Painful Truths

Intoxicated by power, Blair tricked us into war

The degree of deceit involved in our decision to go to war on Iraq becomes steadily clearer. This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions... It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush and went on to mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want, and on a basis that it’s increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible...

Hindsight is a great temptress. But we needn’t trouble her on the way to a confident conclusion that Mr Blair’s fundamental flaw was his sycophancy towards power. Perhaps this seems odd in a man who drank so much of that mind-altering brew at home. But Washington turned his head and he couldn’t resist the stage or the glamour that it gave him. In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so. Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that “hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right”. But this is a narcissist’s defence and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death. “Yo, Blair”, perhaps, was his truest measure.

via www.timesonline.co.uk

These are not my words. Nor are they the words of veteran warriors of truth and justice such as John Pilger or Robert Fisk. They are the words of – hold your breath – none other than Ken Macdonald QC,  Britain's director of public prosecutions from 2003 to 2008.

Alas, there are men of courage and integrity among the native Britons. I implore you to read the full article from which the quotes above are taken. 

Is this an aberration or a sign that perfidious Albion is at last embarking on the long journey towards becoming straight and honest? I am not optimistic but to read words such as Mr Macdonald's – the "Establishment's" very own – is heartening, if only for a few seconds.

Removing Saddam was right, even without WMD - Blair

It would have been right to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein even without evidence he had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Tony Blair has said.

The former prime minister said it was the "notion" of Saddam as a threat to the region which tilted him in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

via news.bbc.co.uk

Who the hell is Blair – or Britain for that matter – to think they have a right to remove any regime, no matter how bad that regime might be?

I don't like the UK government or the thoroughly rotten British "Establishment" but does that give me the right to blast Whitehall out of existence or stalk and blow Blair's brain out (assuming he has a brain)? Surely, getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a matter for the Iraqi people.

The clue to Blair's real thinking is his saying that it was the "notion" of Saddam as a threat to the region which tilted him in favour of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. For "threat to the region" read "potential threat to Israel". That's what Blair – and every senior British politician – all care about.

Britain is the enemy of all Arabs. Make no mistake about it.

 

Gates hints bin Laden arrest is lost cause

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says Washington does not know where the al-Qaeda leader is hiding, implying that the Afghan mission has been an abortive attempt.

"Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday.

via www.presstv.ir

The alleged search for bin Laden has become akin to the search by some sad folk in the USA for Elvis. Created by the Americans and their British underlings, bin Laden has filled in the vacuum left by the Cold War. Without him and his Al-Qaeda, NATO, the CIA and their like would have had a job justifying their existence in their present form.

I suspect that bin Laden will never be found – assuming he is still alive, which is by no means certain. And the search for him will continue until the US and its satellites find another bogeyman.

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi linked to Libya’s chemical weapons - Times Online

THE man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was implicated in the purchase and development of chemical weapons by Libya, according to documents produced by the American government.

The papers also claim that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi sought to buy 1,000 letter bombs from Greek arms dealers while working as a Libyan intelligence officer.

The documents, prepared by the US State Department, raise further questions about the wisdom of the Scottish government in releasing the convicted bomber on compassionate grounds in August.

via www.timesonline.co.uk

Oh dear me! Back in the days of the Cold War, we used to contrast the subtlety of Western propaganda with the crude propaganda of the Soviet Union but it seems that nearly two decades as the world's only superpower has taken its toll on the Americans. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What a pathetic exercise by the Americans! No doubt soon it will be parroted by their obedient poodles in Westminster, the BBC and the rest.

Shame on the lot of them!

Minaret ban wins Swiss support

Voters in Switzerland have approved a ban on the construction of minarets on mosques, official results show.

via english.aljazeera.net

I agree that this is discriminatory and likely to fuel Islamophobia in Switzerland, but I cannot help feeling that this is an own goal by Muslims.

I don't know what the different parts of the Muslim community in Switzerland have been saying and how they have been behaving but if they are anything like Britain's Muslim community then the conclusion must be that they have brought this onto themselves.

In Britain, most Muslims keep to themselves – many are integrated into British society and many others are not and live in semi-ghettoes in places like Leicester, Bradford and parts of Birmingham and East London. On the whole, they are apolitical, just like the native Britons.

However, a very small minority of Muslims – small but vociferous – now and again utter nonsense, like wanting Sharia law in the country. They already have a kind of Sharia if they want to use it, in the form of Sharia courts with powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. These idiots are not content with these courts – they want them for everybody, Muslims and non-Muslims, even though the vast majority of the country is nominally Christian.

Now, I don't know anything about the politics of the Muslim community in Switzerland but if the Swiss have their own equivalent of those in Britain who advocate Sharia, then I can understand – not agree with, but understand – why 57 per cent of the Swiss voted in favour of a ban on the construction of minarets on mosques, which they see as a symbol of the perceived threat of Sharia.

I was born a Muslim and I am no Islamophobe. But most enlightened Muslims will probably agree with me that Sharia is a bad thing and, whether in the Muslim world, the West or elsewhere, we should all work together to exorcise it from our societies. Sharia was good and progressive 1,500 years ago. But it is the law of one-and-a-half millennium ago, not of the 21st century.

One last word about the hypocrisy and double standards of the British media when it comes to Sharia. The largely racially-prejudiced and Judaeo-centric British media can prattle on endlessly about the "threat" of Sharia in Britain but who is talking about the Jewish Beth Din, the rabbinical courts set up by a UK statute more than 100 years ago and still recognized within the legal system? Anyone who knows anything about the Torah will tell you stories that will make you cringe with horror. But who would dare say anything when most British politicians and media are in the pockets of the Jewish lobby!

Dogs and killers

Listening to BBC Radio 4's "PM" programme while driving home this evening, I heard that one listener had complained about the BBC giving more airtime to the news of two police dogs killed as a result of being shut in a police car on one of the hottest days of the year than to two British servicemen killed in action in Afghanistan.

The complainant thought that the soldiers' death deserved more attention than the dogs that were roasted alive in a car as a result of a police dog handler's negligence.

Why, I ask? How can the listener justify the argument that the soldiers' death was more deserving of airtime than that of the dogs?

I would argue the opposite. First, the soldiers had voluntarily chosen to join the armed forces. They were trained killers and they were in Afghanistan to kill. They were in a foreign country, not in their own country, not defending their homeland. They were there to kill and they were killed. Those who live by the word shall die by the sword. They must have known that when they joined the army. Or did they enlist to visit exotic places, meet strange people and kill them?

The police dogs, on the other hand, had no choice. Their human handlers had a duty of care towards them. The dogs trusted their handlers but were betrayed. They died painfully, cruelly and needlessly. 

Consequently, of course the news of the dogs' death deserved more airtime. It was not a tragedy or fair game. It was murder.

Enough Michael Jackson

I have just about had enough of the the British media’s wall-to-wall coverage of the death of the US singer Michael Jackson. Throughout yesterday and today, from flagship radio news programmes to prime-time television news, it’s Michael Jackson who dominates the airwaves.

What’s so special about Mr Jackson? The ridiculous assertion by the BBC and others that he is “the world’s most famous singer” is indicative of nothing but that broadcaster’s – and, to be fair, the rest of the British media’s – ethnocentric view of the world. It’s the same when they refer to Britain and the US as the “international community”.

There is nothing special about Mr Jackson. Some like the man and/or his music, others don’t. Personally, I like neither the man nor his music, and I can’t – and have never been able to – stand the sight of his prancing about on video, crotch in hand.

I will remember Michael Jackson as someone who became increasingly weird as time passed. Although in his trial in the US in 2007 he was found not guilty of child sex abuse, he was never able to cast off the shadow of paedophilia.

I will also remember Mr Jackson as an African-American who was ashamed of his blackness and, consequently, tried to change the colour of his skin. His assertion that he has a skin disease lacks credibility: compare and contrast photographs of him when he was black with ones of him as a white weirdo and you will see that he not only seemed to have tried to change his colour, but also his negroid features, e.g. his lips and nose.

Let’s hope that the British media will very soon turn their attention to something more worthy of airtime and column inches. It’s not that there is a dearth of important news in the UK and the rest of the world.