Blair does not understand the Muslims from England
«“The idea that as a Muslim in this country that you don't have the freedom to express your religion or your views, I mean you've got far more freedom in this country than you do in most Muslim countries,” Blair told Observer columnist Will Hutton, who presents the documentary.
»“The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, ‘It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified.’”»
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/
p...2115929,00.html
Civilian deaths in Iraq down 36 percent
BAGHDAD - Iraqi civilian deaths dropped to their lowest level since the start of the Baghdad security operation, government figures showed Sunday, suggesting signs of progress in tamping down violence in the capital.
But American casualties are running high as U.S. forces step up pressure on Sunni and Shiite extremists in and around Baghdad.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
20070...xB1Cj2QNRWs0NUE
Can anyone explain this perfect contradiction between civilian deaths and US casualties?
From Layla Anwar:
I am "Free". He is "Free". She is "Free". They are "Free". And you are only a spectator...
Free, Freedom, Democracy. I shudder at these words.
I want to burn Plato's Republic and spit on your Constitution, on your Founding Fathers, on your Laws...
Free limbs, detached, solitary limbs, scattered to the four cardinal points and a bleeding heart in the middle, like a compass.
An arm to the West, a leg to the East, a head down South and a torso up North...And that damned bleeding heart in the Center.
Free, so free...
Free, free in Prisons. Free, so free in Detention centers...
Detention centers in the Mnistry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Justice!
Crammed, packed, jammed... The smell of blood, urine and feces...covering the infected wounds. Wounds of torture born on transparent skins covering rib cages...
Free, so free.
Tortured and Free in American camps. Sodomized and Free - American democracy flavor. Tortured and Free, whipped by sectarianism - Iranian flavor. Oh so Free.
Free to die. Free to cry. Free to mourn. Free to flee. Free to escape. Free at the borders...jammed, packed.
Two thousand "free souls" flee a day. They amass at frontiers, waiting for a stamp on that damned Green passport...that cursed passport.
The passport with a broken winged eagle as an emblem. Clipped wings of Freedom.
It reads "Republic of Iraq."
Republic of whom? Iraq? What Iraq?
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.c...ined-
lives.html
Tony, I added your comment on my blog, as usually, of course.
Steven Rix,
Thanks and please give the topic some thought; I welcome your ideas in developing an antidote strategy.
Tony, I'm new to your blog but here are my thought FWIW...
1) At the individual level, I'm not sure there is more to do than what you are doing. Speaking out, writing, arguing your point. Over time, a sense of community in the Arab diaspora, especially among Palestinians, will grow stronger. This is a long struggle and the strategy has to reflect that.
2) At the international political level...I say give them enough rope. They may have succeded in their aim of breaking up Iraq, but it will be a pyrrhic victory. The conflict has and will continue to drain U.S. resources and legitimacy. Despite the tough talk, they will not try with Iran what they have done in Iraq. I doubt they will even try with Syria. They had the chance last summer and they (wisely) decided not to.
Bear in mind the countries most vulnerable to instability are governed by America's closest 'friends.' I doubt the U.S. is looking forward to the fall Jordan's Abdullah and even less so to the Saudi Abdullah. Any Sunni-Shiite fighting there destroys the West's economy and leaves Russia very wealthy and powerful. That's not the U.S./Israeli goal.
Sadly, I predict a 10-20 year period of great suffering for the Palestinians and probably Lebanese and other Arabs. I think 30-50 years from now, with the tightening of energy resources, the growth of Russia, China and India...and quite possibly the growing power of Iran will shift the balance of power away from the west.
At that point, unrestrained support for Israel will be to costly to maintain.
Lysander,
Thanks for your thoughts. Any thoughts on how to mitigate against the spread of sectarianism and deliberate fragmentation of Arab and Muslim societies? What should leaders at various levels (tribal, local, national, etc) be doing or not doing to discourage this fragmentation? The role of the family, religion, schools, etc to strengthen the bonds and to discourage divisions.
The West is being weakened for sure, and the Americans under Bush went too far against international laws and human rights, and I don't think his european allies are going to follow him into this direction that turned out to be a huge failure. The US after the 2nd Gulf war and if ever they get out of Iraq will come out with a different image from what they had claimed in the late 80s. A huge resentment all over the world is born, and this world is getting fractioned into different powers with Iran, China and Russia. For once, although they do not have a very nice record in human rights, many countries are on the side of the truth, but nothing is won yet, although all the mechanisms are taking place towards this direction:
1) Russia is coming back on the world stage. We are in a different situation before the war in Iraq: the West needs energetic resources and is very dependent from Russia. Putin has been trying to fragment the West in exchange of geopolitical favors, but the case is being fought with Poland that states every country within the European Union should pay the same price for natural resources. Also Russia's GDP has been boosted since the 90s and the country did not shift yet to a different currency than the dollar despite a vicious tactic of containment from the US.
2) The case of Iran. Actually Iran is booming, it is the 2nd country in the world after China whose GDP exploded (around 8%), but the situation under the new President Ahmadinejad is not steady in Iran with lots of inflation, and Iran is not able to exploit all by itself her oilfields and needs to import more resources.
3) The case of China. China has shifted his weapons from Taiwan to Japan, and this country is in constant needs in natural resources to be economically emancipated. The rise of China is on the way, it outperformed the GDP of France and Great Britain since the last couple of years, but it still remain a poor country if we count the GDP per Capita, ranking to the 108th place. It is still going to take years for China if they want to outperform the US and Europe, at least 30 years. By the way the 1st economic power is not the US but Europe when we look at the GDP.
Obviously the US and Europe do not have the same ambitions. The US is more of a hard power while Europe is a soft power.
steven
thanks for your contribution and links thanks for Layla's latest article , i would not have read it if you did not post it . thanks again. Tony and you , are doing a fantastic job i wont forget the amazing Lucia !
Y/w Fatima 
I do what I can do, I write on many blogs lately and I keep forgetting to write on my own blog lol.
Here is something that has nothing to do with geopolitics, but it was so cute that i could not resist not to post it:
Middle Easterners were first to domesticate cats
The first pet cats were tamed by farmers in the Middle East, according to new genetic research.After comparing DNA samples from nearly 1,000 cats from different subspecies, including the Near Eastern wildcat, European wildcat, Asian wildcat, southern African wildcat, and the Chinese desert cat, an international team of scientists led by biologist Carlos Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute and the University of Oxford discovered that domesticated cats most closely resemble the wildcats now living in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries. The scientists believe that by about 9,500 years ago the region's earliest farmers discovered that stored grain attracted mice and that cats were good at catching mice, so they encouraged the cats to stay in the villages. When the farmers later migrated to new areas, they took their pets with them.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe...mesticate_cats/
I write on many blogs lately and I keep forgetting to write on my own blog lol.
----------
Hilarious !
Tony
you will like this article
http://www.middle-east-online.co...GLISH/?
id=21271
whos the biggest threat to the world ? No it is not iran
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/
70046760...0b5df10621.html
"Inhabitants of Spain are most concerned about the US, with 46 per cent of respondents naming America as the biggest threat." (from the link above, quoted by Fatima)
-According to my own data I would say that the percentage is MUCH higher, even double than that!. Actually I personally know of nobody who thinks positively of the american governments (plural, current and past ones) and their foreign politics. (Something for the average americans to mull down, no?)
--
Anonymous | 07.02.07 - 8:24 am |
This was me!
Salaam Tony,
well, there're no easy answers to this question of an anti-sectarian strategy. My feeling is that even the Iraqi National Resistance has some share of the blame in what has befallen the country. For far too long they tolerated the takfir jihadis who went about blowing Shia civilians to bits (quite aside from the obvious false flag attacks perpetrated by the americans). Muqtadr as-Sadr may be a disgusting sectarian killer, but as bad as he is, he demanded some time ago that senior Sunni leaders issue a fatwa banning people from joining such takfiri groups. What was wrong with this proposal? Why did the likes of Harith adh-Dhari reject it, reject it that is, until those same groups began to attack the Resistance?
All authentic resistance leaders, whether in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon or anywhere else must be absolutely clear - "Al Qaeda" is a deliberate creation of the US. Its goals are entirely those of the US, even if the majority of idiots who fill its ranks don't understand this. Six years after the faux attacks in New York and Washington, all attentive westerners are aware of this fact. Why is this apparently not the case in Iraq?
If any kind of inter-group solidarity is to reemerge, then all groups that deliberately target civilians should considered absolutely beyond the pale. They are as much an enemy as are US/Israel.
Secondly, for working out a common strategy between the different groups, Iraq itself may not be the best place. In the midst of a war, there is far too much possibility of infiltration and such meetings are a an invaluable opportunity for the US to pick off its opponents all at once.
Thirdly, to circumvent the dominance of the pro-Iranian groups in the south of Iraq, resistance organizations could speak directly to tribal elders who are under immense pressure to authorize resistance actiivty by their members. See: www.uruknet.info?p=29884
Again, this may be best mediated by those currently located outside the country.
These are only rough ideas. There are so many intangible and uncontrollable factors involved too. Once a revenge cycle gets going, it's very hard to stop. I think it will take decades to heal the scars currently being inflicted.
From this side of things, those of us in the West must do as much as possible to expose the lie-machine that is behind this whole pantomime. This includes, of course, not shrinking away from identifying the lie-machine when "car bombs" and such like occur in Western capitals.
best regards,
David Montoute
Your posting was interesting and insightful. I think that you're going to have trouble in drawing together all the strands of a conspiracy to fragment the middle east - not because there isn't one, but because this particular strand of thought is hotly contested by other strands of thought that would rather put proxy rulers into intact ME countries.
Take Iraq for example. While there is certainly a body of thought that would rejoice in smashing Iraq to fragments, there is another body of thought that would like to preserve it intact and keep it as a proxy state to use against Iran, for instance.
David, I just read your comment now. I agree with a lot of what you said, and Sadr requesting a fatwa from al Dhari was a new piece of information. Thanks.
tony
This article at bottom of the page explains why Egypt changed its attitude so much towards Hamas and asked for dialogue when it was totally against Hamas 24 hours earlier. unfortunately i can not access the full article . I will try Again until i can read it in full
http://www.elosboa.com/elosboa/i...es/535/
0100.asp
I agree with David too . i had always mistrusted AL Qaaeeda from Day one.
My grandmother (illettrate came to that conclusion soon after Ossama issued a tape just 2 days before the US elections when Bush won second term ) and now AL Zawahiri says He supports hamas .as if Hamas needs their help morons . Go to Hell Al zawahiri .
Tony, sectarianism has been our curse for some time now and there is no easy way to end it. But I would point out how groups with a stake in avoiding conflict handle things. A Lebanese woman I know...Sunni Muslim...was telling me how late last year when protests against the Sanyura government started, Hizbollah members went door to door in Sunni neighborhoods to reasure the public of their support and to promise zero tolerance of hooligans and trouble makers harassing the Sunni community.
So here we have a 'terrorist' organization taking very positive steps to preempt sectarian trouble.
And you linked before about PM Hanayah's very positive comments to the Christian Palestinian community.
We have already published in Spanish two important essays. One by Israel Shahak "Weapons for repression" and Oded Yinon "The Zionist project for the Middle East in the 80'".
The last one explain what you have written in this articles.
Cordially yours
Saad
I agree with David.
Al-Qaeda, the Eternal Covert Operation
It is a well-established and deliberately unaddressed historical fact that the CIA created "radical Islam" and Islamic "terrorism" during the Cold War. It is also a documented fact that the US, its allies, and their intelligence agencies (CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, Britain’s MI-6, etc.) have -- from the 1970s to the present day -- continued to use and guide terrorist groups, including "Al-Qaeda," as intelligence and propaganda assets. "Islamic terrorism" is a manufactured weapon of Western geostrategy, serving Anglo-American interests.
Planned covert operations and false flag operations using "terrorists" in direct and indirect military-intelligence roles are of imperial design. Such operations (exemplified by 9/11), and their predictable propaganda results ("the war on terrorism") are now routine events.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/v...iew.asp?
ID=3688
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