A Cunning Ploy.

A rising Jewish film star who plays the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein in a British Broadcasting Corporation drama faces a possible ban on performing in Israel for acting with an Arab in the film.

Actor Yigal Naor, now shooting in Tunisia, ran into trouble when his union learned that Arab actor Amr Waked is playing the role of the ousted and executed dictator in the drama about his life.

Naor, who appeared alongside Hollywood star George Clooney in the 2005 blockbuster Syriana, defended his position, telling several Israeli papers he did not know an Arab was involved until after he signed the contract.

He also said the film was pro-Israeli, and criticizes Iranian foreign policy, according to the Israeli Mail.

"The position of the union is clear in its rejection of normalization [with Arab countries], and requires that members abide by this position," Ashraf Zaki, the head of the union, said.

"Yigal Naor is playing the role of the husband of Saddam's daughter opposite an Arab who plays Saddam ... Yigal will be facing an investigation as soon as he returns [from filming]," Zaki said.

Fucking disgusting eh? Can you imagine it, the Jews discriminating against an Arab. Even refusing to be in the same film? Racist bastard eh? As for his scumsucking Israeli union- how dare it be political.

Do you feel really revolted? Eh?

Well good because every word done in bold there has been changed. If you'd like to see the original look HERE.

Quote of the Day.

Der Spiegel, 11/01/07:

"The state is socially responsible, even for alien shamans"

Future Private Eye Material.

Fuckin' stupid:

Senior social workers have given warning of the dangers posed by a new government register that will store the details of every child in England from next year.

They fear that the database, containing the address, medical and school details of all under-18s, could be used to harm the children whom it is intended to protect.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ACDS) has written to officials outlining its “significant” concerns about the new system, called ContactPoint, The Times has learnt. Confusion over who is responsible for vetting users and policing the system “may allow a situation where an abuser could be able to access ContactPoint for illegitimate purposes with limited fear of any repercussions”, Richard Stiff, the chairman of the ADCS Information Systems and Technology Policy Committee, said.

The security fears are fuelled further by the admission that information about the children of celebrities and politicians is likely to be excluded from the system.

Two points to be made here. First is that if politicans and celebrity children are to be shielded then obviously the system is fucked. After all if it worked they wouldn't need the extra protection. The second point is the difference between the political classes. Whilst the politicans children are guarded those of ordinary folk are royally fucked. In other words we are looking at a two class system.

What a bunch of wankers, eh?

The Sandbasher Speaks.

From HERE:

Unaha, the above post answers your question. I can testify to the fact that we used the ‘Snatch’ Landrovers (OK for Northern Ireland, iffy elsewhere) in Basra in 2004 while our counterparts from other Coalition contingents (Italians, Danes etc) had patrol vehicles such as the Scarab (MAV 5, above) and the Mowag (below). Both could be fitted with extra armour for added defence against mines and IEDs:

http://kr.img.blog.yahoo.com/ybi/1/24/56/shinecommerce/folder/8/img_8_13384_3?1183781182.jpg
http://www.armyvehicles.dk/apctest_1.htm

At the start of our tour (May 2004) we were driving into Basra - and to Al Amarah - in the standard ‘Wolf’ Landrovers, which had fuck-all protection whatsoever. Eventually the powers that be realised that this was not a good idea, and the Snatches were rushed into theatre as a snap solution. But then the MOD left it at that, and only started to order Mastiff when more blokes started dying in IED attacks.

The reason why the British Army are using WMIKs and Snatches is due to the breach of the military contract which Francis Sedgemore has written about. Whatever your opinions on Iraq and Afghanistan, the fact that soldiers are being expected to operate with outmoded equipment is an absolute disgrace.

Thank God we’ve got Eurofighter, because that really scares the hell out of the Mahdi Army and the Taliban.

Its good to get the view of someone who's out there. And as the last line shows, whatever else the British Army lacks it still has a wicked (if sobering) sense of humour.

The point is well made and reflects what EU Referendum has been saying for a while, namely that the Eurofighter is useless bcause it is designed for the Cold War. Sure it can be used as Close Air Support but its too fast and can't carry enough ordanance. And more than that its incredibly expensive, not only to buy but also to train on and keep running. On the other hand we could use Super Tucanos like Blackwater does which are rugged, require much less equipment, are the right speed for support and cost a measly $9 million (say £4.5 million). A Eurofighter costs £80 million.

But that isn't the point. The reason we buy things like the Eurofighter and the upcoming Future Lynx is simple: small dick syndrome. Eurofighters are shiny and very, very nice. But sadly they are also completely useless for the job in hand, particuarly in comparison to older but more suitable kit. With a Future Lynx we can show off to all the other countries. Unfortunately we just won't be able to show them off anywhere except on the ground because by all accounts the Future Lynx's predeccessor can barely fly in the desert. Gee whiz, how useful.

The other interesting point picked up on by EU Referendum is that Blackwater are the ones buying cheap, suitable kit. This further reinforces John Robb's ideas about the advantages of privatised militaries. Blackwater don't need to show off, they have limited funds and need results for their money. The MoD has little to no incentive (though one wonders if the MoD's top civil servants were sent on fact finding missions to the UK's furthest outposts in Snatch Land Rovers they might change their mind).

Retreating.

Can we please admit it? We are retreating from Basra because we can't control it. That isn't the soldiers fault: they've done their best. But they don't have the men, the infastructure or equipment to do it. And most importantly the Iraqis don't want to knuckle under. Theres nothing that can be done about that. Militias provide localised government and support to the people on a level the MoD can't match. They therefore take control.

That we failed, for it is a failure, is hardly surprising. As mentioned above there was little to no chance the whole mess could be sorted out by 5,000 blokes and a few Land Rovers. Maybe 50,000 blokes but even then I'd be cautious.

Will the Yanks be pissed? Yup. But so what. Our retreat is exactly the kind of thing they will be doing in a few years. The point is that they have more men and money so it will take longer before they need to retreat. We are just preempting them.

Are We At War?

If you walk down the street today do you feel like you are at war? Like in the Blitz do you see corpses, ruined houses, men in uniform everywhere? I doubt you do. War has become removed from the civilian population at large, it has no impact. I can't holiday in Iraq but I wouldn't have done that before anyway. I can still travel where I want, do what I want, buy what I want. War impinges on my life only in the time I am willing to spend looking at it or watching the TV. Its a distant thing with little to no basis in my own physical existence.

And that is one of the reasons we have for total apathy in this country. People don't care because the war seems like a foreign affair, removed from us and untouchable. It doesn't really bother us so why care? Both pro and anti war movements are outnumbered by the generally bored, the unopinionated, the drifters. Life has reached a point where you don't have to have opinions because nothing that bad is happening. In the Cold War we might have been nuked or invaded at any moment. A real threat existed. For homosexuals there was the possibility of arrest. Foreigners were abused because so many of them were emigrating (pre 50's racism is often wildly overemphasised). There were issues and causes. Now peoples lives are so comfortable that they don't need to care. And in a life full of easy things it is easier not to care.

This is one of the reasons for such lack of emotion over the war. Whilst we sit comfortably we care not. Even 7/7 had limited casualties, limited impact. Terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don't appear in our lives every day but rather occasionally, intermittently. They flicker in and out and we don't care.

Someone needs to bring the issues back to politics. We won't know what we'll be losing till we've lost it.

South Korea's Loss.

ROK has paid $20 million to get 20 aidworker/missionaries back. By doing so they are directly funding the Taliban to go more people. More than that it shows the worth of hostages in todays media saturated society. Kidnapping hostages is good money- it costs little to do so and makes great profits. Well done ROK.

Iran's Illegal Attacks On Iran.

Oooops!

Trot's ha' said it all really.

Jaaaysis Christ!

You'd think this was ironic:

Initially, I was pleasantly surprised. Together we played Fifa 03, mother and son bonding over a football game lost to his expert childish thumbs jabbing x buttons to pass and o buttons to shoot. But when the new Fifa 07 game was unwrapped – a modern version rated at an unbelievable 3-plus (what mother is going to let a toddler go from Teletubbies to PlayStation?) I was shocked. In a matter of a couple of years, there were new aggressive gestures to the referee, nasty pushing and shoving between footballers after fouls, close-ups of angry grimaces at the ref’s decision. The unacceptable face of football.

New, "agressive" gestures. Oh deary me. How can they peddle that filth.

Iran's War On Drugs.

A little known part of the current tea party in the M.E. is Irans losing fight with...the Taliban. Iran has one of the highest addiction rates in the world, mostly for Heroin which is flooded into the country by the Taliban. This incidentally is one of the big problems their dear old leader has completely ignored whilst he built nuke plants.

Now when we said fight, we goddam meant it. According to orbat.com they've lost 1,500+ border guards (armed with Austrian kit) since the 2001 invasion. Thats a lot of blokes, more than the whole of NATO's casulaties, and the Iranians aren't even operating in a real warzone. We're just talking smugglers and their mates.

Drugs have in general been one of the biggest problems in Afghanistan so far. Not only do they fund the Taliban but they are also exported all round the world. Furthermore they provide fantastic propaganda for the Taliban who can portray NATO as wanting to stop the crops.

But to all this there is a fairly simple solution: Morphine. Opium not only makes the exceedingly dangerous heroin but also the medicinal Morphine. An' right now there is a morphine shortage in the world. Should the MoD or NATO choose they could buy the Opium from the farmers, gaining their support, process it and flog it to medical companies where it would serve a useful purpose. Whilst profits would be less than if they sold it as heroin (which is why there is a morphine shortage) you'd still make money. Furthermore you could offer to buy it up with Iran who would hopefully be glad to help and therefore make money as well as help their own country.

Now even if this could be pulled off, providing black economy demand isn't enough to outprice the MoD, it won't solve the Taliban. But it will go a major way towards helping, not to mention being of enormous social benefit to the world as a whole.

Switching over.

Yes chaps, I'm decommissioning this blog and moving to a new adress:

HERE

The reason is simple- this blog was fairly uncoherent as I grew used to blogging and distilled my views from unconcious to concious. Still, should be fun at the new place. Anyone who actually reads this, please do update your bookmarks.

Cheers!

Edit: Or maybe not. This blog feels strangley right. The other blog is now dead and I'm slowly moving back here. Cheers all.

Leninology, a Fisking.

I think I've done it.

I've worked out why Lenin can both be so coherent and intelligent and yet still come out with copmplete and utter balls.

Its to do with his in built opinions. Now see that Lenin is if not in favour of the Iraqi insurgency groups at least very anti-Coalition. Hence his latest nonsense.

Note how when a pro-West, anti-Taliban story comes out he gives it a thorough going over. He is sceptical, asks the right questions and comes to the conclusion that the story is of debateable merit and quite possibly a falsehood. But then he gets his hands on this, this and this he believes them all. Not a word of contention, no analysis. Nothing.

Why?

Particuarly when the stories are filled with the same sort of errors he picked up on in the Guardian story. Lets take a look.

This one first. Right, Lenin states the story in this repoirt as fact. Depite the following.
1. The story was assembled by "The Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political faction in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet," Thats right, not from witnesses, cops, hospitals or any offical source. From a politcal faction. Now if you'll excuse me but I'm extremely dubious of a "statement" that comes not from offical sources but from an obviously partisan group. Much like Lenin was when it came to the Yanks, village locals and Afghan government in the Guardian article.
2. The facts contained within are not based on fact. They are part of a "statement" that is "alleging" that these numbers were killed. Lets review: a statement, not a report that is giving alleged figures rather than any hard facts.
3. No mention of who the people killed were. We are told that "more than 350 people have been killed by a US military operation in Baquba to hunt down al-Qaeda-affiliated members." But what type of people? Civilians? Al Quaeda members? The Swedish Olympic Mime team?
4. How do we really know how many were actually killed. According to the statement the "bodies [are] still under wreckage". So how do they know how many died?
So to put it all together we have an statement by a political faction that gives us an unstansiated figure alleging a specific numbers of deaths without the means to back up their claim and which gives no information relating to whether those who (ostensibly)* died were in fact legitimate targets.

How convincing.

*To clarify: I realise people died but I'm taking a critical eye to the numbers killed.

Next I turn to this report which Lenin used to claim US troops killed 26 people in a "homicide attack" (his words). Againa glance at the article reveals that Lenin is generalising wildly. The article tells us that the US claim all 26 were gunmen, in which case their deaths are legitimate, whilst even the locals say 8 civilians were killed (amongst the 26? instead of the 26? I don't know as it doesn't say). Obviously Lenin is misrepresenting the truth to fulfill his own agenda. Similarly the article contains a wild number of points against Lenin. Again I'll switch to numbering them.
1. First its reported that civilians claim the US troops were "firing wildly". Now there are a few points to be made here. First is that no residents were named which makes the provenance of tese angry accusations difficult. Secondly it assumes the civilians understand military actions in order to claim they were firing wildly. How do they know? Firing wildly might easily refer to engaging multiple targets that were scattered all around. Had the Septics really been firing wildly I think its safe to assume we'd have another Haditha rather than 8 civilians dead. Those weapons of theirs ae awful dangerous.
2. Unnamed residents are our only source for 8 civilian dead. Again there is no offical source involved. The fact that no wounded were mentioned is also suspicious as it is usually assumed that for ever person killed two are wounded. And indeed if so many were wounded or killed how is it that there is no (offical) statement from the mortuary, hospital or any of their workers?
3. All this information comes from Sadr city, a place that is "the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada Al Sadr". In other words we are being asked to trust people who are anti-American in outlook and quite possibly highly politicised.
Again a recap. This story presents unnamed 'residents' from a highly anti-American area giving us a story with no hard evidence to back it up.

Finally Lenin linked to this biggie. This is by far the best piece of the lot but even here Lenin can't help himself. Lets perform the now familiar examination.
1. First of all is the total confusion. Were the Taliban there? Well Wali Khan says that "More than 100 people have been killed. But they weren't Taliban. The Taliban were far away from there" OK, so the Taliban weren't there. Mahmood Anwar on the other hand said "Very few Taliban were killed". Ah. So Taliban weren't killed. Except for very few who were. Maj. John Thomas on the other hadn says the fight started with a Taliban attack and ended with NATO bringing in helis as fire support. He also claims the civilians bodies were found amongst dead Taliban, in other words that the Taliban had been using human shields. I think we can fairly dismiss Wali Khan, Taliban rather obviously were there.
2. There is a serious discrepancy in the figures. Khan says more than 100, Anwar close to 100 and Thomas merely that it was "an order of magnitude less" than other officals have claimed. Now this obviously shows that no offical figure exists as we have been given two estimates and one possible correction without any actual figures. Therefore we must be sceptical about how many actually died. However equally we can see that a lot of people did die.
3. Lenin is presenting it as "one hundred civilians" killed (I'm quoting him). When in fact only one source, Mr. Khan, has actually said that. And he is a source that is obviously untrustworthy because of his failure to admit Taliban were there. Lenin is misrepresenting on a glorious scale. What if for instance I said that Britain killed 649 Argentinian civilians in the Falklands War? It would be wrong. 649 Argentine soldiers were killed. Now obviously this is an extreme example, all the Argentines were soldiers whilst not all the Afghans were Taliban, but I hope it serves to illustrate the danger of Lenin's mistake.
In conclusion Lenin is telling us 100 civilians died, something that the two more reputable sources do not say, a statement only backed up by a man who is a proven liar. Not only that he is not taking account of the fact that at least some of those killed were Taliban and that it is entirely possible that some to many of those civilians killed were in fact human shields.

It seems obvious that Lenin has made several mistakes and most importantly has relaxed his critical standards. The reaon for that relaxing seems obvious- because if he was critical he'd be unable to make his (ultimately incorrect) statements. Statements that owe everything to anti-Coalition bias. No matter your opinion on the Coalition and the wars there has to be the ability to look critically at anything, even if it seems to reinforce your own opinions.

If I read those three articles indeed my point would not be the deaths of civilians but rather that they reveal a striking power struggle between the local rulers and the Coalition/NATO. In both cases the Iraqi and Afghan PM are critical of the alliances that are supposed to be helping them, despite which the alliances are effectively taking little to no operational changes in response. Now this is a sweeping generalisation but reveals that there are frictions between Premiers, their people and the alliances. That is of far greater worth as a story that Lenin's lame attempt to slur the alliances as civilian killing imperialist scum.

Why the Bullshit?

As ever it hasn't taken long for the usual nonsense about the attacks being a reaction to British/Western foreign policy to come out.

Let me hand over to Hassan Butt from the Observer for a mo',

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

But hey, he could be lying right?

Wrong.

Even if you discount Hassans words (at your peril) just ponder this- what was the provocation for 9/11?

The only Muslim nation America had been in recently was, umm, Somalia. In 1993.

So in essence foreign policy is not the problem, never was the problem but could be a current problem. Islam attacked first.

More on the Bombs.

Via the Trots comes a lovely piece on how the Tiger Tiger attack was aimed to kill women.

Only at the tail end of the coverage was it admitted that a car bomb might have been parked outside a club in Piccadilly because it was "ladies night" and that this explosion might have been designed to lure people into to the street, the better to be burned and shredded by the succeeding explosion from the second car-borne cargo of gasoline and nails. Since we have known since 2004 that a near-identical attack on a club called the Ministry of Sound was proposed in just these terms, on the grounds that dead "slags" or "sluts" would be regretted by nobody, a certain amount of trouble might have been saved by assuming the obvious. The murderers did not just want body parts in general but female body parts in particular.

Once again I am forced to ask, why does the Left actually support Islamists? Lets look down the lists of Leftist causes:

-pro gay
-pro women
-anti totalitarian
-anti capital punishment
-anti theocracy

Guess what, they clash with Islamists on every case. Aside from slavery there isn't much more Islamists could do to oppose themselves to the traditional leftist mind set. So why the hell is it that the Left is almost always the one supporting Islam?

The answer is easy. First as the Hitch isolates, there is a fear that being anti-Islamist means being racist to brown people. Wake up call guys, Islam is a religion for all, no matter your colour (though the big M had some nasty, nasty things to say about black people). Secondly is the fact that America is opposed to Islamists.

But enough of my lamenting, its old hat and has been known for years.

P.S. Again stolen from the Trots but SCWR has some good stuff done on the attacks.)

P.P.S. Amsuingly Tiger! Tiger! is also the name of an Alfred Bester bestseller. It was the sci fi novel that got Michael Moorcock writing and one of the few appearances of self improvement by a class disadvantaged individual in science fiction. Its also a cracking read.

Hero of Our Times.

Mother of Satan but the internet is well fast.