Zurabishvili, like other opposition leaders, emphasized that she's pro-Western and doesn't support Russia, which seized two Georgian rebel enclaves and marched its forces within 25 miles of Tbilisi during the invasion.

"I think the big confusion in the American policy . . . is to confuse support for a country and its democracy with the support for a small group of people," Zurabishvili said of Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, and his
allies.

"Partly, I'm angry that there is so little anger around me at what is being done to our society, supposedly in order to protect it," said the 76-year-old in an interview in Waterstone's magazine.

"We have been taken to war under false pretences, and stripped of our civil rights in an atmosphere of panic. Our lawyers don't take to the streets as they have done in Pakistan.

"Our MPs allow themselves to be deluded by their own spin doctors, and end up believing their own propaganda."

He added: "We haul our Foreign Secretary back from a mission to the Middle East so he can vote for 42 days' detention.

George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention.

The junior partner joined in as well. British foreign secretary David Miliband accused Russia of engaging in “19th century forms of diplomacy” by invading a sovereign state, something Britain would never contemplate today. That “is simply not the way that international relations can be run in the 21st century,” he added, echoing the decider-in-chief, who said that invasion of “a sovereign neighboring state…is unacceptable in the 21st century.” Mexico and Canada therefore need not fear further invasions and annexation of much of their territory, because the US now only invades states that are not on its borders, though no such constraint holds for its clients, as Lebanon learned once again in 2006.

Brown Reborn


The critics remain sceptical about the "quiet man" turning up the volume routine but Brown has a much wider base to convince

The year 2003 saw the unfolding of two counterinsurgencies. One was in Iraq, and it grew out of foreign invasion. The other was in Darfur, and it grew as a response to an internal insurgency. The former involved a liberation war against a foreign occupation; the latter, a civil war in an independent state. True, if you were an Iraqi or a Darfuri, there was little difference between the brutality of the violence unleashed in either instance. Yet much energy has been invested in how to define the brutality in each instance: whether as counterinsurgency or as genocide. We have the astonishing spectacle of the state that has perpetrated the violence in Iraq, the United States, branding an adversary state, Sudan, the one that has perpetrated genocidal violence in Darfur. Even more astonishing, we had a citizens' movement in America calling for a humanitarian intervention in Darfur while keeping mum about the violence in Iraq.

On Hearts and Minds
it seems US strategy to gain "hearts and minds" is to invade the heart to occupy the mind.

Are authors like Richard Dawkins and your brother Christopher succeeding in rendering God irrelevant to the 21st century? And why do you think faith is essential to British society?

Peter: These authors have discovered that there is a deep anti-Christian feeling among the victims of post-1960s secular university education. But they may be dismayed if they succeed in destroying Christianity, only to have it replaced by Islam. No society or culture can exist for long without faith. Liberal reformers always fall foul of the law of Unintended Consequences, because they don't understand institutions or traditions.

Propaganda is so engrained in national news media that reporting on Wars have been reduced to something resembling a sports column on the national football team.

Hitler on Propaganda:
What, for example, would we say about a poster that was supposed to advertise a new soap and that described other soaps as 'good'?

We would only shake our heads.

Exactly the same applies to political advertising.

The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly

Danish Cartoons

Some background, the intriguing question is why this provocation took place and who benefited from it. Was the reason as straightforward as the cultural editor of the paper claimed? That is, as a step to preserve or enhance the democratic right of “freedom of the press” and “liberty of expression,” which the Jyllands-Posten claimed were endangered by the media’s self-censorship toward Islam. The alleged motivation for publishing the cartoons might have been credible had the paper been a traditional bastion of democracy. But the group behind the paper has a dubious ideological and political history. Their editorial line was pro-Nazi during the Second World War and militantly antisocialist and anticommunist, as well as vehemently pro-American, during the Cold War. The Jyllands-Posten remains an ardent supporter of Israel’s policies in Palestine, a warm partisan of Danish military participation in the wars in Muslim countries, and hostile to third world immigrants. The appalling irony is that it is this organ of the press that donned the mantle of champion of “freedom of expression” and implicitly contributed to setting the infamous thesis of “clash of civilizations” on the ideological and socio-political agenda.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's influential son, echoed the delight expressed in much of the Arab news media. "What happened in Georgia is a good sign, one that means America is no longer the sole world power setting the rules of the game," the younger Gaddafi was quoted as telling the Russian daily Kommersant. "There is a balance in the world now. Russia is resurging, which is good for us, for the entire Middle East."

Amongst all the left-wing hysteria over Obama its hard not to lose sight of his actual policies. After all Obama's position on the war in Iraq is that it was "inconceived", and that its not working, there's no principled opposition there, anyone could say that. Its what German chiefs of staff were saying after Stalingrad and Barborossa

McCain doesn't know Shi'ite

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNsr2aF1XM0&NR=1

"Czechoslovakia broke up a long time ago, this is kind of like referring to Jenifer Lopez and Ben Affleck as 'Bennifer'.. today, you just can't do that, 'cause they split up."

I love the way it had to be broken down into a fine paste for americans who can't understand or refer to anything serious without a trivial analogy to make sense of it. Although it is important to treat all serious matters with a sincere and studied triviality.

The recent case of Nicky Reilly was the major tabloid topic this week. The surreality of the Conradian aspect to the episode seemed lost on most commentary. When life imitates art the whole line between reality and fiction becomes blurred. Very few facts have been released about the exact motives and affiliations of the 'bomber' from Plymouth, who seemed to be attempting to blow up an obscure restaurant in Exeter. Nonetheless the fear factor is accelerated and the episode fits neatly into that precise narrative, namely we need to be on guard against this Islamico-Anarchist threat and the "indoctrination" by "radicals" of innocent youth.

The MI5 predictably claimed to have known of Nicky Reilly - a Muslim convert - and that he crossed their "radar", but I have a suspicion that MI5 have absolutely know idea how to handle this threat. Its nothing like the IRA, and the only vague historical parrallel can be found in the dark urban setting of Conrad's The Secret Agent, in 19th Century London, where anarchists attempt the most absurd and audacious atrocities, while lamenting the artificial and corrupt institutions that surround them. With the vast underworld, secret meetings in coffee shops (in this case a chip shop), and bombs carried on 40 minute bus journies some of the detailed conguity with the novel is uncanny.

Backing the Bishop

What the opponants of reasoned and proportionate attention and discussion of issues relating the Islam and the modern world all have in common is an oppressive commitment to political correctness. Thousands of e-mails of complaint to the Sun and the BBC by people who I strongly presume have barely listened the Archbishops actual comments in either his Radio 4 interview or his address previously, don't serve as a barometer of public opinion, and therefore shouldn't be used as justification for journalistic hysteria. Why does a tepid and reasonable discussion about religion and civil law evoke outcry in our mainstream 24hour media!

A sermon at a mosque in ladbroke grove got me pondering what the main differences are between church sermons and their Islamic counterpart. Apart from the imam today unwittingly comparing a women to a "horse", there was little difference I could speculate on. (The said phrase however was "play" with one's wife in the same way one would play with a "horse" before taking it to "jihad". The concept being that not all "play" is meaningless.) Although something struck me at the end, which was the reference to the situation in Pakistan. There was unequivocal condemnation and criticism for the actions taken against Benazir Bhutto, and the counter-productive methods employed by "terrorists". So there was a political and moral dimension to the concluding statements of the Imam. The recurrent prayers for the mujahideen in Palestine, Iraq, Kashmir etc then ensued.

If anything the main contrast with any western christian sermon would be a reversal of the political overview, or an absense of this altogether. I've never heard a priest talk very much about important current affairs within a religious framework. It's always been localised issues about personal redemption and individual progression.

As I watched the swarms of people coming in and then leaving I couldn't help but get the impression everyone was carrying out a 'duty' in their attendance. Then I thought of what was important to these people outside of their religion, and I could think of little. It seems that Muslims in this country are somewhat impervious to the trivialities of consumerism, celebrity and irrational jingoism that many in this country have come accustomed to.

This notion follows that religion is therefore a problem for the establishment. It provides a separate dimension for large communities which has a serious influence, a unifiying effect, but is also outside of the political authorities. The stated rise in extremism in London and the UK is a result of this climate, but also a result of state foriegn policy (and to some extent domestic), undoubtedly implemented with the anticipation of a heightened risk of terrorism.

The way to address the issue of extremism is to make it policy, not to allow the circumstances which make people feel what they are doing is NOT "extreme", in the pursuit of some notions of justice and liberty. All bombing is terrorism and it certainly isn't right to claim attacks in London are disconnected socially and politically to the global structure. The point of this was really to look at religion in society in general, then Islam as a more unique body in the West. If Muslims have more serious representation in this discredited political system we could see a more positive social change, but what we need is widespread political participation, and a media that facilitates this. At the moment people simply feel detached from the centralised and impersonal political authorities.

Someone asked on Question Time the other night that following the intelligence report on Iran's nuclear programme, is Iran vindicated or still a threat to global security.

This is where Orwellian thought processes really need to initiate. Yes there is a debate, but only if everyone is willing to accept the presumptions and framework for that discussion.

The intelligence stipulates that Iran stalled its weapons programme in 2003. What happened in 2003? The US launched a war of aggression on Iran's neighbour, but Iran is being considered a threat to "global security". Needless to say that wasn't brought up by the distinguished panellists. The debate remains in "Iran on trial" mode partly because of the questioner in the audience but nevertheless it is up to the panellists to correct the presumptions and offer some insight to the benighted public!

The questioners and the panellists seem to set the debate so narrow as to be largely meaningless to anyone interested in serious discussion. But the paradox is that Question Time hosts a large number of ostensibly the most politically active and concerned public figures and ordinary citizens in the various regions it's held. And therefore it sets the agenda for discussion, if the most radical departure from the stat quo is an arbitrary apprearence from George Galloway, then the general picture is quite dim.

Questions need to be asked to raise the level of political debate in this country, Question Time while providing the perfect platform (and only programme of its kind) for extended discussion, fails miserably most of the time.

Part of the problem is selection of panellists. Question Time tends to be overwhelmingly white male establishment figures and few representatives of actual labour, consumer, feminist or environmental groups ever make it onto the program. Over November and October this year, 39 panellists have appeared on the show. The following are statistics on the different categories of guests on the show over only a two month period.

90% white, of which 60% were male,
36% women
20% left of centre
0% Trade Union, Environmental, Consumer, Feminist, Left-wing journalist/academic

While it would appear Question Time is narrower, whiter, more male-dominated, more government-oriented and quite conservative, does that really reflect the discursive nature of contemporary public opinion? Is the show setting the agenda as 'we' see it or as 'they' see it. The virtual exclusion of public interest leaders with very rare exceptions is typical as is the pro-establishment guest-list which makes a mockery of public broadcasting.

Ten things you Google when board at work

1.Yourself.
2.Your girlfriend's ex.
3.An old crush/obsession you
haven't seen in years
4.Autotrader.com to see how cheap Ferrari's are.
5.The next place you're going on holiday
6.Facebook
7.Your house/school on Google Earth
8.The name of a new actress on TV - in hope of
some old 'arty' shots.
9.Old bullies hoping they work at Burger King
10.Videos of animals attacking humans

Enoch Powell must be chuckling from beyond the grave..

That was the amusing text someone had sent in to BBC News 24 after the question time debate. Immigration has become a hot issue again, with parties scrambling for the most subtle ground to voice concerns, whilst simultaneously fomenting that 'talking about it isn't racist'. Well there is obviously a racist undertone which is if isn't there in reality, is certainly there in perception, otherwise politicians wouldn't be so extra careful when discussing it.

The notion that immigration must be restricted rests on the premise that this territory belongs to a certain people and no-one else. In which case we're moving towards the mentality of Israeli settlers which is unequivocally racist.

The fact of the matter humans should retain the right to freedom of movement, immigration and migration have been with us from time immemorial. The UN estimates that "over 4 million" Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country, 1.5 million are now living in Syria, and over 1 million refugees inhabit Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, and Turkey. Even Darfur, Sudan, which has no border control, is facilitating refugees. Syria for example is providing as much humanitarian aid to its refugees as possible while maintaining the strain on services for indigineious citizens.

All this whilst people are talking about a strain on the NHS because of immigration, the NHS simply wouldn't function without immigrant workers. What's at the root of politicians braving a potential smearing by talking about this issue is simple, there is an ignorant section of the electorate, prepared to accept a scapegoat.

Dividing the working class amongst eachother in this country will not achieve anything. The government has failed to invest properly the huge economic gain from immigrant workers to improve the efficiency of public services, their failure to acknowledge housing requirements caused by immigration even now has badly affected local councils, which rely upon an accurate assessment of their "population in order to qualify for Whitehall grants", and has obvious "knock-on effects" on other services such as education and healthcare.

if we had a truly free market economy the illegal immigrants would not be the scapegoat, we would probably need them and they'd be accepted, but because of economic conditions, they have become the scapegoat..

When you take the "offical" definition of terrorists... as in the American definition, you have to see that they themselves, those in power, those in office are actually that which they define... and how are they any different? How do they justify the means when the end only has brought about a constant build up? Maybe somewhere along the line, those officals must confront that it is they themselves who they need to fight against.

Also, a substantial amount of resources are put into inculcating a culture which accepts the wrongs of the state, and condemns the wrongs of others. Knowledge and truth simply belong to those with the power to impress their version of truth on to others. Resistance needs to come from a break down of the cultural consensus, which engenders some critical thinking, we hope it extends more within the US!

The cultural consensus is propigated by the US owned media, world wide...this in turn validates in however small way, the actions of politicians which most "normal" people would not take at face value, as most of us have an instinctive suspicion of those in power. The problem is how do you take away the cultural consensus when the mainstream media is a propaganda machine?

Essentially what we're doing right now is facilitating some form of discussion outside of the prism. I happen to think more people simply want to know more than what they're told in 30 second snippets on the evening news, and in the information age its possible. I'm vaguely optimistic!

Taking Liberties..

Quick catalogue of New Labour's record:


- Internment without trial for non-citizens suspected of terrorist links

- Retrial of those who have been aquitted, thus eroding the double jeopardy principle

- Attacks on the indepedence of the judiciary

- Cuts to legal aid

- Placing previous convictions before juries, lowering burden of proof (ASBOs)

- Special punishments for the poor, neighbourhood curfews

- Introduction of ID cards, so that people can be monitored at all times

- Indeterminate sentences


Blair called it an historic shift from "how we protect the accused from the transgressions of the state and police" to how we protect the "majority from the dangerous and irresponsible minority".

The basis of our current system is absolutely nothing to do with that, the question of protection of citizens from the state is open to debate, and there certainly should be safeguards against the conviction of innocent men and women, but to suggest that the protection of actual 'transgressors' is the basis of our current system is nonsense!