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The rattle of a simple man
I had one of my moments last evening. Just bibulous enough to indulge in a "Walter Mitty" fantasy. A latter day T.E.Lawrence.
In other circumstances I might well have woken up in Benghazi airport with a hangover and scared shitless. Not quite that daft but daft enough to want to communicate my mood. What set me of was this, from an email from my sister.
Famous Aussie expat journalist, John Pilger writes:
'Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared the President's daily intelligence brief. McGovern was at the apex of the "national security" monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to President George W. Bush that the "drumbeat for war" was based not on intelligence, but lies. "It was 95 per cent charade," McGovern told me.
"How did they get away with it?"
"The press allowed the crazies to get away with it."
"Who are the crazies?"
"The people running the [Bush] administration have a set of beliefs a lot like those expressed in Mein Kampf … these are the same people who were referred to in the circles in which I moved, at the top, as 'the crazies'."
I said, "Norman Mailer has written that that he believes America has entered a pre-fascist state. What's your view of that?"
"Well … I hope he's right, because there are others saying we are already in a fascist mode."
On 22 January, Ray McGovern emailed me to express his disgust at the Obama administration's barbaric treatment of the alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning and its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. "Way back when George and Tony decided it might be fun to attack Iraq," he wrote, "I said something to the effect that fascism had already begun here. I have to admit I did not think it would get this bad this quickly."
On 16 February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at George Washington University in which she condemned governments that arrested protestors and crushed free expression. She lauded the liberating power of the internet while failing to mention that her government was planning to close down those parts of the internet that encouraged dissent and truth-telling.
It was a speech of spectacular hypocrisy, and Ray McGovern was in the audience. Outraged, he rose from his chair and silently turned his back on Clinton. He was immediately seized by police and a security goon and beaten to the floor, dragged out and thrown into jail, bleeding. He has sent me photographs of his injuries. He is 71. During the assault, which was clearly visible to Clinton, she did not pause in her remarks.
Fascism is a difficult word, because it comes with an iconography that touches the Nazi nerve and is abused as propaganda against America's official enemies and to promote the West's foreign adventures with a moral vocabulary written in the struggle against Hitler.
And yet fascism and imperialism are twins. In the aftermath of world war two, those in the imperial states who had made respectable the racial and cultural superiority of "western civilisation", found that Hitler and fascism had claimed the same, employing strikingly similar methods. Thereafter, the very notion of American imperialism was swept from the textbooks and popular culture of an imperial nation forged on the genocidal conquest of its native people. And a war on social justice and democracy became "US foreign policy".
As the Washington historian William Blum has documented, since 1945, the US has destroyed or subverted more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and used mass murderers like Suharto, Mobutu and Pinochet to dominate by proxy. In the Middle East, every dictatorship and pseudo-monarchy has been sustained by America. In "Operation Cyclone", the CIA and MI6 secretly fostered and bank-rolled Islamic extremism. The object was to smash or deter nationalism and democracy. The victims of this western state terrorism have been mostly Muslims. The courageous people gunned down last week in Bahrain and Libya, the latter a "priority UK market", according to Britain's official arms "procurers", join those children blown to bits in Gaza by the latest American F-16 aircraft.
The revolt in the Arab world is not merely against a resident dictator but a worldwide economic tyranny designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries like Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with half the population earning less than $2 a day. The people's triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism. How did such extremism take hold in the liberal West?
"It is necessary to destroy hope, idealism, solidarity, and concern for the poor and oppressed," observed Noam Chomsky a generation ago, "[and] to replace these dangerous feelings with self-centred egoism, a pervasive cynicism that holds that [an order of] inequities and oppression is the best that can be achieved. In fact, a great international propaganda campaign is under way to convince people – particularly young people – that this not only is what they should feel but that it's what they do feel." Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has rejected fear. An insurrection of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun. In the United States, where 45 per cent of young African/Americans have no jobs and the top hedge fund managers are paid, on average, a billion dollars a year, mass protests against cuts in services and jobs have spread to heartland states like Wisconsin. In Britain, the fastest-growing modern protest movement, UK Uncut, is about to take direct action against tax avoiders and rapacious banks. Something has changed that cannot be unchanged.
The enemy has a name now."
John Pilger 25 FEB 2011
Not just a name but a face. One does not need a conspiracy theory; the culture of the elite is enough. Trans-national and pervading.
Not just this but from the SMH (1 March 2011). I borrow from it just that part that is relevant:
Saudi Arabia is, of course, the world's oil superpower. It accounts for 12 per cent of world oil output, though it can readily increase this by half if necessary. Its reserves loom even larger, with around a quarter of known global reserves.
Saudi Arabia is an extraordinary relic. It resembles a religiously fanatical family petrol franchise more than a modern nation state.
The country is named after the Saud family. It is an absolute monarchy.
No less than 45 per cent of its national economy is oil. And the Saud family has no fewer than 22,000 members, all of whom live off the oil revenue. The House of Saud has created a symbiosis with a fundamentalist strand of Islam, Wahabbism. The Saud family directly supports and funds the Wahabbists, and, in return, they avow loyalty to the king. The sect, richly bankrolled by oil revenues, has been exporting the fundamentalist Wahabbist ideology wherever it can across the Islamic world. The king, the ailing octogenarian Abdullah, had been out of the country for three months for back surgery. He returned to his kingdom, with uprisings in the states to its east, south and west, in haste last Wednesday. As his plane approached the runway in the capital, Riyadh, officials announced new handouts to the people of $36 billion, which amounts to about $2000 per head of population. A brave coterie of activists, unimpressed at this hush money, has called for a "day of rage" on March 11. Also in Riyadh last week was the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.
Why? Because the US is as worried as King Abdullah. Washington has supported the House of Saud, with a military base in the country, since 1945 under Roosevelt.
As the American resource academic Michael Klare explains in his book Resource Wars: "At the core of this arrangement is a vital but unspoken quid pro quo: in return for protecting the royal family against its enemies, American companies will be allowed unrivalled access to Saudi oilfields."
This is a great, yet largely invisible, nexus of global power and global economics. The deepest meaning of the Arab uprisings is only just beginning to dawn on the world.
It might be bigger than anyone realises.
First I will reflect on the cynical use of religion to divide people. Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Sunni, Shia, Wahabbist, the list goes on and on. There must be as many gods as there are people who believe in a deity.
I only know one thing, that God is unknowable and any who claim to know god or divine its purpose are the ultimate blasphemers.
Enough said.
I have a vision for the Arabs: One people, one nation, one country encompassing the middle east and north Africa. As such it would right many wrongs, provide equity, dilute extremism, and usher in a new world order. Not that it would solve all our problems (overpopulation at the top of the list), nor should the Israelis be left out of the equation, nutters though a lot of them are.
Gone would be the tinpot dictatorships, artificial countries created by the imperialists, Kuwait, UAE etc.
Fiona suggested I put this up, Webdiary is not the power it once was but who knows? Mighty aches from little corns grow so they tell me, or something similar.
The Arabs don't need a leader, they need several; men of intellect as well as charisma. I know they're out there.
I feel privileged to live in the age of internet – it gives everyone a voice.
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international dateline
Post script: The report on Dateline on Bahrain tonight would have chilled viewers to their very marrow, if they respond to these things like me.
Chilling report
Paul, yes you're right - chilled to the marrow. I just watched the report on Dateline.
All over the world people are fighting for basic human rights, we who have won our freedom should be supporting those that are still fighting.
When the US fought for its independence France helped.
Free people all over the world should stand up for those that have yet to win their freedom.
We should not sell our souls for oil or military bases!
The free world should make the sale of military equipment to dictators a crime against humanity.
Not all sweetness and light
The Frogs had very good reason to send their troops into the American colonies. Anything that would weaken the Poms suited them fine; after all they were still smarting from the loss of their Canadian colonies amongst other things. From the time of the Norman invasion the two countries were at each other's throats for centuries until the end of the Napoleonic war and if I know anything the Frogs are still spewing about that outcome.
7,000 French soldiers died fighting for USA fredom but the Yanks have never properly acknowledge their sacrifice.
It says a lot about the advances made that war between European nation states is now unthinkable. Maybe in another two hundred years any war would be unthinkable but I don't think we'll have that much time.
Ah, what the two aforementioned nations could have achieved if they'd worked together; in the same year France torched Moscow and the Brits did the same to Washington.
Events unfold
More from Paul McGeough.
a camel designed by a committee
Just watching Latteline, on the split between the gunghoers over Libyan intervention like Wolfowitz, who think Obama doesn't go far enough. and the emerging block of countries centred about Europe, including Germany and Turkey, who are more sympathetic to Gaddafi.,
My first thought with Libya, a couple of weeks ago, was that Libya is exponentially more within a European sphere of influence, hence the confusion as to objectives and closure strategy.
The Euros and Americans are watching it and each other closely, one suspects In the meantime Latteline now has an interview up between Ally Moore and one of those tame American neolibs/cons that the ABC must run to for "mediation"on international affairs, like Daniel Pipes on the middle east, so will leave it for now.
Ambulances
It's called parking a broken down old ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
It's about time the world established an independent law enforcement agency that is seen by everybody as independent of politics, and is able to swiftly and forcefully interfere to stop mass bloodshed.
Fly Over
David, I've delayed replying till now because the point is now moot. Even when I first posted it was probably too late. The moment has passed. The uprising is about to be crushed if it hasn't already. Those poor bastards.
If you can bear to imagine what's in store for them, here's a glimpse into Gaddafi's mind, courtesy of John Lyons of The Australian.
This is shameful. Gaddafi's regime was crumbling. Parts of the military and the civil officials were turning. Gaddafi's war planes were obsolete years ago and in poor maintenance. Sanctions had taken a huge toll on parts. The Arab League was onside, more or less, so no issues with airspace on all sides. The Libyan bases and supplies are exposed. The pilots are not up to western combat standard and some had already fled with their planes. Give me a break. My old mother could have kicked over this airforce before demanding breakfast, on a bad day, and she needs a walker to move.
You will never convince me these people could not have been helped. You will never convince me that standing by and watching was in any sense moral. This is profoundly immoral, and as is usually the case with the profoundly immoral, seriously against our interests. Gaddafi bought his weapons with the money he stole from the Libyan people from just about everyone including many in the West. He has shown to all how much the rest of the world counts in Libya. This is sheer cowardice.
Well done, world. That's really shown the bad guys.
Rome burns nero fiddles
Well, where's the no fly zone?
Once again, when the people of the middle east have needed and asked for help, the powers that be have turned their backs on them.
And what was this I was reading about that sleazeball Berlusconi preventing refugees fleeing Benghazi from crossing the ditch to seek sanctuary in Italy?
Sleazeball is dead right
Berlusconi hard at it.
Fucking moron.
I don't think I was wrong
This from of all people, G W Bush's speech writer.
David R: OTOH the US brokered the UN intervention deal in the end - unless you believe that Russia and China suddenly decided not to use their veto power after all without pressure: Libya finally forces Barack Obama's hand
Belated
Yes, and bloody good thing too, David R.
Perhaps they've realised what they feel is shame and that they now know their reputation has suffered for their involvement in the middle east and its affairs. Bahrain is sickening as well.
Oh, you're suddenly taking an interest.
I've still got an issue with you David R, (if ad hominem means anything to you) but it doesn't mean we can't be allies. I hope the link you provided is real and the nightly news is encouraging. I hold my breath hoping my pessimism and cynicism is unfounded. Maybe Frumm's message got through and Washington's had a change of heart. I'm well out of the loop and can only wait and hope as events unfold.
Encouraging news
This.
I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, emotions are overiding other interests.
The "Lockerbie lick" delivered to the Americans and Brits must still rankle. The instrumentalists have been punished but the perpetrator is still very much alive and kicking and soon with any luck, at the end of a rope.
It's not looking pretty
I don't where to start Geoff, so much going on and I don't have the knowledge of the situation to make an informed opinion but I thank you for your sentiments. Posts have a habit of leap-frogging so I'll keep it simple and yes, you are right: events overtake us and what one wanted to say loses currency.
Now Bahrain with foreign intervention again but not the right kind.
Of course help could have been extended but I'm not too sure about the no fly zone thing. Liaison, intelligence, advice and arms could have easily been delivered but if you've followed the thread you will see my cynicism with regard to foreign interests.
Do you have any idea of Israeli attitudes to this situation?
Fact is, shortly after my post I looked for you for your thoughts but it didn't happen.
Walter Mitty of the marsupials
I see the depraved wombat is at it again, this time grasping the chance to speak for a substantial chunk of humankind. Some wombat. This explains the sex obsession. This is a wombat that dreams of leading the Arab peoples, united, in glorious jihad against the cultural and economic imperialists of the decaying West. This is Wombat of Arabia. Making unnatural and dangerous advances to the occasional polarbear is just by the way for this little bloke with the hairy nose and flowing sheet. He's on a bigger mission. I have long suspected this. Cute really.
A question if I may for the furry little fella and the others of the cute and quaint left here. What's to be done in Libya? I mean right now. You have seen the people in the streets and how brave they are. They have made it very clear what they want and how much they want it. Gaddafi's airforce is a pushover no good for anything except murdering civilians. Within easy striking distance most of the world's airforce fire power is deployed. So what's it to be? A no fly zone? Or just go on letting the hangman slaughter his way back into full control and wreak a revenge on the people too black and bleak to imagine?
It's over to you cutiepies. What's to be done in Libya?
Beauty and the Beastly
Geoff mate, I think you got a little mixed up. Scott is the Walter Mitty (and also a wandering albatross I recall). iJustin is the wombat, and a beautifully mangy one at that.
In short, Scott is the ugly one, and iJustin is the good looking one.
That should help you make the distinction.
Not that Walter Mitty. The other Walter Mitty.
No no no, iJustin. Normally I wouldn't argue about a matter such as this but I'm certain I've got this right. I'd recognise you anywhere. I know all silly greenie leftie types ... well ... it would be rude to say you all look alike after a while, like a lodge of wombat freemasons in a midnight ceremony, but I know you're the one who said something like:
... if this mangy, and somewhat (nah, totally) depraved wombat has offended you, then on behalf of your homo sapien Arab brothers and sisters, ...
Scott is the one who wants to control the spread of the human species with government subsidised Roundup before the infestation reaches the tipping point. Am I mistaken?
T party time?
Oh Geoff, no!!
Don't throw in the obnoxious American proposition 21 conspiracy theory malarkey about Green Jewish socialist capitalist plots to "cull" the planet.
This deserves to be left in the mountains of Wyoming, where these folk reckon dinosaurs frolicked with cave-people six thousand years ago before the Great Flood and where the secret Soviet armored divisions are hidden.
Homo Geneous are not as bright as they think they are...
Geoff, let's get one thing clear: it is homo sapiens who all look alike. All wombats are of unique appearance, any wombat will tell you this, besides it's bloody obvious.
Sheesh, if wombats all looked alike we couldn't tell our partners apart, a problem homo sapiens have been having for yonks. In fact homo sapiens get so confused with identifying each other many of them end up in the cot with the wrong partners - and many still cannot identify the difference between male and female, thus end up mating with the same sex.
Fancy that, maybe that's why they call themselves homo sapiens, I suppose the homo part is a derivative of homogeneous; no doubt self confessed acknowedgement of the species' inablity to differentiate one from another - everyone is the same.
Besides, who could tell the difference between a Geoff, or an Alan, or an Eliot, or a Chris - wombats just can't tell em apart, and you lot appear to have no hope?Nice try
Well you're not mistaken this time Geoff with the small exception of the round up thing which I don't advocate. As for the verminous species homo sapiens, nature will take care of that in due course (and I'm not talking earthquakes etc.)
Back to the Middle East. One thing I'm reasonably sure of; the genie is out of the bottle regardless of the outcome in Libya. I don't think the general mass of the Arabs will be contained indefinitely. A lot's going to depend in the short term on how things work out in Egypt; whether or not the army will relinquish control.
Now how do you feel about all this, good thing or bad thing?
Took you long enough
I think you'll find, Geoff, you have me confused with someone else. That can happen if you spend long enough away.
What's to be done in Libya? Asymmetric warfare I should imagine because no one's going to the aid of the insurgents any time soon.
Senior's moment
You know, Scott, maybe you're right and perhaps I have been away too long. But I've read your piece now, reread it most likely, and I can see now that I too was mixing metaphors in a 1950's Sunbeam here...
Acknowledged.
No-fly problems
All in favour of no-fly, but that's about as useful as idiot Abbott saying that boat people will stop coming because his government would be agin' them. The question is, how would you actually implement it?
The Libyan air force has some pretty capable planes, and it would be a mistake to assume that they'd be a pushover in a dogfight. Also, they can start their missions from bases with a few minutes flying time of their targets. So - how do you get to them in a very short reaction time? Also, they would have ground back-up from anti-aircraft batteries inconveniencing the NATO or whatever planes (which, in simplistic terms, slows down the response by requiring avoidance moves).
For the southern Iraq zone maintained through to 2003, no-fly was set up over quite a long time by first attacking and destroying any Iraqi airbases and anti-aircraft installations in the area - and continually going back to blow up any new attempt to move stuff like that back into the area. So, doing it the same way would start by a really major series of airstrikes by international forces onto Libyan soil. Anyone not think that might turn a fair few of the unaligned Libyan population into partisans for Gaddafi?
[Aside specifically aimed at annoying Geoff - in much the same way as Israeli incursions and restrictions on Gaza are the primary source of Hamas' general support in the population there.]
Probably still worth doing, but there is a real risk that the outcome would be greater ground-based pressure (=carnage) against the rebels, which could be counter-productive. I don't think anyone thinks it would be a good idea to invade Libya just at this point to deal with the Libya's ground forces - not to mention the chances of that being organised well enough to work without the sort of two-year buildup and planning that made the Iraq adventure so, ahem, successful.
APOLOGIA MAXIMA
Why Alan it appears you may not be so inflappable after all. Therefore, if this mangy, and somewhat (nah, totally) depraved wombat has offended you, then on behalf of your homo sapien Arab brothers and sisters, we apologise in the maxima. I think that's how it goes.
Cheers mate.
Fiona: I suggest that you go all magnanimous, Alan, and accept Justin's apology. And, while you are about it, ease up on the ... erm ... flavour of comments that Richard and I have had to read, then edit or DNP, in the past few weeks.
Apology accepted
Hi Justin I accept your apology.
What we are all getting upset about at WD is childish when you watch the video coming out of Japan.
How on earth are they going to clean the mess up before many thousands die from disease and exposure.
Where do you start when you are in this situation ?.
Richard: Agreed re the perspective Alan.. it's looking pretty grim.
Tremors (put away that Bundy OP!)
Yes.
There are two stories here, not just one (re Richard's and Alan's comments on Sendai).
Firstly, the sheer severity of this quake - 8.9- with its Nagaski type scene of devastation in its wake. According to a report from the BBC, this quake originates from a fault line a couple of hundred ks out to sea in the Japan Trench, that actually ruptured back in the nineteen thirties also, creating a notorious eathquake for Sendai back then.
This brings us to the second story, the story within a story, with shades of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, with the events at the reactor at Fukushima, across the bay from Sendai. The Beeb notes there have been more explosions and deaths and there are worries as how further into strife the site will fall.
Japan's stock exchange took a hit commensurate withthe quake, losing 6% of value in a single day. Also uranium stocks across the world have taken a hit, with the spare cash taken up by reinvestment in coal.
And as we contemplate this we also may move to contemplation of the siting of nuclear reactors, given north east Japan's spectacular seismological history.
So uranium stocks have fallen and the resurgent nuclear industry is also a victim of the quake.
But why not?
As with other infrastructure, including in this country, we can see how science was ignored in the rush to acquire and profit from an allegedly "new" technology.
And we see why we should not trust our politicians either. One sees that if science has to be born out through disaster, how tragic it can be.
That also applies to the stressed Murray Darling and the damaged wilderness of Tasmania, as with Big Pop, without some prerequisite and honest planning and forethought.
I know this all sounds a bit Burkean for a lefty, but if that's the "necessary", so be it.
From one end of the alimentary canal to the other
Now if we adopt Alan Curran's cerebral powers (after all he's never been wrong) then we can safely assume the US military has industrialised rape, created a production line of rape, and execute rape with great enthusiasm - and the most pathetic thing of all they are raping their own - imagine what they do to those they have been conditioned to hate.
Now that it has become obvious to all and sundry that Alan gets off on rape (how's the prolapse thingy going?) - so when he replies I'm sure we can expect some more polar bear porn - which as we all know can be rather entertaining for about three minutes and then becomes depressingly BORING.
PS. Alan, next time you go a hunting best wear a chastity belt (that drives polar bears crazy) or pack heaps of nappies, or if you have had a gut full of polar bears then a horny bull may be more to your liking.
Cheers mate and happy hunting.
Cloaca Maxima - or - Alan's Anal Prolapse
Old dear, iJustin peeked and poor Alan has just had an anal prolapse (yuk); now who would have thunk that.
You see Alan, iJustin is silent (regarding your recent racist crap) for the simple reason that I don't get off by watching ignorant souls wandering about dragging their offensive cloacas all over the show.
PS. Alan - it's definately NOT normal.
iJustins abnormal lifestyle.
Justin, please don't send me links to your private life, I am not interested in what you do in private.
Richard: Comments have started to cross borderlines of humour, and unfortunately I've had to revert to trimming and the odd non-publication. Can we try and keep things a little more above the waistline folks?
Why
Richard. Why did you not trim Justin's latest attempt at humour?.
"From one end of the alimentary canal to the other" which was prattle of a simple mind.
Richard: Had to draw a line somewhere, Alan.
A bit of peace and quiet would do wonders for them
Justin, I don't beleive he is advocating a caliphate, as the zionists and neo cons would describe it. What he'd like to see to see is something equivalent to Europe, where there is both cooperation and diversity. Given enough time and rid of the encumbrances of western imperialism, they'd come good quick enough, as Europe, with its diverse sprawl of cultures, languages and locales has come good, over the last fifty or sixty years.
In fact, Scott, your follow up posts indicate you see it all very similarly to me. A meeting of great minds or fools not differing?
We must ask Alan Curran what he thinks.
You jest of course
"We must ask Alan Curran what he thinks."
Doanfinkso. Number one, Alan doesn't think, he's a troll and as any reader of Tolkein knows trolls come from stone and as such are impervious to the slings and arrows that wound mortals. Occassionally when sufficiently itchy enough to scratch myself I might take a pop at him but it's a bit like a memo pad one doodles on in a self-indulgent way; admiring my own rhetoric.
"A meeting of great minds or fools not differing?"
I'm distinctly uncomfortable with either notion. Only speaking for myself, now. I'm far too intelligent for my own good but that doesn't make for a great mind. In fact at 68 I'm still working in a rural backwater when I should be cruising the world in my luxurious ocean going yacht with an all girl crew.
Foolish I am but not as green as cabbage looking.
Here's the latest take from Paul McGeough and surprisingly for an excellent long-experienced journalist his view is less bleak than mine.
You'll notice that he mentions the AWB and it begs the question why weren't those bastards and the politicians behind them prosecuted once Labour got into power? $300 million to Saddam Hussein by any reckoning was treasonous. They stink the lot of them and gutless into the bargain. Hicks was illegally imprisoned in Australia. Was he released? not a bit of it.
Scott's nightmare
Scott, I thought I would keep you uptodate on what the peace loving Arabs are doing, to destroy your vision.
Hamas authorities in Gaza should investigate claims that security officials tortured a blogger and activist and prosecute any officials responsible, Human Rights Watch said today.
Arabs torturing, couldn't be.
A group of anti-government protesters missing since they were arrested this week in Baghdad are feared to be at risk of torture, after other recently released protestors told Amnesty International they were tortured in detention.
I wonder if this was before or after Friday prayers.
Security forces reinforced by pro-government mobs fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas yesterday to scatter protesters near Bahrain's royal palace, as a conflict deepened between Sunnis backing the ruling system and Shiites demanding it give up its monopoly on power.
Good to see the Sunnis and Shiites getting on together, just as well they are Arabs.
Bahraini police have opened fire on anti-government protesters marching towards the royal palace in the capital, injuring at least 150 people.
Arabs shooting Arabs again
Security forces opened fire on demonstrators taking part in protests throughout Yemen.
It just goes on and on and not a word from Scott and Justin, they just prattle on about Polar bears as it amuses their little minds.
We are all human
Alan, I don't see why you keep pointing to Arabs killing Arabs, they have a long way to go before they catch up to the number of Europeans who have killed Europeans over the last hundred years or so.
It is obvious we are all human and all are tarred with the same brush.
We all resort to tribalism when it suits us.
All human - not really
John, I am just trying inform the little minds of Scott and Justin that their rock throwing,suicide bombing,rocket firing mates,which is aimed at their own people appears to me to be sub-human.
John you did say "All over the world evidence is stacking up that changes in global climate can and do affect the frequencies of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and catastrophic sea-floor landslides.
An open mind is different to a brainwahed mind.
Start to question the rubbish that Senators Brown and Milne are talking about.
My mind is open
Alan, you have been on Webdiary long enough to know that when something is italicized it is a quote from someone else I did not say anything of the sort.
Check the link.
My mind is still open.
Have you checked yours recently?
Murphy was an optimist
Thanks Scott, am 57 myself and getting more pessimistic all the time.
McGeough's column was anything but optimistic and you reckon you see it even more bleakly than him. God help you, my son, I'll send some spare prozac over straight away.
Visions
A previous employer brought down an expert from Berkeley to talk about strategic planning. He talked about the need for BHAGS – Big Hairy Audacious GoalS (for some reason, the vision that stuck in my mind is that of a kilted Scottish chieftain displaying his nether region...
Sorry, am getting side- tracked.
A very long time ago, our chieftains had a vision, a vision that they labelled the League of Nations.
What progress has been made in the intervening 90 years? Compare the progress we have made in computers, economics, flight, agriculture......
Are the hairy nether regions, the lack of progress in Peace, and the current debate on women in board rooms, related in some way?
semper ad meliora
Seriously Scott:
I like your vision, but the thought getting Arabs to agree on one world view would be a little bit like getting our indigenous tribes to agree on anything - it's a tribal thing and seems to be indelible.
So, is it a "vision", or is it a "fantasy"? I suspect, Scott old mate, 'tis more a fantasy or dream than foresight into the future, a beautiful dream nevertheless.
You see, iJustin did start to write something but thought why bother, simply because it was all a dream, a fantasy drawn from the romantic part of my nature, but most of all hope for the future, a better future for all who share the Middle East. A future based on peace, co-operation, commerce and prosperity for the ordinary folk, not just the greedy bastards.
I have this dream regularly (for the whole world) and I know I don't dream alone.
But how does one turn cerebral energy into positive action?
Revolt I suppose, get rid of the greedy bastards and replace them with normal well adjusted human beings - not pathological narcissists, psychopaths and mean pricks.
And that's what they are trying to do in the ME at the moment; let's hope that what is torn down will be replaced by something better, and something that is not perverted by western interests. I'm not optimistic, but that doesn't mean I will abandon my dream of better things.
Hey Alan mate, how's ya bum?
(sorry couldn't help meself)
The crystal ball
I don't have one but in terms of vision or phantasy my old laughing partner, let's get the distinction clear.
Avatar, Lord of the Rings et al are phantasies. My vision is of a possibility, however remote, and I'd like to give it every chance of becoming reality.
Paul McGeough reporting in the SMH this morning:
And there you have it; from the aboninations of 19th century colonialists and the duping of another visionary, T.E. Lawrence to the mealy-mouthed uttrances of Hilary Clinton.
Gaddafi they can accomodate; a people with free expression is not in their best interests. They will sit on their hands, let suffering continue and events unfold as they will.
Why the fuck shoul I care? I will be long gone before the apocalypse happens (and it is coming soon in historical terms,) but cannot deny my sense of humanity and being.
Paul, a genuine thanks for your endorsement; we may be brothers after all.
Well done
Scott Dunmore, well done. Truly.
It is a very relevant post with news I find hard to argue with.
For me the whole point of the argument comes with the example of Al Baradei, mooted as the sort of educated, savvy person who could facilitate the change to a democracy in Egypt. But the Americans refused.
First "torturer" Suleiyman got the nod from them, and in default of his rejection by the masses, the military are in control.
The current status quo thus gives no real guarantee that democracy will come in Egypt.
Ostensibly because a few whimps in Tel Aviv couldn't countenance the idea that Egyptians should have a democracy as well (much less Palestinians)...
Methinks the Israelis may be patsys here, tho I think it more about the Americans coming down on an example that could lose their hold, through their puppet oill sheiks, of the Arabian peninsular.
I had to laugh at the notion of a united middle east, given the neo cons and their "Caliphate" phobias. Alan Curran's response was thus predictable.
I think you get a lot of cultural similarites and differences as with Europe. But I think, whatever the differences beyween Egyptians, Arabs, Iranians and all the other peoples of the Islamic world. theyd be united in their hope that the yanks and Israelis would just go home, taking their puppet dictators with them.
5 reasons not to watch bears having sex.....
Alan, I'd get the sights on your hunting rifle checked old son.
When it comes to murdering their own Arabs appear to be way down the list.
Apparently Swaziland (in general) takes the gong for that, at least according to United Nations numbers. Funny that, I've hung out in Swaziland and not one person murdered me, although a black fella by the name of Eliot threw some shit my way once or twice - but it was really good shit.
Oh, best not take your family to Columbia, Mexico or South Africa, they are next on the list - and the US is a bit dodgy as well.
Anyway, happy hunting - we know you love it.
But believe you me I have a number of very good reasons not to keep watching this sort of stuff - ing.
This is serious
Oh shut up the lot of you.
Alan you are either obtuse or straight out thick. Justin, as entertaining as ever but can we see your serious side?
People struggling to achieve what we enjoy are dieing in their hundreds.
The Libyan insurgents need to consolidate and organise or they will die in their thousands. A command structure and intelligence organisation the first priority.
Latest Arab sport
Scott, your dream for the Arabs is looking a little sick if you watch the nightly news, they are still killing each other.
"The Libyan insurgents need to consolidate and organise or they will die in their thousands" Well you are right there, but that was predictable when you put an AK or a rock in the hands of an Arab.
They are at it again today in Cairo where these so-called civilised people are burning down churches and mosques, oh yes and they are practising their rock throwing again.
Anybody heard from Kayser Trad or any of the other peace loving Australian Muslims about what is happening in Cairo?.
"The Libyan insurgents need to consolidate and organise or they will die in their thousands. A command structure and intelligence organisation the first priority". You cannot talk about intelligent organisation and Arabs in the same breath.
Birds of a Feather
Wallerstein writes along the same lines. He is a bit more cyncial. There is some truth to the US defence that alternate regimes are not necessarily any better (though at least they are arrived at with less outside interference).
Whenever I see people calling Gaddafi a madman, I remember that his paranoia has an element of reality in it.
More of a nightmare than a vision
Scott Dunmore, You must be kidding yourself when you say " I have a vision for the Arabs: One people, one nation, one country encompassing the middle east and north Africa. As such it would right many wrongs, provide equity, dilute extremism, and usher in a new world order. Not that it would solve all our problems (overpopulation at the top of the list), nor should the Israelis be left out of the equation, nutters though a lot of them are".
This would mean that the Arabs would have to stop killing each other which they do at every opportunity and seem to enjoy it.
They then blame everybody else for what has happened. No I think you will have to wait another 1000 years till the Arabs are ready to joins the rest of the world. Just name an Arab country you would like your family to live in.
As for the Israeli "nutters" they do not send tanks and planes against their own people.
Israel's own people
If the arguments of the Israeli settlers for the biblical justification for Greater Israel are correct, then Gaza and the West Bank are part of Israel, their occupants are therefore 'their own people', and they do send tanks and planes against them.
Of course, if that were true, and the new fashion for middle eastern democracy took hold in Greater Israel, then Israel might have an Islamic PM, which would be interesting ...
Nothing if not predictable
As for the Israeli "nutters" they do not send tanks and planes against their own people."
Does Merrylands in Sydney count as a country? Because if it does I liked living there and dealt almost exclusively with Arab merchants and tradesmen.
As to the Israeli "nutters", they're no different to any other brand of nutter like the person who telephoned Tony Windsor. Nutters are everywhere.
Jay, Wallerstein is no more cynical than me, just as pragmatic.
The problem with all revolutions is that they leave an admistrative vacuum in their wake and what replaces the old order can be as bad if not worse. The Russian, French and British revolutions prime examples. The French seem to have got their house in order finally but for the Russians the revolution or evolution is still going on. There is no magic wand.
Pathetic
Scott, no, Merrylands does not count as an Arab country no matter how many Arab merchants and traders live there, it really is a pathetic attempt to justify Arabs killing each other.
They don't kill each other in Merrylands because if they did they would be put in gaol, you can also sit in a restaurant in Merrylands or any other suburb in Australia without worrying whether an Arab kid is going to walk in with a bomb strapped to his body. This is all done with the blessing of his parents and the local Mad Mullah.
David, your little bit is even more pathetic:
You have no idea what it is like to live amongst people who have no respect for life, go and live in Gaza for a while and get in to the real world.