Remember how your humble blogger described the Gillard “deal” to base US troops in Northern Australia?
In just a few words … “This Will End Well”:
More brilliant strategy from our government.
Ill-considered.
Counterproductive.
Dangerous.
Unnecessary.
And sure enough, barely four days later, and it is already becoming clear that I was right.
What has been achieved, is another Labor epic FAIL.
They have antagonised not only China, but Indonesia as well.
Not that you would think so from the government and media “spin” lies about those nations’ reactions:
Smith downplays US-China crossfire claim
Defence Minister Stephen Smith has downplayed suggestions of China’s displeasure with a new military arrangement between Australia and the United States, saying the official response has been measured and appropriate.
Under the new arrangements announced during US president Barack Obama’s visit to Australia, US marines will start training in the Northern Territory from next year, increasing to a force of 2500 by 2016.
Liu Weimin, a spokesman of China’s ministry of foreign affairs, said the move may not be in the interest of countries in the region and questioned the expansion of military ties while global economics were still shaky.
But an editorial in China’s state-run People’s Daily goes further, saying if Australia uses its military bases to help the US hurt Chinese interests, then “one thing is certain … Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire”.
Mr Smith said media commentary should be “divorced” from China’s official response.
“And the official response has quite frankly been a measured one,” he told Network Ten on Sunday.
“It hasn’t been over the top.”
Ahhhh … Steve, ‘ol son. Two points.
One. The Chinese are famously circumspect in their language. An official response saying that our government’s decision “may not be in the best interest of countries in the region” is a pretty big red flag.
Two. The People’s Daily is state-run. The regime can, will, and does, make clearer statements in its media organs, than it ever does in official diplomatic comments. So you can probably take as gospel that if The People’s Daily speaks of Australia being caught in “crossfire”, that is exactly what the regime is really thinking.
Indeed, they said a little more than that, didn’t they?
A strongly-worded editorial in the state-owned People’s Daily said the new Australian-US defence pact posed a security threat to Australia.
“Australia surely cannot play China for a fool. It is impossible for China to remain detached, no matter what Australia does to undermine its security,” it said.
“If Australia uses its military bases to help the US harm Chinese interests, then Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire.”
The editorial admonished Australia for relying on China for its economic interests while turning to the United States for political and security purposes.
No question about it.
You have antagonised the Chinese. Best get yourself a copy of Sun Tzu’s “Art Of War”, Mr Smith. It might help you get a clue.
And what about Indonesia? We’ve long had a tetchy relationship with them.
Did our government consider the possibility of “blowback” from our nearest big neighbour?
Gillard reassures Indonesia in bilateral talks
Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Indonesian president understands Australia’s growing military ties with the United States are not a threat.
Ms Gillard says she discussed the issue with president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the sidelines of yesterday’s East Asia Summit and during their bilateral meeting in Bali today.
Yesterday Mr Yudhoyono told reporters that both Ms Gillard and the US President, Barack Obama, had guaranteed they had no intention of disturbing Australia’s neighbours.
Ms Gillard says Indonesia has no reason to be concerned.
“President Yudhoyono certainly understands that this is a step forward in our defence cooperation with the United States,” she said.
“We are a long-term ally of the United States. That this step forward in our defence cooperation is not aimed at any nation in our region.”
The very fact that reassurances have had to be given, proves two things.
1. The prospect of a US-Australia military deal was not discussed with the Chinese or the Indonesians prior to announcing it. FAIL.
2. They are concerned … else there’d be no need for reassurances. FAIL.
This grandstanding decision by Gillard, part and parcel of nauseatingly brown-nosing the warmongering Peace Prize winner Obama during his flying visit Downunder in order to get a desperately-needed lift in the polls and save her leadership during “killing season”, may very well turn out to be Gillard’s biggest, most epic fail yet.
Big call.
But then, so is pissing off (1) your biggest customer, (2) your biggest creditor, and (3) your biggest neighbour, all just to lift your own beleaguered standing within your own party.
Barnaby Is Right 
Of course China is worried and rightly so. the whole reason for a US troop garrison here is because WW3 is currently in the throes of being instigated via an attack on Iran (similar propaganda to what was used against Iraq) which will result in Russian assetts being affected in Iran which will bring in China through their mutual defence pact with Russia.
Make no mistake, this announcement is preparation for a war footing. Not that anyone can be surprised. The military industrial complex owned by the international bankers is always used to generate revenue when the financial system has collapsed. Need I remind people here that the last World War occurred on the tail end of the Great Depression?
Interesting theory, and plausible. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing which theory is true until it is too late.
Gillard and Obama gaining political traction in the polls is the most simplest, and therefore the most plausible. I cross my fingers and hope your wrong. Hell, I might soon be praying.
Actually I’d argue it’s the most likely if not a foregone conclusion when you look at all the evidence. What I’m about to post will also shed some new light on the Chinese statements.
The CEC reported in their weekly report for November 11 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EthJyGWlynY from 1:00) that
“We are now in a countdown to World War 3 – a nuclear World War 3 – that would be triggered by an impending attack on Iran. This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report, alleging that Iran, like Iraq a decade ago, has an intention for building weapons of massive destruction – nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
This report, in anticipation of it, has been regarded by especially the Israelis and their Neo-Con supporters in America and Britain, as a green light for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order a rogue strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities- a “preemptive strike.
Now, just to be clear, when you see these news reports, about such things as the IAEA report, you think “Well this much be a serious report- this is a formal body, this is it’s job: it’s set up to do these things.” It’s all smoke and mirrors!
The so-called ‘evidence’ in the report, is not the IAEA’s independent findings; it’s what the British, French, Americans and Israelis have INCLUDED in the report, because they’re all contributing members of of the IAEA. So it’s their so called ‘evidence’ which gets classed as IAEA evidence.
The evidence is just a total rehash of the same garbage we got in the lead-up to the Iraq War- grainy satellite photos of so-called ‘nuclear installations’ that remember with Iraq, turned out to be nothing.
If the Israelis go ahead with the strike, the jet fighters they would send would fly over Syria – they would also bomb nuclear installations in Syria along the way. The thing is, the nuclear installations in Syria are run by the Russians, so this would be an attack on Russia.
Russia and China are stridently opposed to an attack on Iran. More than that, Russia and China are the leaders of a strategic cooperation organisation, known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which is becoming a strategic block in Asia.
At its last meeting this week, Pakistan, Iran and India were all present and they’ve all asked to become full members of this Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. So that puts them in a strategic alliance with Russia and China. An attack on Iran triggers that, and the people pushing the attack, know that’s the case.
So if the Neo-Con nutcases, who have been let out of their cage under Obama succeed, a global showdown will ensue.
The bottom line is, war in this case, is a clear and present danger, because the people on the British side, want it. War is their policy!
To make a comparison – or in this case, a contrast – the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s was only averted because JFK DIDN’T want a war. Go and look at the movie ‘Thirteen Days’ for a flavour (?) of that, but it’s true, he didn’t want a war. In this case, the British [including their puppet Obama] want a war.”
The report then goes on to examine why War has been a permanent British policy. If you’re curious about the British connection, I’d recommend watching it.
I’d post more, but as some people here seem to go into “information overload”, I’ll leave it at that for now, as the blogger has already posted on here about China’s response to troop garrisoning here by the US.
Interesting hypothesis, Andrew. Can you back it up? I’m not going to mock your post, but i am a sceptic by nature. After all, i’m a regular here at barnabyisright.com 🙂
There are a million conspiracy theories, but none are ever proven. Still, there is usually some truth to them. The fabians are certainly of british origin, but as being essentially communist, they are by nature ‘supra-national’. Britain came within a whisker of becoming communist in the 70’s, hence the despising of the thwarting Thatcher. Likewise with the bankster conspiracies, i doubt that nuclear war is part of any such plan. Trillions will do you no good in nuclear armaggedon. They’re after easy money after all, not suicide.
In any case, despite the clear danger of conducting acts that can be construed as acts of war, an escalation to WWIII requires stupidity all around. It is worth remembering however, that it was alliances that helped cause WWI. I doubt that being neutral would leave us out of any conflict, with our resources. Come hell or high water, someone will be coming for it. Dangerous times indeed,
..but i am a sceptic by nature. After all, i’m a regular here at barnabyisright.com 🙂
Bravo.
@twodogs 2 news article online which back it up are this one where Israel refuses to rule out a preemptive strike while making all the rhetoric to suggest it’s happening:
http://en.ria.ru/world/20111120/168857775.html
And an ABC News blog pointing to the Pentagon needing to prepare for war against Iran:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/bachmann-says-pentagon-should-prepare-a-war-plan-for-iran/
I should point out that this isn’t a done deal, however there doesn’t seem to be anyone in a position of power to avert this from happening.
Oh, i wasn’t in much doubt about an Israeli pre-emptive strike. Even the MSM have been reporting regularly that it is likely. Winter cloud cover is likely to make them wait now until mid-2012 when chances of success or higher.
Er, Obama could, if he were so inclined. No certainty of that, though. I just hope they bother to plan for an exit strategy this time, but what could that entail? If China and/or Russia want Iran to become nuclear, how could it be stopped? If USA ‘intervene’, then you would think that they would be confident of it not happening. If it then did, it would be the biggest blunder since Hitler turned on the Russians.
Still keen on the British conspiracy hypothesis info though.
@Twodogs I don’t think Obama will directly draw first blood. The USA policy with Iran has tended to be one of looking for an excuse to attack in the form of Iran striking someone.
I suspect that considering the Hawks controlling Israel, the cloud cover wont stop them. The Israelli hawks have a history of underestimating the situation with their enemies and it costing them dearly (as do the US when it comes to Iran for that matter). Besides, depending on what armaments they send their planes up with, the cloud cover could be minimised to a large extent such as using air to ground guided missiles such as Tomahawks,or possibly even Exocets in an unconventional role.
Then again, considering the buildup to the Iraq War, they could spend that long selling the public on a war with Iran.
As for the British Empire info, I’ll get back to you on that- it’s a pretty complex history.
Couldn’t agree more Andrew. Gillard has painted a big fat bullseye of us.
This woman is going have a hell of a lot of explaining to do in the aftermath of the next few years.
Mind you, would it have been any different if Abbott was running the show right now???
Either way, looks like we’re screwed…
Don’t forget that famous old quote… “nothing, absolutely nothing happens in politics by accident…if it happens, you can bet it was planned that way”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
How ridiculous!
We painted a big fat bullseye on us when we entered the Anzus pact 60 years ago.
That depends, are you talking about our alliance with the US in general or the official signing of the ANZUS treaty and the alliance from that point onwards- because depending on what exactly you are referring to, you’re either correct in once case or at best, half right in the other.
Quite agree Le blogeur gai?
In the sixties, at the height of the cold war, Britain used to send nuclear strike force planes here on a sunspot, they called it. As my ex was a former member, we met the crews occasionally.
It was called showing the flag! There was no reason then for Britain to have bases here, as to get to Oz in one jump meant refueling along the way and that isn’t too easy. That’s without landing from Waddington Lincolnshire to somewhere in Western Australia I think. Then hopped over to Richmond air force base.
But that was when Australia had an air craft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, I know a pilot who flew from there. Now you haven’t got
one. And you need either missiles, or long range air craft to be an effective defense force. I don’t think China is so much a threat as they might have been so many years ago, when they were fighting everyone near their borders. Of course one could always ask the Brits. But – maybe they haven’t go the money to send anyone over.
@bushbunny – your post is highly naive. The reality is that the world is in all likelihood about to enter WW3 due to an imminent and almost certain strike on a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation by Israel which will include a direct strike on Russian nuclear facilities in Syria.
This is far from simply “showing the flag”; it’s entirely about marshaling US forces for what is inevitably going to be a nuclear conflict. Between the US and China.
I’m curious, Andrew. How does it work when sworn enemies are both part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation? Such marriages of convenience always end up in tears. So far they are both have observer status, so that hardly makes them allies. Many such organisations have members who are potential enemies, although one of its primary purposes was to reduce such tensions.
Australia joining the US in trading uranium with India strongly suggests backing India versus Pakistan and China potentially as well.
This all makes India something of a key player, as their alliances could play a big role in whether there is a war or not.
Also, how do you take countries such as Turkey? It is becoming (or indeed has already become) militantly islamic (or islamicly militant), and by many accounts fancies itself as a rival to Iran, perhaps even with Egypt under the Islamic Brotherhood. Other nations such as Saudi Arabia don’t want Iran to have nukes, so are happy for Israel to do the dirty work. There could well be an arab versus persian rivalry at play once again, so this can only complicate things.
Maybe due to MAD, Iran having nukes may not be so bad, but when the frothingly anti-american left in Australia sound it out as a good thing, then i fear the opposite. Iran could use terrorist proxies to wreak havoc in Israel or Europe or elsewhere, as long as they have plausible deniability and not leave any evidence.
Andrew, its good to see that you have become enlightened in your time at uni, but in this game you are barely past the tip of the iceberg. However much you know or think you know, there is much much more. If you had access to all of the CIA, how much would you still not know, and how much could you be even sure was true?
Please enlighten us on the British conspiracy, because we do genuinely want to know.
FWIW, I too am more than open to consider evidences in support of the “British conspiracy” theory. However, for mine, convincing evidence needs to come from more than one source. The more independent sources, the better.
Also FWIW, there seems to me to be a plausible argument being made in many quarters for Pakistan being the key flashpoint for any outbreak of major (ie WW3-potential) “hot” war.
Another important difference between WWI and now, Andrew, is that alliances then were quite specific in obligating allies to send armies. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is not so explicit, so interventions will be able to be made on merit and considerations of starting WWIII. You said JFK didn’t want nuclear war, but you think Obama does? I’ve heard a few criticisms of Obama, but that’s a new one. Realise too that Obama has executive power personally in the US, so he need not heed advice from anyone. That said, i doubt if selected airstrikes on potential Iranian nuclear sites would have the Chinese or Russians of Pakistanis setting off nukes every which way. Any permutation of WWIII would likely remain conventional unless a player was under immediate existential threat. Well, that would be Israel. A ‘nuclear bomb swapping’ exercise would devastate Iran, but annihilate Israel. Israel not wanting Iran to get nukes is no British or US or martian conspiracy, but a perfectly understandable reaction, but how long could they keep up bombing potential Iranian nuclear sites? We do indeed live in dangerous times!
@Twodogs There’s actually 2 separate issues here which I’ll deal with one at a time.
In terms of enemies, I’d argue it comes don’t to the old sayings of “the lesser of 2 evils” and “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
I compare it to the Greeks during the Persian Wars. Greek Poleis would normally be attacking each other. Yet the moment the Persians entered the scene, the Greeks united against a common enemy.
They may currently have observer status, but the fact that in the past couple of weeks they have asked for full member status, suggests a game changer, where both sides are willing to put aside their differences, even if temporarily.
Then you have the situation of even if the Saudis and Jordan want one thing, along with Uzbekistan and Bahrain who the US currently supports and in the case of the former, is set to financially back. While they might side against Iran; Russia and China have made it clear they would back Iran in a military conflict. Considering the size of Russia’s nuclear stockpile of over 10,000 nukes, what’s a few more craters in the ground.
Then you get to the MAD part of things. A Mexican standoff only works when both sides don’t pull the trigger. Likud’s actions here would result in the pulling of a trigger, in which case all hell breaks loose. The moment Syria’s reactors get hit, it’s essentially a nuclear strike, and thus a nuclear war.
The other thing is that Iran is as nuclear capable as Iraq was biologically capable. They’re not the danger here- Russia and China with their nukes, are.
As for your second issue, the problem you bring up, is the utter spin about the Ikhwan by describing them as a millitant group. What is a far more correct term is Fundamentalist Islam- organisations like the Ikhwan. What they want is a completely restored Arabic society resulting in complete Arab self-determination. They want a trans-national Caliphate sure, but the limit of that is within the borders of what the Arabs were promised by the Hussein- McMahon Correspondence. Really, it’s no different to a Christian fundamentalist group springing up here and having the exact same sort of idea.
Yet Hamas gets wrongly compared to Al Qaeda and Fundamentalist Islam gets wrongly compared to the Taliban (who prove that redneck hicks are the same the world over) to cover for an Israeli regime whom, if the roles were reversed (as Noam Chomski put it), would see the world condemning said oppression as a return to Nazism and demanding that those responsible be before the Hague on charges of inciting genocide.
In fact when Likud was taking out losing Sinai on the people of Gaza; the Ikhwan was providing free medical care and degrees to thousands of men and women.
Iran is portrayed as dangerous by the media for one simple reason. Ahmadinejad is a threat- but only to the greedy multinational interests that want to treat the Midle East like a series of colonies.
As to the CIA, I don’t doubt their involvement for a minute, but the problem is that the CIA, much like the US are puppets of the global elites, who control the monetary system of the world- otherwise known as the British empire.
@Twodogs That said, i doubt if selected airstrikes on potential Iranian nuclear sites would have the Chinese or Russians of Pakistanis setting off nukes every which way. Any permutation of WWIII would likely remain conventional unless a player was under immediate existential threat. Well, that would be Israel. A ‘nuclear bomb swapping’ exercise would devastate Iran, but annihilate Israel. Israel not wanting Iran to get nukes is no British or US or martian conspiracy, but a perfectly understandable reaction, but how long could they keep up bombing potential Iranian nuclear sites? We do indeed live in dangerous times!
A few things here. Obama has essentially wrapped Bush’s iron fist in a velvet glove- Guantanimo is just one example of that. Then you have the regular drone attacks on Pakistan which have inflicted numerous civilian deaths. Considering that air strikes on Pakistan which have drawn the US alot of heat (and arguably why India and Pakistan are so quick here to put their long standing feud to one side), I fail to see why he’d have a problem with an air strike on Iran- especially if it was by a third party.
As for the SCO, there are 2 facts here that make things “interesting”. To begin with China have warned us point blank we could be attacked if US troops garrison here, depending on what the US do. Secondly, if Israel also uses the opportunity as an excuse to targewt Syrian nuclear facilities; they automatically declare war against Russia as those are Russian facilities.
Everything going on now screams out “war footing”. The only question is who, if anyone, will come out of the woodwork to stop it.
Two things – firstly China could attack Australia even if we didn’t have US troops on our soil, upon which the yanks would tell us to go to hell, having trashed the ANZUS alliance. Besides, this is a millennia-old tactic of the Chinese from the times of kowtowing under threat of invasion. Personally i perceive it as greater brinksmanship than the yanks having troops on our soil. Since when have the US threatened China with war for conducting war games with allies? The Chinese leadership tell you what they want you to hear. It cannot be taken as what they really think, even if it is true. In other words, they only tell you what they think when it is also what they want you to hear. Those tactics worked much better when they could invade before you could get a message to any potential ally (and probably still too feeble anyway to resist the might of medieval China).
Secondly, if bombing Iranian nuclear sites is to deal with that particular existential threat,then why would would they do something they think would be construed as an act of war on Russia? Perhaps you should tell them. With the uncertainty at the moment with Syria, i suspect the players will be taking a wait-and-see approach first.
Don’t be so sure about anything in the middle east or the balkans. Many have come a cropper in those places!
Except that the current situation works far better for China- they’re buying up stacks of our farms to ensure their own food security and they have a steady supply of raw materials.
They don’t need an armed conflict to take what they want from this country.
As for bombing Iran, it’s simple. Israel is no doubt counting on America, Britain, France and other players to back it up in case things get nasty.
The problem is that China is getting nervous and Russia has its own interests with Iran and Syria as much as the US does with Israel. Heck, an attack on nuclear facilities in Syria is literally an attack on Russian assets.
You brought up the local conflict with external players previously, yet that is exactly what you have in the Middle East and have had since the mid 1800s.
Furthermore, that wait and see period you’re talking about is now. The problem is that the moment the Israeli hawks actually do attack, you wind up in a situation were someone has lit the fuse, the proverbial Pandora has been let out of the box and all hell breaks loose.
It’s like in a different scenario and under different circumstances, either Pakistan or India getting a golden opportunity to attack the other decisively.
The only way this will be averted is if someone can reign Israel in.
Well said, TBI. Pakistan has been playing both sides. A recipe for disaster right there. And with nukes ready to go.
@Twodogs While there is that factor, I suspect that the reason for wanting into the SCO with India is because they see the current climate being a clear and present danger to their survival. The constant use of drone attacks in Pakistan combined with recent US policy statements (I’d be highly surprise if Pakistan hadn’t heard “chatter” about US garrisoning of troops here and an Asia Pacific focus) have arguably taken things to a very basic place for them- survival.
The thing about schemers are that while they never let go of schemes, the intelligent ones know when they need to temporarily put them aside to be able to live another day so they can implement them. The fact that they tried choosing a side by asking for full SCO status, makes that pretty clear.
That may be true. That’s why i say India is a critical player, and staying local may actually avert war. A united asia is likely to be left well alone. Israel vs Iran is a regional conflict, and any intervention by a world power (China, Russia, Nato or US) would be a potentially global escalation. I think they know that too and would take that into account. I have no illusions about any of them, but i do expect them to be rational.
Also, don’t be too sure about the yanks being desperate for foreign oil. They vowed to be self-sufficient from day one, and they have ensured they still are. They are using everyone else’s oil while they can.
This geopolitical stuff is mind-bogglingly complex, but there are estimations you can make of value, just not absolute certainties.
Except that oil isn’t just about oil- it’s about the value of the US Dollar. Remember that the official currency of Oil is US Dollars and it is a key commodity which gives the US Dollar its value.
This an excellent and highly pertinent point .. about which I’ll be posting a blog in coming days.
That should have been “full SCO member status”, not “full SCO status”
Who says the Libs/coalition wanted the yanks here, they did. The Libs wanted Uranium sold to India, labour didn’t? I agree that Gillard and Co
are incompetent and pent on hanging on to power anyway they can.
Mining tax, I have lost track I got a email from Barnaby an hour or two ago, saying that it is not certain yet.
People need to get out of the “Liberal/Labor” mindset. The Coalition has been corrupted through and through by the Mont Pelerin Society, while the Labor party has been corrupted through and through by the Fabian Society. Both are arms of the British Crown- who wants to regain their former glory and return the world to a state of perpetual oligarchy.
When recognising the enemy, people need to look past the puppet and follow their metaphorical strings to the puppet masters.
The Mont Pelerin Society does not espouse conquest by stealth, but i do appreciate the somewhat falsity of the left/right paradigm, as politics is dynamic, and all permutations are ultimately possible.
I’ll take freedom of expression, free markets and open society over central planning and control any day. I’d hardly call arguments for freedom of expression “corrupt”. Feel free to argue that this expressions made on this site such as yours should be shut down/ Hayek’s law of unintended consequences has surprising relevance to the current geopolitical climate.
@twodogs. That position is utterly fallacious and a prime example of the 2 party paradigm trap. You go from over regulated totalitarianism to “might makes right” anarchy where the multinationals simply run roughshod over everyone and make themselves an oligopaly of supply. The reality is that neither contributes to the sovereignty of a nation.
Furthermore, the Mont Pellerin Society has been about destroying national sovereignty through corporatisation and economic rationalisation.
It’s a case of different arms performing different roles.
Andrew and Tomorrow. I’ve been to Israel, you can practically walk from the Northern border to their Southern in one day. (Somewhat an understatement, drive perhaps. I think its about 150 miles long, and between 30 – 60 miles wide. It is a tiny place, bordered by the Med on their Western side, and surrounded by desert and Arab countries on the rest of their borders. They have nuclear weapons. So far we don’t know if Iran has. Every time it looks as if they do, someone bombs them out. However they are close to Jordon, and they are friends with the Brits and yanks. We’ll see.
I’ve also been to Israel and I’ve also finished studying the Arab-Israeli conflict in depth at university this semester.
I can also confidently say that you’ve missed the point with this post. The claims of Iranian nuclear weapons are as bogus as the claims about Iraq having WMDs. This is entirely about trying to instigate war with Iran which has been in the works for at least the last decade.
Furthermore you’re talking about the Likud party who are nothing more than a pack of Jewish fundamentalist nutcases (otherwise known as “Revisionist Zionists”) who have made beating teenage boys at gunpoint, mass raping women and girls, and butchering unarmed civilians (I would strongly recommend as one example, reading about Plan D) as standard practice. They’re arguably as bad as having Al Qaeda in any country calling the shots.
Israel is using this as an opportunity to wipe out the “ragheads” and gain biblical borders to Israel as the nutcase devotees of Jabotinski and Co. have always wanted. This frameup by the IAEA recently is simply giving them an excuse they’ve been looking for for years.
Furthermore, if Israel strikes Syria “pre-emptively” they’ll be targeting Russian nuclear facilities, which is an act of war against Russia and in turn China.
If they target Iran directly, they attack a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is exactly the same as attacking a member of Nato in that an attack on one member is an attack on all members.
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly twodogs. When I was involved with the armed services, the general public only knew half the story if that. For example the Cuban crisis. Well the American’s started that with the abortive Bay of Pigs assault. But that didn’t give the Russians an excuse to put missile sites on Cuba. As I said my hubby was then close to joining the nuclear strike force in UK from Cyprus. But he told me, that all V Force planes were on red alert, and dispersed to their secret bases from which they could strike more easily if Russia and America came to blows. The blockade succeeded. But didn’t mean that the Americans, French and British nuclear strike forces weren’t ready to fly when necessary. Have you watched ‘Dr Strangelove’. Well although a black comedy, my ex said, the processes of going ahead were almost correct.
This is the debate we have to have.
Actually, you could say that things are good when global warming is at the top of the agenda, as it means that there are a lack of real problems to worry about. That global warming is dropping off the radar is indication that real problems are afoot.
In one respect, this is merely a strengthening of our existing alliance. That there may be greater meaning cannot be discounted.
History does give us lessons. In real, profound wars, the US likes to enter late when the existing players are weary. The Chinese historically are covert, and avoid the muscular, direct approaches of say, the Russians. The Chinese launching a nuclear attack would be their stupidest decision ever. Cyber warfare would fit nicely in with their style, or the use of proxies. All those idle North Koreans and Burmese soldiers with nothing to do but abuse their own people.
Iran was always a much bigger hurdle than Iraq, so it makes little sense to take them on, especially with allies such as Russia and China. Obama may be a lot of things, but more stupid than Dubya? The concern is that rhetoric against Iran is dejavu to rhetoric against Iraq. I’m all for uranium exports to India, but it fits with a world polarizing into two camps.
Of course, there has been a growing triangle of support between China, Russia and Iran, so is this all part of an intended counterweight?
These actions could make the situation better or worse, and no one can be certain of the eventual outcome. China using strong words could as easily be an overstatement as an understatement. The Chinese traditionally hate opponents allying. They refuse to discuss the South China Sea in a forum, preferring to discuss with nations separately so they can put pressure on them individuallythe facts here are that diplomatically, China are picking up the dregs. They are getting countries like Fiji and Nigeria and othe tinpot dictatorships.
There’s a fine line to tread between antagonizing China and letting them act with impunity, but neutrality with our abundant resources would be a disaster. We would be betting the farm on a non-belligerent China not taking candy from a baby. It would have been better to just notify them in advance. China lashes out when they feel embarrassed.
I’ve already covered much of this in my response to you. However you have several flaws with your assessment. The problem is that you need to look at the British infiltration of the American system.
Firstly, America is not under the likes of Roosevelt this time; it is under Obama, who like Truman, Cheney and Bush before him and several others, are British puppets. This time round it’s Britain calling the shots, using a war to prop up the financial system as well as the obvious oil interests that are behind this.
Secondly, the Chinese wouldn’t be starting the nuclear exchange; it would be Israel against Iran, hitting Russian nuclear facilities in Syria- at which point, the first button has effectively already been pressed.
Thirdly, Iran needs to be dealt with? Based on what- years of propaganda where where the Neo-Cons have tried to start a war with Iran (even using hospital ships to break a treaty during the Bush era at one point- fortunately, Iran showed great restraint at the time).
Fourthly, your claims of China’s statements possibly being an overstatement, completely ignores the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, as much as if it were one Nato member saying the same thing in response to one of their trading partners agreeing to station troops of a nation planning on attacking another NATO member.
Finally we are in a war footing where we are about to go to war AGAINST CHINA, RUSSIA, INDIA, IRAN, PAKISTAN and anyone else who joins the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the interim. No amount of notification would have placated things here.
You know Andrew, I have seen this argument/s before. They are sent to me by an extreme anti-Israel blog, with an Arab sounding name, that they usually go to my spam box, but I occasionally read them. They are highly anti America of course, and are always quoting WWIII like you. I am surprised they let you into Israel for starters. When I was in Israel the West Bank was under joint control with Jordon. The weeping wall was on the Jordanian side. This was before the six day war and the other one that came afterwards. As you know Israel is a very small piece of land. I don’t know where you live but from an Australian point of reference, it would be like comparing Coff’s Harbour to Port Macquarie and in land to Armidale without the mountain ranges in between of course. I wrote a funny letter to the press once, with the Tamworthians sending rockets (firework types) from their base hospital roof to annoy the Armidalians. And to stop this nonsense the Armidalians threatened to send their armed vehicles from The 16th Lancers reserve unit in Armidale into Tamworth during the C & W festival. It was just to explain how close the Gaza strip was to where they were sending rockets from their hospital roof into Israel.
No one said, Iran had nuclear weapons, I beg your pardon! So I would suggest you take your anti-Jewish and American irrational propaganda onto another blog where you can stop calling other posters ‘naive’.
@bushbunny – typical response from a pro-Zionist genocide denying, orientalist bigot. I suppose you think that our indigenous population deserved the genocide and butchering it faced too.
Several points which show how flawed and amoral your argument is. Pay attention if you actually want to have any idea of what you’re talking about.
To put things in perspective and regardless of whether or not you realise it; you have just dismissed the mass raping of thousands of women and girls and the butchering of innocent civilians (Plan D and the Intifada), as well as the unprovoked physical and verbal abusing of children at gunpoint, as “anti-Israeli” extremism.
You talk about Israel having a small portion of land, but how they got that word is best summed up by the term “Terra Nulius”. Poor Peasant farmers were initially driven off the land until WW1. Even then whenever a contemporary Jew or Zionist organisation warned of ignoring the “Palestinian Question” or proposed a settlement model which flew in the face of the “muskeljudentum”. Were either ignored or villainised.
During WW1, the Arabs were duped into fighting to liberate themselves from Turkish oppression under the false promise of self-determination, however in secret, the British, French and Zionists conspired to take the land for themselves, and at the end of the war, the Arabs were double-crossed. When they rose you, they were massacred and bombed into submission.
In the intervening years, a defacto appartheid took shape while in 1925, Vladimir Jabotinski founded Revisionist Zionism which was an ultra millitant version of Zionism, and is the version of Zionism at the heart of the Likud Party.
By 1936, the Arabs rose up, and the British recognised a Jewish millitant group, the Hagannah and funded them to put down the revolt.
Then there is 1948. After the UN voted in favour of Partition as the result of a report which wound up involving next to no input from the Arabs, there was civil strife. The Brittish responded by pushing back their exit date to 2008. The Jewish settlers panicked, fearing the Americans would alter their stance from supporting partition to supporting an international trusteeship, and so they instituted Plan D, which involved going through virtually every single Palestinian village and rad=ping and butchering their way through them to drive out the villagers.
It resulted in at least three quarters of a million Palestinian victims. Some estimates place the figure as high as a million people.
While the official story claims that the Palestinian villagers fled voluntarily, IDF records confirm that at least 75% of the exodus was directly due to the attrocities of Plan D.
But hey, I suppose you think like Benny Morris did, that they didn’t go far enough and that as the genocide of the American Indians can be justified by the birth of Western Democracy, that the needs of the Jews in the wake of the Holocaust can be justified.
I can go on- about how in the wake of the 1973 war with Egypt when Israel lost Sinai, they took it out on the people of Gaza in ways that were utterly brutal and would warrant arrests on the charge of inciting genocide, such as rape, shoot to kill orders against unarmed protestors, butchering civilians, arbitrary arrests and torture suspects of crimes and child abuse- including torturing the children of suspects to force confessions..
Furthermore, sources such as Hamas: “Unwritten Chapters” and “Hushed Voices” (both of which written by highly respected academics) completely back this up.
Finally, if noone is saying that Iran has weapons of mass destruction, then why does this article from Haaretz say otherwise: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iran-iaea-leaks-make-our-nuclear-scientists-targets-for-israel-1.396372
So the question is this, will you revise your position, or do you stand by a position which defends rape, child rape, child abuse and the brutalising of innocent civilians the moment they are of a certain race?
If I were you I would give that question a good deal of thought before responding.
“…typical response from a pro-Zionist genocide denying, orientalist bigot”
Andrew, I have politely asked you to refrain from making your points in this fashion before. I am now asking you again.
I have no problem at all with you using the same terms, but in a non-personalised fashion – for example:
If you are indeed studying at university, then I presume you have sufficient intellect, and grasp of the English language, to (a) THINK before you post, and (b) rephrase any/all comments that could be seen as a personal attack.
If you continue to shoot from the hip at the person, rather than the issue/topic/argument, your commenting privileges will be withdrawn.
I for one am interested to hear your views … especially if you support them with externally sourced independent evidences.
But I will not tolerate your personal aggression towards other welcomed and valued commenters any longer.
Great article.
It is absolutely apparent that our rogue government just gave up our country to the bankers in the coming nuclear world war. And we just sucker-punched China and Indonesia.
It’s been reported that Russia has move it’s war ships off the coast of Syria in order to thwart and attack by NATO. If you cast your memory back to the 2008 Georgian war, it is clear that Russia does not mess about.
There’s more to it than that and there is a far more sinister agenda at play. I’d suggest reading my first response to Twodogs- it’s pretty long but it does give you the full picture.
I agree. the sky is dark. Why is Obama becoming “friends” with so many countries. To shore up support for what he fears. He is “friends” with France, Canada, South Korea, Great Britain, India etc. now Australia, stating that the USA has “no greater ally” and “the US could not have a greater friend”- same rhetoric to all!!
Julia Gillard swooned at every word Obama said and it is guesswork but I believe it was he who suggested such a military arrangement in Australia. Then he was off to Indonesia (probably another “great ally)!! But Indonesia not with Australia. One can understand China
being angry. We rely on China economically but signed up with the US for security
. From what??
Your preferred and biased full picture. Recall there are British forces based in Cyprus, where I lived. They monitor the situation in that part of the middle east closely. Jordon is a friend or so called ally of the British and one of the most stable Arab countries in the region.
Andrew, Andrew… resistance is futile, the Company will prevail.
I’ll give this comment credit for being cleverly amusing … it certainly appeals to my own sense of humour 🙂 … but will ask Andrew to see the funny side, and not to arc up in response.
@JMD congratulations for proving how useless the input of someone trolling can be.
@Bushbunny- the person with the biased opinion here is you. You refuse to accept the radical nature of the Likud Party in Israel as well as the fact that it’s British (neo-con) interests which are behind this push for war.
The Brits, that I was one, are more worried by the EU, and the effect it is happening there.
Luckily they have not entered the Euro, and remain in the pound. Don’t think they are that close to the yanks. They ripped us off during the second world war. Let me say one thing, the yanks are friends and an ally as long as it suits them. They eye them with justified suspicion, why didn’t they join them in the Vietnam war? Possibly because we it was a no win conflict?
Far from it. The Brits are using the financial destabilisation in Europe to install banking dictatorships (as they have done in Greece, are doing in Italy and are about to do in Spain) and their entire policy has been one of depopulation going right back to the British Royal Family starting the WWF in the 1960s.
Yeah Andrew and the Prince Phillip has condemned wind mills as a waste of time and money! When the WWF started it was to protect and support the survival of endangered species.I financially supported it. But now switched to IFAW. Because, It has now entered politics like Green peace (whom I also supported) regarding this stupid science of the IPCC that AGW causes climate change, and we should all get onto the clean energy wagon. Well the clean or Green energy wagon is proving to be the most expensive pseudo capitalistic scam ever invented.
@Bushbunny You I have already posted at length here about the WWF in other blog posts and the evidence points to it being anything but that innocent. The reality when you look at the evidence, is that the WWF was about repackaging Eugenics to make it more palatable to the masses, and they succeeded brilliantly, with people supporting the genocide of over 6 billion people as stated as an aim of the WGBU report.
Furthermore if the WWF had no genocidal aims, then why has one of its stated aims from the beginning been the reduction of the world’s population to under 2 billion people.
Meant to say, last sentence, Possibly because we saw it was a no win conflict, that even the French couldn’t win at one time.
Andrew, I am immune to uneducated biased rubbish. Take a big breath, and relax. You have educated us in ways you don’t realize.
I have asked you whether you support a regime which carries out child abuse, massacre, the torture of children to force confessions out of parents as well as arbitrary arrests and torture. I have done so backing up those points with scholarly material.
The fact that you have chosen to dismiss the work of highly recognised academics such as Dr Azzam Tamimi, as “uneducated biased rubbish” only proves that my initial assessment of your bigotry was spot on.
The reason you haven’t received a response is because it is beneath one. I don’t support anything of the sort, and i don’t imagine anyone on here does. Those ancient lands have been fought over for millennia, with atrocities par for the course. We can argue back through the eons, but for what? To justify more recent ones? Can’t you see that this IS the problem? It’s like a curse where future generations are condemned to repeat the atrocities of their forebears. I have no illusions of Israelis or jews being angels, nor do i of Palestinians or anyone else.
If Israel is illegitimate, argue directly through its creator, the UN. Don’t take the sly road of illegitimising them through slander and condemning them through muslim-centric UN bodies. To prepare a country for invasion, you demonise the populace as a weak moral argument for invasion. Sure, the Iranians are being painted as nuke-makers, but no one is demonising the Iranian people. On the contrary, they are being hailed as brave heroes for standing up to their totalitarian masters, demanding democracy, while the left blame the west for wanting to put in place a strictly american version of democracy, when this is clearly a Iranian people-led revolt for an Iranian version of democracy. Go on, give the predictable claim of the Shah being a US puppet, despite demonstrable legitimacy o the contrary.
Both sides are bad, and the Israelis do themselves no favours with their actions, but clearly they face existential threat. One nuke will do it, and they don’t want that particular loaded gun aimed in theor direction. Unfortunately i think their existence will be under imminent threat for my lifetime and well beyond. Personally, i’d give up the hellhole of a place (same if i were Palestinian) and come to Australia or some other peace-loving place.
Shalom, Two dogs. And Good night to all good citizens who care for the truth. ( I mean to say, Andrew doesn’t know I might be Jewish?). I am! Not orthodox though.
You talk about the truth, yet your entire approach to the atrocities of Zionism has been the equivalent of Holocaust denial. So what if you’re Jewish. I openly acknowledge the horrors of the pogroms, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”, the European Ghettos, and the diaspora from the Pale, along with the Holocaust (in fact one of my areas of interest is the Nazi Euthanasia Program).
However the Holocaust gives neither Zionists nor Jews cart blanche to outdo the treatment the Jews received from Europeans (specifically the Russians and then the Nazis) in their treatment of the Palestinians.
Contrary to what the Nazis and Anti-Semites would have the world believe; the Jews were never a threat to the human race (Revision Zionists or militant Jews however, are different story in terms of the Middle East in general, and the world if they proceed with this pre-emptive strike).
However contrary to the Zionist viewpoint, Jews are not some group of blameless victims either- they are human beings who should be held to the same level of accountability as other human beings.
You claim you’re Jewish, yet the Jews know what it is like to be victims and are meant to be a light for the Gentiles.
Yet you have dismissed and defended acts committed in the name of the Jewish people which make a mockery of this notion.
If this notion is meant to be anything more than empty words and if Zionism is really supposed to represent the Jewish people in the best possible light, then Zionists need to start being accountable for their own military practices and throw the Hawks to the Hague like the war criminals they are, and Jews such as yourself need to stop blindly defending such atrocities.
Furthermore, Israel and its supporters need to recognise the Settler narrative and genuinely work towards reconcilliation (even Hamas has openly agreed to support pre-1967 borders).
First off, that was addressed to Bushbunny when they voiced opinions which were blatant genocide denial. The were handed proof in the form of reliable academic sources to research and they were dismissed as “uneducated biased rubbish”.
They have had every opportunity to recognise their ignorance, only they have demonstrated instead that it is actually double ignorance- which Aristotle and Plato described as the mindset behind the worst crimes people can create.
Furthermore, why is it beneath a response? Because the guilty party in this case is a Zionist?
The reality is that trying to shoehorn the late 19th Century into direct continuity with the Crusades is utter lunacy.
The FACTS are that the Arab Jewish communities, who have also been persecuted by Zionists lived quite happily with the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Palestine, and thanks to the Tanzimat reforms of the 1850s, became a place where there was in fact great unity between Jews and non-Jews in the region.
Furthermore it has been fairly unanimously acknowledged amongst historians that it was the Zionist colonialistic approach to Palestine which was directly responsible for destroying the relationship between Jews and Muslims in the region.
You claim that both sides have fought over the land for generations, but even the old Zionist slogan of “A land without a people for a people without a land” completely destroys that argument.
You claim that both sides are as bad as each other. Well let’s apply that to several other scenarios throughout history with identical dynamics:
Australian settlers and Australian Aborigines
American settlers and American Indians
the Afrikans and the South Africans
and finally, the Nazis and the Jews fighting desperately for their lives in the Warsaw Ghettos (oh and incidentally, it was Orthodox Jewish raised Sir Gerald Kaufman who raised that issue).
After all, in all of these cases there was an oppressor and their oppressed, a massive power discrepancy and human rights violations while the indigenous populations fought desperately for their lives – all of whom, including those poor innocent Jews in the Warsaw Ghettos as Sir Gerald also pointed out, could have easily been dismissed as “millitants” by the oppressing force.
However as Sir Gerald Kaufman has also correctly pointed out, the reason there is complete hypocritical impunity with Israel is that the Holocaust has been used as a weapon to exploit gentile guilt over the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust.
In fact he went so far as to say that his grandmother was not shot in her bed just so that IDF soldiers could shoot Palestinian grandmothers in their beds.
You say the UN is pro-Muslim, then why has the UN never truly held the IDF accountable?
As Noam Chomsky wrote in his 2006 book, Interventions concerning Hamas:
“For the sake of argument, imagine a reversal of circumstances—Hamas’s agreeing to allow Israelis to remain in scattered, unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from some small part of Jerusalem, while Palestine constructs huge settlement and infrastructure projects to take over the valuable land and resources and make travel virtually impossible for Israelis, even for ambulances. And Hamas’s agreeing to call the fragments “a state.”
If proposals for this impoverished form of “statehood” were made, we would—rightly—be horrified, perhaps warning of a revival of Nazism and calling for charges against Hamas at the World Court for inciting genocide, in violation of the Genocide Convention. But with such proposals, Hamas’ position would essentially be like that of the United States and Israel.” (Pp167-168)
Yet I have yet to see anything remotely close to this kind of a firm hand taken to Israel’s leaders, as it would be to the leaders of any other country in this situation. It’s all well and good to talk about them facing a threat, but in the case of the Middle East, it’s a threat entirely of their own making.
As for Iran, Israel has been it’s own worst enemy here. Mainstream Zionism refused to address the Palestinian Question right from the get-go and vilified any Zionist groups which did attempt to address it, then took an imperialist approach to
All the time this has been going on, the Zionists have hidden behind a persecution complex. While fear of persecution was entirely justified in Europe; it amounted to hypocrisy perpetuating paranoia in the case of the Middle East.
I have as much sympathy for Israel in this regard as I do for the Roman Empire when it carried on this way in its early days.
The other big problem is much like people here who cry out in outrage at the suggestion that the Botany Bay landing in 1788 was an invasion; Israel has not come to terms with its own settler narrative.
There have never been 2 equal sides in this situation and there never will be. Until Israel and the Zionist power base running it, accepts their own settler narrative, they will simply make a mockery of the suffering of all the Jews who were victims of political Antisemitism and the Holocaust.
As for your Iran point, you have 2 flaws there. It’s only those in the cities who want change. The vast majority of the population who are rural like things as they are. That’s why the referendum a few years ago failed. That said when the majority wants regime change, I completely agree they should get it.
However the fear of a 2nd “Shah” being put in there is entirely reasonable. Just look at the attrocities of the Al Qaeda regime ruling Lybia, the drug warlords who actually rule Afghanistan and the Iraqi govt who even sponsored “death squads”.
Tell me how any of those US interventions suggest Western involvement will be any less horrific for the Iranian people- especially when the only difference between the Ayatolah and the Shah was that the former was Islamic and the later was Western Secular?
Andrew, shut up please I have never written about WWF before until you mentioned it. Go to bed and stop making up stupid announcements.
Blissful, you comment, have I written about WWF before, not to my knowledge?
I brought up the WWF because you claimed that the British had no interest in triggering a conflict, when the eugenic leanings of the British crown suggests otherwise.
I find it interesting that all you have are insults. Yes I called you a bigot, however when you dismiss and defend the raping, butchering and torturing of hundreds of thousands of people by the IDF with Jewish Supremacist propaganda on racial grounds, it’s arguably completely warranted.
Yet when presented with facts, no matter how scholarly referenced and backed up they are, all you can resort to is insults. You are so near and yet so far from seeing the truth behind what is really going on.
You will only be able to start to make that leap when you begin to recognise what is propaganda and what is fact.
“Yes I called you a bigot, however when you dismiss and defend the raping, butchering and torturing of hundreds of thousands of people by the IDF with Jewish Supremacist propaganda on racial grounds, it’s arguably completely warranted.”
Andrew, I’d ask you to consider an alternate perspective.
First, the simple fact of the matter is that you have put words in Bushbunny’s mouth, then, attacked her for it. That is unacceptable. She did not “dismiss and defend the raping, butchering and torturing of hundreds of thousands of people by the IDF…” – those words are you placing your
interpretationinterpolation upon what she actually wrote. Your accusing her of bigotry using that statement as justification, is fallacious, because she did not say what you have stated.Second, it is entirely possible … indeed, it is commonplace in the human experience … for someone to not be aware of information that you have. Or, to not accept as true certain information that you do believe to be true. That reality does NOT make the other person a bigot. Ok?
I go by the nom de plume The Blissful Ignoramus for a good reason. First, as a reminder to myself. Second, as a hint to others.
None of us KNOWS anything for certain, unless we have personally experienced it. Therefore, it is a simple and indisputable fact that ALL matters of history come down to degree of personal belief in the information presented. Nothing … NOTHING … can be known for SURE by any of us, about what has happened in the past. Or, what has happened, or is happening, beyond the reach of our 5 naked senses (ie, waves coming through the TV and radio do not count).
You are making many (often long and passionate) comments here, Andrew. That’s fine. Just bear in mind the reality that the vast, vast majority of what you are posting, is personal statements of strong belief in “information” you have read elsewhere.
Other readers here may not have read the same information. They may not accept your word for it … indeed, I would urge all readers to never take anyone’s word for anything. Including (especially) mine!
You may be convinced by information you have read. Others are convinced by information they have read. That is life .. it does not make anyone a “bigot”. Merely the holder of different views to you.
If you wish to convince others, sharing what you (think you) know in a plausible and non-confrontational manner, is your only hope of success. Any form of personal attack will only serve to dramatically hinder any hopes you may have of convincing others of your beliefs … and, get you banned.
Think about it.
You are correct Bushbunny … you’ve never mentioned WWF previous to today. I do understand your rightly feeling somewhat offended by the tone and nature of some of the comments directed at you this evening. But would ask you to help calm stormy seas by rising above … as I know you are more than able 😉
Also that “you” in that post initially responding to your WWF response, was a typo.
@BI The one problem with that argument is that it ignores what came before it.
I brought up “Plan D” as an example of the brutality of Zionism. It wasn’t a criticism of Israel, but of Revisionist Zionism, yet I was accused of being blindly anti-Israelli and being an extremist on that front; which is the equivalent of accusing someone of hating all Christians in response for them attacking the Westborough Baptist Church.
The fact is that Likud is a Revisionist Zionist Party in Israel as opposed to parties such as Labor there, so again, a criticism of Likud is not a criticism of the entire Israeli political system.
Yet for criticising an extremist form of Zionism which has dominated the mainstream Zionist movement, the blindness of mainstream Zionism with its knee jerk obsession
However it gets more complicated than that. The problem has been that there has been a defacto coverup of Plan D in the history books. The official story is that most Israelis fled the villages they were in voluntarily, while digging deeply enough into IDF archival records reveals that 75% of all those who fled did so due to a wave of mass-rape, mass brutality and genocide, both in terms of massacre and disposession.
It’s akin to a Holocaust denier claiming that those Jews in gas chambers “died of natural causes while taking showers”.
It has gotten almost no coverage by historians and those who have covered it have defended it.
Dismissing the facts of Plan D as “uneducated biased rubbish” and “anti-Israelli extremism” is the equivalent of Holocaust denial, to put the rhetoric into a very hypocritical and ironic context.
Furthermore there is a difference between not believing something and refusing to investigate it. In this case, I put up 2 scholarly works which were an open opportunity for people to investigate for themselves.
Yet rather than reserving judgement, the world of the man who is arguably the expert on Hamas in the Western World, as well as other experts in their historical fields, was regarded as “uneducated, biased rubbish”- implying that English universities (in the case of Dr Tamim alone, have all the academic integrity of a Weetbix packet.
That’s not a lack of information; it’s blatant double ignorance, to quote from Plato.
A general lack of information does not make someone a bigot, absolutely. However ignorance resulting in dismissing and defending racial attrocities does make someone a supporter of racism and a bigot.
However it is important to clarify that a person is only a bigot as long as they hold certain beliefs. A chauvinist for example, is only a chauvinist as long as they hold to chauvinistic ideals. Once they reject those, they cease being a chauvinist.
However none of this changes the importance of the state of Zionism in Israel to the current situation. The reality is that Zionism has many different extremes. Personally I’m a fan of Hadassah’s proposed urban settlement model of Israel, but where land have been required in a non-corrupt and Imperialistic manner.
However there is a nasty branch of Zionism known as Revisionist Zionism which lies at the heart of the ruling Likud Party in Israel and which resulted in the assassination of Rabin in the early 1990s by a Jewish Zionist.
Revisionist Zionism has always believed in biblical borders for Israel and beyond in the region, and much like Lebanon in 1982, when Ariel Sharon, who had instituted policies which saw innocent teenagers abused at gunpoint for the purpose of fermenting discontent, was Defence Minister, and invaded on the grounds that they were “helping”; this is just another excuse for the Revisionist Zionist hawks of Likud to go and warmonger.
However unlike other times in the past, this is likely to light the fuse for WW3.
Plenty I agree with here, Andrew. But too much to comment on everything.
As moderator though, I will address this:
“However ignorance resulting in dismissing and defending racial attrocities does make someone a supporter of racism and a bigot.”
No, it does not make them a “supporter” or a “bigot”, Andrew. Just ignorant.
And perhaps, unwise and precipitate, in dismissing / defending something in the absence of sufficient information.
We are ALL ignorant. The only varying factor, is the subject matter.
And, the individual perspective.
Play nice children. Or it’s “out of the sandbox” for you 😉
There is a key difference though, and it all comes down to the type of ignorance encountered.
The type of ignorance you refer to is inadvertent ignorance, where someone has simply never come across something before and so has never known to look for it.
When someone isn’t given a launching point a stance of “agree to disagree” is entirely reasonable.
However that isn’t what has been encountered here. What has been encountered here falls under the category of either willful ignorance or double ignorance, which are arguably one in the same. In this case, a launching point for people to research things and reach their own conclusions was provided and it was rejected in away which completely destroyed the other person’s credibility.
In that situation, and ignorance defence, really doesn’t hold much weight at all.
In this case however it has since been proven to be willful ignorance. Bushbunny is Jewish and has demonstrated that they are in a state of denial about Israel’s settler narrative.
You brought up being skeptical in a previous post. Yet being skeptical requires questioning and researching of sources. That’s something which is impossible for someone to do when they are too busy trashing a source (or in this case, multiple sources), no matter how scholarly it may be, to actually research it for themselves.
ROTFLMAO! As they used to say in Ivanhoe – “sut him!”. He had it coming, putting you down with his condescending tone. They don’t teach comebacks like that in uni!
V-e-ry I-n-t-er-esting, my lips are sealed. Nite folks.
Twodogs, you might want to look at the full context of something before commenting in situations like this, rather than being caught up in a “you go girl” type moment.
Taking a hit at someone while baselessly dismissing the writings of a highly regarded authority on an issue as “uneducated biased rubbish”, just makes the attack lose all credibility and hurt the person making it. Far from being a hit; it’s a decisive backfire.
Likewise with agreeing with it.
I thought you deserved it because you lowered the conversation by resorting to insults, and to a lady at that. Anyway, you would have been better posting the entire scholarly work complete with references instead of expecting everyone to accept the claims of a stranger, unsubstantiated in the context on which it was delivered. Live and learn, eh Andrew? That is after all, why we are here.
Only after you were rightly criticised did you then present appropriate perspective and qualification of the point you were making. My criticism is that what you present is entirely selective, as though
BTW, i’m still waiting for the British conspiracy references, and not the old Prince Phillip stuff. That’s old hat. Stop being selective and present the entire neo-eugenics movement, not just the anti-British stuff that fits your biased world-view (okay, tautology i concede).
Thanks for making today’s barnabyisright blog that extra bit interesting 🙂
Presenting those 2 sources was and is completely unfeasable. While I can’t speak for Hushed Voices (although as it was published this year, I don’t like my chances); Hamas: Unwritten Chapters has not shown up on google books or any other freely accessible online library.
Furthermore, posting a 300+ page book on here is the definition of insanity. That’s why both book titles were given here. However if you have access to the National Library of Australia, I’d strongly recommend getting hold of both books.
As for my being selective, it’s about as selective, to flip things around in terms of Jewish history as trying to use the Bolshevik revolution to justify the pogroms or criticising those fighting for their lives desperately in the Warsaw Ghettos for firing on Nazi soldiers.
We’re not China, and the only place which Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians fits with human rights is with the Chinese model. In western models when an objective position is taken, applying the same human rights values as we have with the American Frontier and pioneering Australia, Israel comes out looking horrible whichever way you slice it.
It’s like the analogy of the bully and their victim in a schoolyard. Specifically in the analogy when the bully puts their victim through hell to the point where the victim fears for their life and the system sides with the Bully. In that contexst, when the victim picks up a lump of 4×2 and puts the bully in a coma out of desperation, there is no way you can accurately look at the situation and say “they’re both as bad as each other”.
Yet with Israel, the problem is that the world has blurred 2 narratives- the narrative of the inhumanity the Jews suffered in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust, and the inhumanity the Palestinians have suffered and the hands of the Jewish settlers and Zionists.
Yet they are very different narratives. I can and do, vehemently criticise the Nazis over the Holocaust at the same time as being equally critical of the Israellis regarding Plan D and subsequent attrocities.
But that is objectivity. So there has been no selectivity here besides pointing out the part of history that has been buried by the establishment.
As for the British history, like I said, I’ll have to come back to it. It’s not the sort of thing you whip up in a night or even a few hours.
Much like Darwin’s fraudulent half truth which I did address eventually in that other blog, I will post the British history too, however it will take time.
Oh, Got another one, can’t block it it seems. Zeeshan Ahned. from zmangi@qmail.com or
to Pakalert Press, Pakalert@googlegroups. com. That’s the group who are always dooming the world to a WWIII unless we mend our ways.
Anyone know how to block these emails? Not that it worries me much, but I don’t even know how they got my email address in the first place!
Cheers
Bush Bunny from Oz.
What would happen if you started a war and no one turned up? No chance of humanity mending its ways, but starting WWIII is gonna take more than that.
There’s a slim chance, but sadly too many are asleep a the wheel, and too many powerful people want war profiteering to save their crumbling and parasitic financial assets.
Sadly end times prophesy cuts both ways. There was a group of individuals who became Zionists because they wanted to restore Eretz Yisrael to bring about end times bible prophesy.
However this situation is far different from those blanket emails. The problem here is that the Hawks are highly likely to set of an explosive set of circumstances which will lead to a domino effect that will set off WW3 unless something is done to intervene.
As for “changing their ways” the big problem is the spin the media puts on things over there. If it’s anything like it was when I was over there with my now Russian Jewish ex-fiance (breakup was due to her abusive mother and then her becoming abusive, to preempt that), it tended to constantly try and portray the Palestinians as a pack of subhuman barbarians while being selective out IDF activities.
The upshot of it is like Americans in the wake of 9/11- no idea of the dirty tactics of the US over the past half a century or so and many parts of the world hating it as a result. Our media coverage of the region hasn’t been much better.
To top that off, with how few exceptions there are for military service, most Israelis are indoctrinated to view the conflict through a soldier’s eyes.
The irony is that you have the Israeli people trapped in a climate of fear, while the powerful brutalise innocent men, women and children, simply because they are “the other”, looking for the slightest excuse to justify such inhumanity, and ignoring what drove the other side to attack to begin with.
The problem with highlighting one people’s bad behavior is that it ignores bad begaviour by others. I’m not going to excuse the US’s actions over the past 50 years or so, but the leftist anti-Americans tend to also be Soviet apologists. The yanks behaved very badly, but communists behaved far worse. I consider myself a democrat as it disperses power, the real root of all evil. Voters are in perpetual battle with their leaders over power. Governments are always trying to centralize power, so consider that absolute power corrupts absolutely, democracy is a just cause but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
The problem with the US is not democracy, but the lack of it. It has been centralizing power since it began.
Perversely, MAD has placed limits on bad behaviour. If power was not a zero sum game, and if resources were infinite, these problems would not exist.
Show me a country, empire or people that have never behaved badly. It’s quite sad, really.
Certainly there’s been bad behaviour all round, but the problem is how that bad behaviour is treated, and that’s where Israel is in a separate category to all other nations.
To understand this, you need to look at the relationship between Zionism and Antisemitism. The British were highly Antisemitic for example and believed that if they didn’t support Zionism that the British Jews would make Russia turn against them due to the Bolsheviks and would see to it that America never entered the War. The irony is that the Bolsheviks were staunchly anti-Zionist and the American Jewry didn’t have that level of influence.
What’s more, British Zionists were aware of the Antisemitism that was present and played on it to further their own aims. There’s even a recorded incident at the post-War conference where Chaim Weizmann approached Woodrow Wilson and threatened that the American Jews would “turn Bolshevik” if Wilson didn’t support the Balfour Declaration.
It’s the same thing today. Zionists know the guilt the world feels over the Holocaust (however you get into a question then of even if it was recognised early on, how much could it have been stopped depending on when it was recognised- but that’s another story). At the same time, they play on that guilt. The end result is that Israel gets a “perpetual blameless victim status” in the UN security council thanks to the likes of particularly the US, but also the British and the French.
In fact the US’ response to the Palestinians being elected as a member of UNESCO was to pull $70 Million from its funding (20% of its operating capital).
It’s arguably a worse double standard than the US’ “world liberator” copout, because of that “victim” status- where its victims become perpetual perpetrators who are at best “just as bad as the Israelis” or at worst “no better than the Nazis”.
The American situation is only slightly better and only because of the nature of the “policing” excuse. At least with that, there’s scope in there for “crooked cops” and “unlawful arrests”. Granted the attrocities of the US and its power base make it equally difficult to address, but at least with the US situation there is an ideological foothold to work from.
That’s ignoring the Brits who work from behind the scenes (yes that history is coming, but it will be a mammoth undertaking to cram it into one post- perhaps a reference to a couple of CEC articles which include references as a launching point might be a better way to go about it).
And look what appears in today’s SMH…
“Major-General Peng Guangqian and a naval colonel, Li Jie, said China might have to practise armed self-restraint for another decade while it continued to build up its military might. But after 10 years, it would make pre-emptive strikes on its challengers.
Their remarks were later pulled from Chinese news sites. But exactly this sort of remark makes the region increasingly wary and the US increasingly welcome.”
Asia finds voice in test of wills with China
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/asia-finds-voice-in-test-of-wills-with-china-20111121-1nqzi.html#ixzz1ePh4UZFm
Of course, they could have been telling us what they want us to hear, but withdrawing all references to those comments suggests we weren’t supposed to hear what they are thinking.
I prefer the wise, rational Chinese to the cocky delusional ones if comments like these are any indication. Does anyone think that withdrawing and hoping for the best is still the best strategy? I hope theyre not thinking that with more power than they have ever imagined, that they must not leave it idle. Clive Palmer has just criticised it because it risks his business interests. How dare Australia’s national interest get in the way of Clive’s next hamburger. See, us from the right are capable of hating pure unadulterated greed too.
The Chinese situation here doesn’t surprise me as this kind of thing has been going on on and off for centuries in the region.
However the US seems to be playing a dangerous game on this one. This situation was bound to happen sooner or later, however the US entering the fray could have repercussions.
The US has a horrible track record of understanding the cultures of nations they interact with and that flaw could well rear its ugly head here.
We’ve already seen Pakistan and India put aside their differences and ask to be full members of the SCO with the Asian situation. If the US isn’t careful, it could see a similar backlash in South-East Asia, with all parties deciding they have a much bigger fish to fry.
So far China and Indonesia are less than happy about the troops announcement, and it’s possible others may move towards this position too. Malaysia and Thailand are just 2 potential wild cards that come to mind in this regard, depending on what happens.
It sounds like letting the cat out of the bag constituted a Chinese own goal. Being out-diplomacied by the yanks is pretty bad. I’d rather the yanks keep a respectable distance, but at the moment it is the Chinese being more belligerent. Australia hosting its allies is hardly a clear and present danger to China. No one seriously believes the US going to invade China. Sloppy chest-beating by China. They used to be such good poker players too. Their bluffs are now being called. I suspect their leaders are not used to competition.
The problem is that the US are effectively positioning their troops just outside of China’s defense network in addition to the troops they have within the radius of it. Essentially they’re just out of harm’s way, but still within striking distance. It’s entirely reasonable for China to read that as a powerplay.
Also it’s not so much a question of a direct invasion of China, but moving pieces on a chess board. If the SCO’s solidarity over Iran comes into play should this Israeli preemptive strike take place; Australai becomes a handy staging ground for troops- far enough away to avoid standard missile attacks, but close enough to strike when China becomes involved in that scenario.