The Killing of Saddam Hussein, the Ultimate Hypocrisy of the West: now Who will try and Execute the West's War Criminals?

Saddam's Execution : The western anti war movement - the left boot of imperialism?
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1167439871.html

Posted by Kola on MEDIALENS, December 30, 2006, 12:51 am
User logged in as: Kola Odetola

The silence of the western antiwar movement on the lynching of Saddam Hussein is deafening and is increasingly beginning to prove what a lot of discerning people have suspected all along – that the mainstream anti-war movement (including large parts of its left wing) in the west is the well concealed left boot of western imperialism, the conscience of the conqueror.

The main reason given by western radicals – including many on this board for ignoring the assassination of the deposed Iraqi president is the crimes against humanity he has allegedly committed. How many of these ‘left’ activists then would welcome a Chinese invasion of the British Isles, the sacking of British cities, the incarceration and torture of tens of thousands of English youths in concentration camps scattered along the Yorkshire Dales, the murder of a million British citizens (the equivalent of the Iraq dead) if the reason Beijing gave for the invasion was to arrest, try and execute Tony Blair for the limitless war crimes he has directly and indirectly carried out in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine over the last three years – killing in Iraq alone (in 3 years) more than Saddam killed in 35?

Saddam Hussein has not been tried; he has been executed by the west’s leaders, while their ‘radical’ sons look the other way. If a serial killer was brought to trial in the UK and during the trial three of his defence lawyers were kidnapped, tortured and murdered, (clearly by state agents) the media lens message board for one will be heaving with anger and righteous fury, but now there is only silence.

Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but as President of Iraq, he represented something which nobody ever talks about these days, the sovereignty of his nation, by his judicial murder by a foreign invader the sovereignty of every poor third world nation has just been executed. The reason why the left in the west cares so little about that is because the sovereignty of poor nations is as much a threat to them as it is to their ruling circles.

The multi billion pound human rights/NGO industry for one (the new missionaries) are as dominant in the third world as any multinational, and in many ways even more powerful, since they seduce the minds of the natives buying up activists by the barrel load, feeding them with inconsequential facetious drivel about ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ all the better to cement the west’s moral and ideological supremacy over the natives.

Trade unions from the west struggle to organise in the third world to ensure the starving do not go beyond the level of loyal opposition to the western banks and companies that impose the crucifix of hunger on their children. Even the far left get in on the act with an assortment of ‘Mac’Trotskyist groups fighting for the ‘world revolution’ creating so called internationals - a global franchise they dress up as fraternity. The headquarters of the ‘world revolution’ sharing its capital with that of world finance.

The primary contradiction for the last 500 years has not been between classes but between nations, the poor and the rich ones. It has been a struggle by the west to dominate and control the rest of humanity. While the ordinary people in the west do not participate in the oppression willingly, many of them share the same patronising and superior attitudes of their leaders. Thus even when they support the struggles of the oppressed in the poor world it is with conditions and qualifications that are never applied to them when they face similar circumstances.

It is this ingrained and unconscious superiority that made then overlook the humiliation of saddam – checking his hair on camera for lice, something they would have baulked at if it had probably been done on the German Herman Goring – who was treated with great personal dignity – in full uniform and well groomed throughout the trial at Nuremberg as was Slobodan Milosevic another ‘northern tyrant.

People fighting against imperialist enslavement in the poor world should accept the support of western radicals whenever it is forthcoming but should not subordinate the narrative of their struggle to the ‘friends of the people’

from BLAIRWATCH

Blair: MUSLIMS MUST CONFORM TO BRITAIN'S 'TOLERANT SOCIETY' OR EFF OFF

If Blair had dared to say anything like that towards British Jews he'd be out of a job by now. But picking on Muslims is ok because they're mostly darkies, hence inferior to whites (naturally). And isn't there just the slightest note of irony in Blair's way of expressing tolerance?

I liked the idea of the baseball bat & could see myself mashing his head into a pulp. For someone who wouldn't dream of killing another human, why is it I get so much pleasure at Blair suffering a horribly, long-drawn out death (with say 25 years' of unremitting pain and suffering before the inevitable visit by the Grim Reaper?)

Why is it that I feel so much scorn and hate for this miserable creature? And I doubt that I am the only one, by several millions, who feels this particular seething rage. I know he's just the figurehead hiding an evil system, that he represents many more of his cowardly ilk. But, as a figurehead, I would like to see him really suffer for what he and his thieves have done not just to this country but to the world.

I would like to see him made an example of so that all the rest can thank good fortune that they should never meet the same fate ... yet have to sleep uneasy every night forevermore that the Reaper's midnight knock might visit them too.

And after a particularly humiliating public trial & gruesome, slow execution I would have Blair replace Guy Fawkes on Bonfire Night so the memory of his treachery can be remembered for centuries to come.

Ok, I wish I could have done better than this just to give us all a moment's vicarious satisfaction. But it'll have to do as a small ritual expression on behalf of all those who feel as I do.

As a nation so abused by Blair, however, I believe that we should confront ourselves with the hate he has engendered in us and find ways of expressing it. If ever a man has sinned on humanity here is one. He should not be allowed to walk free, natural justice -if no other- must catch up with him soon.

If that were to be a curse, then I cast it on him. Sobeit!

Communist Manifesto illustrated by Disney

Displaying a broad range of Golden Age Hollywood animation, Manifestoon is a homage to the latent subversiveness of cartoons. Though U.S. cartoons are usually thought of as conveyors of capitalist ideologies of consumerism and individualism, Drew observes: "Somehow as an avid childhood fan of cartoons, these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson—that of the 'trickster' nature of many characters as they mocked, outwitted and defeated their more powerful adversaries.

In the classic cartoon, brute strength and heavy artillery are no match for wit and humor, and justice always prevails. For me, it was natural to link my own childhood concept of subversion with an established, more articulate version [Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto]. Mickey running over the globe has new meaning in today's mediascape, in which Disney controls one of the largest concentrations of media ownership in the world."

OCCUPATION 101

This is a trailer for an upcoming documentary about the Israeli occupation of Palestine called "Occupation 101"

Reporting, or lack of it, from Iraq

Here is a 6 minute video of selected clips from a UK programme that aired last June highlighting the difficulties western media organisations and journalists face in Iraq.

The End of Suburbia promo

"We're literally stuck up a cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a fill-up" - James Howard Kunstler Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow?

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors.

"Oil, Smoke and Mirrors" is an independent 50 minute documentary on peak oil, 9/11 and the war on terror. Watch this Video version of the Matrix Red Pill. Your perception of the everyday world will be changed forever!

TerrorStorm by Alex Jones

UPDATE: As Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson has said, SPREAD THIS VIDEO! It's in the top 100 and needs to be seen by more people. From the great mind that brought you documentaries such as "Martial Law 9/11: The Rise of the Police State" and "Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove" comes a new movie to awaken the masses. TerrorStorm goes into documented cases of government-sponsored terror before exposing the 7/7 bombings as an orchestrated event and brings another update on the current state of the 9/11 Truth Movement. This video is copyrighted but is allowed for non-profit, educational distribution. If you like this film or any other, please visit the website's shop for this and other great documentary films.

A PLANETARY APPEAL - PLEASE CIRCULATE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE!

I am committed to the struggle against Islamophobia in Britain and elsewhere.

Though I am a nominal Christian I have thrown in my lot with my Muslim fellow-countrymen in order to face the anti-evolutionary forces behind the current Islamophobia.

The time is now ripe for the formation everywhere of an Alliance for Peace, Justice and the Defence of Civil Liberties, an Alliance for everyone, including Muslims, Jews, Christians and All Others alike.

If humanity is to evolve in this new Christian century then it will only do so by first facing and then prevailing against the anti-evolutionary forces behind Islamophobia.

Islamophobia is, itself, nothing more than a red herring for the real intention of the criminal minds behind it is to stir-up communal strife in order to justify the implementation of draconian, totalitarian laws to turn our Planet into one vast corporate totalitarian prison. What the Canadian journalist, Eric Margolis, calls the 'sovietization' of the USA is but the first significant step towards this planetary gulag.

I am sending this to you via the Internet, trusting that this revolutionary method of planetary communication has its own impetus and dynamic to set the world afire with an idea whose time is NOW.

In the spirit of a truly democratic, horizontal network of information and action I only ask that if you are inspired by this idea to make it your own and to run with it. Act as you are inspired to do. If it takes a hundred monkeys to change the dietary habits of an entire species, think what a hundred humans could do!

I ask you to circulate this request to everyone you know around the world. Please do reply to me and give me your feedback.

Another World is Possible!

Geoff Hoon caught telling the Big WMD Lie

Ex-UK Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon caught either telling lies or being exposed as an incompetent.

Real Big Brother in the UK

Over 4 million cameras, being retro-fitted with speaker systems. Yelling out orders to people like a concentration camp. Doesn't sound like V for Vendetta at all.

If you want people to be nice or clean up more, have it a point for every citizen to do public service much like some country's requirement for military service.

Sack Parliament! from Indymedia.org.uk


At 1pm on Monday October 9th, up to one hundred and fifty angry and concerned people converged on the Palace of Westminster to sack parliament. The plan was to surround parliament and cause parliamentary activities to cease. MPs, Lords and civil servants would be prevented from re-opening Parliament.

As soon as protesters started to arrive, police quickly moved in to stop-and-search everyone that was considered 'suspicious'. Many people were turned away from reaching Parliament Square, others were singled out by police units and prevented from joining the protests. See 2pm update when around 100 protesters were surrounded by police. An NUJ photographer was hospitalised by police after being violently thrown into a kerb.

Eventually the remaining demonstrators were left out of the police pen, after having been searched, photographed and identified. There are reports of several arrests, but there is no confirmation of numbers as yet.

For More see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZPnf2x-mg&eurl=

Barot

YET ANOTHER POLITICAL SHOW TRIAL IN THE UK?

Full of strange inconsistencies this sounds like a Show Trial to me: is this man mentally fit enough to be tried?

He has been accused of all manner of extravagant plots but they're all on paper, there are no known fellow 'conspirators', he has no funds to carry-out any of the alleged projects and there is no evidence that any atrocities were being physically prepared!

Yet the man pleads guilty in a high-security court and judgement is to be made in circumstances of even higher security.

Is this nothing more than another in a long line of disturbing political trials where a mentally vulnerable man is being victimised by the British state and its thought police?

Man admits terror plot to blow up Wall St amid 'dirty bomb' revelation

DAILY MAIL, By BEN TAYLOR and COLIN FERNANDEZ

http://urlsnip.com/112908

"A British Muslim terrorist mastermind faces life in jail after he admitted plotting a radioactive 'dirty bomb' attack in the UK and a string of devastating atrocities in the USA.

Dhiren Barot, 34, planned to kill "as many innocent people as possible" by blowing up some of the world's largest financial institutions including the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In the UK, the banker's son - who was brought up in London as a Hindu - plotted to detonate a radioactive bomb and blow up buildings by packing stretch limousines with gas cylinders in underground car parks.

The unprecedented and extraordinary attack was dubbed the 'Gas Limo project' and was designed to cause "injury, fear, terror or chaos" for hundreds of Britons.

Both plots were smashed by Scotland Yard in August 2004 when Barot was arrested in Harlesden, North West London, after a dramatic chase which culminated in him hiding in a barber's shop.

Yesterday a heavily-guarded Barot sat in the glass panelled dock at Woolwich Crown Court, South East London, as he heard the Crown outline how he plotted the wave of attacks.

The clerk of the court said to him: "On count one of this indictment you are charged with conspiracy to murder.

"The particulars of the offence being that on diverse days between January 1 2000 and August 4 2004, you conspired together with other persons unknown to murder other persons.

"Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

Barot, wearing a khaki-coloured zip-up jumper and black shirt and sporting a short beard, said calmly: "I plead guilty." and made notes on his laptop computer throughout the hearing.

Outlining the basis of plea, Edmund Lawson, QC, said that the conspiracy against the US buildings included attacks on the Washington-based World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the New York Stock Exchange and two financial institutions: the Citigroup and Prudential buildings.

The idea, said Mr Lawson, was to carry out bombings "with no warning".

He added: "They were plainly designed to carry out explosions designed to kill as many innocent people as possible."

Detailing the planned UK attacks, Mr Lawson described "the gas limo project".

"That was... the main cornerstone or main target of a series of planned attacks involved packing three limousines with gas cylinders, explosives and the like, detonating them in underground car parks," he said.

The limo project was to be supported by 'three other projects' the court heard; "a number of further collateral objectives to cause injury, fear, terror or chaos".

The court heard how Barot sketched out details for a "radioactive dirty bomb project".

Mr Lawson added: "The defendant expressed the preference in respect of the radiation project was that it deserved to be an independent project in its own right.

"The radiation dirty bomb project was not intended to kill but rather to carry out the objectives I referred to:, injury, fear, terror and chaos

"The radiation project was designed among other things to affect some 500 people."

Barot, who was raised a Hindu, attended the highly rated Kingsbury High School in the North London suburbs.

His parents, Indian-born Manu Barot, a retired banker and his wife Bharati, arrived in Britain from Kenya in 1973 when their son was just 12 months old. following the imposition of draconian laws barring non-Kenyans working in economically important industries.

The family still live in a £300,000 house in a quiet 1930s cul-de sac.

Barot took exams in English, Maths, French, Graphical Communication, and Typewriting but was rejected from jobs with two High Street banks and left to pursue various menial jobs.

But, by the age of 20, however, he had converted to Islam after a family visit to the disputed territory of Kashmir - the subject of a bitter and bloody battle between India and Pakistan.

Barot also faced 12 other charges: one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes.

The judge ordered all these charges to lie on file following his guilty plea to conspiracy to murder.

Mr Justice Butterfield, said that when Barot is sentenced at a later date he "would be the first Muslim terrorist to be sentenced for such a grave offence as conspiracy to murder. It is likely to attract very considerable debate and discussion".

Seven other men are due to face trial next year. Yesterday his mother, a supermarket worker, refused to comment when contacted by the Daily Mail by telephone.

Friends of the family said Barot was a lovely boy who had been brainwashed by extremists.

"He was a really good kid. How can a nice Hindu boy change into a Muslim? I believe he was brainwashed," said a neighbour.

"The family are some of the nicest people you could ever meet and it was a shock to people round here to hear about their son."

Another neighbour said: "The family are lovely and it's such a shock to hear this news because of what nice people they are."

The Barot family home was a few doors away from the childhood home of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts. Watts also attended Kingsbury High School as did pop star George Michael.

Security at court yesterday was so tight that even police officers were forced to undergo checks."

***

The details of this trial, some of which I've mentioned above, are very disturbing. Barot's behaviour suggests a mentally unstable person. I wonder if his mental state was ever considered before he was sent to trial?

Is this man -a convert- looking to be martyred as a hero?

How can anyone be declared guilty of a conspiracy to murder for just writing some stuff on paper and making some videos? It sounds like Barot was on a Walter Mitty-like fantasy trip.

If writing just a few notes about some crazy plans makes one guilty of conspiracy then Agatha Christie would be one of the world's greatest serial-killer terrorists never brought to justice!

This is nonsense!

Yet this man is now under the threat of a life sentence!

The British judiciary has deteriorated into nothing more than a corrupt, political tool. Both the judiciary and the police are repeating on the mainland all the injustices they committed in Ireland.

It is surely the sign of a decayed Empire in its death throes.

Read Alex Jone's take on the story: Media Hypes Nutcase Scribblings as "Terror Plot Admission"

How the Mighty have Fallen!

"Media organisations could receive the Nobel peace prize in future," Professor Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel committee, told MediaGuardian.co.uk.

Prof Lundestad speaks on behalf of the five committee members, who tend not to talk about their work to the media. He serves as an adviser to them and sits on all their deliberations, though he cannot vote on who gets the prize. "Good news coverage, as opposed to propaganda or inaccurate reports, can be essential to peace," he said.

Prof Lundestad mentioned several contenders, such as CNN, the New York Times, Le Monde and El Pais.

However, he made a notable exception of the BBC. "Some years ago, the BBC would have been an obvious candidate because it was the international model for news organisations. Nowadays, it is more debatable." He added: "We all know about the problems the BBC has had in recent years," without elaborating.

THE GUARDIAN

Errm, I wonder if this could be anything to do with Tony Bliar's brazenly political appointment of the zionist, Michael Grade, as the BBC's Director General and its subsequent transformation into a servile tool of zionist propaganda?

JFK Speech on Secret Societies and Freedom of the Press

That's right, old JFK says everything that's happening now is basically...well... unamerican...

Battle of Cable Street, 1936

SEVENTY YEARS AGO: News reel footage of the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 where Oswald Mosely's Black Shirts were prevented from marching through the East End of London by anti-fascists.

Fooled again on 911

A close look at the crap video editing that everybody saw transmitted "live" on september 11 2001.

Rivermagick

Orang Asli kids frolic in a Malaysian idyll. Short clip from 22-min showreel for Jumping Jellybeans community arts project produced by Magick River (June 2006). Shot and edited by <Antares@magickriver.com> http://www.magickriver.net

BingBangBong

Percussion highlights from Sarawak's colorful Rainforest World Music Festival (2006) featuring the Malaysian Dhol Federation and the Chungmyung Art Group from Korea. A Magick River production, shot and edited by <Antares@magickriver.com> http://www.magickriver.net/

KILEMA ~ Soul of Madagascar

Born Randriananantoandro Clement 46 years ago in Toliara, Madagascar, KILEMA began playing with local bands and building rustic guitars (with strings made from bicycle brake cables) at the age of 12. After getting a degree in English studies at the Ankatso University, he went "pro" as a vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, performing with the likes of the Justin Vali Trio under the aegis of Peter Gabriel's Real World label. KILEMA formed his own band in 1997 and his first solo album ('Ka Malisa') was released in 1999. He now resides in Cordoba, Spain, and regularly tours with his brother Nesta and other Spanish musicians. KILEMA (which means "Clement" in Malagasy) is a master of the Marovany, the Kabosy, and the Katsa (handmade string instruments native to his country) and carries the magical, rhythmic soul of Madagascar wherever he goes. Camera/Editing: Antares Concert footage from RWMF 2006: With blessings & love from Kilema

Is Tony Blair an MI5 agent?

Ex-MI5 officer David Shayler alleged so at a public meeting in Bristol last week, as was reported in the Bristol Evening Post. Money quote:

Mr Shayler believes Dr David Kelly was an MI6 agent who was murdered and he alleged that Tony Blair worked for MI5 before he became Labour leader.

Unfortunately, Shayler's exact words were not reported, making it difficult to assess the claim. Luckily, I found a recording of his words at this website.

Shayler was speaking to 9/11 sceptics in Bristol. They showed a video, then he spoke and took questions. The topic moved from 9/11 to the July 7th bombings in London. Shayler suspects the British security services might have had a hand in 7/7. An audience member asked about MI5's possible complicity in 7/7, and, if so, whether Tony Blair's government was involved or were kept in the dark. This was Shayler's response [my transcription]:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how involved Blair is - it's a difficult question to answer. I mean, certainly I know, as I say, the intelligence services do things behind the backs of government, the cabinet and parliament - it's very easy in this country to do that, as there's no oversight of the services. And, in some ways, they don't want the government to know, so, when they are sent out to deny these things, as Robin Cook was, they can do it looking honest, basically.

But I think the only way we can explain Blair's behaviour is that he is blackmailable by the intelligence services. I know that the intelligence services have files on most of the Labour government because I saw some of the files while I was there. In fact ... [inaudible audience interjections, laughter] ...Well, one of the things I want to tell you is that - I actually, I didn't see this myself, I must admit - but somebody who was reviewing Blair's file, this was when Blair was unknown really, in 1992, not particularly well known, told me that Blair was an MI5 agent. In the 1980s he'd reported on members of CND and the so-called Trotskyists in the Labour Party. Now, I've tried to get to the bottom of this, it's very difficult. But it would in some way explain why he does what he does, basically, because he's actually a stooge, he's one of them, basically.

Shayler may be wrong about many things, but he's right that the Blair-as-MI5-agent report has much explanatory value. But whether Blair needed to be blackmailed to act for MI5 is another matter - Blair's naivity, vanity and ambition, coupled with the state of the Labour Party in the 80s - may have been sufficient motivation for him to inform on "left-wing extremists" to his MI5 contacts. (But then that act of informing might itself become a blackmailable vulnerability, so perhaps Shayler's right after all.)

I dread to think what might be in Gordon Brown's file.

http://urlsnip.com/806218

Shayler: 'Blair worked for MI5' Tony Gosling [17.10.2005 14:10] There has been much speculation as to how the most right wing and opowerful elements in the Labour Party used to be such left wing radicals. Did they have a change of heart? Apparently not, according to Ex MI5 Counter-Terrorism Officer David Shayler. It would also explain why the spooks have been so busy trying to blacken Shayler's name. Ex MI5 officer David Shayler, who spent three days with us in Bristol recently, when his car got brake failure while parked up at the University, said at his Cube cinema presentation that he had access to information contained in Blair's Security File while in 'the service'. "Tony Blair worked for MI5 before he became Labour leader." Evening Post reference http://tinyurl.com/d9b32 The day after Shayler was arrested in France the Mail on Sunday came out with the Headline 'Shayler Could Bring Down Government'. On the Monday, Shayler says, Blair Summoned the editor to Downing Street and asked him into the Garden (to avoid bugs) demanding to know what Shayler knew about him (Blair). The editor wisely explained that due to a government injunction he could not tell Mr Blair anything that Shayler knew or he'd be breaking Blair's government's own injunction. Blair, according to Shayler, had stuff in his file which clearly meant he had been spying on his comrades in CND and The Labour Party before being made Party Leader - which explains his so-called radical left activities as a young man - he was a spy reporting back on Communists etc in CND and in the Labour Party! Shayler says this secret state agent past would make Blair utterly unreliable to hold public office - particularly in the Labour party and would make him a puppet of the hawks in MI6 the same hawks I guess who cooked up the dodgey dossier at our expense which has been used to kill nearly 150,000 Iraqis and open the gates of hell in the Middle East. (oh yes and boost the profits and margins of every single Western Arms business leaving not enough to pay our pensioners and treat people on the NHS properly) We put this out last Thursday evening on Radio Ramadhan 87.7FM which is going out over Bristol this month (where we have a 1 hr a week show) see www.radiodialect.net Can you feel the email lines buzzing with worried spooks??? And some amused ones??? Yes, the nastiest of them better be worried - their little blue eyed boy's shelf life is expiring. Tony Gosling Bristol NUJ etc. 'The Great War for Civilisation' available for £15 http://tinyurl.com/avmm9 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/10/325840.html

9/11 'THE WORK OF SECURITY CHIEFS' 11:00 - 13 September 2005 Renegade spy David Shayler claims the 9/11 terrorist atrocities in America were the work of elements of the US government. Mr Shayler, a former MI5 officer who was jailed for disclosing security secrets, believes there are some elements within the FBI, CIA and the US government who wanted "another Pearl Harbour" so they had public support for invasions in oil-producing countries. Mr Shayler spoke to an audience of about 200 people at the Cube cinema in Kingsdown after a 45-minute film which questioned the official version of the terrorist attacks. He said there was no evidence that a plane had hit the Pentagon, and claimed it was more likely to have been a missile. He said the incident happened when America's major defence building was being redecorated so staff were at minimal risk. Mr Shayler said: "It created a lot of anger without causing too much damage. "There are many unanswered questions which need to be addressed." He also discussed the possibility of the 7/7 London Tube bombings being set up by the Government or security agencies. Mr Shayler believes Dr David Kelly was an MI6 agent who was murdered and he alleged that Tony Blair worked for MI5 before he became Labour leader. Mr Shayler was jailed for six months at the Old Bailey in November 2002 for disclosing security secrets which breached the Official Secrets Act. http://tinyurl.com/d9b32

Blairwatch

Blair's turgid speech

Heaping superlatives on Blair for his "brilliant" final conference speech, media pundits tested the boundaries of obsequious sycophancy, yesterday. Rusbridger, in yesterday's Guardian leader gushed: "Shining the bright beam of his oratory and intellect across Labour's decade in power, Tony Blair yesterday astounded his party with a speech that impressively illuminated New Labour's achievements while leaving its weaknesses and failures in the shadows."

Freedland, also in yesterday's Guardian, spouted in similar awestruck vein: "...the man's sheer, undeniable skill as a political performer. Clare Short calls him an "actor-presenter", but if she's right he's an Oscar-worthy actor and a Bafta deserving presenter... He can do it all: hold a large hall rapt, yet still sound right on television; hit every emphasis and cadence; move effortlessly from light to shade." High praise indeed for Blair's apparently unique gift of being able to speak in an affable "bloke-ish" manner.

However, this fulsome praise from many media pundits for Blair's intellect and performance seems, in many cases, to have glossed over what he actually had to say. Apparently, many professional journalists lost their powers of analysis when confronted with this stage managed and scripted event. An event designed to proselytise the factional group of Labour party members - numbering less than two-hundred-thousand people. Some journalists, like Simon Hoggart, did seem to remember that they were being paid to inform the wider public about events, but still they were very careful in their critical remarks.

Against a background of manufactured euphoria for Blair's intellect, vision and oratory skills, Hoggart noted: "There were the usual verb-free sentences - 79 in all - which in the past implied commitments without making promises. Now they evoke achievements that may or may not have occurred: "The end of waiting time in the NHS. Historic. Transforming secondary schools... Historic." And there were those clunking sentences that make you ask what on earth he could possibly mean, though you haven't time to work it out because the speech has swept on. "The USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled." Eh? "Ten years ago, if we talked pensions, we meant pensioners." What was that about? "The danger is failing to understand that New Labour in 2007 won't be New Labour in 1997." Sorry, run that past me again. "Ten years on, our advantage is time, our disadvantage, time." Lost me there, old cock. Even the single mad staring eye was back."

To his credit, Hoggart did notice that Blair was rambling incoherently in parts of his speech. Despite Blair's much feted "intellect" the fact that he still has difficulty constructing sentences in English would indicate that his privileged public school education has serious shortcomings and that his class rooted arrogance is misplaced. Indeed, it is the disastrous failings of his much feted intellect, visible to all in the decisions he has taken over matters such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, that has instigated serious coup attempts from his own colleagues to wrestle the levers of crown powers from his deluded hands because he's become a huge electoral liability.

The more the media pundits praise Blair and shield him from the truth, the more they encourage his messianic self-belief. A self-belief of the genuinely deluded. That our democratic system should deliver us such a fool to rule us with crown powers makes the strongest possible case for genuine reform of our political system. That the media praise and defend the deluded clown, Blair, demonstrates the real dangers of an establishment media afraid to confront those in power.

from Peter Fainton's Blog

SNL Skit

Advice to Investors

"The essence of peace is to connect two opposites.

If you see somebody whose opinion is the very opposite of yours, don't believe that it is impossible to be at peace with him.

Also, if you see two people (peoples) that are two opposites - don't say that it is impossible to make peace between them.

On the contrary, that is the essence of the completeness of peace - to make peace prevail between two opposites. "

Rabbi Nachman of Bratislav Rabbi Nachman, 1772-1811, a mystic and ascetic, was one of the most celebrated Ukrainian Hassidic rabbis. He has many enthusiastic followers in Israel and elsewhere.

Shana Tova to all the Jewish and Ramadan Mubarrak to all the Muslim readers.

***

Muhammad's Sword
by Uri Avnery
GUSH SHALOM
23-09-2006

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations".

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith".

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

from GUSH SHALOM, read here ...

Time to Go Demonstration, Manchester, 23rd Sept 2006

Manchester, UK. 17th June 2006. Supporters of Manchester Stop the War Coalition attend a planning meeting to prepare for the first national Stop the War demonstration outside London. On the 23rd of September 2006, the Labour Party conference takes place in Manchester. The demonstration is set to coincide with it. This clip shows activists attending the planning meeting talking about their hopes and expectations for this important event.

Mancs Against Tanks: 50,000 protest against New Labour

Blair: New Labour, antiwar protest, Manchester.

Video thanks to Leninology. For more, read Lenin's Tomb
and Blairwatch

Sat 23 September, Manchester -Time To Go, Bliar!

"In Britain, thanks to Blair, a sea-change in public attitudes has taken place. No less than 80 per cent regard him as a liar; 82 per cent believe his warmongering was a principal cause of the London bombings; 72 per cent believe he has made this country a target." John Pilger

Nowadays, British politicians go around in heavily-guarded, bullet-proof vehicles. They no longer expose themselves to the rough-and-tumble of what used to be politics until about twenty years ago. I'm getting old, I can remember Quintin Hogg electioneering on Chiswick Common in West London, standing on a platform ringing a huge bell both to make his point and to drown out any hecklers. An old Tory rogue who brought a little bit of entertainment to the hustings.

Unlike the present generation of pampered, not very intelligent, permanently po-faced political bureaucracia who have to be protected from the seething anger of their volatile electorate by men in black and personal bullet-proof vests.

So Reid makes a big deal of going to address a public meeting in Leytonstone where the audience was hand-picked as, no doubt, was our agent provocateur, the ubiquitous Abu Izzadeen (aka Trevor Brooks). On cue, he goes into his tirade before being thrown out of the meeting by some bald-headed Asian bruisers and a Noddy-like policeman who most likely got his job with the Met just to keep the ethnic numbers balanced.

All good fun.

Except for the great hoo-haa that followed in the mainstream media where a noisy Caribbean dressed up in Arab mufti is presented to the world as an 'extremist' (read terrorist) and just the kind of threat all decent folk (read whites) are having to face today due to 'letting them take over our country.' Journalists and politicoes justify their jobs by pontificating about the disgraceful attack which has been made on our democratic system, blah, blah and just how this kind of thing is going to bring even further trouble and strife to the streets of Britain.

Wishful thinking more like, I would say, still remembering the afternoon forty-six years ago when as a school-boy I was cornered by a group of local west London yobs saying they were from the British Nazi Party who beat me up and sent me home with a broken nose and blood splattered all over my shirt.

That was a long time before the 'Islamic threat' was conjured up by Richard Perle, the 'Prince of Darkness', and his neo-con demons. It was that day I shall never forget when my eyes were opened to the real world of Anglo-Saxon values that lies behind the hypocrisy and self-perpetuating myth of 'British tolerance'. Let's face it, Anglo-Saxon culture remains tribalistic, repressed, intolerant, alcohol-sodden and violent as ever it was as anyone who has fallen foul of an English football hooligan will know.

Ah, but they're the lower classes you see. We middle class folk are not like that because most of us have university educations. Well, as Lennie Bruce, the comedian once said, "scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist inside." Sadly, that's one of those perennial truths that shows no sign of going away. For, today, it's precisely the so-called liberals and lefties-turned-neocons who are reinforcing the old stereotypes of empire, white superiority, blitzkrieg (read 'shock & awe') and genocide masquerading as a 'war on terror', the modern-day 'white man's burden'.

We let them in (as coolies) to do the jobs that no one would do. We gave them a race relations board to believe they have equal rights (which everyone knows they don't unless they're insulated by wealth) and we announced ourselves to be living in a multi-cultural society (which was a terrible mistake and now we take it all back). And now see how they bite the hand that feeds them with their terrorists! You see where our tolerant attitudes have got us? Now no one's safe from the mad mullahs who are determined to turn Britain into a fanatical Muslim caliphate, blah, blah, blah.

Tolerance, moderation, fair-mindedness. All good British roast-beef values. Well, maybe. Until mad cow disease and a rogue Texan gangster put an end to it all. For there's very little of any of that in the modern fiefdom, Britannia, Airstrip One, him-belong-to-the-Great-White-Father-over-the-Water, him-do-as-he's-told-or-else, that we live in today. Where we are told by some ignorant, pretend-cowboy who our 'extremist enemies' are. Where selective memory is carefully trained by the mainstream media to focus on where the REAL DANGER lies, where we are allowed to watch on our reality screens the great ongoing battle between Oceania, Eurasia and the other Evil Empires, where our 'democratic' political leaders make all the right decisions on our behalf, where most of the human carnage is either kept off the screen or dismissed as 'inevitable collateral damage', where our cherished values are under threat by dusky aliens, the very coolies we gave the privilege of bettering themselves and whose parents came here as immigrants.

Extremists.

That is what they are for daring to speak for all their brothers and sisters in the Ummah being slaughtered relentlessly by a cold-blooded killer who justifies his endless 'Christian' jihad with the words 'democracy' and 'crusade'. Why can't these Muslims just shut their minds from all these nasty things and get on with their mundane, everyday lives like the rest of us do? Why can't they assimilate and dress (and talk, and look?) like the rest of us?

(And why don't they all go back to where they came from?)

Now, if it had been a Caribbean Trevor Brooks, dressed in conventional western clothes with a neutral middle-class, Surrey accent and of a gentler, even reticent nature, then ok we could have shut him up in mid-flow. But this was a dangerous black Muslim cockney (remember Malcolm X and his Black Panthers?) dressed up like Bin Laden, striking at the very heart of our British freedoms!

Freedoms?

To go around doped-up or switched-off from the reality of the world not so far away from our windows? To turn our minds away from the indescribably massive orgy of violence and murder that is going on on our planet right now in our name, paid-for by our taxes, where our children are used as cannon-fodder lucky to return from the battlefields alive?

AND THEY TALK ABOUT A LONE HECKLER AS AN EXTREMIST, AS IF IT IS HE WHO BRINGS UPON US ALL THE END OF THE WORLD???

It can only all be the result of Mad Cow Disease


For More Comment on the Mad Heckler, read this

Bob Dylan - Chimes of Freedom

Dylan doing "Chimes of Freedom" for the Clintons and Gores and audience at Clinton's inauguration outdoors.

Is Protest Really Enough? Demand the Impossible!

People from across the country are protesting at the massive "Time To Go" protest , which is set to coincide with the Labour Party Conference in Manchester , to voice their anger at the misery Western foreign policy is creating in the Middle East .

No doubt many will be veterans of the mass protest in London over 3 years ago which attracted almost 2 million people - people fully aware at the time that the events of 9/11 had no link to Saddam Hussein and that he posed no military threat to the West. Likewise, the many who marched to Hyde Park that day were right in believing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction - a fact that has now been proved - and that any war in Iraq would fully destabilise the country. And you would have been in a minority had you not realised the link between the intended war and the fact that beneath the sands of Iraq lay huge oil resources.

Undoubtedly, after over three years of campaigning you will be revolted by the incessant lies of the Blair government as it has tried to justify the occupation of Iraq and its further plunge into chaos. Week in, week out, the government has distorted the truth and sunk to all manner of low tactics to justify its position. And now, after all of your campaigning efforts, the meetings and demos you have attended, the petitions you have signed, the umpteen arguments with your friends and neighbours, you are here protesting again, having been proved right, marching today, demanding a withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq, hoping to halt a looming attack upon Iran, demanding Lebanon be left alone and calling for no replacement for Trident.

Three years of solid protest and your cause is not one inch further forward! Whoa, hold on! Do you not think you might just be wasting your time here today? Granted, the Iraq War has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands and innocent Iraqis are still being killed every day. And yes, Blair has increased the British troop presence in Afghanistan and even kept schtum during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. But do you not think you're asking the wrong questions, making the wrong demands? Repeating the mistakes of the past? We're not saying you are wrong for asking questions, only that you do not ask enough. Indeed, question everything! We're not suggesting you are demanding too much today - in truth, you are not demanding enough.

Whilst this march demands the withdrawal of western forces from Iraq and pleads that Iran is not attacked, it supports the very system that creates war by not questioning the premise of war. War is a bedfellow of the system we know as capitalism, being waged over trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets, natural resources and the profits that can be had via the same. By not taking issue with the nature of capitalism, and the root of war, this gathering is making the mistake of every previous anti-war demo and meeting and paving the way for more in the future. Wars will continue as long as capitalism exists. By demanding the British and American governments act we further give them legitimacy by acknowledging their right to make war and indeed end it.

Now we're not being churlish here. It is heartening to see so many here today, united in common voice - it reveals the workers can be mobilised around issues they feel are important. But from our experience - and we've had 100 years' experience of observing campaigns and demonstrations and protests around every kind of reform and demand imaginable (we're the oldest existing socialist organisation in Britain, having been formed in 1904) - we can confidently say that this demonstration is just one of hundreds over the years that address the symptoms, not the cause of the problem, and will make no significant difference to the established order, either here or in Iraq, or to the way politicians think. Three years ago, two million marched all over Britain; there were demos and vigils every night in opposition to the war. Over one-hundred Labour MPs voted against Blair's war, and to top it all the push for war received no UN sanction, but still the troops were sent. So much for one of the biggest protest movements in labour history!

Consider this. Across the globe there are literally hundreds of thousands of campaigns and protest groups and many more charities, some small, some enormous, all pursuing tens of thousands of issues, and their work involves many millions of sincere workers who care passionately about their individual causes and give their free time to support them unquestioningly. Many will have campaigned on some single issue for years on end with no visible result; others will have celebrated minor victories and then joined another campaign groups, spurred on by that initial success.

And, considering the above, two things stand out: firstly, that many of the problems around us are rooted in the way our society is organised for production, and are problems we have been capable of solving for quite some time, though never within the confines of a profit-driven market system; secondly, that if all of these well meaning people had have directed all their energy - all those tens of billions of human labour hours expended on their myriad single issues - to the task of overthrowing the system that creates a great deal of the problems around us, then none of us would be here today. Instead we would have established a world without borders, without waste or want or war, in which we would all have free access to the benefits of civilisation with problem solving devoid of the artificial constraints of the profit system.

If you are now confused, forgive us if we come across blunt, but which part of "to end war we must end capitalism" do you not understand? It's simple! Every aspect of our lives is subordinated to the requirements of profit - from the moment you brush your teeth in the morning with the toothpaste you saw advertised on TV until you crawl into your bed at night. Pick up a newspaper and try locating any problem reported there outside of our "can't pay - can't have" system. Crime, the health service, poverty, drug abuse, hunger, disease, homelessness, unemployment, war, insecurity - the list is endless. All attract their campaign groups, all struggling to address these problems, and all of these problems arising because of the inefficient and archaic way we organise our world for production. You've got it! We're unlike any other group here today out to reform capitalism, who beg governments to be just a little less horrid, who ask our masters to throw us a few more crumbs from the bread we bake. We are not into the politics of compromise and we certainly are not prepared to be satisfied with crumbs. We demand the whole bakery!

We are here today to urge you to stop belittling yourself and your class by making the same age-old demands of the master class. Demand what until now has been considered "the impossible"! Join us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth's natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used to the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. Wouldn't such a campaign movement not only address the real root of every campaign and protest currently being waged?

The choice is yours - the struggle for world socialism and an end to our real problems or a lifetime attached to the 'pick-your-cause' brigade and the certainty you will be retracing your footsteps here today in years to come.

from MAILSTROM Blog, click here

Bob Dylan - Masters of War

Bush War Crimes Commission: The final verdict

The final verdict of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY COMMITTED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED STATES has now been published and can be downloaded from here

An extract from the introduction is posted below:

The extraordinary Commission of Inquiry convened to consider charges that the President George W. Bush and his administration have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity has now reached a verdict: Guilty.

On wars of aggression, illegal detention and torture, suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming, potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World, and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina, President George W. Bush and his administration have been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This verdict comes at crucial moment. As Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, emphasized at the Commission hearings: “We want this trial to be a step in the building of mass resistance to war, to torture, to the destruction of earth and its people. It’s a serious moment. . . . We still have a chance, an opportunity to stop this slide into chaos. But it is up to us. We must not sit with our arms folded, and we must be as radical as the reality we are facing.”

Acts of the Bush Administration have continued to reinforce this assessment. The crimes cited in the indictments have continued. We have witnessed a continuing onslaught of horrors in Iraq from the massacres in Haditha and Mahmudiya to the exposure of rapes and murders by U.S. forces. Torture continues at secret overseas sites. New Orleans still lies in ruins, much of its Black population “resettled.” New evidence concerning the deadly impact of U.S. AIDS policy in Africa has come to light. New crimes have been committed such as the destruction of Lebanon with U.S. weapons and backing. And now even more serious crimes loom with open threats to launch a new war of aggression on Iran. This administration has flouted and defied the Geneva Conventions. It has arrogated to itself the right to suspend habeas corpus, engage in mass warrantless searches, and defines the powers of the “commander-in-chief” to be above the law. Bush’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has sought to legitimize torture and exempt those who employ torture from prosecution.

from CRAIG MURRAY Blog

In order that readers should be given the best available information, I repeat here what an 'informed source' tells me about Izzadeen:

"Abu Izzadeen is a notorious member of Omar Bakri Mohammed's extremist network formerly known as 'Al-muhajiroun'."

"Bakri is an MI6 recruit, and is currently being protected from investigation vis-a-vis 7/7 via his exile to Lebanon, from where he continues to incite violence and raise funds for unknown operations. Bakri is routinely called in for a chat by the Lebanese authorities at the request of the British, whose response to questions about this is "no comment"."

"Izzadeen is probably either on the same payroll (he is in contact with Bakri), or is an unwitting dupe of Bakri, who appears to have a nice, cosy relationship with the British authorities even now."

From his media track-record it is more than likely that Izzadeen is an MI6 agent provocateur. Whether he is on their payroll or a convenient dupe we cannot say. But Reid's bragging that he was prepared to make himself vulnerable by addressing a meeting in Leytonstone is perhaps a good indicator that the entire incident was a set-up.

None of this should distract us from the fact that what Izzadeen actually did was to heckle the thug Reid. Since when has heckling become an extremist act in Britain's brave new world?

It was the sense of frustration and pent-up anger in his outburst with which I could empathise. Since publishing this article earlier on today I have received confirmation from others that they felt similarly. So if the event was staged then both Reid's bosses and his secret service spooks should be advised to be more careful in future. They assume that by using clowns dressed up in Arabian gear they can pander to the xenophobic bigotries of the great British public. Well, to some degree they probably can.

But the great British public are not all simpletons. There are many out here totally pissed off with this corrupt system that dares to call itself a democracy. People who know that capitalism is only hanging-on by a thread from freefall and that the scum-bags who pose as politicians are preparing us all for another world war. We who live in their open prison camps maybe marginalised but we're not fools. We are not all so easily distracted by the state's Ministry of Disinformation & Dirty Tricks.

So the message to Reid and his minions must be: if this is the best you can do then you really are a bunch of no-hopers.

For more on this read the Antagonist here

Did John Reid rent the Heckler?

Dear Home Secretary,

I have been watching open-mouthed the altercation you have provoked in East London with your ill-judged, patronising and provocative foray into territory you clearly barely understand. There is much that will be said about the child-like - Patricia Hewittesque! - performance you gave your audience. I want to concentrate on the altercation.

The man who harangued you - Abu Izzadine - is a well-known and violent extremist from an organisation your own government has proscribed. Yet he was allowed within punching distance of the British Home Secretary. How ? Why ?

This is the same man who led a group of fanatic thugs in the brief "hostage-taking" of myself and my daughter and several innocent members of the public during a general election meeting last year. This is well known to the Special Branch and senior police officers in East London - the very people in charge of your security today.

This man has appeared on many occasions on television and in the press as a dangerous extremist who has praised the terrorist attacks on July 7th and 9/11. His comments were amongst those adduced in your own government's case for the proscription of the Al Ghuraba organisation.

There are only two conceivable explanations as to how this man, at this sensitive time, was allowed to hijack your Potemkin Village performance today.

Either our police and security services are so fantastically incompetent that Bin Laden himself might have slipped in to beard you at your podium. Or someone somewhere wanted to engineer precisely this confrontation to show you in a certain light and to portray the Muslims of Britain in the most aggressive violent and extreme way possible, as a justification for the utterly counter-productive policies you are following.

Which is it ?

Because, as you know, I am not a believer in conspiracy theories I am leaning towards the first explanation. If I am right then yet again the Metropolitan Police have proved almost comically incompetent. The sight of a small, slight, helmeted police officer being dwarfed by a giant ranting fanatical thug - talk about a thin blue line! - as all that stood between you and a violent attack will certainly have provided food for thought and encouragement to the country's enemies. Yet again the justification for continuing in office of Sir Ian Blair must be called into question.

But if I am wrong, and this all turns out to have been some Nixonian "dirty tricks" operation .. then of course the questions raised are much more profound and dangerous

I await your response with interest.

Yours sincerely
George Galloway MP

from MPACUK

Wake up and smell the coffee!

While listening to the News I was in my kitchen, preparing supper. When I saw Abu Izzadeen shouting at Reid my initial feelings were those of excitement that somebody was having a go at the thug who himself was looking dazed and bemused by the sudden attack.

Then I began to feel uncomfortable, even embarrassed. Clearly, Reid and the media were loving it and doing everything to show up Izzadeen as an "extremist" and a dangerous clown.



Why was I feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed, I asked myself? It was then I realised why: if I had been in Izzadeen's place I would have probably reacted to Reid in just the same way through pent-up anger, frustration and contempt for a cowardly, opportunist, corrupt politician who, bereft of any moral claim, has stooped to the lowest levels of tribal bigotry to score his points.

To me, Abu Izzadeen's outburst symbolises the collective anger of an entire society of the politically marginalised which Reid and his Nu Labour cronies have helped to create in a Britain divided between haves and have-nots.

An entire society! Not only of blacks and Muslims but of all races religions and colours who are being trodden underfoot by the Big Brother jackboots that the thug Reid, his cronies and the Mainstream Media represent.

Instead of playing their game and inanely nodding our own heads, saying, "Oh yes, that Izzadeen chap. He's definitely an extremist. See how he shouts in a disaffected, London Carribbean accent. Look at his clothes! He's black and dangerous!" Oh no, we can't tolerate the likes of him in Britain!, instead of allowing ourselves to be duped so easily by the system ... how about seeing what's really going on?

About who's really the threat to our freedoms, who's removing our freedoms in a raft of legislation turning our country into a prison camp for the new world odour? Where are the real killers, the mass murderers hiding in their Green Zones, protected by their thuggish bodyguards, secret services and and all-compliant media?

How about standing up for our freedoms, stepping out of the shoes of the marginalised victim and taking a page out of Britain's past, its tradition of radical dissent and old-time socialism?

Of course they'll call us extremists. They always do when their stinking, rotten system is threatened. Soon they'll call us terrorists as well for the legislation which while today is being used against non-whites will soon be turned on the entire population. Make no mistake, that is the nature of the prison-camp they are creating in this heavily-surveilled colony of Washington's Evil Empire.

We should be supporting Britons who have the courage to speak out at the right time and in the right place. We should see them as modern British dissenters, not "extremists". As Izzadeen himself said, we should wake up and smell the coffee!

CNN Video - War With Iran Has Begun

OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE!

U.S. Special Forces conducting military operations inside Iran now! U.S. Naval Forces have been alerted for deployment according to TIME magazine.

Pentagon Iranian War Plans on Bush's desk!

Bush conducting military operations without Congressional approval or oversight!

All of this was expected - so no Big Surprise, Right?

Special Agent Wolf Blitzer tries to play down what Col. Gardiner is emphatically saying, but Blitzer looks like the CIA Brown-Nosing twerp that he is, it doesn't work. Cat is out of the bag. America What are you going to do about it?

Bush is a damn war-mongering liar - IMPEACH AND REMOVE NOW, NOW, NOW, NOW, NOW!

WANTED FOR STATE & INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

John Reid, 59 years old, employed as UK Minister for the Interior, Deportations, Rendition and Torture by the Bliar Mafia.

Reid is a known psychopath, war criminal, serial killer and common thug who, even in student days, acted as a hit-man.

He should be approached with extreme caution due to mysterious sulphurous toxins he constantly emanates.