Monday 6th of May 2024
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a profound and dangerous problem with blair...

blair hypo

Tony Blair has sparked anger by claiming the murder of Lee Rigby shows there is a "problem within Islam".

The former Prime Minister won the endorsement of EDL leader Tommy Robinson for his article urging politicians to "be honest" about the threat.

Critics pointed out that the Blair-led invasion of Iraq is seen by many as the reason many young Muslims have become radicalised.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/02/tony-blair-there-is-a-problem-within-islam_n_3373971.html

BAGHDAD: Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world's top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer.

China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq's largest oil fields.

"The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of thispost-Saddam oil boom in Iraq," said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the NationalDefense University in Washington. "They need energy, and they want to get into the market."

Before the invasion, Iraq's oil industry was sputtering, largely walled off from world markets by international sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the promise of renewed access to the country's immense reserves. Chinese state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2 billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government's rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/China-reaps-biggest-

golden retirement...

http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/video/2013/05/31/la-retraite-doree-de-nicolas-sarkozy-et-de-ses-semblables_3421965_823448.html

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But one has to be alert:

A French secret serviceman acting on the express orders of Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of murdering Colonel Gaddafi, it was sensationally claimed today.

He is said to have infiltrated a violent mob mutilating the captured Libyan dictator last year and shot him in the head.

The motive, according to well-placed sources in the North African country, was to stop Gaddafi being interrogated about his highly suspicious links with Sarkozy, who was President of France at the time.


Other former western leaders, including ex British Prime Minister Tony Blair, were also extremely close to Gaddafi, visiting him regularly and helping to facilitate multi-million pounds business deals.


Sarkozy, who once welcomed Gaddafi as a 'brother leader' during a state visit to Paris, was said to have received millions from the Libyan despot to fund his election campaign in 2007.


The conspiracy theory will be of huge concern to Britain which sent RAF jet to bomb Libya last year with the sole intention of 'saving civilian lives'.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210759/Gaddafi-killed-French-secret-serviceman-orders-Nicolas-Sarkozy-sources-claim.html#ixzz2V9DKKfPS 

Impossible generational change...

 

The official rhetoric has not stood up to the stark reality on the ground: Osama bin Laden was found and killed elsewhere - in neighbouring Pakistan; al-Qaeda and the Taliban may have been an ideological combination conveniently cooked up by the hawks in Washington; and the fate of Afghan women was just used as an excuse to sell the war to a Western public.

In this film, all parties to the conflict - members of the US secret service, commanders of the US armed forces, Taliban officials, Afghan warlords and tribal leaders, UN negotiators, Pakistani leaders and secret service, and NGO officials - give their view, unravelling the tangled web of a war that had no other motive than America’s thirst for revenge.

Western democracies promised Afghanistan a better future. But they will leave the country in a state of widespread corruption and disillusion, with thousands of lives lost, and the Taliban more powerful than ever.

Afghanistan, which was once the ideal target, has today become a volcano.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/05/2013531103439130667.html

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Impossible generational change.  It usually takes three generations for a major culture shift to be effective to a point. Even in Turkey after the success of Ataturk, the country is once again divided along religious and secular lines, with the religious faction getting more and more traction. It took about seventy years for the French Revolution to "settle down" and the Russian revolution ran into a dead end after the rise of despots... The Chinese cultural change was one massive operation that after four generations is quite successful, though China had to (and still does) crack down on religious freedom. There has been some progress in Afghanistan, especially as far as women are concerned. But soon after the invading forces leave the place, the country will turn back 300 years with women bearing the brunt of a Taliban resurgence... We can't stay there for much longer though.

In a way we have not helped the situation one bit. I still believe that had the Americans let the Russians have their way in the 1980s, Afghanistan's Taliban would now be history. But then it's not about the people, is it?... Despite a lot of good people, it's about influence, religion, revenge and oil...