Following the van attack at Finsbury Park Mosque, which has killed at least one person and injured several more, I think we need to talk about White People.
If the driver of the van turns out to be a White Person (and it is a statistical fact that 200% of all people who drive white vans are White People), I assume we will be calling for white people to be banned? Their values are clearly at odds with civilised society.
Lets be serious about this. No more pussy footing around people's 'sensibilities' for fear of causing offence. Brass tacks time. Forget political correctness. Is it time to intern White People?
I demand to know why White People didn't report him. They must have known. Their silence means they condoned it, were effectively complicit in it. All of them.
You can't trust white people, they might act nice to your face, but what are they really thinking?
Oh, and White People - you need to speak out and condemn this act. Though if you do, I'll deny you did, or claim you didn't mean it.
Showing posts with label War on terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War on terror. Show all posts
Monday, 19 June 2017
Monday, 21 May 2012
Megrahi dead
Megrahi, and the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, are probably all victims of a massive miscarriage of justice. He - probably - wasn't involved in the destruction of Flight 103, and the relatives of the victims have - probably - been misled as to the real murderers.
Still, now that Iran and Syria are officially in the bad books again, the original leads pursued after the bombing may get revisited. Handy, having an atrocity that can be pinned on whomsoever you feel the need to make evil.
Still, now that Iran and Syria are officially in the bad books again, the original leads pursued after the bombing may get revisited. Handy, having an atrocity that can be pinned on whomsoever you feel the need to make evil.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Beacon of the vanities?
So, anyway, back in 2003, a certain George W Bush suggested that by invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, a process would be initiated that would see the country transmogrify in to a "Beacon of democracy" which would serve as a example to the benighted regimes of the Arab world. Iraq would - by some process that was never really made clear - reinvent itself as a sort of Sweden-with-sand, a peaceful, democratic, equal and tolerant society.
So - to quote another rightwing sage - how's that hopey-changey stuff working out for yah?
It isn't looking too good, unfortunately.
Ho, hum. Don't say we didn't warn you.
So - to quote another rightwing sage - how's that hopey-changey stuff working out for yah?
It isn't looking too good, unfortunately.
Two leading members of Iraq's largest and most powerful Sunni tribe have warned of imminent sectarian chaos in the wake of the US withdrawal, claiming that the government of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is promoting an anti-Sunni agenda.Norway, with the occasional racist terrorist maniac on the ramapage, might be a closer analogue.
The sheikhs, leaders of the highly influential Duleimi tribe, both insist that Sunnis have been increasingly marginalised over the past year to the point where they now have little input into affairs of state in post-US Iraq.
Their warnings come as Iraq's vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, defended himself over claims in an arrest warrant issued for him that he had used his guards to act as hit squads to target political rivals and had ordered a recent car bombing near the Iraqi parliament.
Ho, hum. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Blair admits, "I am hypocritical scum"
Kind of ...
Why can't this egregious arsewipe simply go away, forever?
Writing in the Observer, in his first public verdict on the riots, Blair says: "In 1993, following the Bulger case, I made a case in very similar terms to the one being heard today about moral breakdown in Britain. I now believe that speech was good politics but bad policy. Focus on the specific problem and we can begin on a proper solution.What a tosspot. He's saying, in effect, that it was okay for him to do it back in 1993, but not for others to do it now; or that he was voicing genuine outrage in 1993, but now realises it was misplaced, in which case he's tacitly admitting he was a lightweight fool, prone to over-reactions and rash judgement; with the further implication that he might not know what he's saying now, and we can expect a similar reversal on other vexing issuers such as Iraq.
"Elevate this into a highfalutin wail about a Britain that has lost its way morally and we will depress ourselves unnecessarily, trash our own reputation abroad, and worst of all, miss the chance to deal with the problem in the only way that will work." (1)
Why can't this egregious arsewipe simply go away, forever?
1 - "England's riots shouldn't be blamed on 'moral decline', says Tony Blair," by Daniel Boffey and Toby Helm. Published in The Guardian, 20th of August, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/20/englands-riots-tony-blair)
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Righties, stop pissing your pants
There's been an interesting response from some of the further reaches of rightwing lunacy about a statement by the Al Azhar Academy of Islamic Research, criticising the disposal of Osama Bin Laden's remains at sea (1).
I'm not talking about the predictable conspiracy crap, but another line of 'reasoning,' to whit, "Because the University of Al Azhar are proclaiming Osama Bin Laden to be a Muslim, they must be tacitly endorsing the atrocities of Al Queada. Muslims would have disowned him if they truly disapproved of his actions. Ergo, they are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers!"
(That's just my distillation of various ravings I've seen on the web)
Well, no. Not really.
One does not get booted out of one's religion of choice for sinning. Bin Laden was repsonsible for mass murder, but that - even if he acknowledged as such - wouldn't 'cancel' his status as a Muslim.
Bin Laden could commit whatever barbarities he likes, and remain a Muslim, as long as he doesn't question Islamic doctrine. His personal wickedness is between him and God.
The same idea is common in other faiths; you can commit heinous acts and still remain within the faith, just not in 'good standing.'
Only formal excommunication or voluntarily renunciation put you out. The former doesn't usually happen as a result of individual wickedness. The offender may, after all, repent of their sins, and seek absolution. Hence confession, absolution, indulgences and so on.
If committing a sin lead to automatic expulsion, organised religion would never have taken off. As long as an adherent is just not very good at sticking to doctrine, but isn't questioning its legitimacy, he can remain in the club.
Just like a Christian can commit murder, and yet still be a Christian - they simply need to atone for their sin. Denying that there was any God given prohibition on murder would be unChristian.
Bin Laden would not denying the sinfulness of murder; he would argue the deaths he was responsible for did not count as murder, but 'fair play' in war, and part of jihad. By waging jihad inappropriately, he would deemed to be misguided, not heretical. If he denied that jihad was an essential aspect of Islam, then he'd be deemed an apostate.
Al Azher's endorsement doesn't signal approval of his actions, merely that he hasn't questioned doctrine, regardless of whether or not he's followed it. Words speak louder than actions as far as religion is concerned.
I'm not talking about the predictable conspiracy crap, but another line of 'reasoning,' to whit, "Because the University of Al Azhar are proclaiming Osama Bin Laden to be a Muslim, they must be tacitly endorsing the atrocities of Al Queada. Muslims would have disowned him if they truly disapproved of his actions. Ergo, they are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers!"
(That's just my distillation of various ravings I've seen on the web)
Well, no. Not really.
One does not get booted out of one's religion of choice for sinning. Bin Laden was repsonsible for mass murder, but that - even if he acknowledged as such - wouldn't 'cancel' his status as a Muslim.
Bin Laden could commit whatever barbarities he likes, and remain a Muslim, as long as he doesn't question Islamic doctrine. His personal wickedness is between him and God.
The same idea is common in other faiths; you can commit heinous acts and still remain within the faith, just not in 'good standing.'
Only formal excommunication or voluntarily renunciation put you out. The former doesn't usually happen as a result of individual wickedness. The offender may, after all, repent of their sins, and seek absolution. Hence confession, absolution, indulgences and so on.
If committing a sin lead to automatic expulsion, organised religion would never have taken off. As long as an adherent is just not very good at sticking to doctrine, but isn't questioning its legitimacy, he can remain in the club.
Just like a Christian can commit murder, and yet still be a Christian - they simply need to atone for their sin. Denying that there was any God given prohibition on murder would be unChristian.
Bin Laden would not denying the sinfulness of murder; he would argue the deaths he was responsible for did not count as murder, but 'fair play' in war, and part of jihad. By waging jihad inappropriately, he would deemed to be misguided, not heretical. If he denied that jihad was an essential aspect of Islam, then he'd be deemed an apostate.
Al Azher's endorsement doesn't signal approval of his actions, merely that he hasn't questioned doctrine, regardless of whether or not he's followed it. Words speak louder than actions as far as religion is concerned.
1 - "Bin Laden: Al Azhar, sea burial is a sin," unattributed article, published on Ansamed, 2nd of May, 2011. (http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME.XEF33040.html)
Lefties, stop pissing your pants
So, Osama Bin laden wasn't holding a gun when he was shot (1). This doesn't make it a 'revenge killing' as Idiot/Savant makes out (2). Not on currently available information.
Think about it reasonably, for a minute, chaps. Bin Laden was a fanatical terrorist. The SEALS may have been anticipating him triggering a suicide vest, intending on taking a few of the infidels with him.
That was a very real possibility, and in that case, any movement other than putting his hands up might have been enough to justify shooting him.
Think about it reasonably, for a minute, chaps. Bin Laden was a fanatical terrorist. The SEALS may have been anticipating him triggering a suicide vest, intending on taking a few of the infidels with him.
That was a very real possibility, and in that case, any movement other than putting his hands up might have been enough to justify shooting him.
1 - "Osama bin Laden's final moments: America changes its story," by Ewan MacAskill. Published in The Guardian, 3rd of May, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/03/osama-bin-laden-final-moments)
2 - "A Revenge Killing," posted by Idiot/Savant on No Right Turn, 4th of May, 2011. (http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/05/revenge-killing.html)
Monday, 7 February 2011
David Cameron, again
It would appear that dissent, doubt, and holding of strange opinions are not British Values, according to david Cameron:
This prohibition on unBritish opinions also gibes with the right to free speech - which Cameron had endorsed as a fundamentally British value. It would appear you are free to say what you like, as long as it is the approved version.
One assumes he will also be taking measures against the endless stream of anti-semetic ravinga produced by the far right and the holocaust denial industry. Or is the 'British values' stick one specifically reserved for whacking Muslims with?
In an interview the Prime Minister – said by a Downing Street source to be "livid" about the attacks on his speech – stood by his philosophy. "You have to confront the extremism itself," he said."You have to say to the people in Birmingham Central Mosque, or wherever, who are saying 9/11 is a Jewish conspiracy, that that is not an acceptable attitude to have.It would appear that entertaining strange theories is no longer permitted in Britain. While I shed few tears for the troofers, Holocaust deniers, creationists, climate change 'sceptics,' Dr Kelly doubters and the like, it suggests a worrying precedent. What else might be judged 'not an acceptable attitude to have.'
"We don't tolerate racism in our society carried out by white people; we shouldn't tolerate extremism carried out by other people. (1)
This prohibition on unBritish opinions also gibes with the right to free speech - which Cameron had endorsed as a fundamentally British value. It would appear you are free to say what you like, as long as it is the approved version.
One assumes he will also be taking measures against the endless stream of anti-semetic ravinga produced by the far right and the holocaust denial industry. Or is the 'British values' stick one specifically reserved for whacking Muslims with?
Little man, I told you to go away. Why are you still here?
1 - "Cameron 'livid' after multiculturalism speech comes under fire," by Oliver Wright(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-livid-after-multiculturalism-speech-comes-under-fire-2206343)
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Megrahi
According to the Independent (1), a foreign offic minister in the previous Labour government 'advised Libya how to free Lockerbie bomber.'
That's not me putting it in double quotes for fun, by the way - those words are placed in quotation marks by the Independent, which suggests it is a quotation from one source or another, but it that wording isn't used anywhere in the Indie story, the Telegraph original (2), or the wikileaks source memo (3), that I can see. Similar wording appears in the Telegraph headline: "Britain secretly advised Libya how to secure release of Lockerbie bomber," but the story attached to that headline doesn't bear it out - the Foreign office did not advise the Libyans how to secure Megrahi's release. They simply explained how his diagnosis altered the situation.
Slaps alround, to the Telegraph for running a misleading headline, and to the Indie for echoing it.
The only interesting points are the suggestion of Foreign Office involvement when the official stance was it was Scotland's call; but that's tenuous, as the foreign office would probably have the duty of notifying the Libyans - devolved Scotland does not have a minister of foreign affairs, after all. They would have contacted the Libyans on behalf of the Scottish executive, merely noting their own neutrality, as is indicated in the leaked memo:
So any skullduggery probably originates with the companies trying to court Libya, who may have influenced the last government and - if so - would appear to be doing the same to the current administration.
That's not me putting it in double quotes for fun, by the way - those words are placed in quotation marks by the Independent, which suggests it is a quotation from one source or another, but it that wording isn't used anywhere in the Indie story, the Telegraph original (2), or the wikileaks source memo (3), that I can see. Similar wording appears in the Telegraph headline: "Britain secretly advised Libya how to secure release of Lockerbie bomber," but the story attached to that headline doesn't bear it out - the Foreign office did not advise the Libyans how to secure Megrahi's release. They simply explained how his diagnosis altered the situation.
Slaps alround, to the Telegraph for running a misleading headline, and to the Indie for echoing it.
The only interesting points are the suggestion of Foreign Office involvement when the official stance was it was Scotland's call; but that's tenuous, as the foreign office would probably have the duty of notifying the Libyans - devolved Scotland does not have a minister of foreign affairs, after all. They would have contacted the Libyans on behalf of the Scottish executive, merely noting their own neutrality, as is indicated in the leaked memo:
The Libyan government is therefore pursuing Megrahi's early release through two other channels, the FCO reports: compassionate release under Scottish law, and the as-yet unsigned UK-Libya Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA). HMG has made clear to the Libyans, to Embassy London and to the media that it will take no official position on Megrahi's early release, but will leave the decision - whether through compassionate release or the PTA - to the devolved Scottish government.It is much more interesting to be reminded - and kudos to the Telegraph for highlighting this - that Honest Dave Cameron is still sitting on the documents relating to the release, which is a bit odd as last year he was promising to release them to clear up any suspicion of a cover up:
It will also lead to renewed pressure from senior American politicians on David Cameron to release all internal documents detailing Britain’s role in the scandal. Last summer, the Prime Minister pledged to release the relevant information – but the publication has yet to occur sparking fears that a cover-up may have been ordered.Er, nice going there, Dave. That doesn't look at all suspicious.
So any skullduggery probably originates with the companies trying to court Libya, who may have influenced the last government and - if so - would appear to be doing the same to the current administration.
1 - "UK 'advised Libya how to free Lockerbie bomber'," by Oliver Wright. Published in The Independent, 1st of February, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-advised-libya-how-to-free-lockerbie-bomber-2200349.html)
2 - "WikiLeaks: Britain secretly advised Libya how to secure release of Lockerbie bomber," by Christopher Hope and Robert Winnett. Published in The Telegraph, 31st of January, 2011. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8294120/WikiLeaks-Britain-secretly-advised-Libya-how-to-secure-release-of-Lockerbie-bomber.html)
3 - "PAN AM 103 BOMBER HAS INCURABLE CANCER; LIBYANS SEEK HIS RELEASE," anonymous memo originating in the US embassy in London, dated 24th of October, 2008. Reproduced in The Telegraph, 31st of January, 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/libya-wikileaks/8294871/PAN-AM-103-BOMBER-HAS-INCURABLE-CANCER-LIBYANS-SEEK-HIS-RELEASE.html)
Monday, 31 January 2011
Tactical advice for Hosni
I'd have thought Mubarak would have rolled the tanks over the pesky demonstrators by now. Hopefully, his reluctance to resort to type means he might not be able to rely on the army to obey.
Still, he has one card (1) left to play ...
Play that at the revolting plebs, Hosni. It'll disperse any non-German crowd within minutes.
There are - presumably unironic - comments on youtube dedicating this tosh to the Egyptian demonstrators. The thought that some high pitched, poodle haired, Germanic, soft-rock guitar wankers might compose some ditty with sparklers and whistling would be enough to stock me in my revolutionary tracks. I'd sooner the Berlin Wall stayed up, than allow Scorpions to unleash that horror on the world. Freedom of speech can be taken too far.
More seriously, the persistance of the demonstrators is impressive, and my earlier forecast that it would all be over in a couple of days may well have been ... absolutely wrong (2). Mubarak may well be on the way out, and no bad thing if he is - though I think people are a bit too quick in writing the merciless old bastard off. He knows that he's got the backing of the USA - because they regard him as essential to the security of Israel.
The US probably can't see past his regime (with or without him) and dread the prospect of a genuinely democratic Egypt - because that would probably deliver a moderately Islamic government and that - to the myopic apparthiks of US foreign policy - can't be countenanced. Hell, they didn't engage in this whole War on Terror thing to encourage more Islamist regimes to establish themselves. hence Hillary Clinton's cowardly refusal to tell Mubarak to get his arse out of the presidential palace (3).
(The likelihood of Muhammed El Baradi taking over may also be a factor. He's hardly a face the USA like seeing; US petulance and spite knows no bounds.)
So, good luck to the demonstrators. Whatever happens, I hope not many of you are killed, though I think there is still a lot of blood to be shed. But, tragic though that will be, the greater tragedy will be if it comes to naught - if the west refuses to support any new government and tries to bring it down, or force it to 'open up' Egypt to foreigners. That's never succeeded, and if it fails again in Egypt, the consequences will likely be dire for the Egyptians, and possibly Israelis and Palestinians as well.
Still, he has one card (1) left to play ...
Play that at the revolting plebs, Hosni. It'll disperse any non-German crowd within minutes.
There are - presumably unironic - comments on youtube dedicating this tosh to the Egyptian demonstrators. The thought that some high pitched, poodle haired, Germanic, soft-rock guitar wankers might compose some ditty with sparklers and whistling would be enough to stock me in my revolutionary tracks. I'd sooner the Berlin Wall stayed up, than allow Scorpions to unleash that horror on the world. Freedom of speech can be taken too far.
More seriously, the persistance of the demonstrators is impressive, and my earlier forecast that it would all be over in a couple of days may well have been ... absolutely wrong (2). Mubarak may well be on the way out, and no bad thing if he is - though I think people are a bit too quick in writing the merciless old bastard off. He knows that he's got the backing of the USA - because they regard him as essential to the security of Israel.
The US probably can't see past his regime (with or without him) and dread the prospect of a genuinely democratic Egypt - because that would probably deliver a moderately Islamic government and that - to the myopic apparthiks of US foreign policy - can't be countenanced. Hell, they didn't engage in this whole War on Terror thing to encourage more Islamist regimes to establish themselves. hence Hillary Clinton's cowardly refusal to tell Mubarak to get his arse out of the presidential palace (3).
(The likelihood of Muhammed El Baradi taking over may also be a factor. He's hardly a face the USA like seeing; US petulance and spite knows no bounds.)
So, good luck to the demonstrators. Whatever happens, I hope not many of you are killed, though I think there is still a lot of blood to be shed. But, tragic though that will be, the greater tragedy will be if it comes to naught - if the west refuses to support any new government and tries to bring it down, or force it to 'open up' Egypt to foreigners. That's never succeeded, and if it fails again in Egypt, the consequences will likely be dire for the Egyptians, and possibly Israelis and Palestinians as well.
1 - "Wind of Change," by Scorpions. Video clip posted on youtube by ScorpionsVEVO, 1st of November, 2009. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ)
2 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2011/01/egypt.html
3 - "Hillary Clinton says U.S. not pushing for ouster of Egyptian President Mubarak," by Paul Ritcher. Published by the Los Angeles Times, 30th of January, 2011. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clinton-egypt-20110131,0,6713553.story)
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Musings on violence, terrorism and hatred
It's been a bad few days for reason and decency. A suicide bombing in Moscow (1) is followed by the savage murder of a gay rights activist in Uganda (2). It looks like the strength of the forces of bigotry, unreason and savagery is waxing, not waning.
And if we look around just a little buit further, we don't lack for examples of unreasoned visceral wrath directed at The Other. You want to build a mosque where???
Of course, it's partly prespective. The ferocious and hatefilled invective printed in Ugandan newspapers, calling for the murder of David Kato - duly carried out by vigilantes convinced they are about 'God's work' - is a consequence of the courage of gays in Uganda in actually standing up for themselves. Human affairs aren't governed by the laws of physics, of course. For every action, there isn't always and equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes the forces of sanity and reason make a bit of progress, push back the barking batshit hordes of barbarians of all sorts and shades. And sometimes they do it to us. As happened in Uganda.
It's a strange perversion of the idea of community; as a western raised on the idea of individualism and individual responsibility, the idea that allowing gay people to live as they see fit might somehow taint the wider community is hard to comprehend. But it's a very simple, atavistic notion, and not at all alien to our own supposedly civilised western world. hell, som of us still have trouble coming to term with inter racial couples, let alone gays. There have been plenty of vicious acts carried out against gays in places closer to hand than Uganda.
Hatred, homophobia, racism, religion, may once have their roots in economic or material factors. It's important to regard your black slave as something less than a human, since otherwise it raises all sorts of awkward questions. A man who does not produce children is a long term liabilty to the community. And any excuse for hating the people in the next valley, will do, as it legitimises stealing their crops and cattle. But the persistance of these ideas is interesting. I think Marx said, somewhere, that an idea can actually be as crucial an imperative as material factors in shaping and determining character and action. This, of course, is generally overlooked by his critics in their efforts to paint him as a dull reductive materialist - an irony that might be amusing if it wasn't so tiresome.
There are strong nationalist movements in the North Caucuses, and religion is often tangled up in it. Dagestan is predominantly Muslim, but resisted an invasion by Chechen extremists in 1999, because they didn't want outsiders imposing their version of Islam. It may have been carried out by a Muslim but with nationalism / anti-Russian sentiment as its prime motive. It may well be Chechen militants are behind it, or some other religious organisation from the region, or it may be a solo nutjob, or it may be something else again. Whatever it is, it will probably provide the Russian authorities with an excuse to launch some military campaign against someone.
Religion can be a motivating factor in people's actions. It is not, however, the only or even the major factor for most people. The whole history of human hypocrisy is hereby submitted in evidence in support of this. All Muslims do not act in the same way. Some blow themselves up in order to kill infidels. Others live quite crap lives like the rest of us. Some write thoughtful articles that get published in The Independent (3). Point is, while they share - loosely - a religion (they'd probably dispute that, heatedly), the degree to which it motivates them, and what it motivates them to do, is dependent on other factors. But so many of the 'noises off' crowd of bloggers and commentators and rightwing ideologues are locked in this pitiful reductive world where everything boils down to the fact that they are Muslims and thus must act accordingly.
Some claim "Islam means XYZ and that you shouldn't be surprised if a muslim behaves in a way that corresponds to that" is simplistic, because 'meaning' isn't a given. Witness the different responses to the sixth commandment (fifth if you're a Catholic), about killing and/or murder. And even if we ever managed to agree what was covered by it, the fact that Christians have merrily killed and/or murdered for two about thousand years suggests that what is in a religious text is only important when it is convenient. Ditto the commandment around adultery - what is meant by that has varied a lot over time, from any sexual activity outside marriage, to the more limited definition of seducing another man's wife.
What the immutable word of God means varies in time and place, I mean.
It might be argued an attempt to examine the edicts of the Koran is just an effort to the deny the inherent militancy and creulty it contains. I disagree, in that I don't think that is a valid description of the book. It is, I would say, trying to put limits on human behaviours - as the road safety adverts say, it's a limit, not a target. It isn't a collection of reductive slogans, but a very complicated set of exemplars. The infamous surah 9:5, for example, does license killing of pagans - but only those who have broken treaties and attacked Muslims, who have ignored a period of grace to mend their ways or clear out. You can't muggle that into a general exhortation to slaughter non-Muslims, as some try to do.
Ah, respond the anti-Islam zealots, but what about abrogation - the doctrine by which the later revelations supercede older ones where there is a conflict. So exhortations to slay and force convertions cancel out the earlier protections given to Jews and Christians. Not so, I suggest. Abrogation but a mthod for resolving the contradictions within the Koran. But I don't think abrogating verses compeltely cancel out the older instruction; they simply outline an exception to the over-arching rule - special circumstances where the previous instruction is waived.
It's not at all uncommon for people attacking Islam and Muslims to draw a distinction between the old and new testaments in Christianity, claiming that the latter represented a new coventant, and a rescinding of all the nasty bits of the old testamnet that people would rather forget. But, again, the gamut of history shows that this is a specious distinction, as Christians have always sought justification in the bellicose parts of the old testament when it suits them, and have been happy to ignore all the fluffy stuff about loving and forgiving. "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live" and "An Eye for an Eye" have proved to have enduring popularity down the centuries. As recent tragic events in Uganda suggest, the urge to commit violence against those pervceived as trespassing some arcane moral code isn't limited to Muslims. Jesus Christ was an admirable person; his followers aren't always. Mohammed, from my perspective, was a rather more ambivalent figure. His followers, on the whole, seem no better or worse than the followers of other skygods, or the worshippers of trees and strangely shaped rocks.
What I'm saying is, we've happily abrogated and de-abrogated parts of the Christian bible when it suits. Who is closer to Christ's teaching? The Caliph Umar, extending protection to the Jews and Christians of Jerusalem, or Simon de Montfort, ordering the mass slaughter of Cathars, men, women and children?
People have always been angry, hateful and violent. They'll find almost any cause for it, but it is usually rooted in some religious notion that some act is sinful and wicked, and it's occurance is so very wrong that allowing it to happen is tainting to others beyond those who indulge in it. We see that all over the world and it's dishonest to hyperbolise examples of Muslims behaving like this, claim it is because of their religion, and ignore massively relevant factors that also influence peoples actions because they weaken the thesis that there is something unique in essence about violence carried out by Muslims.
And if we look around just a little buit further, we don't lack for examples of unreasoned visceral wrath directed at The Other. You want to build a mosque where???
Of course, it's partly prespective. The ferocious and hatefilled invective printed in Ugandan newspapers, calling for the murder of David Kato - duly carried out by vigilantes convinced they are about 'God's work' - is a consequence of the courage of gays in Uganda in actually standing up for themselves. Human affairs aren't governed by the laws of physics, of course. For every action, there isn't always and equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes the forces of sanity and reason make a bit of progress, push back the barking batshit hordes of barbarians of all sorts and shades. And sometimes they do it to us. As happened in Uganda.
It's a strange perversion of the idea of community; as a western raised on the idea of individualism and individual responsibility, the idea that allowing gay people to live as they see fit might somehow taint the wider community is hard to comprehend. But it's a very simple, atavistic notion, and not at all alien to our own supposedly civilised western world. hell, som of us still have trouble coming to term with inter racial couples, let alone gays. There have been plenty of vicious acts carried out against gays in places closer to hand than Uganda.
Hatred, homophobia, racism, religion, may once have their roots in economic or material factors. It's important to regard your black slave as something less than a human, since otherwise it raises all sorts of awkward questions. A man who does not produce children is a long term liabilty to the community. And any excuse for hating the people in the next valley, will do, as it legitimises stealing their crops and cattle. But the persistance of these ideas is interesting. I think Marx said, somewhere, that an idea can actually be as crucial an imperative as material factors in shaping and determining character and action. This, of course, is generally overlooked by his critics in their efforts to paint him as a dull reductive materialist - an irony that might be amusing if it wasn't so tiresome.
There are strong nationalist movements in the North Caucuses, and religion is often tangled up in it. Dagestan is predominantly Muslim, but resisted an invasion by Chechen extremists in 1999, because they didn't want outsiders imposing their version of Islam. It may have been carried out by a Muslim but with nationalism / anti-Russian sentiment as its prime motive. It may well be Chechen militants are behind it, or some other religious organisation from the region, or it may be a solo nutjob, or it may be something else again. Whatever it is, it will probably provide the Russian authorities with an excuse to launch some military campaign against someone.
Religion can be a motivating factor in people's actions. It is not, however, the only or even the major factor for most people. The whole history of human hypocrisy is hereby submitted in evidence in support of this. All Muslims do not act in the same way. Some blow themselves up in order to kill infidels. Others live quite crap lives like the rest of us. Some write thoughtful articles that get published in The Independent (3). Point is, while they share - loosely - a religion (they'd probably dispute that, heatedly), the degree to which it motivates them, and what it motivates them to do, is dependent on other factors. But so many of the 'noises off' crowd of bloggers and commentators and rightwing ideologues are locked in this pitiful reductive world where everything boils down to the fact that they are Muslims and thus must act accordingly.
Some claim "Islam means XYZ and that you shouldn't be surprised if a muslim behaves in a way that corresponds to that" is simplistic, because 'meaning' isn't a given. Witness the different responses to the sixth commandment (fifth if you're a Catholic), about killing and/or murder. And even if we ever managed to agree what was covered by it, the fact that Christians have merrily killed and/or murdered for two about thousand years suggests that what is in a religious text is only important when it is convenient. Ditto the commandment around adultery - what is meant by that has varied a lot over time, from any sexual activity outside marriage, to the more limited definition of seducing another man's wife.
What the immutable word of God means varies in time and place, I mean.
It might be argued an attempt to examine the edicts of the Koran is just an effort to the deny the inherent militancy and creulty it contains. I disagree, in that I don't think that is a valid description of the book. It is, I would say, trying to put limits on human behaviours - as the road safety adverts say, it's a limit, not a target. It isn't a collection of reductive slogans, but a very complicated set of exemplars. The infamous surah 9:5, for example, does license killing of pagans - but only those who have broken treaties and attacked Muslims, who have ignored a period of grace to mend their ways or clear out. You can't muggle that into a general exhortation to slaughter non-Muslims, as some try to do.
Ah, respond the anti-Islam zealots, but what about abrogation - the doctrine by which the later revelations supercede older ones where there is a conflict. So exhortations to slay and force convertions cancel out the earlier protections given to Jews and Christians. Not so, I suggest. Abrogation but a mthod for resolving the contradictions within the Koran. But I don't think abrogating verses compeltely cancel out the older instruction; they simply outline an exception to the over-arching rule - special circumstances where the previous instruction is waived.
It's not at all uncommon for people attacking Islam and Muslims to draw a distinction between the old and new testaments in Christianity, claiming that the latter represented a new coventant, and a rescinding of all the nasty bits of the old testamnet that people would rather forget. But, again, the gamut of history shows that this is a specious distinction, as Christians have always sought justification in the bellicose parts of the old testament when it suits them, and have been happy to ignore all the fluffy stuff about loving and forgiving. "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live" and "An Eye for an Eye" have proved to have enduring popularity down the centuries. As recent tragic events in Uganda suggest, the urge to commit violence against those pervceived as trespassing some arcane moral code isn't limited to Muslims. Jesus Christ was an admirable person; his followers aren't always. Mohammed, from my perspective, was a rather more ambivalent figure. His followers, on the whole, seem no better or worse than the followers of other skygods, or the worshippers of trees and strangely shaped rocks.
What I'm saying is, we've happily abrogated and de-abrogated parts of the Christian bible when it suits. Who is closer to Christ's teaching? The Caliph Umar, extending protection to the Jews and Christians of Jerusalem, or Simon de Montfort, ordering the mass slaughter of Cathars, men, women and children?
People have always been angry, hateful and violent. They'll find almost any cause for it, but it is usually rooted in some religious notion that some act is sinful and wicked, and it's occurance is so very wrong that allowing it to happen is tainting to others beyond those who indulge in it. We see that all over the world and it's dishonest to hyperbolise examples of Muslims behaving like this, claim it is because of their religion, and ignore massively relevant factors that also influence peoples actions because they weaken the thesis that there is something unique in essence about violence carried out by Muslims.
1 - "Russians name Muslim convert as prime suspect for airport bombing," by Shaun Walker. Published in The Independent, 28th of January, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russians-name-muslim-convert-as-prime-suspect-for-airport-bombing-2196704.html)
2 - "Fights at funeral of murdered gay activist in Uganda," unattributed Reuters article. Reproduced in The Independent, 29th of January, 2011. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/fights-at-funeral-of-murdered-gay-activist-in-uganda-2197798.html)
3 - "Arabs, Christians, and the lessons of history," by Dr Mohammed Abdel Haq. Published in The Independent Blogs, 25th of January 2011. (http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/01/25/arabs-christians-and-the-lessons-of-history/)
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Politics's loss is the military's gain
I've just had my attention drawn to this (1):
The gentleman talking is one Colonel Alan West, who has just been elected to congress, who appears to have retired after some 'controversy' surrounding his treatment of an Iraqi prisoner (2).
Sorry, what's the point here? He seems to be claiming Muslims are somehow displaying a unique impulse towards conquest, warfare and a religiously motivated desire to slay infidels even though they are acting pretty much like everyone else has acted throughout history?
Seems a bit of a silly argument to me, as non-Muslims and non-Islamic states have been indulging their penchant for violence and expansion for millenia. Verily, since before there were even Muslims! The Romans, afer all, were not followers of Mohammed.
So, according to Col. West, if Muslims invade another country or indulge in a bit of naval warfare, its because it is a requirement of their faith. Even though, in doing it, they're just behaving like everyone else. Because his argument is that - while Muslim states have historically acted in a way very similar to everyone else, invading, conquering, salting cattle and raping fields and so on, this is somehow different from the same behaviours exhibited by other cultures and countries. We invaded, we conquered, we salted cattle and raped fields on a far grander scale than the Muslims. Which would suggest, that there's nothing particularly different about them doing it.
Consider the empire building antics of the Romans, the British, the French, the Germans, the Austro-Hungarians, the Spanish, the Dutch, even the friggin' Portuguese had one. And that's ignoring for now the Vikings, the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes, the Normans (though they were Vikings) and all the other various national and tribal factions that have been happily creating mayhem over the years. European history is a continual process of warring, invasion, conquest and colonisation. West is arguing that Muslim states and empires are somehow different because they behave in exactly the same way as Europeans! Sorry, but that makes no sense.
Nations have always sought more power and wealth, to maintain their status and to keep their standing armies busy. Armies were piling into Europe from that part of the world from almost before history - Darius I could hardly have been a Muslim, as he preceded Mohammed by about a thousand years.
The Muslim holy book says DON'T EAT PIGS, PRAY TO MECCA LOTS and SMITE INFIDELS It doesn't really say that, but lets pretend for now it does). So Muslims don't eat pigs, pray to Mecca lots and smite infidels. Fair enough. But then we compare their behaviour to ours. Our holy book (which informs our culture even if we don't officially believe in it any more) says YOU CAN EAT AS MANY PIGS AS YOU WANT, DON'T WORRY ABOUT MECCA and DON'T GO ABOUT SMITING ANYONE (I don't think the pigs thing was ever properly cleared up, but we kinda decided to assume pigs were okay). So we blithely eat pigs, don't care a damn about Mecca ... and smite just about anyone we feel like.
The obvious lesson from this is that the urge to smite stems from somewhere other than what is said in holy books. You can attribute it to some basic human instinct to smite, or some basic economic factor that forces empires to continually expand, but the holy books don't seem to have much to do with it. They might be useful in deciding who gets smote, but when that doesn't avail, anything will do.
The gentleman talking is one Colonel Alan West, who has just been elected to congress, who appears to have retired after some 'controversy' surrounding his treatment of an Iraqi prisoner (2).
Sorry, what's the point here? He seems to be claiming Muslims are somehow displaying a unique impulse towards conquest, warfare and a religiously motivated desire to slay infidels even though they are acting pretty much like everyone else has acted throughout history?
Seems a bit of a silly argument to me, as non-Muslims and non-Islamic states have been indulging their penchant for violence and expansion for millenia. Verily, since before there were even Muslims! The Romans, afer all, were not followers of Mohammed.
So, according to Col. West, if Muslims invade another country or indulge in a bit of naval warfare, its because it is a requirement of their faith. Even though, in doing it, they're just behaving like everyone else. Because his argument is that - while Muslim states have historically acted in a way very similar to everyone else, invading, conquering, salting cattle and raping fields and so on, this is somehow different from the same behaviours exhibited by other cultures and countries. We invaded, we conquered, we salted cattle and raped fields on a far grander scale than the Muslims. Which would suggest, that there's nothing particularly different about them doing it.
Consider the empire building antics of the Romans, the British, the French, the Germans, the Austro-Hungarians, the Spanish, the Dutch, even the friggin' Portuguese had one. And that's ignoring for now the Vikings, the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes, the Normans (though they were Vikings) and all the other various national and tribal factions that have been happily creating mayhem over the years. European history is a continual process of warring, invasion, conquest and colonisation. West is arguing that Muslim states and empires are somehow different because they behave in exactly the same way as Europeans! Sorry, but that makes no sense.
Nations have always sought more power and wealth, to maintain their status and to keep their standing armies busy. Armies were piling into Europe from that part of the world from almost before history - Darius I could hardly have been a Muslim, as he preceded Mohammed by about a thousand years.
The Muslim holy book says DON'T EAT PIGS, PRAY TO MECCA LOTS and SMITE INFIDELS It doesn't really say that, but lets pretend for now it does). So Muslims don't eat pigs, pray to Mecca lots and smite infidels. Fair enough. But then we compare their behaviour to ours. Our holy book (which informs our culture even if we don't officially believe in it any more) says YOU CAN EAT AS MANY PIGS AS YOU WANT, DON'T WORRY ABOUT MECCA and DON'T GO ABOUT SMITING ANYONE (I don't think the pigs thing was ever properly cleared up, but we kinda decided to assume pigs were okay). So we blithely eat pigs, don't care a damn about Mecca ... and smite just about anyone we feel like.
The obvious lesson from this is that the urge to smite stems from somewhere other than what is said in holy books. You can attribute it to some basic human instinct to smite, or some basic economic factor that forces empires to continually expand, but the holy books don't seem to have much to do with it. They might be useful in deciding who gets smote, but when that doesn't avail, anything will do.
As for the title of this post? Think about it like an accountant would.
1 - "Sura 9:5 says, 'Slay the idolaters wherever you find them'," posted on You Tube by AmericanFamilyAssoc1, 9th of December, 2010. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYbaln3Uqfc)
2 - "The Struggle For Iraq: Interrogations; How Colonel Risked His Career By Menacing Detainee and Lost," by Deborah Sontag and Ian Fisher. Published in the New York Times, 27th of May, 2004. (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/world/struggle-for-iraq-interrogations-colonel-risked-his-career-menacing-detainee.html?scp=1&sq=How+Colonel+Risked+His+Career+by+Menacing+Detainee+and+Lost&st=nyt)
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Assange at bay
A bad day for Julian Assange. Arrested ... refused bail ... and Visa suspending payments to his website (1). Even Swiss bankers have suddenly developed scruples, something the Holocaust could induce them to feel (2).
I dislike almost everything about Julian Assange. People called Julian are almost always creepy, and Assange just sounds sleazy. I don't like the name of his website. More substantivel;y, I don't like what he's done. Without buying into the whole "He has recklessly put lives in danger" bollocks put out by the people discomforted by his behaviour, he has only really succeed in causing embarrassment and awkwardness, and putting his sources in a terrible position. He's a bit of a self important tosser, to be honest. But even self important tossers don't really deserve to have the Forces of Darkness unleashed against them as seems to be the case here.
It's almost like the gibbering paranoid conspiracy loons are right, and the western world is ruled by a self-serving oligarchy which pretends to be decent and civilised and abide by the law only so long as it feels like it, but doesn't give a monkey's for all that really, and will quite happily show its true face when it suits.
Though before we all apologise to the troofer freaks and their ilk, and acknowledge they was right all along, it does beg the question - how come the Powers That Be could orchestrate the Twin Towers mass murder, frame the innocent freedom fighter and philanthropist Osama Bin Laden, yet not manage to close down one poxy website and put a creepy Aussie sex pest (alleged) to silence?
I dislike almost everything about Julian Assange. People called Julian are almost always creepy, and Assange just sounds sleazy. I don't like the name of his website. More substantivel;y, I don't like what he's done. Without buying into the whole "He has recklessly put lives in danger" bollocks put out by the people discomforted by his behaviour, he has only really succeed in causing embarrassment and awkwardness, and putting his sources in a terrible position. He's a bit of a self important tosser, to be honest. But even self important tossers don't really deserve to have the Forces of Darkness unleashed against them as seems to be the case here.
It's almost like the gibbering paranoid conspiracy loons are right, and the western world is ruled by a self-serving oligarchy which pretends to be decent and civilised and abide by the law only so long as it feels like it, but doesn't give a monkey's for all that really, and will quite happily show its true face when it suits.
Though before we all apologise to the troofer freaks and their ilk, and acknowledge they was right all along, it does beg the question - how come the Powers That Be could orchestrate the Twin Towers mass murder, frame the innocent freedom fighter and philanthropist Osama Bin Laden, yet not manage to close down one poxy website and put a creepy Aussie sex pest (alleged) to silence?
1 - "Julian Assange denied bail over sexual assault allegations," by Caroline Davies, Sam Jones and Afua Hirsch. Published by The Guardian, 7th of December, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/07/julian-assange-denied-bail)
2 - "WikiLeaks Founder Warns About More Dispatches," by Shane Scott. Published by the New York Times, 6th of November, 2010. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/europe/07assange.html?partner=rss&emc=rss)
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Old hat, old hate
Lefthandpalm is bemused to learn of an expose, courtesy of the BBC's Panorama documentary program, of secretive pseudo-schools operating in Britain, where, according to the Daily Mail,This is old shit, reheated. The very first 'proper' post on Lefthandpalm, back in 2007, concerned a controversy around the King Fahad academy and allegations of 'dodgy textbooks,' a claim lodged by one Colin Cook, who was a disgruntled ex-staff member (2). That was drummed up by the Mail as well, and Newsnight rather cravenly got on board.
As I recall pointing out back then, I have used textbooks which asked students to list 'reprehensible' qualities of Jews. The text book in question was a social studies tome, and the exercise in question required students to identify the libels heaped on Jews over the centuries. It wasn't asking them to endorse these sentiments, just be aware of them. Without context, we can't be sure these 'Sharia' text books (bet you they are the same ones as the King Fahad academy used) are doing anything more untoward than that.
Now, that doesn't mean this is precisely the same, but nothing in the coverage I've seen suggests that it is anything more than the same preposterous crap. Children are not being taught to chop hands of thieves, kill gays and the like. They are just being taught about how Islam is practiced in Saudi Arabia. It doesn't necessarily follow that they are being encouraged to do these things, any more than children being taught about slavery are being taught to own slaves, or students learning about the Auschwitz gas chambers are being taught to kill Jews.
There's an underlying issue here, about whether we want children being taught about the reprehensible practices of Wahhabi Islam. Here, we have to be careful. A crack down on this will effectively mean granting the government the power to investigate and approve/disapprove almost any aspect of parenting. They'll be able to snoop on any interaction between individuals where 'values' may be transmitted.
It's the old liberal dilemma - to protect the liberties we all value, we have to extend that same protection to people we might not particularly like. As long as they all play with in the rules - and some of these pseudo-schools may be treading a very fine line - then we don't want to throw away all the nice protections we enjoy to satisfy some visceral desire to be Doing Something.
I don't like what is happening in these schools, but unless it can be clearly shown they've actually broken the law, then we have to accept that parents have the right to teach their children values and ideas we might not like. It would be unwise to grant the state the degree of power it would need to be able to intervene in such matters. Other states have taken it upon themselves to interfere in the private lives of their citizens and eradicate religious tendencies they dislike. They have not been good and happy places.
If we want to get rid of crap authoritarian lawmongering, which blighted the New Labour experiment, we have to accept it is going to license some things we might not personally like very much.
Children in Britain are being taught brutal Sharia law punishments, including how to hack off a criminal’s hand or foot.
So-called ‘weekend schools’ for Muslim pupils as young as six also teach that the penalty for gay sex is execution and that ‘Zionists’ are plotting to take over the world for the Jews.
One set textbook challenges youngsters to list the ‘reprehensible’ qualities of Jews.
Another for six-year-olds asks them to answer what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam. The answer being looked for is ‘hellfire’. (1)
As I recall pointing out back then, I have used textbooks which asked students to list 'reprehensible' qualities of Jews. The text book in question was a social studies tome, and the exercise in question required students to identify the libels heaped on Jews over the centuries. It wasn't asking them to endorse these sentiments, just be aware of them. Without context, we can't be sure these 'Sharia' text books (bet you they are the same ones as the King Fahad academy used) are doing anything more untoward than that.
Now, that doesn't mean this is precisely the same, but nothing in the coverage I've seen suggests that it is anything more than the same preposterous crap. Children are not being taught to chop hands of thieves, kill gays and the like. They are just being taught about how Islam is practiced in Saudi Arabia. It doesn't necessarily follow that they are being encouraged to do these things, any more than children being taught about slavery are being taught to own slaves, or students learning about the Auschwitz gas chambers are being taught to kill Jews.
(In fairness the Mail does make this distinction, albeit in such a way as to give the impression that Something Really Terrible is happening.)
(And further fairness, it's quite likely that the students at these pseudo-schools are getting told that the Wahhabist interpretation of Islam is the only true way and this is how things should be done; but that's subtly different from telling them to do it.)
There's an underlying issue here, about whether we want children being taught about the reprehensible practices of Wahhabi Islam. Here, we have to be careful. A crack down on this will effectively mean granting the government the power to investigate and approve/disapprove almost any aspect of parenting. They'll be able to snoop on any interaction between individuals where 'values' may be transmitted.
It's the old liberal dilemma - to protect the liberties we all value, we have to extend that same protection to people we might not particularly like. As long as they all play with in the rules - and some of these pseudo-schools may be treading a very fine line - then we don't want to throw away all the nice protections we enjoy to satisfy some visceral desire to be Doing Something.
I don't like what is happening in these schools, but unless it can be clearly shown they've actually broken the law, then we have to accept that parents have the right to teach their children values and ideas we might not like. It would be unwise to grant the state the degree of power it would need to be able to intervene in such matters. Other states have taken it upon themselves to interfere in the private lives of their citizens and eradicate religious tendencies they dislike. They have not been good and happy places.
If we want to get rid of crap authoritarian lawmongering, which blighted the New Labour experiment, we have to accept it is going to license some things we might not personally like very much.
1 - "Sharia lessons for pupils aged six: BBC uncovers 'weekend schools' that teach pupils how to hack off thieves' hands," by James Slack. Published by The Daily Mial, 24th of November, 2010. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331789/Sharia-lessons-pupils-aged-BBC-uncovers-weekend-schools.html)
2 - As described previously on lefthandpalm; http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2007/02/king-fahad-academy-teaches-hate.html
Saturday, 20 November 2010
1 out of 285 ain't bad
So Ahmed Ghailani was found guilty on just one of the 285 terrorism related charges brought against him:
The American justice system has reasserted its primacy after years of the political-military complex ruling by decree. Some vague adherence to the Geneva conventions has been established. Obama has again shown he's retained some shreds of principle and decency. A massive load of dung has been dragged out of the Augean stables.
We don't have to behave abominably, we choose to. And to some extent, it justifies the hatred and contempt entertained for the West. Of course, its a shame that this anger it gets visited on us, rather than our leaders who deserve it. But - as Ward churchill pointed out, we're all responsible to a degree - we get to choose our leaders, and we know this shit is going on, we just don't care much until our faces get shoved in it.
The first Guantanamo detainee tried in a US civilian court has been found guilty on just one out of 285 terror charges over the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa.The man aided the commission of a terrorist act, he has been tried and found guilty in a reputable court of law, using evidence that wasn't coerced by torture. Unfounded charges have been thrown out, as they should have been.
Tanzanian Ahmed Ghailani, 36, was found guilty of conspiracy to damage or destroy US property with explosives.
But he was cleared of many other counts including murder and murder conspiracy.
Ghailani faces a minimum of 20 years in prison. The verdict comes as the US weighs other civilian terror trials.
The BBC's Iain Mackenzie, in Washington, says the verdict in the Ghailani case will be seen as a huge blow to the Obama administration. (1)
The American justice system has reasserted its primacy after years of the political-military complex ruling by decree. Some vague adherence to the Geneva conventions has been established. Obama has again shown he's retained some shreds of principle and decency. A massive load of dung has been dragged out of the Augean stables.
We don't have to behave abominably, we choose to. And to some extent, it justifies the hatred and contempt entertained for the West. Of course, its a shame that this anger it gets visited on us, rather than our leaders who deserve it. But - as Ward churchill pointed out, we're all responsible to a degree - we get to choose our leaders, and we know this shit is going on, we just don't care much until our faces get shoved in it.
We buy easy lies and propaganda because it makes it easier for us to live in an unjust world where we're the beneficiaries. Palestinian refugees subsisting in Gaza and the West Bank while Isreal slowly engorges itself? Stuff 'em, there's a war on Terror afoot, didn't you notice? Never mind that the Plaestinian issue is one of the rankest examples of injustice which leads to hatred. Israel is our ally, surrounded by hostile regimes, blah blah blah ...
Obama's supposed blundering on this issue shows at least a willingness to try to behave according to some standard of decency. Shame the bar was set so fucking low by the last administration that even this seems like progress.
Obama has been - as always - in a very difficult position where he's had to balance his principled instinct with a bit of realpolitik. Probably, he's done too much of the latter, which achieves little positive and only harms his reputation, but he's still making some progress in an incredibly difficult situation. It would be too easy to excoriate him - as some on the left are wont to - for not being pure and unsullied. But it's nice living in a vague and fluffy place where principles don't even have to meet reality.
Obama's supposed blundering on this issue shows at least a willingness to try to behave according to some standard of decency. Shame the bar was set so fucking low by the last administration that even this seems like progress.
Obama has been - as always - in a very difficult position where he's had to balance his principled instinct with a bit of realpolitik. Probably, he's done too much of the latter, which achieves little positive and only harms his reputation, but he's still making some progress in an incredibly difficult situation. It would be too easy to excoriate him - as some on the left are wont to - for not being pure and unsullied. But it's nice living in a vague and fluffy place where principles don't even have to meet reality.
1 - "Ghailani guilty of one charge for 1998 US embassy bombs," unattributed article. Published by the BBC, 18th of November, 2010. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11782346)
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Daily Mail indulges in a bit of gratuitous scaremongering
Going by the headline of a Daily Mail story - Westminster on Mumbai-style terror attack alert after Al Qaeda threat - you'd be forgiven for thinking that it concerned some specific threat against Westminster (1).
In fact, for all its frothing, the 'news' content of the story amounts tot he shocking revelation that the British parliament has a contingency plan for responding to an armed assault.
There has been no specific threat, or suspicion of such an event happening, as the Mail grudgingly admits in the final lines:
A House of Commons spokesman said: ‘We have contingency plans to cover a range of emergencies, of which this [an armed raid] is one. It does not relate to a specific threat.’In other words, not really a news story at all, just a typical bit of Daily Mail tub thump to encourage us to feel scared and suspicious.
We have ALWAYS been at war with Oceania.
1 - "Westminster on Mumbai-style terror attack alert after Al Qaeda threat," by Gerri Peev. Published in the Daily Mail, 16th of November, 2010. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1330066/Westminster-Mumbai-style-terror-attack-alert-Al-Qaeda-threat.html#ixzz15TVIJ1hP)
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Unspeakable
Following the the Granai air strikes last year, I posted some angry comments about the US Marines MarSOC unit, which had been involved in the operation, along with others which had featured large numbers of civilian deaths in Afghanistan (1).
I described their actions as "savages" who were "killing innocent people for sport." That wasn't entirely fair, but I was sickened by the high death tolls, and the reckless, counter-productive strategy employed.
Now, however, it looks like there really are US soldiers in Afghanistan doing just that - killing civilians simply because it amuses them, with no military goal at all, however ill conceived:
I described their actions as "savages" who were "killing innocent people for sport." That wasn't entirely fair, but I was sickened by the high death tolls, and the reckless, counter-productive strategy employed.
Now, however, it looks like there really are US soldiers in Afghanistan doing just that - killing civilians simply because it amuses them, with no military goal at all, however ill conceived:
Morlock and another soldier, Andrew Holmes, were on guard at the edge of a poppy field when Mudin emerged and stopped on the other side of a wall from the soldiers. Gibbs allegedly handed Morlock a grenade who armed it and dropped it over the wall next to the Afghan and dived for cover. Holmes, 19, then allegedly fired over the wall.While they may have be facing justice, it does beg questions about how much of this sort of stuff is going on. It's barbaric, the sort of savagery that we were meant to be saving the Afghans from.
Later in the day, Morlock is alleged to have told Holmes that the killing was for fun and threatened him if he told anyone.
The second victim, Marach Agha, was shot and killed the following month. Gibbs is alleged to have shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. In May Mullah Adadhdad was killed after being shot and attacked with a grenade.
The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies.
Five soldiers – Gibbs, Morlock, Holmes, Michael Wagnon and Adam Winfield – are accused of murder and aggravated assault among other charges. All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted. (2)
1 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/05/marsoc-murders-in-afghanistan.html
2 - "US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'," by Chris McGreal. Published in The Guardian, 9th of September, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers)
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Don't mention the war
To borrow from the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto, there is a spectre haunting those who seek to lead the British Labour party. Or - I prefer the imagery of Helen MacFarlane's original English translation - what is bothering them is not an austere spectre, but a "frightful hobgoblin." Spectre or hobgoblin, it likes to sneak up behind the various contenders and whisper, in the style of World War One recruitment posters, "What did you do in the war, daddy?"
The uncouth hobgoblin refers, of course, to the invasion of Iraq, which has been raised among the candidates for the Labour party leadership. This has resulted in various degrees of discomfort, squirming and self-righteousness.
Ed Balls and Ed Miliband have made an issue of the war. Neither was an MP at the time, so both were in the pleasant position of not having been forced to account for their support of it. Ed Balls - with uncharacteristic frankness - admits that he would have voted for it:
The Edward strain of Miliband has said pretty much the same, in a Guardian interview:
Like Balls, Ed Miliband also has the luxury of not having been an MP at the time. So perhaps Balls is eyeing up his rival and trying to anticipate what could still be a major dividing line between the 'mainstream' candidates - Ed Miliband, who didn't, David Miliband and Andy Burnham who did, and Ed balls who didn't, but is so closely associated with those that did that it makes little odds. Balls, obviously, wants to be on the same side of the dividing line as Ed Miliband, but his close association with Brown means can't get both feet over. He's left in this rather awkward position of saying it was a mistake and that he would have made it. I suppose he gets points for candour.
Everyone knows Iraq was a tremendous fuck up and a really bad idea. Acknowledging that is meant to draw a line under it for Balls and Ed Miliband and put some pressure on their rivals to do the same. It might not be very effective, as there are two leadership candidates who voted against the war - Dianne Abbott and John McDonell. Though I suppose as long as they appear to be outsiders, presenting yourself as they least tainted of the old crew might have serve purpose.
But that's assuming it remains a fight between the members of the old cabinet, and Abbott and McDonnell remain outsiders - which may not be the case. I remember a time when a certain David Cameron was a rank outsider, and Ken Clarke was expected to be conservative leader. Ditto a certain Barack Obama, and a horny chap called Clinton from Arkansas.
Meanwhile, David Miliband thinks that the whole Iraq invasion, false intelligence and violation of the UN's authority thing isn't really worth talking about:
Note the careful wording in the final paragraph - "if it had been known then that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction ..." As if that could ever have been definitively "known." Remember Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that lack of evidence was in its own way, evidence? (4) This is the same idea. The invasion was wrong, but the error was acceptable, because those making the error had not received to concrete proof of Iraqi innocence that would have fores-stalled military action. Wrong. The Iraqis had been co-operative and inspectors had found no evidence of active - or even dormant - WMD programmes. That should have been enough to stop any invasion, not any preposterous requirement that the Iraqis do the impossible by proving they are clean. There had been no proof to the contrary, so there should have been no invasion.
David Miliband is a mealy mouthed, self serving, slimy git. Like Tony "This might cost me my job" Blair (5), he seems to fail to grasp that there are more important things than his career. He must never, ever be leader of the Labour party. It would be a dismal re-run of Blairism, and - to borrow from Karl Marx again - the first time it was tragedy, the second time feeble farce (6).
The uncouth hobgoblin refers, of course, to the invasion of Iraq, which has been raised among the candidates for the Labour party leadership. This has resulted in various degrees of discomfort, squirming and self-righteousness.
Ed Balls and Ed Miliband have made an issue of the war. Neither was an MP at the time, so both were in the pleasant position of not having been forced to account for their support of it. Ed Balls - with uncharacteristic frankness - admits that he would have voted for it:
“I was in the room when a decision was taken that we would say it was that dastardly Frenchman, Jacques Chirac, who had scuppered it. It wasn’t really true, you know. I said to Gordon: 'I know why you’re doing this, but you’ll regret it’. France is a very important relationship for us.”I think this is a pretty obvious attempt to pre-empt questions about Iraq. Balls is too closely associated with Gordon Brown to make any claim that he was always against it to hold up - the best he can manage is to admit that it was a mistake, But it's basically designed to make the whole nasty issue go away.
Although Mr Balls concedes that, had he been an MP at the time, he would have voted for the war on the basis of the facts provided, he now concedes that not only was the information wrong but the war unjustified.
“It was a mistake. On the information we had, we shouldn’t have prosecuted the war. We shouldn’t have changed our argument from international law to regime change in a non-transparent way. It was an error for which we as a country paid a heavy price, and for which many people paid with their lives. Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, and I am pleased he is no longer running Iraq. But the war was wrong.” (1)
The Edward strain of Miliband has said pretty much the same, in a Guardian interview:
Ed Miliband was living in the US and was not yet an MP at the time. "I was pretty clear at the time that I thought there needs to be more due process here," he said.Perhaps I am being to subtle here, but I detect a difference in emphasis between Milband and Balls. Miliband wants to "Draw a line" under the issue, which means confronting it. My sense is that Balls wants to escape further probing on this unpleasant topic.
"As we all know, the basis for going to war was on the basis of Saddam's threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction and therefore that is why I felt the weapons inspectors should have been given more time to find out whether he had those weapons, and Hans Blix – the head of the UN weapons inspectorate – was saying that he wanted to be given more time. The basis for going to war was the threat that he posed.
"The combination of not giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then the weapons not being found, I think for a lot of people it led to a catastrophic loss of trust for us, and we do need to draw a line under it." (2)
Like Balls, Ed Miliband also has the luxury of not having been an MP at the time. So perhaps Balls is eyeing up his rival and trying to anticipate what could still be a major dividing line between the 'mainstream' candidates - Ed Miliband, who didn't, David Miliband and Andy Burnham who did, and Ed balls who didn't, but is so closely associated with those that did that it makes little odds. Balls, obviously, wants to be on the same side of the dividing line as Ed Miliband, but his close association with Brown means can't get both feet over. He's left in this rather awkward position of saying it was a mistake and that he would have made it. I suppose he gets points for candour.
Everyone knows Iraq was a tremendous fuck up and a really bad idea. Acknowledging that is meant to draw a line under it for Balls and Ed Miliband and put some pressure on their rivals to do the same. It might not be very effective, as there are two leadership candidates who voted against the war - Dianne Abbott and John McDonell. Though I suppose as long as they appear to be outsiders, presenting yourself as they least tainted of the old crew might have serve purpose.
But that's assuming it remains a fight between the members of the old cabinet, and Abbott and McDonnell remain outsiders - which may not be the case. I remember a time when a certain David Cameron was a rank outsider, and Ken Clarke was expected to be conservative leader. Ditto a certain Barack Obama, and a horny chap called Clinton from Arkansas.
Meanwhile, David Miliband thinks that the whole Iraq invasion, false intelligence and violation of the UN's authority thing isn't really worth talking about:
But David Miliband, who, unlike his two rivals, was an MP in 2003 and voted for the invasion, said much of the controversy about the war had dissipated.So the greatest foreign policy blunder since Suez (at least) isn't that important and we should worry about why it happened or why Miliband was so shockingly wrong-headed as to support it. There is a fucking huge, Iraq shaped elephant in the room, covered in the blood of western soldiers and Iraqi civilians, but we really mustn't talk about it, because it is time to "move on."
"While Iraq was a source of division in the past, it doesn't need to be a source of division in the future," he said as he arrived at the annual conference of the centre-left Progress group in London.
"Iraq was a big issue at the 2005 general election, but the vast majority of MPs and candidates I have spoken to this time say that while it was a big issue then it was much less of an issue in 2010.
"I said during the election campaign that I thought it was time to move on."
Asked whether his brother and Balls were using the war to "score points" within the Labour Party, he said: "I think that is something you would have to ask them about."
Miliband said he stood by his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the war that if it have been known then that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, there would have been no invasion. (3)
Note the careful wording in the final paragraph - "if it had been known then that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction ..." As if that could ever have been definitively "known." Remember Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that lack of evidence was in its own way, evidence? (4) This is the same idea. The invasion was wrong, but the error was acceptable, because those making the error had not received to concrete proof of Iraqi innocence that would have fores-stalled military action. Wrong. The Iraqis had been co-operative and inspectors had found no evidence of active - or even dormant - WMD programmes. That should have been enough to stop any invasion, not any preposterous requirement that the Iraqis do the impossible by proving they are clean. There had been no proof to the contrary, so there should have been no invasion.
David Miliband is a mealy mouthed, self serving, slimy git. Like Tony "
1 - "Ed Balls interview: Iraq war was a mistake," by Mary Riddell and Andrew Porter. Published in the Telegraph, 21st of may, 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7750935/Ed-Balls-interview-Iraq-war-was-a-mistake.html)
2 - "Ed Miliband: Labour's catastrophic loss of trust over Iraq," by Patrick Wintour and Allegra Stratton. Published in the Guardian, 21st of May, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/21/ed-miliband-labour-iraq-war)
3 - "David Miliband: Time to move on from Iraq," by David Batty and agencies. Published in the Guardian, 22nd of May, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/22/david-miliband-iraq-war-labour-leadership)
4 - Rumsfeld's words are quoted in "No evidence is evidence: Rumsfeld's paradigm shift," by Carol Norris. Published in Counterpunch, 19th of January, 2003. (http://www.counterpunch.org/norris01182003.html)
5 - In fairness to Tony Blair, he didn't actually say that, but he did say something to that effect, quoted in "Blair talks of the strains of war, his family's unstinting support and his relief in victory," by Andrew Sparrow. Published by the Telegraph, 19th of April, 2003. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1427955/Blair-talks-of-the-strains-of-war-his-familys-unstinting-support-and-his-relief-in-victory.html)
6 - "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, " by Karl Marx, 1852. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm)
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Note his choice of verb ...
From Tony Blair's testimony to the Chilcott inquiry:
"Responsibility but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein. I think that he was a monster. I believe he threatened not just the region but the world. And in the circumstances that we faced then, but I think even if you look back now, it was better to deal with this threat, to remove him from office." (1)
Note that he believes Saddam Hussien was a global threat. Couching it as a belief - by necessity, an idea held inspite of there being no evidence to support it - allows Blair to sidestep the pesky absence of evidence supporting his demented suggestion that a third rate gangster with some broken down tanks and a bit of a nuclear reactor posed a global threat.
It's a belief, not a statement of fact. A belief doesn't need evidence, facts, or any of that inconvenient stuff.
But his choice of verb is lawyerly - it reveals - subtly - that he didn't have the evidence. It's a sly admission that he sent British troops to war knowing that there wasn't an adequate pretext.
I'm sure this fervently voiced belief squares Blair with his conscience. He can - and undoubtledly has - convinced himself that he truly believes this, just as he has doubtless convinced himself that he is truly a follower of the Catholic faith. The man's powers of self delusion and self persuasion are remarkable.
But he has failed utterly to convince anyone who thought his decision to join the invasion of Iraq was at best stupid, at worst craven, hypocritical and reckless, to change their minds.
That needs evidence.
1 - "To gasps from the gallery, Blair says we should be proud of the war," by Nigel Morris. Published in the Independent, 30th of January, 2010. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/to-gasps-from-the-gallery-blair-said-we-should-be-proud-of-the-war-1883651.html)
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Non-electronic 'bomb dowsing wand' is a dud, unsurprisingly
One of these stories that makes you check the date to make sure it isn't April Fools Day. But the only fools in this are the lunatics who bought this 'device,' with terrible consequences. In Iraq, even the surreal and comic comes with a hefty amount of spilled blood and sufferring:
Dunno what is more reprehensible, really - someone selling this crap, or the derilection of duty thsat lead to it being bought.
Hundreds of people have been killed in horrific bombings in Iraq after a British company supplied "bogus" equipment which failed to detect explosive devices.Just another example of con-men trying to make money, albeit with the added nastiness that the result of their snakoil routine is people being killed. But then it gets deeply weird:
The head of the company, which has made tens of millions of pounds from the sale of the detectors, has now been arrested and the British Government has announced a ban on their export to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr McCormick, who served with Merseyside police before becoming managing director of the company ATSC, said that his "highly successful" ADE series was based on a similar principle to dowsing – the belief that certain types of woods can detect water underground.I can make an ineffective, non-electronic device. I can produce it for a lot less than Mr McCormick. True, it will be made out of lego ("Modular!" "Customise it!" "Comes in a avariety of colours!") but I'll throw in the flashing lights for free.
He claimed recently: "We have been dealing with doubters for 10 years. One of the problems we have is that the machine does look a little primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights."
...
The "bomb detector", a small hand-held wand, with a telescopic aerial on a swivel, is used in dozens of checkpoints in Iraqi cities including Baghdad. It is claimed that it had failed to detect two tonnes of explosives used by suicide bombers to murder 155 people and destroy three ministries in October last year. There was a similar alleged shortcoming when 120 people were killed in another series of bombings in December.
...
However the device has some defenders in Iraq. Major General Jihad al-Jabiri, the head of the Interior Ministry's directorate for combat explosives, said: "Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is detecting bombs. I don't care what they say. I know more about bombs than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world."
Dunno what is more reprehensible, really - someone selling this crap, or the derilection of duty thsat lead to it being bought.
1 - "Head of bomb detector company arrested in fraud investigation," by Kim Sengupta. Published in The Independent,23rd of January, 2009. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/head-of-bomb-detector-company-arrested-in-fraud-investigation-1876388.html)
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Blackwater case dropped in the USA
Unsuprisingly, the case against Blackwater employees responsible for the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians has been thrown out of court by a US judge, due to alleged "procedural errors in the way evidence was collected (1).
Which does beg the question, will the same standard be applied to any alleged terrorists put on trial in the USA, when the case relies on evidence or information obtained under torture, or where other extra legal procedural errors" have been committed?
Somehow, I think not.
Which does beg the question, will the same standard be applied to any alleged terrorists put on trial in the USA, when the case relies on evidence or information obtained under torture, or where other extra legal procedural errors" have been committed?
Somehow, I think not.
1 - "Iraq outraged as Blackwater case is dropped" by Guy Adams, published in the Independent, 2nd of January, 2010. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-outraged-as-blackwater-case-is-dropped-1855401.html)
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