Full spectrum dominance moves out into the open and into the Yemen

With the 'Times' reporting that eight people including "at least four CIA agents have been killed in a suicide attack by an Afghani on a US military base in Afghanistan" we might remind ourselves that no Afghanis have blown themselves up outside their own country and that the pretext for Washington's war there is in fact catching the ever elusive bin Laden or, as a minimal goal, ensuring that 'Al Qaeda' are deprived of a base from which to operate. Off they go, in search of the "baddies", the "terrorists", and while pursuing them under the guise of making the world a safer place the neo con agenda is implemented; the United States uses its military supremacy to establish an empire that includes the whole world; a global Pax Americana. That's right folks, "full spectrum dominance" and now off they go into the open and into the Yemen.

The US has been involved in the Yemen since late 2001 and in order to facilitate Washington's pursuit of the "baddies"the government in Sana'a has allowed small groups of U.S. Special Forces troops and CIA agents to operate in the country. Now the covert activities of "Uncle Sam" are out into the open and as recently as two weeks ago US fighter jets were launching attacks on the the northwestern province of Sa'ada where Houthi rebels, who belong to the Zaidi Shia sect, are based and this is where it becomes interesting because as late as october we were being informed that the Yemeni government were enlisting the 'Al Qaeda' to help them crush the  Houthi opposition movement along the Saudi border in the north. Indeed, it becomes all the more interesting when we read that the Saudis have also been attacking Shia Houthis on the Yemeni side of border and that the rebels in turn are supposedly being supported by Iran who provides them with money, arms and training.

All a bit confusing? Not for Washington and first we have American planes killing at least 70 civilians and injuring more than 100 others in the northern district of Razeh as they do their Yemeni and Saudi allies dirty work and attack the Houthi rebels in the north and then a few days later we have our "nobel laureate", Obama, ordering strikes against two "suspected" 'Al Qaeda' sites, which, along with raids carried out by the Yemeni security forces, leave as many as 120 people, including many innocent civilians, dead.

Yes,  and back in the kingdom of the blind, the mainstream media pumps out its daily drivel and we are told today that Washington is planning to retaliate and target 'Al Qaeda' targets in response to the Detriot "bomber", Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is supposedly an 'Al Qaeda' operative, when, of course, the Americans are in fact already bombing all and sundry on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. Yes, a half truth covers the lie and innocent civilians die as "full spectrum dominance" moves out into the open on the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa.

The demographic time bomb

It is interesting how 'Haaretz' reports on a recent population census for Israel: "At the close of the first decade of the third millennium, Israel has 7.5 million residents, including 5.7 million Jews (75.4 percent of the population) and 1.5 million Arabs (20.3 percent of the population). The remaining 319,000 residents are made up of Christians and followers of other religions."


One wonders if the so-called "Arab" population, they are in fact Palestinians, of 20.3%, includes Christian "Arabs", or are the Christian ........ let's call them Palestinian Christians, included in "the remaining 319,000? Moreover, what are the "other religions", apart from Druze? And are their no atheists in Israel? Surely, there must be, after all, Zionistan likes to sell itself as a "modern democracy" and to the best of my knowledge, "modern democracies" are full of atheists.


The reality is that the continued existence of Israel as a "Jewish state" is dependent on the Ultra-Orthodox  settlers who average about 7-8 children. Of course, what this in fact means that any sort of tolerant democratic society, even one that is tolerant only towards fellow Jews, is ultimately doomed. One way or the other, the "Jewish democracy" is sitting on a demographic time bomb. 

It all began in 1948

Found myself flicking through Tanya Reinhart's ' 'Israel/Palestine: How to end the war of 1948' in the 'English Bookshop' in Munich's Schellingstrasse. The skimming and scanning was not because of what I expected to find in that particular book but rather due to the title; "How to end the war of 1948" and while the term "war" is hardly one that I find applicable to a ruthless on-going ethnic cleansing that began in 1948 and continues until this day, Tanya nevertheless, shows us that  the crimes that are pepetrated today on the Palestinian people are only incidents in the zionist mission that began in 1948, namely the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The tried and tested tactic to sell this steal to the outside world is being employed once again and, no doubt, just as "Joe Soap" and "Otto Normalverbraucher" picked up on the piffle about the Israelis offering the Palestinians a state at Oslo but getting terror in return, or of Hezbollah attacking innocent civilians without provocation in 2006, or of Israel voluntary leaving Gaza and getting bombed as a thank you, so too will there be many out there, seduced and cajoaled by the mainstream media, who will actually believe that Netanyahu offered to stop building settlements in order to get the Palestinians back to the "negotiating" table. Such ignorance, however, is inexcusable.

'Haaretz' reports: In an unusual step, the state announced on Tuesday its plan to promote planning and construction in the northern West Bank settlement of Kiryat Netafim." Of course, there never was a "freeze" and surely with today's news that must be clear to everybody. Yes, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, an ethnic cleansing that began long before the appearance of 'Hamas' or, indeed, the appearance of 'Fatah' continues, but then it hasn't stopped since it began in 1948, has it?

Mordechai Vanunu. Peres, Obama, Hitler and the Nobel Peace Prize

Obama's presidency, began on January 20th and the nomination deadline for the 'Nobel Peace Prize' was the 1st of February. Now, even hypothesising what might have been if, he hadn't have actually received the award on the 9th of October and if, after having received the award, he hadn't then announced that he was going to escalate the war in Afghanistan, the farce that this prize actually is surely all to obvious. Considering that nobody is going to be nominated sponataneously, the evidence would seem to suggest that Obama's presidential election campaign was enough to get him nominated for the 'Nobel Peace Prize'.

Of course, the 'Nobel Peace Prize' has been a joke for a long time with its previous winners including Shimon Peres, who won the prize in 1994 along with fellow zionist Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader  Yasser Arafat. In the meantime, Arafat and Rabin have left the scene, but Peres is still around.

Mordechai Vanunu was freed from prison in 2004 after serving an eighteen year sentence for revealing details of Israel's nuclear weapons programme. Vanunu apparently has now been arrested by Israeli police because they suspect that he is been meeting foreigners, which violates  the conditions of his release. Now, knowing what we know about Israel that should come as no surprise, just as we can hardly be surprised that the man who "blew the whistle" on Israel's nuclear secret has enough good sense to see through the disgusting farce that a winning a 'Noble Peace Prize' actually embodies and it would appear that earlier this year Vanunu wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize committee asking it to take him off of the list of candidates for the prize because President Shimon Peres, who he said was "behind the Israeli atomic policy," was a Nobel laureate. Now, we might criticise Vanunu by arguing that had he remained a candidate, he might have prevented Obama winning the prize. Nevertheless, I would suggest that Vanunu did the right thing and that by remaining on the list he would have only given this farcical charade some credibility and doing so at a time when we can at least suspect that the decision to give the warmonger Obama the award had already been made.

Nice little footnote here; a Member of the Swedish parliament, E.G.C. Brandt, nominated Adolf Hitler for the 1939 prize. No doubt, because of the slightly disturbed Adolf's effort to preserve peace at the Munich Conference in Sepember 1938. Still, despite the Nazi "newspeak" of that period, "peace" still meant "peace" and the good Mr Brandt had at least the good sense to withdraw the nomination in February 1939. Good timing and a month later Germany swallowed up Bohemia and Moravia, or what is known today as the Czech Republic, while Slovakia became nominally independent but de facto a German client state and I am left wondering why, while Vanunu took himself off of the nominations list and Mr Brandt took Adolf off of the list, did nobody have the sense to remove Obama's name from the list? 

Scots incapable of ruling themselves

Well, if we had doubts before, they have now been cleared up and the 'Scotsman' today writes that: "Scotland would be unable to stand alone economically even if it received all the oil and gas revenue raised by the Treasury, a government report claims today." Yes a British "government report".

Now, it doesn't interest me too much if Scotland becomes independent or not but what does annoy me is the audacity of these prats, who actually tell some five and a half million people that they are incapable of ruling themselves. Of course, why they come away with crap like this is indicated best by the jingoistic twaddle of a Tory politician, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, some years ago when he said something to the effect that if Britain were to break up it would be just another unimportant little country like Holland. Oh, and isn't wonderful to be important like 'Blighty'? Well, I am sure the Dutch might see that a bit differently.

Although some would contend that it is Britain that is bust, not Scotland and that Scotland's oil and gas revenue keeps the UK afloat, Independence is not only about economics, it is also about indentity. Should that Scottish identity lead to Scottish independence it is more than a trifle insulting to those people who might constitute the Scottish nation, or state, that a collection of prats in Westminster believe that while the Irish, the Portugese, the Dutch, the Danes and all of those other little "insignificant" nations are capable of determining their own affairs, the Scots are not.

Getting the true picture of the so-called "conflict" into the mainstream media

While it is important that resistence to Israel exists on the ground, it is not that resistence that is going to define the Palestinian struggle for the time being. Therefore, while Palestinian Prime Minister of the de facto government in Gaza Ismail Haniye's declaration of victory over Israel after the massacre, which took place last year, might be motivated by political expediency it hardly reflects the reality. Moreover, his threat that any new intrusion into Gaza "will not be a picnic", is not going to have the IDF bullies trembling in their boots.

Yes, it is important that the resistence tells us that it is there. However, this is the kind of bravado that we could be doing without and if anything stops Israel re-entering Gaza in the near future then it is going to be international public opinion, which increasingly cannot fail to see or indeed ignore this so-called "conflict" for the one sided slaughter that it in fact is. Moreover, it is for Haniye and other Palestinian leaders to start using the media and instead of telling it that they are going to beat Israel in a military conflict it would be better for them to broadcast to all and sundry what in fact the Zionists are doing. That is to say, it is for them to at least facilitate getting the reality of Gaza and the West Bank, the reality of their struggle onto the front pages. It is time for us to attack the idea that there are two sides to this one sided "conflict" and to do that a concerted effort will be needed.

Doing this will not be easy but just as the invasion of Gaza, the reporting of that invasion and the 'Goldstone Report' demonstrated, the so-called "liberal" press was at least no longer prepared to, or indeed could, ignore the facts. It is this press that should be exploited to show the true picture of a conflict that began with an ethnic cleansing, continued with a racist state, moved onto a further occupation; an ethnic cleansing that has resulted in six million refugees, a racist state where the remaining Palestinians are third class citizens at best and an occupation that has led to thousands of dead men, women and children. It will not be easy but with people holding deeds for land that they cannot return to, with the illegal blockade of Gaza continuing unabated, with illegal settlements being built on illegally occupied land and with Palestinians, who are deprived of their basic human rights, being bullied and murdered it is time to make sure that positve reporting on the zionist state becomes as rare as positve reporting on the South African apartheheid regime.

Israeli justice

'Al Jazeera' today reports that: "The Israeli military has said that the three men shot dead in Nablus were behind the killing of an Israeli settler on a West Bank road on Thursday.
It said a ballistic analysis showed that weapons found in the house of Anan Tzubach, one of the dead, were used to murder Meir Avshalom Hai, the settler."


Now, let me get this right; weapons found in one the house of one of those killed were used to murder Meir Avshalom Hai! And this provides sufficient evidence not, as you might suppose, to arrest that one man on suspicion of murder, but to execute three men. Of course, with the IDF confirming that none of the men fired any shots and that only one of them was armed, what we have in fact here is cold blooded murder and further evidence, if any evidence were needed, that Israel had no intention of arrested anyone for the murder and that nobody will ever be tried for the murder.

Of course not, then such a trial could be embarrassing; after all, we might have the suspect or suspects having their day in court and getting the opportunity to explain why they killed someone who is illegally occupying their land. No, suspects must be eliminated along with a few others who just happen to be in their vicinity.

An eye for an eye, turning the other cheek, people and subhumans and breaking resistance

Haaretz' reported on the 25th of December that "Hundreds of mourners gathered in Jerusalem on Friday morning to bury Rabbi Meir Hai, a father of seven who was shot dead by Palestinians near his home in the West Bank a day before." The newspaper then goes on to say that Hai's 16-year-old son Eliyahu urged mourners not to consider seeking revenge for the attack., saying that, "The difference between us and them is that we are people, Jews, holy." What piffle and, of course, if the father couldn't tell right from wrong, it is hardly to be expected that his children can. Still, this rubbish oozes through and there is a collective amnesia down in 'Zionistan' when it comes to the fact that these are illegal settlers on illegally occupied land.


Still, the son's eulogy cannot be totally condemned and, while his gobblydegook God is in fact that "eye for an eye" wrathful God of the 'Old Testament', there is, at least here, a suggestion of turning the other cheek here, even if that suggestion is tainted by an arrogance of the sort that is par for the course in any society that is dominated by a racist ideology; Palestinians are not people, I take it. Or have I somehow misinterpretated the bit about "we are people, Jews, holy?"


Anyway, despite the holy boy telling his holy people not to seek revenge on the "non-people", today's 'Haaretz'e informs us that the IDF has killed the Palestinians behind the murder. In total six Palestinians were killed today. At 6-1 we might hope that they are ready to call it quits. Of course, whether any of those were actually involved in the murder of the "human being", Rabbi Meir Hai, we will never know. After all, they won't be going to court, will they? No, down in occupied Palestine it is not a case of an eye for an eye as far as the Israelis are concerned but rather another case of extrajudicial executions. Oh, and while we are talking about eyes, maybe young Eliyahu will open his and see that the difference between his "people" and "them" is not too unlike the difference between the perpetrators of the massacre at Lidice on June 10th, 1942 and the Czech partisans who assassinated the "Reichsprotektor" Reinard Heydrich in Prague a couple of weeks earlier. And if that comparison seems a little bit over the top, we can at least be sure that the motivation behind the IDFs actions today and those of the SS in June 1942 was essentially the same. Namely, to demonstrate to an occupied people that any resistance has a price not worth paying.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and a genuinely inhuman crime

 In a sense this is a follow up to my post 'inhuman', where I criticised an Israeli diplomat using that adjective to describe the theft of the "Arbeit macht Frei" sign above the entrance gate to Auschwitz.

Jeremy Macadie gets around; today he is in Erbil as the British Consul General to the Kurdistan region in Iraq and we can only speculate as to the historical ties between the United Kingdom and Kurdistan that he will be concoting. Anything will do, no doubt, and back in 2006, when he was ambassador to Rwanda, there he was maintaining that "there are strong links between Britain and Rwanda, particularly through religion and economic partnership.” Well, if you want to spout off your pretext, cover up your real reasons, for being in a particular place send on the diplomats.

Tony Blair advises President Paul Kagame and, being Paul's consultant, it is only logical that he is going to hit the superlatives when it comes to praising "Blighty's" man in Kigali for his "visionary leadership" in implementing breathtaking political and economic reforms. Of course, it is only logical, after all not only does Tony advise his friend Paul on the political and economic matters, he also makes sure that Paul looks after the United Kingdom's and, of course, America's geopolitical interests not only in Rwanda itself but also in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular and, along with Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, in the region generally.

Rwanda and Uganda are Britain's and America's allies. Indeed, they are  client states to US and British interest and receive both  financial and military aid from the UK, the United States, World Bank and other Western institutions. Under the guise of pursuing the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, Kagame and Museveni plunder the Congo's resources, British and American companies are given contracts and wealth flows back to corporate American and Britain, the real backers of our hypocritical politicians. In the meantime, nobody in the West is really concerned that some six million have died in a genoicide that is even greater in its scale than those which took place in Dafur and Rwanda. Of course, Anglo-American political expendiency ensures that just the right amount, and appropriately biased, media coverage will ensure that we don't become too interested. The hypocrisy is sickening, the crime is inhuman.

Yes, genoicide denial receives most attention when it comes to those few powerless eccentrics who question the Nazi destruction of Jews and who in fact pose no real threat to any existing Jewish population and man's inhumanity to man becomes an issue only when it benefits the West's interests for it to do so. However, every day not only is genoicide being denied, covered up, not refered to by its proper name, it is also being perpetrated by America, Britain, Israel and their allies and today most of us are not too unlike those Germans who not only protested their innocence after 1945 but even had the audacity to say; "Wir haben es nichts gewusst."

On the road

Extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo, illegal wars and if you really threaten the system you might either be discredited, whipped away to some unknown place or even assassinated. It is difficult not to want to vomit when Washington and its sycophants point the finger; their hypocrisy at least offends good taste and invariably tries to screen crimes that make a mockery of everything that any freedom loving person holds dear. Still, we do get to spout off our tuppence worth in this part of the world and if enough of us spout our tuppence worth off we can put the breaks on our "masters" shennanigans to some extent. Indeed, sometimes we might even sense that real change can be affected and as we all know history does not stand still.

In China today the founder of the Charter 08 campaign for constitutional reform, Liu Xiaobo, was sentenced to eleven years in jail. His crime appears to have been agitating for universally accepted basic freedoms. Of course, the Chinese authorities are aware that if they were to allow those freedoms history indeed would not stand still and, sooner or later, they would be on their way out. Yes, freedom to criticise the political system, freedom of speech generally and freedom to have access to a credible legal system that protects individual rights are all a prerequisite for change. A prerequisite but not a guarantee as we know in the West. Nevertheless, at the risk of contradiction, prerequisite or not, might I remind the Chinese authorities, that history, indeed, does not stand still. With the conviction of Liu Xiaobo and the international coverage that his trial has been given, we are at least seeing an all too obvious struggle to have the mechanisms put into place that will ultimately change a corrupt and unjust system.

Finally, this is also an opportunity to remind ourselves that we have those fundamental freedoms, which are necessary to implement real change and in doing so we should be aware that Liu Xiaobo's struggle is only the beginning of a road that our forefathers set off on a long time ago. Nevertheless, the manufacturers of consent will make sure that progress along that road is not always smooth. However, just as the pigheaded, hardliners in the Communist Party of China will not prevent Liu Xiaobo and his fellow travellers embarking on their journey, so too will the hypocrites, the spin and grin men, the pseudo-democrats, fail in their efforts to prevent us progressing in ours.

Opposition, what opposition?

'Haaretz' reports: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again asked opposition leader MK Tzipi Livni (Kadima) to join his coalition on Thursday - but said if she refused, he would do his best to split her party." 

"Opposition" and what opposition, or opposition to what, are we talking about here? If there were any real oppostion then Bibi wouldn't have been opposed to the warrant for her arrest in the UK. "Democratic Zionism" is almost as oxymoronic as "National Socialist". And the only difference between Tzipi and Livni? Well, apart from the obvious one, there is no difference, of course! 


Anyway, with Bibi threatening to split 'Kadima', reading between the lines on this one suggests that Tzipi is still humming and hawing but we might expect her to "compromise", after all that is what democrats do, isn't it? Of course, such a "radical" step will mean at least a temporary end to the fictitious opposition in the fictitious democracy and really, in a world that is governed by so much fiction, I am beginning to suspect that they actually believe in their own little charades.

Making an "ass" out of "u" and "me"

"You should never "assume," because when you "assume," you make an "ass" of "u" and "me." If I remember correctly I heard the line from Jack Lemmon who played the character Felix Unger in the film "the Odd Couple", which started its life as a broadway play back in 1965. Good advice, good advice, indeed! Nevertheless, I am going to do one more piece of assuming.

Assuming Tony Blair never jumped on the George Bush bandwagon, what would have happened? Well the assumptions stop there and the rest is speculation. However, maybe, perhaps, possibly and, yes, maybe even probably, the war would have been so blatantly illegal that it just wouldn't have happened. However, the speculation is turning into an assumption again and I really am beginning to make an "ass" of "u" and "me" and there is no need to do the politicians job for them, is there?

The fact is Blair did take Britain into an illegal war and the fact is that by doing so not only did he condemn many Iraqis and some British citizens to death, but that he also lent that war the "international credibility" that the warmongers in Washington needed. According to 'Just Foreign Policy' today, an estimated 1,366,350 Iraqis have died because of the very odd couple, Bush and Bair. Yes, this man belongs in front of the ICC.

Education in the UK

Dipping into the BBC's website, I drifted towards an article on education which informed me that there is to be a 398 million pounds reduction in government funding, from this years figures, for English universities for 2010-11. Now, it is not really the figures themselves that attracted my attention, for while these figures only reflect cuts in public services generally, at a time when billions are being spent on the war in Afghanistan, it is who announced the cuts that attracted my attention; Business Secretary, Lord Mandleson!

Is it then official? Is education now nothing more than a business? Well, in Lord Mandleson's world no room for the pensive, thougthful, ruminating types that is for sure and we are told that the government also wants more two year degrees. Degrees, which we are told will require "the same amount of work as on a three-year degree but use the summer vacation as extra terms." Now, this could be an opportunity for a mediocre, getting old fart, unpublished, old fart like me. After all, who is going to teach on these courses during the summer? However, I shouldn't be getting my hopes up too much and I am sure they will find enough young PhDs, with no or very few publications and little or absolutely no eperience, to lecture part time in the hope that they might break into the system. Without, of course, thinking too much about the system that they are breaking into. A system where there is certainy no room for critical and creative thinking, where there is no room for those who like to chew the cud, a system that is run by a Business Secretary, who honestly believes that a quality education can be attained in two years. What a joke!

Amnesia

There was a group running around from the mid 80s until the mid 90s called 'Lloyd Cole and the Commotions'. Now, the group achieved a certain fame for a number of their records, but it is one particular ditty that I remember today and that is "Lost Weekend" and in particular the first verse of that song:
"It took a lost weekend in a hotel in amsterdam
and double pneumonia in a single room
and the sickest joke was the price of the medicine
are you laughing at me now may i please laugh along with you.

A lost weekend; well a lot of us have been there, haven't we? And the following morning there is the hangover and the, "where am i, who is that lying beside me, what have I been drinking, smoking, eating?"questions and on a particularly rough morning after the night before maybe even a;"Who am I?" Well, that was me this morning or almost and it was certainly me yesterday evening.

Yes, all thoughts of Bibi and his shennanigans, of "full spectrum dominance", of Blair and Brown and Bush and Cheney and Obama and of this, that and the next thing, were put on the shelf for a day, because "ego" was in hospital having his umbillical hernia sorted and having the metal plate from China taken out of his foot. There was the anesthetic and there was me falling into a deep, deep, sleep of the sort that leaves clouds around for, at least, 24 hours and lo and behold, wallah, abracadabra, just like that, when the clouds clear and you go back to www.anything.com there they are; Bibi is still playing his shennanigans, and "oh, they found the sign for above the gate at Auschwitz" but have still to find the inhuman perpetrators of the awful crime of theft and 'full spectrum dominance' is still in full swing.

Anyway, it is late now, the stomach is hurting just a little bit, so I will take myself off to bed and hope that when I wake up I will remember at least most of today for, while I am not too sure whether Llyod enjoyed his "lost weekend", I personally am not really a fan of amnesia and it is with that in mind that I am waiting for our spin and grin man, the one and only Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, when he appears before the' Chilcot Inquiry.' 

The picture shows the room where I spent last night; I think! And here is Llyod Cole who might not be the greatest but he is certainly a damn site better than Bibi or Tony:

The man with the spin and the grin starts to whine

Straight from the horses mouth; Tony Blair tells all and sundry that "it is not true that no one likes him" and it is all the British press's fault and he ends his little "plaidoyer" saying, "What I am able to do in Rwanda now is more important than what I was able to do for Rwanda as prime minister. Ditto in Palestine."

Tony doesn't get it, he really doesn't and if he does anything for the Palestinians it is certainly lost on any thinking Palestinian. No, this is a man who time and time again has expressed support for the zionist state and, Tony, what about your "good work" in Rwanda? Well, if that good work is about supporting British interests and supporting Paul Kagame as he causes havoc in the region with his troops pillaging, murdering and raping at home and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then yes Tony you are, indeed, doing "good work".

No Tony, you are bad news and this has nothing to do with a vendetta by the British media. You took the United Kingdom into two illegal wars when you were in office and now that you are out of it, you lick zionist arse in the Middle East, while spinning to all and sundry that you are impartial and in Africa you support a dictator whose stupidity in the first instance helped bring about the genocide committed by the Hutu on the Tutsi and who now himself is persectuting the Hutu instead of seeking some sort of real national reconciliation.

Failure at Copenhagen

Before he went to Copenhagen Obama called Meles Zenawi to discuss the UN climate talks. What followed was a "compromise" that saw Meles hawk African hopes for a pittance, according to Mithika Mwenda of Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance. It is not just the money, and we all know where that will go if and when it reaches Kinshasa, Kigili, Kampala, Addis and elsewhere, which is, of course, inadequate, but also the fact that Zenawi knows that Obama has failed miserably to put forward target reductions that will prevent a global disaster. Indeed, Obama has not "compromised" one jot on the American position and as I wrote in Thursday's post; "Washington's reduction target of 17% per less than the 2005 levels by 2020, means in fact only 3% below the 1990 levels. In the meantime, experts are demanding that developed countries reduce their emissions by 40% below 1990 levels."

So, there we have it; the hype man bribes the vain Meles Zenawi, while the authoritarian leader who is good at selling big chunks of Ethiopia to foreigners who then cause, among other things, environmental havoc, this time goes a bit further and, seduced by the hype man's piffle, drivel and flattery, hawks the future of the whole developing world, indeed, of the whole planet, to get himself onto the centre stage and get a few more millions flowing into his own personal bank accounts. In the meantime, Obama, who has really done nothing, insists that China and India offer a fuller account of its emissions reductions, so that he can get Congress and the American public to agree to his non-existent initiative. Of course, satellites already monitor Chinese and Indian CO₂ emissions.

It is five to midnight for the planet and what we are in fact experiencing is a farcical charade and a defensive rearguard action of an economic system that is based on fictitious capital and the petro dollar. Washington does not want any alternative to fossil fuels and for the time being the Chinese in particular remain dependent on them. Nevertheless, at least in the case of China we have indications, evidenced, among other things, by that country's ambitious nuclear programme, that there will at least be an attempted move in the right direction although we have no real reason to be optimistic and it might indeed prove to be a case of too little too late.

It is not as if they don't warn us

Well, if only we had listened to the ravings of the very mad Adolf back in 1924 or thereabouts and he wasn't exactly keeping anything a secret when he was writing "Mein Kampf", was he? No, even if we didn't get the chance to read his other "masterpiece", his "Zweitesbuch" until after the old world order had collapsed along with his new world order, Adolf really meant what he was saying back in 1924 and, after all, he did repeat it quite a few times, didn't he? No, we cannot complain that we weren't given fair warning.

Similary, we should have no illusions when it comes to Israel. There they are sitting in occupied territory, territory that is illegally occupied under international law, as occupied territory invariably is, and we get Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman telling us in no uncertain terms that the freeze on construction of the illegal settlements, that is in fact not a freeze at all, is only a piece of political expediency and that "It is clear to everyone that in 10 months, we will be building again full force; anyone who understands anything knows this."


Of course, what this means is that in ten months time they will be telling all and sundry that they really made a grand effort to accomodate the Palestinians, but that the Palestinians didn't reciprocate and now they have the right to build even more than they have been up until now. Oh, déjà vu,  been there before, and there was Adolf telling us all what he was going to do to Poland back in 1924, and and a few more times after that, and what did we get on the 1st of September 1939:
 "Polen hat heute nacht zum erstenmal auf unserem eigenen Territorium auch mit bereits regulären Soldaten geschossen. Seit 5:45 Uhr wird jetzt zurückgeschossen! Und von jetzt ab wird Bombe mit Bombe vergolten." Or, to put it simply, "it is all their fault, they started it, they are the baddies and we are the goodies."

Of course, by 1939 people were beginning to cotton on to our megalomanic Adolf, although it would take Friedrich Meinecke's  "Deutsche Katastrophe", the Holocaust, the madness of "Operation Barbarossa, hundreds of millions misplaced and dead, Auschwitz, and the old world order being turned upside down to defeat Hitler's "new world order". One wonders when we are going to see through Mr Lieberman and his buddies!

Well, maybe when they have their next "defensive" war, perhaps when they attack Iran "to stop Iran attacking them", or maybe, just maybe, when they have wiped out their next thousand or few thousands, or even maybe when they get round to their first hundreds of thousands, and then tell us all that they were doing it to defend themselves. Maybe, maybe then we are going to get suspicious and all of that is going to be after they have had their own little "Munich" and after they have got their own little "Czechoslovakia", more or less, delivered on a plate in the form of a big chunk of the occupied territories, because, after all, nobody, but nobody, wants to deprive them of what is "rightfully" theirs.

Inhuman

The sign above the main entrance gate to Auschwitz, "Arbeit macht Frei", has been stolen, Peres reminds the Polish Prime Minister of the sign's historical significance for the Jewish state and Yosi Levy, an Israeli Foreign Minister official, expresses his faith in the Polish police and their ability to apprehend the "inhuman thieves" and get the sign back. Of course, some of you might be thinking that they could always put up a replica.

One wonders if these people actually believe that they are the advocates for those who were gassed in a chamber of horrors that really does epitomise man's inhumanty to man? Indeed, such inhumanity is degraded by refering to the stealing of a sign as "inhuman". No, I suggest that Mr Peres and Mr Levy get involved in an organisation that might facilitate the decedents of those who had their land stolen being allowed to return to that land and who knows, they might start to understand the meaning of "inhuman" and we might even have a few street signs and town names, being put back up in their rightful places. Most certainly, the Palestinians won't even object to those signs being replicas.

Copenhagen

The Bolivian President, Evo Morales, is reported by 'Democracy Now' as saying that: "The budget of the United States is $687 billion for defence. And for climate change, to save life, to save humanity, they only put up $10 billion. This is shameful." Yes indeed, America's priorities remain shameful despite today's news from the 'New York Times'  that: "With time running out on the stalled Copenhagen climate negotiations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave new hope that an agreement might still be reached when she announced Thursday that the United States would help raise $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor nations combat climate change. It is now reported that the United States will contribute 20% that $100 billion a year be? However, whatever it will be we can rest assured that it is not in line with the 20.2% of annual CO2 emissions caused by "Uncle Sam" and that it pales into insignificance when compared to the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Moreover, the United States appears to be making its offer conditional on China allowing its efforts to limit emissions being monitored and that appears to be a "no, no" with the Chinese insisting that there will be no foreign intrusion into his country's affairs; although in the meantime Beijing has said that China would consider  insisted on no foreign intrusion into his country’s affairs. But, in what analysts said was an important concession, Mr. He, the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, said that China would consider voluntary “international exchanges” to share information about its emissions. One should understand that the Chinese don't want anyone intruding into their internal affairs and only would America not tolerate a similar intrusion but also when it comes to America's own emission cuts we have every reason to be suspicious. Washington's reduction target of 17% per less than the 2005 levels by 2020, means in fact only 3% below the 1990 levels. In the meantime, experts are demanding that developed countries reduce their emissions by 40% below 1990 levels.

Nevertheless, while understanding China's stance at not wanting foreign interference in so much as Washington, once again, exudes hypocrisy in the position that it adopts, it must be added that China and the USA together account for almost 42% of the global CO2 emissions. Unless both countries get serious, and I mean very serious, in their attempts to reduce emissions, the planet is heading for a disaster of the sort that when it does take place, and it will, what Washington or Beijing thinks just won't matter. Still with EU leaders trying to pressure China and the US into making deeper emissions cuts, we can only hope. at least, until tomorrow!

If you have a problem with the law, just change the law

Gordon Brown has told Tzipi Livni that he is "completely opposed" to the warrant issued for her arrest, while assuring her that "he will work to change the law that allowed it. Well, I am sure Gordon will manage to do just that but as it stands at the moment the only people exempt from 'universal jurisdication' as it is interpreted under UK law at the moment are, "sitting heads of state" although, in fact, it would appear that immunity has de facto been extended to sitting ministers in any foreign governments. Still, even accounting for this new interpretation of the law that immunity would not extend to ex-ministers. Therefore, while Bibi Netanyahu might think the law is an "absurdity", what he thinks is neither here nor there, the law is the law, is the law, after all; or so we should think!

Unfortunately, we all know that the Israelis are not very good when it comes to the law. However, with the British foreign minister, David Milliband, actually apologising to both Livni and her successor as Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for the arrest warrant, while adding that he will work to change "the UK laws that enable the issue of arrest warrants against Israeli officials accused of war crimes", it becomes difficult not to vomit. Here is a British foreign minister promising to amend that very law, which allows war criminals no respite, to Israel's benefit. One can only assume, moreover, that it will be amended exclusively for Israel and, perhaps, a few other favoured nations.

Therefore, what we would have are these exclusive,  arrogant, "a law unto themselves", zionist war criminals getting away with flouting international law being further immune from the law when they find themselves abroad. Of course, while Brown and Milliband have their machiavellian "Realpolitik" motivation for licking zionist arse, we might suspect that their reasoning vis-à-vis Jerusalem is not wholly altruistic. After all, if we really start applying international law, where will it all end?

Lieberman says that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism

It really cannot get any more perverse, can it? In today's 'Haaretz' we have a report of Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Foreign Minister, saying that the new anti-Semitism is directed at Israel rather than Jews. Now, let us forget for one second that many of those who criticise Israel are in fact Jews and let us forget that I don't really give a toss whether it is Jews or Christians or Arabs or Buddhists or Athiests who are stealing and killing and maiming, while not forgetting that it is the thieving and murdering that I am criticising. It is Israel, full stop, end of story, who is doing this; yes, it is Israel that has being actively pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing for the last 60 years, it is Israel that has illegal WMDs, it is Israel that is occupying someone elses land against international law, it is Israel who is bullying, imprisoning and killing innocents. Now, Mr Lieberman get off of your hobby horse, please. Quite simply, the international community is no longer willing to be blinded by this piffle, by this drivel, by this nonsense.

Using Lieberman's "logic", or rather lack of logic, Finkelstein, Klein, Chomsky, Pappe and yes, Goldstone and thousands of other of Jews around the globe and in Israel itself are no longer just "self-hating Jews" but are in fact also anti-Semitics. What a fool but the bigger the fool is anyone who falls for this crap and, what about Mr Lieberman's further contention that these "anti-Semitics want to  "delegitimize Israel". Well, my understanding of that one would be that if you break international law, time and time again, then you are actually delegitimizing yourself. Now, please, Mr Lieberman stick your "anti-Semitic" drivel up your arse and please refrain from anymore outpourings of verbal diarrhea, it is actually quite offensive to my tastes apart from anything else.

Arrest warrant for Livni

Let us make no mistake about it, Tzipi Livni might be "proud of all her decisions regarding Operation Cast Lead", but she is a war criminal and that is why a British court issuing a warrant for her arrest has to be greeted, even if nothing very much will come of it. Indeed, in a sense, it is not unlike an Italian court recently sentencing 23 CIA  operatives because of their role in the kindnapping in Rome of the Egyptian cleric Abu Omar back in 2003.

Of course, it is unlikely that Tzipi or the CIA agents will ever have their day in court; they are all too cowardly for that. Nevertheless, this is an indication of the civilised world saying that we cannot differentiate when it comes to war crimes and war criminals. Next up, the spin and grin man and the cowboy from Texas.

In the meantime, a pissed off Jerusalem has called in the Brtiish ambassador and we have the foreign secretary, David Milliband, telling his chums in the Israeli capital that he has spoken with Gordon Brown, and with the British Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, in order sort the "problem" out. Well David "old bean", the "problem" started just after Christmas last year when the hounds were let off the leash and went on their mad killing spree in Gaza. Now, we have the cowardly pack barking, howling and wailing that universal jurisdication doesn't apply to them.

Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me

In today's 'Times' Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, is quoted as saying that Tony Blair lied to persuade the British parliament and the British people to support the war on Iraq, while adding that his the spin and grin man's basic flaw was his 'sycophancy towards power' and his inabiltiy to resist resist the 'glamour' he attracted in Washington.

Well, we are getting there and in response to an article in the 'Guardian', which is based on the 'Times' article, one reader writes; "What a self-serving, sanctimonious, hypocritical, amoral little right-wing scumbag Blair turned out to be." Yes, nothing new here, Blair deceived the British people, he was "Uncle Sam's" bum licker, his sycophant, and the is a "self-serving, sanctimomious, hypocritical, amoral little right wing scumbag." Nevertheless, these are only character flaws that Mr Blair could brush aside with a, "well you are entitled to your opinion, we do, after all live in a democracy" or even counter with a simple, "no I am not". The scumbag has thick skin!

Let us get down to the nitty gritty with "buggerlugs" here, our spin and grin hypocrite; this man is responsible for a massive crime and it is time to look at the consequences of his actions, it is time to emphasise what happened because of his crime. Show the pictures of the young British soldiers with no limbs, the Iraqi children lying dead, and show the pictures of "his smugness" grinning and spinning with his partners in crime in Washington. Tony can live with a character assasination and he is still going to be welcome in Jerusalem and Washington, he is still going to get prime time televsion space on Fox News, he is still going to be giving after dinner speeches for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Let's move onto the nitty gritty and emphasise what this "self-serving, sanctimomious, hypocritical, amoral little right wing scumbag," this "lying, sycophant" caused.

Don't let him get away with it

John Pilger writes in his article, 'Normalising the Crime of the Century' that the reason behind the Chilcot Inquiry is to "normalise an epic crime by providing enough of a theatre of guilt to satisfy the media so that the only issue that matters, that of prosecution, is never raised." He then indicates that Blair will give us a perfect performance when he plays his disgusting disgusting part in this theatre, saying that he will "dutifully absorb the hisses and boos." Yes, I do not doubt that Mr Pilger is hitting the nail on the head and his statement that "all “inquiries” into state crimes are neutered in this way", would seem to suggest that he is indeed speaking with the wisdom that hindsight affords us.

However, his contention that the media has to be satisfied is interesting and I am reminded that while the mainstream media does indeed manufacture consent, it cannot always ignore public opinion. It was the public outcry despite a mass media that is particularly good at doing its job of brainwashing the majority that kept the crimes of Blair and company on the agenda and it was that outcry that has resulted in this inquiry. Therefore, while Mr Pilger is, no doubt, right in his assertion that the media will be left satisfied and Blair will be forced to show himself as thicked skinned, it is, nevertheless, up to the public to move onto the next stage and that next stage means having Blair prosecuted. Let us, at least, hope that the manufacturers of consent cannot fool all of the people all of the time and who knows, maybe, just maybe, the issue of prosecution will be raised.

Tony destroys his own defence

Well, there we have it, straight from the horses mouth; Tony Blair has admitted that "even without evidence of weapons of mass destruction" he would have invaded Iraq anyway. Well, that is almost a rhetorical tautology considering there were no weapons of mass destruction and he invaded Iraq anyway. No, of course, he didn't but British soldiers did and many of them paid with their lives for it.

That is why when Blair says, that he would still have thought it right to remove Saddam Hussein even if he had known that there were no WMDs, it is time to drag him in front of the ICC. No matter here that he never knew of the existence of WMDs, the fact remains that he would have dragged the United Kingdom into a war anyway, even if that war could not have been given the extremely tenous "legality" conferred upon it by the "WMDs poppycock".

Indeed, as early as 2004, Mr Blair was already preparing for this moment when he defended the decision to go to war by saying that he could apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong but not for removing Saddam. He then added that the world's is a better place without Saddam. Tony, you just don't get it, do you? Whatever you think or thought about Saddam Hussein is neither here nor there and you have effectively removed the one tenous defence, that of a defensive war, that you might have produced in the Hague. Of course, getting you there might just be a trifle more difficult than getting you convicted once you are there and the only certainty is that we are in for a lot of grin and spin when Tony appears in front of the Chilcot Inquiry.

Getting rid of the people

Apparently with American financing and help Egypt is building a six mile wall along the Rafah border. The wall will include a steel section which will go twenty to thirty metres below the ground and thus provide a barrier to all tunneling activities.

In the meantime the Egyptian government is becoming more and more like their Zionist chums with Cairo telling 'Al Jazeera' that "bulldozers and construction workers in the area are carrying out routine maintenance work." Of course, they are lying through their back teeth just as their masters in Jerusalem are when they claim that their existence is being threatened by arms smuggling through the tunnel. Therefore, what is the reason for blocking this last lifeline that Gaza has to the outside world?

For my part, I can only speculate at the moment. Nevertheless, while we might be tempted to put it down to pure vindicitiveness and a willingness to punish anyone who dares resist them, we can also be reasonably sure that there is a strategy behind their actions. Moreover, with the thousands who are faking illness to get out of Gaza most probably only representing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the number of those who want to leave, that strategy might be deduced. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that emptying Gaza of its Palestinian population is going to prove easier than doing the same on the West Bank. Yes, it could even be that Netanyahu's "Palestinian state", will be exlusively a motley collection of Jerusalem controlled "Bantustans" on the West Bank.

Fooling the people

There is no doubt that Obama is articulate and, yes, intelligent, very intelligent. However, it is also obvious that he is just the face that Washington needs to pursue its "full spectrum dominance" and it is precisely because of that that I cannot share in the outpourings of understanding and almost sypmathy for this "hype" creature that two separate articles in the 'Guardian'; one by Michael Tomasky and one by Martin Kettle apprear to advocate; indeed, both articles, which praise Obama's speech in Oslo, are almost a paraphrased version of each other.

Yes, what a "spellbounding similarity," what a "mind boggling likeness" and there was Tomsky concluding that the speech was perhaps "designed to … be truthful about the world as he sees it, and to be honest with the world and with posterity about the complexities we face," while Kettle in his summing up says, "Obama was right, when he said in Oslo: "We can understand that there will be war and still strive for peace." With Tomasky and Kettle the analogy of the brain and the dungheap were never more appropriate.

The world as Obama supposedly sees it or rather as he portrays it, is wrong; we are not threatened by Afghanistan and to believe anything else is absurd. Moreover, while the crimes being committed on the Hindukush wouldn't be any less wrong if he were open and honest about the real reasons why we are in Afghanistan, there would at least be less hypocrisy and less lying. Indeed, that is why I resent and can no longer listen to the "hype" man's drivel, for this is no idiot who can be at least partly admonished because of a lack of grey matter and his, like Blair's, crime is not just an intellectual dishonesty that seduces all and sundry but it is telling lies that, with the help of intellectual pygmies such as Tomasky or Kettle, are accepted as the truth and which ultimately are just as responsible for mass murder as was the nazi myth of the "Untermensch".  However, for me, at least,  I can put the record straight and Barack; "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

"Panem et Circenses"

After having decided to escalate the war in Afghaistan Barack Obama now arrives in Oslo to collect his Noble Peace Prize, while the Israeli government tells all and sundry that the freeze that doesn't exist could not have waited. However, if you think that is absurd, what about this?

'T-Home', as I mentioned in an early post gives me access to some English language channels and my main zapping numbers would appear to be, 153, 164 and 165 with my favourites appearing to be 'Dr 90210' (zapping number 153) and 'King of Queens' (zapping number 165). Escapism of the "highest" order and anyway there was me today thinking isn't 'Dr 90201' getting a bit serious with Dr Rey's wife, Haley, bent over a little coffin crying and me thinking that one of the Reys' two rather lovely kids had kicked the bucket only to discover that it was in fact their dog, a Chihuahua called "Peanuts". Well, to cut a long story short, there was a little formal burial service, with both of the Reys having a good cry, before they took themselves down to some home for stray dogs to get themselves a replacement for "Peanuts", which looked uncannily like "Peanuts". Of course, the new dog has found a new home and a new family and the new family are really happy at the new addition but the grief was obviously very real and Dr Rey finished off the episode by telling us all that there will always be a place in his heart for "Peanuts".

Escapism is necessary but might it not just be that drivel like this occupies that part of our hearts and minds that should be open for the lying and dying on Afghanistan's fields, to the ethnic cleansing that is going on in the Middle East, to the ongoing genocide in the Congo, etc. etc.? Moreover, even the most moronic have at least an inkling that "Die Hard 3", "Rambo" and John Wayne and the 7th Cavalry are ..... well, aren't the real world. However, 'Dr 90201' is the real world, indeed, these are good doctors who do some very good work, and if I had started to empathise with this grown man and woman crying over a little dog, I would have probably ended up putting a bullet through my head after watching a 'Guardian' clip on people suffering in North Kivu at the hands of the Rwandan Hutu milita, the 'Interahamwe',  sometimes known as the FDLR.

Yes, Obama collecting the Noble Peace Prize is absurd and the "freeze" that is not a freeze is a farce. However, as long a we live in a mad, mad, world, where we would rather shed our tears when our pet dog dies or our favourite football team loses than confront ourselves with images of real people being forced off of their land, being blown to bits or having their limbs hacked off, we really aren't going to worry too much about genuine injustice, lies and crimes against humanity. No, the manufacturing of consent is supplemented by big dollops of "panem et circenses" and the human condition is not in a healthy state.

The surge begins in Afghanistan

By yesterday evening at at least 127 had died and 448 had been injured after five suicide car bombings in Bagdhad. Surely, even the most short sighted must now be aware that the so-called surge was nothing more than a gimmick to allow the US a face saving way to create enough temporary security for most of its troops to leave. Of course, the Americans have not quite left and as the so-called "coalition of the willing" has metamorphosed into a "coaliton of one", the fifty thousand Americans who have stayed on supposedly to train the Iraqi government forces. They will increasingly feel out of harms way in their bases, which follow the pipleines much in the same way as the Crusader forts used to be dotted along the pilgramage routes of yore. This is the American "victory" and it would seem to offer them their best possible scenario about 1,500 miles to the east. If it's good enough for Bagdhad it is good enough for Kabul.

Of course, as the post surge operations in Afghanistan begin there is a difference, and that is, while the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, wants the Americans out of his country, over in Kabul the man with the nice shawls is hoping that "Uncle Sam" will stay until 2024, despite Obama wanting to start withdrawing his troops in 2011. Of course, the difference is irrelevant for with Mr Karzai talking about the "force required to secure the entire country", he really doesn't get it, does he. No, this is not about what you or Mr al-Maliki want. This is all about a new "splendid isolation", one that will minimize American casualties, while allowing Washington geopolitical control of both countries without having to control the people.

As more and more resources and more and more money pour into both Iraq and Afghanistan, resistance to both wars will increase in a United States, which already needs Chinese credit to pay the bills. Moreover, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan can be controlled geopolitically like this. It might be worth pointing out that the Crusaders invariably integrated with the local population for the Iraqis and Afghanistanis the cancer in their countries is all too evident. Whatever, the reasoning behind an American strategy that might offer not only a "face saving" limited retreat but also "extended" control of resources in Iraq and Afghanistan, a superficial "winning" of both wars, the reality is that, sooner or later, "Uncle Sam" will be leaving without having achieved anything in either country.

Italian Justice

Amanda Knox was convicted along with her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of her roommate the British student Meredith Kercher. The 22 year old Ms Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and her 25 year old Italian boyfriend to 25 years after a trial that lasted a year. Now it might appear to the sloppy, subjective Americans that the Italians just don't like them, that justice somehow hasn't been done and that it really doesn't matter that her boyfriend, who is Italian and who is a member of a wealthy and influential Bari family, was also convicted.

Anyway, now we have Knox's mother saying, that she is worried that even an appeal would not be fair in Perugia where "feelings are so against Amanda," and we seem to have an American press that is stirring the Knox fan club into its "Italians are anti American" balyhoo and in the meantime we have Hillary Clinton saying that she will meet Maria Cantwell, the Democratic Senator from Knox's home state of Washington, and listen to her reservations, which include the suggestion that "anti-Americanism" may have tainted the trial.

Yes, the Italians can be a wee bit slow and this was a long trial. Nevertheless, while I don't know all the details of this particular case, it would appear that the American media is also woefully unaware of them. Furthermore, it remains difficult for me to imagine that an Italian court would convict two innocent young people to spending their best years behind prison bars. That, of course, remains to some extent speculation on my part. However, it is an opinion that is supported by my knowing that the Italian legal sytem only recently convicted 23 Americans, mostly CIA operatives, for kidnapping the Egyptian cleric, Abu Omar and, also recently, lifted Berlisconi's immunity from persecution. Yes, there appears to be something akin to the rule of law in Italy, while, on the other hand, in the good old US of A,  50% of the prison inmates are Afro-Americans, despite that group only constituting some 12.8% of the population and we don't hear about Hillary meeting some Senator to talk about the possibilty of racism being behind a particular verdict.

No, unlike many Afro-Americans and Hispanics in the United States, Amanda Knox received a fair trial and her appeal should now go through the proper process in the Italian courts. Of course, should that appeal be unsuccessful, then "Uncle Sam" has at least two possibilities; firstly, he could flex his muscles and bully the Italian government and, if that fails, he could send some of the 23 who were convicted by the Italian courts back to Italy to earn their "American" reprieve, by kidnapping Amanda and bringing her home to a heroine's welcome.  No doubt, she is already thinking up the title of her book - "Italian Justice", "Innocent Behind Bars", "Thank You America" - and I won't be watching 'Larry King' on that particular evening and I am most definitely not going to the film.

There are dung heaps and there are dung heaps

My watching the debate between Finklestein and Dershowitz led to a sort of déjà vu with the very first post in this blog; the reason for the blog and some nineteen months on I would be the first to admit that my potpourri of this, that and the next thing, might have flattered to deceive at times but has generally failed to metamorphose into real scholarship.

No, in keeping with the wise words of my mentor at the then New University of Ulster in the early eighties, my brain has proved itself to be indeed like his proverbial dung heap which, if left long enough, will produce something: a dipping into a the 'Guardian' here, a looking at 'Haaretz' there and abracadabra, lo and behold, as if it were straight from the horses mouth. Nevertheless, Alan Dershowitz makes me think that I am possibly being a little bit too harsh on myself and when it comes to mediocrity there is worse, much worse.

Anyway, there was Finkelstein unmasking Dershowitz for the great fraud that he is and what did I realise? Well, I realised that it gets much worse than the 'Guardian' the 'Haaretz' and any of the other books and publications that I have quoted from when knocking something together. Not only does Professor Dershowitz in his 'Case for Israel' largely plagiarise Mary Peter's great hoax, 'From Time Immemorial', but he also avails himself of sources that make a mockery of any serious debate on a very serious issue. Yes, if it is bad enough that the "author" refers to IDF internal investigations and Israeli government websites as a source of evidence, it becomes ridiculous in the extreme when we have him, quoting the 'Boston Globe' when that paper quotes an IDF source on casualties, quoting an editorial  in the 'Orlando Sentinal' and even quoting the website of a film he had seen, or not seen.

Well, there we are, the dung heap has produced again and from the dung heap comes the conclusion that, while I will never adopt my mentor's favoured "falsificationist" approach, a la Popper, and while I will never have the industry to emulate a Dr Finkelstein, well, there are just dung heaps and dung heaps, aren't there? Furthermore, as I have already indicated there might just be an occassion when my dung heap flatters to deceive and produces a flower of sorts. With Professor Dershowitz on the other hand, it really is just a pile of shite, isn't it?

Is Brown moving away from clumsy individual letters to mass verbal condolences?

Today the death of the 100th British soldier in Afghanistan this year was announced and the prime minister Gordon Brown said his "thoughts were with the families and friends of all the 100 British personnel who have died this year." The dead soldier from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment brings the number of fatalities since Britain got itself involved in this futile "little" exercise in bringing "democracy" to the Hindukush, while ridding the world of terrorism, to 237. Moreover, with 10,000 British troops now in place to help General McChrytal's surge the number of British dead is not only going to increase, it is also going to increase dramatically.

Gordon, therefore, saying that his thoughts are with all one hundred who have died this year might be a demonstration of pragmatism by that "great" statesman. Yes, sending verbal condolences out to one hundred at once is a good idea, especially at a time when there are going to be so many letters to catch up on. Moreover, when we bear in mind that he has had difficulties in the past in getting letters of condolence out promptly, one letter arriving two years late, and when we consider that those handwritten letters that he does send tend to be scribbles that are full of spelling mistakes, Gordon really is doing a bit of quick thinking.

When, oh when, will people begin to realise that these idiots do not care one iota for their own, never mind for the thousands and thousands of innocents who are dying in Aghanistan?

The coming trade war

The columnist, Paul Krugman, wrote that there was probably no strategy behind China's accumulation of some two trillion US dollars and that those reserves were acquired in "the same way Britain acquired its empire: in a fit of absence of mind." Of course, Great Britian had no grand plan at the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, I am not sure what Mr Krugman is trying to say here or say when he likewise contends that China had no strategy when it started to accumulate dollars. The British Empire, we know, was spawned by an ability to react pragmatically to a given situation and the Chinese leadership in Beijing has shown time and time again that it is invariably pragmatic. Indeed, this pragmatism is evidenced by its unwillingness to pull the plug on the United States so long as the yuan is pegged to the dollar. Indeed, my assertion is that it suits China to have a weak dollar.

Of course, in the longer term this reliance on the dollar will have to be broken if China is to replace the United States as the world's major power. Moreover, while there are a number of reasons why this won't happen in the shorter term, it is silly to insinuate that the Chinese have some sort of sentimental attachment to the dollar-based international financial system because it is they who have benefited most from that system.

Indeed, it would appear that China is already preparing a three pronged assault on its dollar reliance by building huge gold reserves, cutting its US bond holdings and starting limited cross border trading with yuan. Whatever else, while pragmatism dictates that the Chinese leadership in Beijing is not going to cut off its nose to spite its face, there is enough evidence to suggest that the financial crisis last year has not only revealed serious flaws in a monetary system that facilitates Anglo-Saxon global hegemony, but could, indeed, also usher in the death knell of that system.

Nevertheless, let us be wary when it comes to predictions. The Economist Oliver Accominotti's comparison between China's dependency on the dollar and France's dependency on sterling from 1926 until 1931, makes interesting reading and his conclusion that "foreign reserves can be both a source of instability for the international monetary system, and a burden for large holders", is sound. However, it is the Anglo-Saxons who have been there before and it is to the "satanic genuis" of Sir Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England who ensured that France was to give up all aspirations to monetary hegemony, that they will look for their inspiration.

Of course, it might be added, that when it comes to a trade war, the Anglo-Saxons do not need any role models to play their "game". Still, we might wonder if the "pragmatic" Chinese might not be a slightly different proposition from the French in 1926 and the "Asian Tigers" in 1997.  Only time will tell but we can rest assured that at the very least a trade war between China and the United States will be required to end any speculation.

Two Politicians: A Short Story

Merkel's thirty two year old "Familienministerin", Kristina Köhler, is a pretty young lady and she has got a degree in Sociology, but, I mean, you just have to look at her and you realise that Politics really doesn't have very much to do with ability. Nevertheless, she does look quite sweet and maybe, just maybe, somewhere in there, there is a brain and then you get to Bob Ainsworth, the British Defence Secretary and really, it doesn't get anymore ridiculous and if only half of the article in the 'Times' is true; well, it is just bloody offensive that this fool is even allowed to spout off his tuppence worth on Afghanistan.

Anyway, Bob is the product of a British comprehensive school and an ex-factory worker. Now there have been many politically aware horny-handed sons of toil, who left school, more or less unqualified before taking an auto-didactic route to political awareness. However, when you read that Bob's wife
gets upset because Bob reads too many military histories and watches too many war films and when you read of Bob spouting out run of the mill drivel such as:  “There are too many people who do not make the link: they think Afghanistan is too far away, that al-Qaeda have gone somewhere else." It becomes all too clear that this is not only not an academic, analytical mind, but that this is the mind of an idiot, a parrot, someone of, at the very best, a very crude half education.


Nevertheless, Kristina and Bob are not out of place in the world of politics. Indeed, they belong there and they are only indicative of a system that needs nonentities like them to represent its interests; gullible fools who pass on second hand drivel as if they were actually imparting some knowledge. Perhaps, it was never any different and the real personalities, the real politicians, the real brains, only make their appearance when it really all becomes just too silly and, while with Ms Köhler we have not quite reached the "too silly" stage, with Bob we are long since past it; what a fool! Anyway, I have decided to show Kristina's picture and not Bob's; Kristina at least has one admirer.

Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Uganda's proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been linked to a US Christian group that is led by the 'Saddleback Church's' senior pastor, Rick Warren. Rick is a man who supports those who burn condoms to fight the spread of AIDS in Africa and Obama it seems agrees at least a little bit with Rick because he choose him to lead the prayer at his inauguration and, one of my "favourite" Zionists, Bibi's "self-hating Jew", David Axelrod, tells me that the president finds Rick's work in Africa just hunky-dory or, at least, something like that.

In the meantime Rick has decided to distance himself from, Pastor Martin Ssempa, who, at least officially, is no longer his man in Africa. We can only wonder why Rick wants to distance himself from him. After all, it is Ssempa who is actively burning the condoms, who compares homosexuality to witchcraft and who enjoys close ties to Uganda's First Lady and wasn't Rick only recently supporting an intiative banning same-sex marriage in California while comparing homosexuality to pedophilia, incest and bestiality? Still, we shouldn't start to think that Rick is on the mend and his distancing himself from Ssempa in general terms, saying that Ugandan minister represents neither him nor his church, was kept in perspective by his refusing to condemn the new legislation in Uganda; a law that can apply the death penalty for the "crime" of homosexuality.

Of course, why shouldn't Obama have friends like Rick at home and, while Rick has his friends in Uganda, the hype man can continue to cultivate his friendship with that great statesman, Yoweri Museveni, and, who knows, when we become better informed through the mainstream media of Museveni's ethnic cleansing of the Acholi people in the north of Uganda, we might even have Obama distancing himself from Museveni not only general terms but also criticising ethnic cleansing per se. Now, that really would worry Bibi and his "self hating" Jew, David Axelrod!

The end of empire

This morning's 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' reminded me that I had forgotten to mention an important aspect of Obama's speech; when the "troop withdrawal begins in 2011, the hype man will be coming up for election.

Let us consider this for a second; 30,000 extra American troops are being deployed to Afghanistan with "Uncle Sam's" bum chums in Europe being asked to make up General McChrystal's "missing" 10,000 and while there is some hesitation on the part of Germany and France to send extra men, it is Georgia with the begging bowl to the fore, followed by Washington's number one bum chum, 'Blighty'.

However, to get back to the original point; this is December 2009 and if the withdrawal is to begin in 2011, what are these extra troops supposed to achieve? Nothing, absolutely nothing, or so it would seem for as Simon Jenkins commented in yesterday's 'Guardian', the taliban "will simply wait, controlling the country areas and killing Nato patrols with sufficient regularity to keep western public opinion demoralised". Yes, that will be the taliban's strategy, no doubt, nevertheless, with the withdrawal coming so quickly after the deployment they might not have the even need to wait until western public opinion is on their side and what we are going to have is the start of the withdrawl in time for the next presidential election with what is essentially a charade being sold as a victory on the Hindukush. How shabby, how fucking shabby and not only are people dying for an American geopolitical shambles, they are also dying for a hype man who sold them a lie.  

Yesterday, Jenkins also said that Obama had no stomach for a fight. Unfortunately, while that might be true, there is no real reason to believe that that is behind the decision to announce a withdrawal beginning in 2011. The hype man and his backers are motivated by more selfish factors and it is those factors that are going to be responsible for an initial escalation in the war, a defeat and withdrawal dressed as victory and an Afghanistan that will be in a much bigger mess than it was back in 2001. For Obama the picture is slightly different and if this is not America's last hurrah, we can see in him a modern Theodosius; after Theodosius died in 395, the Roman Empire was split permanently. The United States is going to be around for a while longer but its geopolitical domination as the sole ruler of the world has already ended on the Hindukush.

"Freeze" on Construction and the Noble Peace Prize

Israeli officials have stated that the decision to construct a further 84 illegal buildings, in the West Bank, they join some 2,500 housing units that already been excluded, is not an attempt to appease those settlers, who are angry because of 10-month freeze on new building in the territories and back in Washington Barack Obama decides to escalate the war in Afghanistan and the journalist, Simon Jenkins, says that "Obama has no stomach for a fight."

The idiom we might accept even although the hype man himself will be doing as little actual fighting as Galtieri and Thatcher did back in 1982 when about a thousand young men died so that they could save their faces. No, idioms enrich language and although I would even have to agree with Mr Jenkins when he says, that the taliban "will simply wait, controlling the country areas and killing Nato patrols with sufficient regularity to keep western public opinion demoralised" and that the hardest part will be exiting with dignity. However, could someone please tell me how someone can win the 'Noble Peace Prize' and escalate a war and how is it possible to "freeze" construction and build houses at the same time?

"War is Peace", "continuing is stopping" and we are living in dangerous times where worn, dying or dead metaphors, verbal false limbs and pretentious diction is carried at the speed of light and eased into unsuspecting brains that have long since been manipulated to consent to the gobblydegook, newspeak world that we inhabit. People will die because of the man of "peace", while illegal building in illegally occupied territories will be refered to, for the time being, as a "freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria."

The war is to escalate

Well, there was Obama knocking down one myth after the other and telling everyone who wasn't in the process of yawning and falling asleep that there are no parallels with Vietnam, because the war is not a broad based popular insurgency because the taliban don't have the necessary support and, "unlike Vietnam, the US was attacked from Afghanistan and "remains a target for those same extremists plotting along its border".

What piffle, what drivel, what utter nonsense; firstly, the taliban are popular with sectors of the Pashtu population and with civilian casualties in this war increasing every day and with those casualties about to increase even more with Obama's escalation of the war, this support is going to increase. Moreover, have you ever heard of an Afghani blowing himself or herself up outside Afghanistan? Oh, right I get it, the myserious Bin Laden was in Afghanistan when 9/11 took place and it was he who planned the whole thing. What utter rubbish and, apart from anything else, we have yet to see Bin Laden appear in court. Oh, but you cannot find him; how convenient! Furthermore, could someone please explain why 'al-Qaida' needs Afghanistan to plan an attack?

Please, no more illusions about what is happening here. This is a war to secure "Uncle Sam's" geopolitical interests and it is a war that is going to cost even more taxpayer's dollars and even more dead before leaving an Afghanistan National Army to defend itself and it is now the parallels with Vietnam might begin to appear if it weren't for one suspecting that this time it will be more like the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and that the last GI,  "Tommy", "Canuck" and "Gefreiter" will have long left before Kabul collapses.