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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Q: What was Bush, Blair and Powell's reward for launching what must be the worst war in living memory? |
For some odd reason though, international, mass-casualty terrorism seems to have come to a stop. I wonder why that could possibly be.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, I have been wondering this. I thought it was Covid but maybe it is just fashion. Not sure what you mean by 'mass-casualty terrorism' but this was originally generated by America's support for Israel, which was cost-effective in the general cold war with Russia but disastrous in creating a permanent pool of international terrorists. Russian and then American policies in Muslim Asia brought it to full flower.
Notice how China has dealt with its own domestic terrorism problems (with the Uighurs) but has taken care not to get involved elsewhere. And Muslim terrorists have taken care not to get involved with China even though Uighurs are Muslim. None of this may be possible when China is the Hegemon Power.
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Grant
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Can Ishmael explain why the Americans have produced no evidence that Saddam was connected with the 9/11 bombers? Serious question. They must have looked very hard for it but, like the weapons of destruction, it doesn’t appear to exist
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Actually the Americans did not make the link overtly -- even they are not so dumb as to make Saddam an enthusiast for Islamic terrorism. He was head of the Ba'athist Party whose whole raison d'etre was to oppose political Islam. Bush merely connected them via his Axis of Evil speech.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I have been pondering the roots of Ishmael's 'mass casualty terrorism'. The earliest example I can come up with is the 1946 bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem by the Jewish right-wing terror group, the Irgun. Can anyone think of an earlier example?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Grant wrote: | | Can Ishmael explain why the Americans have produced no evidence that Saddam was connected with the 9/11 bombers? Serious question. They must have looked very hard for it but, like the weapons of destruction, it doesn’t appear to exist |
There was an allegation at the time that Former Iraqi military officers had described a highly secret terrorist training facility in Iraq known as Salman Pak, where both Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs received training on hijacking planes and carrying out assasinations. The evidence is that it was used, by those that wanted to believe it, as justification for later policy, although some intelligence analysts had believed that the real origin was the Iraqi National Congress, who wanted America to invade, so they could then take over.
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect5.html
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Ahmed Chalabi (who basically was the Iraqi National Congress) was the wickedest of them all. The others were dupes or ideologues -- which is some kind of defence -- but he knew exactly what he was doing. You would think being a convicted bank fraud would be a red flag but not to the Bush White House. "Tell us more, Ahmed. So long as it's a casus belli."
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
| While the Americans pinned their hopes on elections one soon learned that this undermined national unity rather than solidified it. Mark Urban on Newsnight |
Q: When are we going to learn that democracy is rarely the best form of government anywhere outside western liberal democracies?
A: As soon as western liberal democracies learn not to interfere in other countries' political arrangements. |
If you compare the years of Saddam dictatorship, say 1979-2003, with the years afterward 2003-2023, in retrospect the latter seems a remarkable improvement on the former.
During 1979-2003, you had purges, forced relocations of hundreds of thousands, millions fleeing in fear, prohibition on many religious practices and languages, practice of gassing and destruction of villages, consequently lots of missing people, widespread starvation, a number of wars started that killed millions, medical experimentation on humans, crucifixions, amputations, brandings, rapes as methods of torture, not to mention unspeakable things done to children.
To be fair, the genocide charges, ie it's alleged he was identifying and exterminating on basis of racial profile, were still outstanding at the time of Saddam's death, these were never fully heard because he was already found guilty and executed for war crimes.
The next 20 years were not good, but surely much better when compared with the previous 24, ie when compared with what actually was happening within that country rather than what happens in Peckham.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| If you compare the years of Saddam dictatorship, say 1979-2003, with the years afterward 2003-2023, in retrospect the latter seems a remarkable improvement on the former. |
I have rarely read a statement with which I more violently disagree.
| During 1979-2003, you had purges, forced relocations of hundreds of thousands, millions fleeing in fear, prohibition on many religious practices and languages, practice of gassing and destruction of villages, consequently lots of missing people, widespread starvation, a number of wars started that killed millions, medical experimentation on humans, crucifixions, amputations, brandings, rapes as methods of torture, not to mention unspeakable things done to children. |
All this is granted (though maybe not 'millions') but compared to living in a failed state, it's small change. You seem to forget that even when it comes to the nadir of war, Iraqis in the last twenty years have had to to suffer ISIS et al. Comparable surely to Saddamite wars of the twenty years before that.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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You can disagree, but the years 1991-2003 would in Wiley's view have been much worse if the US, UK and France had not set up no fly zones over much of northern and southern Iraq, in Northern Iraq, where there was "estimated", ok, we will probably never know, 1 million refugees fleeing another Anfal. The allies/western imperialists were flying daily missions during these years, over 200,000 according to Wiki. Total yearly cost 1-2 Billion dollars. Why do this?
The only answer I can think of is that they were still protecting the Kurds and Marsh Arabs from Saddam, but I am willing to hear other answers. Maybe it would have been more politic to wait and have planes shot down by rapidly improving surface to air missile technology, and then invade?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I do not disagree with you in the least. I was comparing like with like.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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President Macron: We'll have to postpone your state visit to France, your majesty. Mme Macron and I were so looking forward to endless banquets and lots of pomp and circumstance.
King Charles: I'm in floods.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Actually, pondering this flippancy, it is something of a blow to the Charles Project. He must be aware he's not highly esteemed and is stepping into the regal shoes of someone who was esteemed off the scale. A trip to Paris and acreages of fawning telly was just the ticket.
Which reminds me, how would he have got there? Is there a royal TGV? If not there would be no better way of showing our loyalty than by spending millions on one. There could even be two -- his and hers -- if the rumours I've heard are true. My lips are sealed but feel free to pass it on.
Which reminds me, if only she were still alive we could have had a rerun of Queen Caroline and George IV during Charles III's forthcoming coronation. Now that would put the ratings off the scale. Griselda, pass me my necromancy machine and take a letter, "Dear Netflix..."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I am a bit shocked at the media's response to Netanyahu's claim that he is 'postponing' his constitutional reforms. They are, in fact, dead in the water. Do the hacks believe the strident opposition will have disappeared when Netanyahu re-introduces them next time, or at any time? This is important because it is the first time Israel has not lurched to the right since the right-wing (and Sephardi) Likud seized control from left-wing (and Ashkenazi) Labour back in the 1970's.
It must be fairly intolerable being an intelligent Israeli since you know your country is doomed if it carries on the way it's going, and doomed if it doesn't. It's not quite like Scotland, but the syndrome is the same.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| For the first time in nearly 40 years, Russian authorities arrested an American journalist on espionage charges. Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal... |
While not denying this may very well be trumped up by the Russians for any of a variety of reasons, it has been very strikingly omitted from outraged western media accounts that one reason may be that Gershkovich is a spy. Here are the indications:
1. He was arrested at Ekaterinburg. This used to be called Sverdlovsk (before that Ekaterinburg where the Tsar's family was butchered by the Bolsheviks). Sverdlovsk was a closed city, the seat of highly secret military work. I know this because my long time girlfriend happened to be a long-time atomic scientist working there. (Before she met me of course unless she was a sleeper agent and, come to think of it, she often said, "Oh no, Mick, I'm too tired.")
2. Ekaterinburg is not a natural hang-out for a Wall Street Journal journalist. They don't all hang out in Harry's Bar at the Moscow Metropol but nor do they beaver away in places that are still at the heart of the Russian military-industrial complex. It's like finding a Russian 'journalist' at Huntsville, Alabama.
3. Gershkovich is described as of 'Ukrainian/Russian heritage'. This is code for 'Ukrainian'. Now I don't know anything about Evan himself, but I do know that diaspora Ukrainians are offering to help out Ukraine in all kinds of ways, wherever they happen to be in the world, at this perilous time for their (ex-) motherland.
4. It is highly unlikely the Russians would arrest an American journalist going about his lawful occasions. It is true, in wartime, that a foreign journalist comes perilously close to being a de facto foreign agent (there's not a lot of difference in their work) but if Gershkovich had been an over-zealous hack he would have got the standard 'persona non grata' treatment. Expulsion not the gulag.
5. The Russians do not go in for the Iranian/North Korean/Chinese policy of picking up 'anyone will do' for quasi hostage purposes. They are quite scientific about it. There are hundreds of better candidates known to the FSB than a genuine American journalist for their fell purposes.
No, in my judgement, Evan Gershkovich is a spy -- probably recruited recently by the Ukrainians since he has been in Russia for six years. Though just possibly a CIA 'asset' either from the off or when the invasion of Ukraine put him in play.
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