gifts.
1. For decades, the likes of Noam Chomsky and Armand Mattelart were lone voices in calling out the ideological complicity/corruption of the liberal MSM. The Right didn’t care because, as well as being fundamentally pro-Capitalist (witness the longest, most intense fake news campaign of the 20th Century: the defamation of Communism), this liberal MSM also supported their tactical agenda: the post-WW2 global US interventions and all the rest of it.
However, as Wolfgang Streeck has outlined in his excellent article The Return of the Repressed in the March/April 2017 issue of New Left Review (https://newleftreview.org/II/104/wolfgang-streeck-the-return-of-the-repressed), something changed in the last couple of years: the manual working class started re-engaging with politics (reversing a trend of withdrawal since the early-1950s) but outside ‘acceptable’ liberal limits, i.e. via ‘populist’ avenues, Brexit and the election of DT being the most spectacular demonstrations of the process.
The Right has always been split into at least two major fractions: (a) a bloc favouring ‘pure’ Capitalism (in which private enterprises really do stand or fall on their own merits), and (b) a bloc amenable to “privatising profit but socialising loss”. The latter is how State systems in the West have largely operated since the early-20th Century, particularly in the neo-liberal period from the mid-1970s onwards (a reaction to the gains made by the working class post-WW2).
The recent rise of ‘populist’ political movements in reaction to the success of (b) above in re-establishing the balance of reward in favour of the capitalist class has been attacked by the largely pro-globalist liberal MSM on just about every spurious ground imaginable, from the ‘serious’ (neo-fascism) to the risible (‘Trump-Russia collusion’). These attacks have had two effects: (a) reducing the liberal MSM’s appeal to a very narrow range of opinion (they have become, in effect, echo chambers where members of the ‘cult’ talk to one another and not to the outside world), and (b) allowing (finally, under the rubric of “fake news”) their corruption to become apparent to those on the Right as well as to those on the Left. Thus, the ‘old reality’ whereby the liberal MSM sought to, and for many decades did, “set the agenda” for the ‘chattering classes’ has finally been shattered by their alienation of a class fraction they really care about: the Right. Hence their hysterical (and Freudian) reaction to the fake news charge from the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ9ce-yMEfc.
Chomsky identified several ways in which censorship functioned in the ‘media space’ of a ‘democracy’: amongst these were outright no-platforming, a restriction on the ‘acceptable’ sources of facts/news, a restriction on the ‘acceptable’ range of opinion to be aired, the sieving of the ‘experts’ to be called on to comment on current/world affairs according to their ‘ideological soundness’. In his time, this was largely the ‘traditional media’: radio/TV/the press. Now, as social media have become more important as sources of news/information for the inadequately-educated, post-baby boomer generations, these techniques of censorship are being applied “in plain sight” and liberals are cheering!
Hypocrisy is, of course, one of the defining features of the liberal. As Chomsky once stated: “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.” And as liberals are proving every day, both in the real world (Berkeley et al) and in Silicon Valley (https://www.scribd.com/document/390521673/The-Good-Censor-GOOGLE-LEAK#from_embed), they only like the free speech that they agree with.
2. A whole range of “Leftist”/”progressive” sites, from Democracy Now! through CounterPunch to even The Intercept (for which I initially had high hopes) have revealed themselves to be nothing more than liberal/neocon fellow-travellers in practice. My financial support for the Internet Archive stopped when the “Donald Trump is a fascist” begging emails started arriving in early-2017, and this crap has just been repeated by the dissembling clown (to put it extremely charitably) Jim Risen at The Intercept looking for donations (have your jaw well and truly dropped by the extent of his reaction in this video discussion with Glenn Greenwald from earlier this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsY70_uIXNc).
So, firstly, forcing censorship practices into the open and thereby accomplishing more (in terms of popular understanding) than Chomsky did in over 50 years and, secondly, forcing the “Left”/”progressives” to reveal their true colours: not bad for a “clown”.
I agree Adrian, he has made it more obvious than ever to those able to see. But do you get a sense that many of those who couldn’t see it already have had their eyes opened since 2016? No matter how laughably conspiracist and orwellian liberal-centrist narratives have become, most people I know just parrot them. Even the corbynite novara media demonizes Craig here as being unspeakable in their latest broadcast. Sadly i think the authorities will continue shutting down all dissenting voices with nary a squeak of protest. Look at Assange and just imagine how much media/public pushback there would be against taking RT off-air. (Something that looks imminent judging by today’s news .. https://www.ft.com/content/51b583dc-0454-11e9-99df-6183d3002ee1).
There is a concerted effort now in the US to smear anybody who questions the status quo as promoting “Russian talking points” and it is being taken up with relish by liberal journalists over here.
Adrian, do not give up on Democracy Now!, The Intercept and CounterPunch.
Yes, Risen is obsessed.
Yes, now and then they still have an ‘identity politics’ slant. Yes, Russophobia now and then rears its head, however slightly. But there are pearls as well. I don’t have to point them out to you!
Also, may I recommend to you to put Black Agenda Report (BAR) among you favorites. Our brothers and sisters over there are vitally important:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/
for instance: https://www.blackagendareport.com/bolton-threatens-force-africa-choose-between-us-and-china
i wonder if risen is paid; i think he belongs to one faction of the intel community, either as part of something like operation mockingbird or on a quid pro quo, i disseminate this propaganda in return for access on other matter.
Thanks – I’ll check it out.
It is of course wrong to dismiss any of these publications/sites as completely without worth: they and many others in combination provide a great alternative news source to the MSM (both traditional and social), which is precisely why they are under covert or overt attack. Although it is the Rightist/conspiracy sites that have received most attention as they have been de-platformed/’ghosted’, Leftist sites have been equally affected (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/19/goog-s19.html) with correspondingly less MSM attention, proving once again that they are the real threat to the system. “Look over here at this shiny thing…while I do something more important while you’re distracted”.
Thank you Mr Murray. Best comment I’ve read on this story so far.
Isn’t it amazing how all these commie hating neoliberalcons have suddenly discovered a passion and love for the Rojava cause?
Quite a sickening display really.
Good article.
Trump may be all sorts of things but it is clear he is far preferable to Hilary Clinton in many ways. Further, despite his odious comments about immigration, his policies are actually no different to his predecessor. He just has a way with words.
https://twitter.com/Wkhnage
Wow !! But mebbe trump got tired of the mahers/SNLs giving him incessant stick despite doing their tribesmens work against Assad. Suppose the mahers call a truce now in the MSM will trump do a U turn?
Just emerged from this amazing Oliver Stone series (which I’m sure you’ve all watched), and looking across the plane can see Emperor Trump, fiddle in hand, seeing the eastern hoards coming not to slaughter but to take control of the economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untold_History_of_the_United_States
Oliver has also done a documentary on Ukraine.
Typo in paragraph 6:
Today, by keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly do [not] facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of the region, as we see in destabilised Iraq and Libya.
By saying here that Syria won, Vtlchek means that they never surrendered.
Dec, 19, 2018
In Syria the Entire Nation Mobilized…and Won
Yes, there is rubble, in fact total destruction, in some of the neighborhoods of Homs, Aleppo, in the outskirts of Damascus, and elsewhere.
Yes, there are terrorists and ‘foreign forces’ in Idlib and in several smaller pockets in some parts of the country.
Yes, hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives and millions are either in exile, or internally displaced.
But the country of Syria is standing tall. It did not crumble like Libya or Iraq did. It never surrendered. It never even considered surrender as an option. It went through total agony, through fire and unimaginable pain, but in the end, it won. It almost won. And the victory will, most likely, be final in 2019.
Despite its relatively small size, it did not win like a ‘small nation’, fighting guerilla warfare. It is winning like a big, strong state: it fought proudly, frontally, openly, against all odds. It confronted the invaders with tremendous courage and strength, in the name of justice and freedom.’
https://off-guardian.org/2018/12/19/in-syria-the-entire-nation-mobilized-and-won/
Q. Who is going to fund the rebuilding and the reparations?
Cookin’ article, Craig and cookin’ move by Trump. Nerdy dumps Putin and the wall gets built by the returning military.
“News channel RT, formerly known as Russia “Today, broke TV impartiality rules in seven programmes after the Salisbury nerve agent attacks, UK media watchdog Ofcom has ruled.”
Ofcom now considering what action to take against RT, don’t be surprised if Ofcom bans RT altogether.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-46633082
Trump has been defending his decision on Twitter. On this one instance, all power to him.
He’s getting in the neck from all sides. Mainstream Republicans, opportunistic Democrats, print media and broadcast media. ‘Bout the only media platforms supporting him on this as far as I can see are TYT and Jimmy Dore. Doubtless Tucker Carlson will be supportive on Fox (could be the final nail in his coffin).
4.34 pm HoC recessed for xmas and new year and two weeks of jollies starting with a piss up.
Wtf have they achieved this year?
No improvement in Austerity, huge uncertainty over brexit, a embarassment from the subterfuge and total abject failure in the proxy ISIS war in Syria, white helmets, false flags and Skripals, illegal campaigning and the uncovering of the deep shits across our institutions and media from the very top in SCL down to the arse wipes of the I.I and bellends.
Russia and Putin left victors.
Trump pissed off by our spooks conspiracy against him.
Millions screwed over benefits and thousands freezing in hovels or on tge streets.
Enjoy your subsidised drinks and two weeks of paid leave you fuckwits.
Santa peomised me a general election for Xmas! I’ll probably get the usual – or yellow high vis vests.
I would say that the austerity screws are even tighter than they were a year ago.
We did not hear so much about the homeless dying on the streets before. We do now.
‘Nearly 600 homeless people died last year, according to government figures which record for the first time the number of homeless deaths across England and Wales.
The figure marks a 24 per cent increase over the last five years.
It comes two days after a homeless man was found collapsed yards from Parliament and later died in hospital, prompting claims ministers were ignoring the growing problem of street homelessness on their doorstep.’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homeless-deaths-2017-last-year-figures-streets-rough-sleeping-a8692101.html
“Wtf have they achieved this year?”
The shock & awe of Frank Spencer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMPkG1U54W8
Labour MP Fiona Onasanya has been warned she could go to jail after lying to police about who was driving her car when it was clocked for speeding in July 2017
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201812201070859363-labour-mp-lied-byelection/
she is a solicitor so will be struck off.
Usually , when the US has said it is withdrawing troops, it merely diverts them from a boring old battle field to an exciting new one. Yemen? Mattis hates Iran so I wouldn’t be surprised if some troops get diverted there to complement the trump sanctions. Also Trump has put trade sanctions on Erdogan for his continuous profiteering from Daesh and assistance to Germany’s pet warmongers the Muslim brotherhood. In both cases cutting off the head of the snake while holding it down with a pitchfork through sanctions. I very much doubt all those yankee doodles’ll be going home for a while.
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“merely diverts them from a boring old battle field to an exciting new one. Yemen”
Indeed, although I expect they will be stepping up works on Africa soon too.
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DG, with thanks. Reposted your succinct and to the point irony.!!
Surprise surprise most of the toytown-UK-so-called politicians are also the main cause of ME deaths.
“Enjoy your subsidised drinks and two weeks of paid leave you fuckwits.”
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Like father, like son apparently.
Netanyahu’s son banned from Facebook over hate speech
Yair Netanyahu, 27, barred for 24 hours for anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian comments
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/17/netanyahus-son-banned-from-facebook-over-hate-speech
‘The son of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been temporarily banned from Facebook after a series of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian posts the social network said broke its rules on hate speech.
The company confirmed the ban after Yair Netanyahu, 27, claimed in a tweet on Sunday that Facebook had blocked him for 24 hours for posting criticism after it removed a post last week in which he called for revenge against “those monsters” following the fatal shooting of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian at a bus station in the West Bank.
The prime minister’s son also called in his Facebook posts last week for the expulsion of Palestinians, writing that he would prefer all Muslims to leave Israel.’
I believe the killing of two members of the IDF followed the killing of three Palestinians.
sticks and stones will break my bones – and words will also kill me
Craig, Why did you not mention The British Government and The French? Stop blaming it all on The USA. The British (White Helmets UK sponsored atrocity) and The French are more than complicit in this. They designed much of it. I suggest you take some lessons from Vanessa Beeley – she’s posh and British. Her sidekick the Canadian Eva Bartlett is awesome too. More power to the women. They have got more balls than most men.
“The secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component.”
I go away for a few days, where there was very little internet connectivity, and come back, and everything according to the headlines has changed. I must do this more often.
From ICH
“U.S. To Pull Troops From Syria Immediately”
“Washington Finally Acknowledges Defeat In Syria”
“US Offers to Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan”
From The Daily Telegrapgh
“Police call in the Army to help deal with Gatwick chaos as drones cause runway to close – latest news ”
My guess is that the drone thing is a cover story. However, The British Government has recently pissed off so many different countries recently, including Russia, The USA, and all of The EU, that the drone thing may well be real…
If real – it ain’t amateurs. A decent amateur drone – costs close to £1,000 and can last in the air, no longer that about 15 – 20 mins. They however do the most incredible aerial photography, but are significantly less dangerous than a flock of seagulls.
I’m out of touch – after 4 days in rurual Lancashire.
wtf’s going on?
I like Craig Murray’s blog, cos a lot of intelligent people post on it, even if I do disagree with some of their political views.
Sometimes, the people who read this blog have given a completely brilliant answer to a complex technical question I asked.
I try what they suggest – and it works.
Can’t ask for more than that, and I can quote several real examples.
Tony
Well police snipers and the army are out in force at Gatwick hunting down a drone user of the media are to be believed.
I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the whole drone fiasco will be traced back to Moscow and the blame laid squarely at Putin’s door.
кровавые русские дроны ?
I agree, RoS. The Westminster crew seem determined to force Mr Putin to kill us all. What then? Do they anticipate standing before the Throne of Jesus and saying, “Honest to You, those beastly Russians killed us and all we did was slander them a bit”.
How hard can it be to understand that Mr Putin (figuratively speaking) just has to hit a button, and within half an hour the whole of the UK would be smoking ruins?
Policies for the middle east are not based on pursuing peace but in pursuing economic advantage by ensuring that those who COULD weild some economic leverage against us are neutralised by perpetual war with others and division.civil war at home.
It’s a psychopathic view of how to advance your country on the world stage but one that has held prominence since the rise of the British Empire ie it worked. Now that we (UK) are no longer an empire it has no place (it never did, morally) as it plainly doesn’t work anymore.
But old habits die hard and the political classes have the man in the street over a barrel..
More absurd commentary by neocon war hawks, this time from hollywood actors..
Trump orders Syria troop pull-out & Hollywood ‘liberals’ go bananas
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/447067-hollywood-syria-liberals-withdrawal/
Unlike Syria. the US will not be withdrawing from Afghanistan anytime soon. There are too many agendas in play there,
The billion dollar profits to be gleaned from the now 8000 ton Poppy /Heroin crop, which funds the CIA Black Ops programs.
Protection of the UNOCAL transiting oil pipeline..
The profits from the mining of rare earth mineral mining.
Last but not least, the strategic position of Afghanistan as a jumping off point into Central Asia, to cut and disrupt the Chinese New Silk Road.
This hi-speed rail link to Europe will signal the death knell of the US dollar as Reserve currency and the end of US hegemony.
Apart from widespread existence of precious and semi-precious stones in Afghanistan, the country is bestowed with prevalent gold reservoirs, which— if properly excavated and utilized— would usher an era of economic prosperity and development in the war-battered country.
http://mines.pajhwok.com/content/brief-introduction-afghanistan-gold-reserves
The Chinese are mining all sorts of stuff, already, in Afghanistan, next they’ll want Antarctica