This Week in the New Normal #58
Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. Iraq War: 20 Years On
Sunday marked 20 years since the first bombs were dropped on Baghdad, signalling the start of the UK/US invasion of Iraq. Today is two decades since the ground operation – unironically titled “Operation Iraqi Freedom” – began in earnest.
We don’t need to re-hash two decades of evidence here, the facts all show the war was entirely illegal under international law, that it was launched for the sake of oil, influence and profits for arms dealers. That the politicians who claimed it was about security, WMDs or democracy were liars and charlatans who personally profited from the deaths of 100,000s of people and that – to date – nobody has been held to account for any of it.
Nobody with any kind of rational mind could read all the evidence and come to any other conclusion.
And yet the little men with sponges have been so busy this weekend, attempting to re-write history everyone still remembers.
The most egregious example is probably John Rentoul writing in the Independent, who not only defends the war – and especially UK involvement in it – but also intentionally understates the destruction by claiming “thousands died”, which is true but also…kinda a lie.
I mean, you could rightfully state “dozens of people died in World War II”, but unless you happen to append that it was in fact millions of dozens, your audience might rightly consider you to be somewhat downplaying the bloodshed.
I won’t sport with your patience by relating his arguments in full, needless to say, they are universally poor. He even went so far as to defend the war’s legality on twitter, claiming it can’t be illegal because no court ever said it was.
Disturbingly delusional or pathetically disingenuous? You be the judge.
2. UK launches “Emergency Alert System”
Yesterday the UK government announced a trial for its nationwide mobile phone emergency alerts system. On April 23rd, every cell phone in the country will receive a test message accompanied by a loud siren sound. Your phone will not be usable until you have acknowledged the notification.
For some reason, they have included not only the ability to turn off the setting, but also instructions on how to do so:
People can opt out by searching their device settings for emergency alerts and then turning off severe and extreme ones. Officials say the alerts could be life-saving, though, advising against switching them off.
…which makes me think the test isn’t so much of the system, but of the response to the system.
BONUS: Pointless gesture of the week
The International Criminal Court allegedly issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on Friday, supposedly for trafficking children from Ukraine to Russia. However, since neither Ukraine nor Russia are members of the ICC (neither are the US, Israel or China, incidentally), it is entirely performative and means nothing. In fact, doing so on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion was likely designed to prompt very intense discussion on Western hypocrisy.
It’s not all bad…
The French can always (well, mostly always) be relied upon to take good deal less sh*t than anyone else. After protesting a proposed law to increase pension age, they protested even harder when Macron used emergency powers to force the law through without facing a vote.
After attempting to ban protests, Macron is now facing a potential no-confidence vote.
Speaking of protests, next Saturday there is a planned demonstration in London on March 25h on behalf of those injured/killed by vaccines.
LONDON IS ON!
SAT 25TH MARCH
1 PM PARLIAMENT SQ📣Join us to send a message to the government & MSM to show we will NOT BE SILENCED!
✊️We are making progress & we must keep the pressure on.
We seek TRUTH, we seek JUSTICE & we won't stop until we have both.#TruthBeTold pic.twitter.com/nWEHkbH15S
— TRUTH BE TOLD (@CoviLeaksCVVAM) March 12, 2023
There’s also this, which made us laugh…
BREAKING : Previously Unseen January 6th Footage pic.twitter.com/0jxqANbNVn
— @stevenvoiceover (@stevenvoiceover) March 7, 2023
And so did this…
*
All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention TIME and Bill Gates preparing the ground for “the next pandemic”, or the incipient arrest of Donald Trump.
There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.
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Disturbingly delusional or pathetically disingenuous?
naw . . . how bouts sociopathic psychopaths
who ought to be made
to takes a walk up Ladder Lane, and down good ol’ Hemp Street . . .
How to change the phone settings to stop this happening.
https://twitter.com/Humanbydesign3/status/1637757159952863233
MEP on Von der Lyin’ and Bourla:
https://twitter.com/NotSure_9000/status/1636446537206079505
💤
When you trust the terrorists running GOVUK:
Around 1,000 tributes online for young Jack McKitterick who died suddenly with brain aneurysm | Belfast News Letter
Plaid Cymru councillor dies suddenly aged 36 – Wales Online
TikTok star Jehane Thomas dies ‘suddenly’ at age 30, days after opening up about constant migraines (msn.com)
GB boxer dies suddenly age 19 as tributes pour in for ‘future world champion’ – Mirror Online
There’s plenty more where this came from. When are these terrorists going to pay for their crimes?
Ah, but it’s all Pure Coincidence.
A lot of youngsters are dying of Pure Coincidence nowadays.
It’s only tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists like Andrew Bridgen who are concerned about all the coincidental heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and paralysis.
All the other MPs, like Mitchell, who leads a walk out of his chums from both parties whenever Bridgen speaks, know better and realise that this is all Pure Coincidence.
Nothing to see here.
Last summer, after scads of seemingly healthy, and mostly young, people started dropping like the proverbial flies, I dubbed the cause “NTDWTV* Syndrome”.
* Nothing to Do With the Vaccine
BTW, it doesn’t look like Russia is going to take the ICC outrage lying down. They’re now apparently opening their own criminal proceedings against Pedo Khan: https://www.rt.com/russia/573281-russia-icc-criminal-case/
U.S. LEGAL NEWS
JUNE 11, 2020 7:39 AM
UPDATED 3 YEARS AGO
Pompeo on ICC: U.S. won’t be threatened by ‘kangaroo court’
By Reuters Staff
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday that Washington would not allow Americans to be threatened by “a kangaroo court,” after President Donald Trump authorized sanctions against an International Criminal Court investigation into whether U.S. forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
Pompeo told a news conference sanctions could extend to family members of ICC officials to prevent them from visiting the United States.
“We cannot, we will not stand by as our people are threatened by a kangaroo court,” Pompeo said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-warcrimes-afghanistan-trump-pompeo-idUSKBN23I2AJ
Didn’t a court in Malaysia convict BushBlair of war crimes and crimes against humanity about ten years ago?
https://twitter.com/ABridgen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Andrew Bridgen speaking to an empty opposite bench and nearly empty parliament.
Make sure the spineless jellyfish who endorsed the scam are NEVER elected to office again.
Another example of the laughable nonsense that lies behind the ICC waarant:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/operation-babylift
Oh look what number crops up! BTW the film ‘Air America’ is worth a re-watch – there’s a lot of revelation in it (a common thread in Mel Gibson films – check out, for example, the 9/11 reference in ‘The Patriot’ and the mention of the Phoenix Programme in ‘Lethal Weapon’).
so, is mel a good guy or just a player?
Don’t forget the mind control in “Conspiracy Theory”.
Digital Fencing.
Exposed: London’s secretive “smart stations” roll-out:
https://winteroak.org.uk/2023/03/13/exposed-londons-secretive-smart-stations-roll-out/
“secretive” ? “hiding in plain sight” actually…
Smart cities:
S – surveillance
M – monitoring
A – analysing
R – reporting
T – technology…
Designed in Israel, made in China. This is the hell that awaits if people don’t wake the fuck up to what these treasonous criminal bought and paid for corporate scumbags are doing. UK Is a testbed for Soviet Israel’s tech industry.
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Do you recall that George W. Bush had enormous faith in “his gut”,
and that “his gut told him” that not a single American soldier would die in the upcoming invasion of Iraq.
He, until there was a civil war that he uncorked, wasn’t aware of the division between Sunni and Shia. He believed that there were only Muslims.
The moronic level of incompetence leading a massive army invasion is the true ‘shock and awe’.
Arrogance, delusion and incompetence – they imagined that they would walk into Iraq and hand them a shiny new democracy, like handing out a piece of candy.
Here, for you to behold, is the banner that the Bush White House had on their website
encapsulating how this monumental catastrophe was viewed by these simpletons.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/samdrukr/908002972/
I think George was under the impression that Sunni and Shia were things you put in your yoghurt smoothie shakes to be honest Levi. To make em “Hulthier”.
Good ole George W. I do miss his Bushisms.
He could have starred in F Troop
Ah, but Dubya and Our Tone had a hotline to the Almighty. God told them to invade Iraq, so that makes it okay.
Bush wasn’t the only “arrogant, delusional and incompetent” warmonger,
as you certainly know.
There was the bloody cadre of Neocons, the signers of the
Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Of the 25 signers of the founding statement of principles ten would join the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
I share with you a photo of delusional and bloodthirsty warmonger Paul Wolfowitz
as he shared his “intelligence” with Congress. Some give Wolfowitz the crown of being the architect of the Iraq invasion (though I think that shameful title well deserves to be shared with others).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/samdrukr/907151309/
“ Today is two decades since the ground operation – unironically titled “Operation Iraqi Freedom” – began in earnest.”
That’s so weird – is this the so called, “Mandela Effect? I could have sworn it was – “Operation Fuck Iraqi Freedom”.
Oh well… stupid me – I’m old.
Big shout out to the Dutch Farmers.
Go you good thing!
Best wishes.
Turn Government Alerts on or off
By default, Government Alerts are turned on for your device. When you receive a government alert, you hear a special sound that’s similar to an alarm. If you want to turn these alerts on or off, follow these steps:
Go to Settings > Notifications.Scroll to the bottom of the screen.Under Government Alerts, turn the type of alert on or offSorted. Further, whilst you are there, start turning off other alerts. Then go to Privacy and Security and turn off tracking/location services app by app to stop them tracking you.
Finally, don’t listen to the little voice in your head that says “don’t turn this feature off, it may save your life one day”. Listening to this voice only confims you have been done like a kipper and are now fully programmed. Your welcome…
I have a different option.
Record your Government Alert tone and use it as your ringtone, and make sure it’s loud. Could have some worthwhile hilarity there.
I think that’s the same effect the Gov wants. The Gov is not looking out for you, they just want everyone’s phone bellowing out the alarm at the same time to cause panic. After a few of these drills, people will soon be programmed to get in line and follow the orders when it sounds.
You missed my point entirely.
Agree. Years ago, there was an alert of North Korean missiles in Japan and maybe Hawaii that turned out to be false.
Indeed there was such an alert in Hawaii:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/us/hawaii-missile.html
“Sent in error” ho ho – the usual low-level incompetence alibi. BTW the iconography of the relevant Hawaiian authorities has all the usual stuff in it.
from what i can gather, most folks will disable.
how many panic/heart attacks will that alarm cause when sounded? ll part of the plan.
Somehow the nation has survived from the beginning of time without the government and its “emergency declaration” system yet apparently now we are in such dangerous territory that this is needed.
The only source of any of this “danger” is the establishment and its power grabbing.
Who exactly is responsible for introducing this shit ?
…- Or alternatively:…
…- Go to Toolbox > Retrieve Hammer > Place Phone on hard, flat surface > Apply Hammer to Phone > Repeat previous step as many times as necessary to achieve required result…
I like that one.
Or: Place cell phone on floor. Stomp repeatedly until device is pulverized. Ship debris back to manufacturer for safe disposal…
The Emergency Alert thing is a Google operation. They still have Covid warnings everywhere on their sites. The parasites have never been so visible!
I got a few flash flood alerts while in California this winter…. Those seemed reasonable to me.
To brighten up your soul, if you still have one – do you remember when you were young…
I discovered this painting today, and this link has a special quality..if you give it a bit of time and have a reasonably fast internet connection..you can zoom in.
Reminds me of when were young and we arrived at some obscure Greek Island. It was very hot, and we kind of looked at each other…She said you can’t go to the beach looking like that
We have to conform – You First.
Still in Love and will be Forever.
My Girl is still here with me.
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hieronymus-bosch-the-garden-of-earthly-delights-2
Nice Girl.
Yeh, but this is new. I don’t know how to do these memes, and I do not edit or fake. Why change such Beauty, when you press the button. Obviously you want to be in a beautiful location, at a great time with a very happy person – you are in love with…and she says..can I borrow your camera / mobile phone
I want to take a photo of you two…
No mention of the U.K budget how wasn’t that important ?
the other bullshit was.
biggest shake up to social security system in 15 years, meaning disabled will lose out and the poor been fuckd over big time again.
Trump and Putin trust the plan 2.1 for dummies is more important than that.
Good point Sam.
How would this work for people who dont have smart phone.?
Maybe this is a upgrade test to the track n trace system that cost 37 billion and will also gauge the reaction also a great way to send people direct information.
america are solving the problem for people like us who dont have a smart phone
https://www.whistleout.com/CellPhones/Guides/free-government-cell-phones
Also direct personal orders, e.g., “You have been identified as a close contact of a pandemic patient on — at –. Report to — for testing or isolation immediately”.
Law obeying insurrectionists, staying within the tour guide ropes. Now there’s a sight…
The historical precedent would be the 1920s Berlin revolutionists obeying the “Keep Off The Grass” signs while being persued through the city parks by baton weilding cops…
Expect ‘insurrectionists’ to prevent anyone from ‘smashing the spy cameras and downing 5g antenna’ ?
The clip was a send-up! Imagine, a British accent coming through the sound system… Do they even have that in the US white house?
That was the Capitol building, but the British accent was ironic and funny, given our history.
Never mind dumb fucking Australians still think there was a pandemic and even worse have signed up to a dirty expensive deal with the USA and UK for subs that will be obsolete before they are built in 20 years time so that we can protect our trade routes from our biggest trading partner supposedly stopping ships in the South China sea and trade routes.
Surely a case of “come in, sucker” ? The US/UK selling Australia soon to be obsolete subs because they’ve kept up with developments: Subs have become Sitting Ducks…Technology has been developed that makes it impossible for subs to hide – anywhere !
It’s more money syphoning off Australia to US and UK “defence” contractors.
Just like the west has been sucked dry of funds by Pfizer et al.
You’ve misspelled it Veri Tas, it’s aUStralia.
No you misspelled it, it’s actually fUCKING SHITSVILLE
Australia is even worse than Sergeant Schulz when it comes to grovelling to Washington.
For f***’s sake, where have all the Crocodile Dundees and Steve Irwins gone when you need them? Aussies are supposed to be rugged he-men, instead we get a bunch of fairies who just bend over and spread their butt cheeks for Uncle Sam.
Australia has been royally shafted, even worse than Schulz and Nordstream.
Australia is just paying for the US naval build up against China, and losing its biggest market and trading partner in the process.
This deal will cost a minimum of $368 billion over its life. Probably a lot more, the costs always escalate. Like the $1.5 trillion F35.
Australia won’t get any submarines till the 2040s. And these will be clapped out old US Virginia class that are only fit for the boneyard.
They won’t be able to build, maintain or even crew them. Some of the crews will be US/ British.
They have to subsidise US shipyards and build a shiny new $8 billion base for the US navy in Western Australia.
It’s about as bad a deal that could possibly be made.
We left.
or took the shilling.
No, they left too. That’s why QLD police are now recruiting anyone from anywhere that can hammer the shit out of the citizenry in good conscience.
Hogan and Irwin were both mates of Howard and his ilk.
US/UK sycophants and money hungry arse lickers both of them.
The latest US aircraft carrier has been stuck in the dockyard for years. The defects are so major or dangerous that there seems to be no forward.
“no way forward”
”
Your alternative update on #COVID19 for 2023-03-19. Shots Go Everywhere – Astonishing SEs. MP Bridgen offered ‘whatever he wanted’. 77th Brigade spying MPs (blog, gab, tweet).
Remember
The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
Unfortunately, this evening, the french opposition missed their “potential no-confidence vote” by 9 votes. The street are filling up again with disgusted people in serveral cities. The next nation wide general strike is for thursday 23rd.
Macron couldn’t give a toss. He’ll soon go the way of Ardern, Truss, Bojo and Sturgeon.
He’ll just move on and cash in like Blair.
They’ll find him a cushy little number as head of global warming or NATO or the IMF.
Or maybe they’ll give him an EU job in charge of bendy bananas.
Hello idog. ‘Caputtalism’ death throes or final victory? We discussed this about 2 years ago. I wonder if Pleifel and his Pennywise have their 4. shot by now?
Well, just to say, relative to the “UK/US invasion of Iraq”, and it being “launched for the sake of oil, influence and profits for arms dealers”, there’s a little country called Israel and a nationalist movement called zionism with the goal of “Greater Israel”, i.e., the Yinon Plan, and this group of neocon/zionists who wrote what was called the Project for a New American Century who miraculously predicted a “New Pearl Harbor” so their fascist dreams could come true, that should kind of be mentioned too. IMO.
Oh God not again. Look work backwards from last Sunday and give everyone a breather.
utter tool
https://allisrael.com/exclusive-two-knesset-members-propose-legislation-to-outlaw-sharing-the-gospel-in-israel-and-send-violators-to-prison-could-it-become-law
Mentioning That would be equal to chanting Sieg Heils
My reply went through, then disappeared. Touchy subject?
I take back the complaint. My comment was under the next article.
That was an enormous omission.
Long before “the UK/U$ invasion of Iraq” I read an article in Jerusalem Post about Iraqi becoming too powerful and hence “an existential threat to Israel”.
Then came Newsweek with photos of Israeli “performance artists” performing up and down on ropes inside the liftshaft that is the structural backbone of the building. Then came the Dancing Israelis clapping and cheering when the building was blown up with people trapped inside.
I often wonder: Where did the tons of Military Grade Nano-Thermite come from; the U$ Army with a paper trail, or the Israeli Army via Mossad and its dancing performance artists. And why was Israeli President Natan Yahoo given a standing ovation when he visited at the time?
For sure Iraq’s oil wells were a prize for Rothschild’s oil companies. But the destruction of Iraq also removed yet another “existential threat to Isarael”
Along with the invasion of Afghanistan (yet another ME country from which the mysterious ‘airplane high-jackers’ did NOT come) that also put the US in a better position to potentially invade Iran — a far bigger danger to Israel than Iraq. That was my biggest fear after BushBlair won re-election. Thank God it never happened!
What new things did you learn this week?
In the comment section under the OffG article “The Pentagon’s B-Movie” I detailed how the evidence was quickly destroyed regarding the
killingmurder of fake-bin-laden by Navy Seals at Abbottabad, Pakistan.We all know how the debris and evidence of the towers after September 11th was carted off, though it was a crime scene.
I learned this week (today, actually) that the same modus operendi was used in Oklahoma City after that bombing. The building was quickly buried.
And what happened to the “plane wreckage” outside the Pentagon on 9-11?
Yes. I read your previous post, and considered it’s contents as given fact. I knew the Bin Laden execution was hoaxed as soon as the burial at sea was announced. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building “bombing” (April, 1995) was an agency psyop hosted by Janet Reno. Ms. Reno held the position from 1993 to 2001, making her the second-longest serving attorney general in US history. Interesting that she happened to stand down in 2001…
Civil populations watch the News and edit hoax stories as bad advertising… Then they go out and buy a new ___ fill in the blanks.
The federal law enforcement authorities’ Waco Massacre (of the Branch Davidian sect) also occurred under Reno’s watch. Another feather in her cap! 😡
Janet Reno was a piece of shit. May she rot in Hell forever.
I seem to remember it being dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation, when it started, but was changed after someone pointed out the initials.
All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention ….. Anything about Jordan Peterson and his other side of the WEF coin, ARC.
https://www.arcforum.com/
The organising committee pretty much sums it up, as I’ve noted elsewhere sometime ago, at least one of them should be in jail.
Anyway, for a publication that loves pointing out fake binaries, I would have thought this one to be hilariously obvious.
That Niall Ferguson, is on the Organizing Committee? Shouldn’t he be in jail for shouting fire in a crowded theatre?
John Howard. He openly admitted that he would do the Gulf War all over again because he wasn’t wrong the first time.
War criminal. He should be in jail.
This is dated and the first minute is in Korean. Well worth hearing to the end
https://emanuelprez.substack.com/p/how-korea-was-taken-over-by-the-covid19#play
All War is Evil. No More War
Stop Paying Income Taxes
Yet for all their reputation for protesting, the French accepted the covid vaccines and the lockdowns like lambs, didn’t they? Curious. I am usually suspicious of mass protests anyway, as they are often a form of ‘controlled opposition’.
No I don’t think so .I think there was more resistance in France against the vaccines than in other European countries. I think France has the greatest number of unvaccinated. That’s wot I understood…from MSM ( who are ,I believe, not reliable..but can’t see why they’d lied about that).
That’s tag spinning it’s not a competition furthermore who knows with people immigration policies mass movements on continent’s.
France is up there with Germany, Sweden (!), Italy, …
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1196071/covid-19-vaccination-rate-in-europe-by-country/
or as a percentage of ‘fully’ vaxxed: 92% !!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1218676/full-covid-19-vaccination-uptake-in-europe/
Riley Waggaman has never stated that Russia is far less clot shot than Western Europe.
i read that Ukraine was the least vexed european country….??
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
-Leonard Cohen
Is it any surprise we can look back over (only) the past twenty years of slaughter in Iraq and the Middle East while the perps in high places have gotten away with mass murder? We know the way the world works. Might makes right. Warlords are awarded peace prizes by partners in crime (unless they’re not ‘our’ sonofabitch as FDR said of Somoza).
“Disturbingly delusional or pathetically disingenuous?” Or both, and then some? Lying makes for insanity, if you ask me, and morality and psychology are flip sides of the same coin when it comes to consciousness trying to sustain the dissonance of pretending not to know what we know.
This goes for peons as well as the powerful. We’re all perpetually tempted to go along to get along and deny the pecking order of lies all the way down chains of command until we learn to live the lies in delusional states of alienation.
How to live in but not of this world? That’s what I ask of myself more than ever over the past three years of madness in the new abnormal. And I keep looking for others who similarly ask more of themselves than simply going about bizzness as usual. So far I still feel as crazy as ever from the sense that everyone’s sleeping through one long nightmare.
And everyone knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast…
Leonard Cohen always said it best, didn’t he? “Like a bird on the wire like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free.” Let’s all just keep trying, in our way, to be free…
Best.
It may be the 20th anniverary of shock and awe but it is more than 32 years since Desert Storm. I’ve lost track of how many times NATO has invaded Iraq: several times in 1991, 1998, 2003 and a whole lot of smaller bombings and whatnot in between.
Let’s go in order.
Kuwait was a British protectorate going into the 20th century. In the 1930s while the British were busy protecting and saving the downtrodden peoples of their colonies, most Kuwaitis did not want separation from Iraq.
In 1938, oil was discovered in Kuwait.
In 1939 there was a popular movement in Kuwait for the reunification with Iraq. This was violently suppressed by the British.
Iraq “invaded” Kuwait in summer 1990 after announcing he would do so at the OPEC 1990 meeting. He was fully encouraged to do it by the USA. That invasion was mostly bloodless because Kuwaitis had no real desire to fight.
The main casualties were the ghostbabies thrown out of incubators.
While I don’t approve of Iraq invading Kuwait, I don’t approve of ME or MY GOVERNMENT invading Iraq to right that wrong.
It could have just been left at that. It certainly was not the business of NATO to pronounce judgement on that event.
In 2000, the UN estimated that half a million Iraqi babies children had died due to the events of the 1990s.
Madeleine Albright though it was totally worth it.
Now that 500,000 is questioned as being a vast overestimation and “Saddam’s propaganda”.
Fortunately there are no laws criminalizing Iraqi genocide denial.
ps: I don’t pretend to understand the Iran Iraq war despite having met people from both sides. I do know that until Desert Storm Iraq was a secular country
with freedom of religion and ahead of its time in supporting the ability of women to work and have careers. It also had an excellent education and healthcare system.
It’s my usual trivial anecdotal tangent, but your “PS” reminded me of something:
During the 1980s, in the US Yugoslavia gained popularity as a tourist attraction; it was reportedly a hitherto-overlooked tourist-receptive nation with many beautiful and/or historically rich sites, a diverse (but generally welcoming) population and culture, and relatively inexpensive accommodations.
I admit that I remember this because I ran into an old friend at a party who was planning a trip there; she rhapsodized about Yugoslavia’s charms.
Imagine my surprise a few years later, when I learned from Bill Clinton that Yugoslavia was actually an unredeemed hellhole of ethnic strife and evildoers– mostly Serbian– systematically committing crimes against humanity.
The US and its European vassals, aka NATO, discovered a “responsibility to protect” the victims with its signature contrived, fraudulent “peace plans” followed by unilateral “shock and awe” bombing.
I actually never found out if my friend ever made it to Yugoslavia, but I hope she had an enjoyable visit before NATO destroyed the nation in order to save it. 😡
I enjoyed reading your anecdote.
It used to be a big holiday destination for Soviets too….I didn’t know it was big in the US.
Little did Tito and Nehru know that when they kicked off the Non Aligned Movement in 1954….perhaps it would lead to Cold War holiday romances in Yugoslavia….
As for Bill, I confess that back in the day, after the horrors of Bush The FirstI
I was….a gullible idiot…when Serbia was bombed, I genuinely believed it was to “save Muslims from being massacred”.
Thanks!
Also: ha. I don’t know if you’re familiar with RT’s “Crosstalk”, but today’s episode (linked below) is worthwhile.
Earlier, I sent an e-mail to someone recommending the show. I’m sharing part of that e-mail because, once again, it strongly resonates with your closing paragraph. What are the odds? Anyway, here’s what I wrote:
______________________________________________
I didn’t really follow geopolitics when Bill Clinton and NATO destroyed Yugoslavia on the usual pretext of “humanitarian intervention”. Even conventional US news coverage (including PBS, my main news source in those pre-Internet days) couldn’t simplify the cross-complaints of the multiple opposing ethnic minorities, so it was impossible to sort out the good guys, if any, from the villains.
But I actually liked Bill Clinton back then (!), and assumed that the NATO “cause” was more or less legitimate and just. I thought the designated-villain Serbian leaders must be the real, or in any case the worst, monsters in the region.
https://rumble.com/v2dy6ou-crosstalk-home-edition-schizophrenic-justice.html
Yes, I too liked Bill McBeth — at that time. He had an engaging smile, and Lady Hillary was a looker. I cannot remember clearly whether it was the trail of dead bodies in their domestic life or the wars which turned me against them when the smile and the looks faded.
Said it before my dear old mum went to Yugoslavia said its incredibly beautiful and loved the people. I grew up around my families who thought NATO was a bad idea following 1945. I don’t believe there was a cold war period post 1901. jmo.
Pre NATO invasion Yugoslavia was quite an attractive place to live in and visit.
Although it was described as communist, a lot of free enterprise was allowed.
You could employ up to 25 people in a private business, but anything bigger than that, banks, factories, mines, railways, utilities, were in public ownership.
People were free to live and work and travel abroad. Half the Volkswagen work force was Yugoslavian. It was multi cultural, with many different nationalities and faiths, including a very liberal form of Islam.
Some people thought it could provide a template to reform the Soviet Union and the wider Soviet bloc.
But Washington and Brussels had other ideas.
“You are either with us, or we’ll bomb the s*** out of you.”
I was there.
I was in Saudi Arabia from April 1990. I was in Riyadh during the whole thing.
I believe the reason for the Iraqi invasion was that the Kuwaitis were drilling diagonally into Iraqi oilfields, which they denied. Strange really as it’s relatively easy to determine by triangulation with 3 or more seismometers.
Iraq warned Kuwait 3 or 4 times to stop or they’d get their arse kicked. That was back in the days when, rightly or wrongly, there were consequences for your actions. Iraq didn’t warn again.
And then some 12 or so years later, after so many deaths and suffering, the Kuwaitis admitted that they had in fact been drilling into Iraqi oil fields, as accused.
The progress, lack of poverty, peace, etc. was similar in Syria and Libya before the launch of the “moderate” rebels, bombings and invasions. Also Yugoslavia as Ort said. The pain inflicted on Greece and Italy shows more alternative means.
Actually the UK was hesitant to join the coalition and articles usually omit the milenium unilateral demonstrations against war., instead focusing on those who’s language is open to accusation.
That was a test of the emergency broadcast system. Dont tell Americans they’ve never heard of it. The BBC.
Article says about the origins of the illegal invasion of Iraq (2003):
Anythng conspcuously mssng?
Why is that done? What is the motivation?
It isn’t revisionist history is it?
No, more likely the author is being held prisoner in a fortune cookie factory
and sending us Help! signals.
All the oil companies were against the upheaval. They were quite happy to do business and make money in every tinpot dictatorship on the planet. The whole operation was written, conceived and orchestrated by a certain group of people wearing funny little hats for their own exclusive benefit. That’s the only reason it happened. America just supplied them with the dumb muscle, the blood and the treasure.
20th Anniversary of Con-WMD
https://youtu.be/5gsNn6_uZ1M
In the first 5 minutes Mercouris says that Iraq was merely the 5th in a series of Luxury Wars and Spectacular Atrocities (Panama, Serbia, 911, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine) which was the EUSA crash course in How to Lose Friends and Influence.
Excellent tweet from John Steppling which highlights how far down the rabbit hole we have sunk:
https://twitter.com/johnsteppling/status/1637737705600688128
To a sequence of dropping presenters, the first reaction, from one Ivan Trumpovic, is:
To which John rightly responds:
It may seem pedantic but the first reaction is given as if the one typing is being subversive ….. and yet he’s really ratifying or normalising the very event he is querying with that “more often”. This is precisely the indication of how far down we are now.
So many absurdities around us are absurd at the root. Their very existence is an affront to the intelligence. And yet they are being subtly “verified” by these supposed criticisms which see them, not as the total aberrations they are, but as an odd excess of something that is supposedly already there.
Can you turn off the alerts if you’ve had Bill Gates’ chip injections and the ringing is in your head ?
“Bill, stand here for a moment please.”
*headbutt*
“That’s better, all quiet now.”
I’d love this to be genuine….
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1637829751908757505
…but when the bloke has a Freemasonic master number behind him I suspect it’s another staged “confrontation” like Rebel News with Bourla at Davos.
More seriously, worrying signs that Poland’s Russophobia is in the process of being weaponised against them to widen the Ukraine theatre of depopulation.
“More worrying signs that Poland’s Russophobia is in the process of being weaponised”
Again — and by.the same perps: Britain and France advised Poland In 1938 to reject an Anti-Fascism Pact with Communist Russia, and accept an invitation from Nazi Germany to take a slice out of CzechoSlovakia. That advice from the West ended in tears for Poland (5 million dead) and considerable annoyance to Britain, France and the U$A, who now found themselves in the embarrassing position of having to ally with Communist Russia against “Herr” Hitler, their former Fascist German protegee.
Read, “The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion” by Finkel & Leibovitz.
In 2014 the same Anglo-Zionazi-Capitalist perps again stirred up Russian-bashing in East Europe, with NATZO reviving and arming the Ukro-nazis to shell Russian-speaking Ukrainian civilians. It has ended in tcears for Ukraine. Any more Russian bashing.will end in tears for Poland.
Hardly anyone here wants to acknowledge this.
Not bad: 5 upvotes.
“The truth rarely if ever convinces its opponents; it simply outlives them”. — Max Planck, physicist.
Churchill said the Poles were the jackals of Europe. They will bite off more than they can chew, get royally bitchslapped by Putin, and then try io run and hide behind their big brother Uncle Sam.
and ?lockhart? said they were snivelling victim-players, awaiting the next stash of support, sorry, LOOT, to continue having a massive chip in their shoulders against some neighbour, despite their size and breadbasket. . And ETERNALLY ungrateful to allies too.
rather sad.
Uncle Z knows what to do.
The message thing is the Totalitarian Tiptoe that we all know so well. It’s voluntary to turn it off … for now. Luckily for me I have a Nokia 3210, don’t live in the UK and can only look on in confusion how what I considered to be humans can be so … limited and pathetic.
for iphone https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202743
So, the issue for an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin “on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion was likely designed to prompt very intense discussion on Western hypocrisy.”
Interesting. That would explain our Monbiot’s
“How many of those calling for Putin’s arrest were complicit in the illegal invasion of Iraq?”
So, George of the outrageously radical coiffered mop gets to do his “subversive” posturing Clash Combat Rock style! Or is that Comonbiot Rock?
And I daresay that’s the merest tip of the grateful Plastic Left triumphalist hooting over this highly profiled hypocrisy.
Monbiot was always 100% against the invasion of Iraq.
Love the link to the Eli Lake piece.
“Today, it is a matter of banal consensus that the war for Iraq was a blunder.”
Yeah you don’t want to be part of a “banal” consensus, you crazy rad mother!
“Shortly after a victory against an impoverished and disloyal Iraqi army….”
“Disloyal”? “Impoverished” is certainly right – but then who isn’t impoverished in the face of the US military?
After a grudging confession of “the mistakes”,
“Iraq is better off today than it was 20 years ago.”
Cue statistics and GDP stuff. Well you can’t argue with that!
Nor can you argue with the “consecutive parliamentary elections”, the “ratified …constitution”, or the “competitive” elections. Though you could ask, “So fucking what?” We have these too and we know exactly how “meaningful” they are.
“The outcome is not known in advance, as were the pageants staged by Saddam Hussein during his reign.”
So, the outcome regarding which clown gets to play the organ up front is not known in advance. But the tune is always the same.
And so on and so forth.
Moscow opens criminal case over Putin warrant — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union
https://www.rt.com/russia/573281-russia-icc-criminal-case/
more background..
https://mobile.twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1636999997639254019
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/warning-terrorist-attack-danger-as-security-screening-at-dublin-airport-not-fit-for-purpose-42394511.html
They’re determined to stop people travelling. First it was enormous crowds causing people to miss flights which was due to “staff shortages”, after they’d let over 1000 staff go.
Then it was unprecedented number wanting to fly, how dare they!!.
Next it was unauthorised drones being flown overhead and they say they don’t have the technology to stop this.
Now it’s international terrorism.
The bullshit gets thicker by the day. Can people not see what’s happening slowly but surely all around the world, the noose is getting tighter.
Can people not see what’s happening slowly but surely all around the world, the noose is getting tighter.
Nope, most can’t.
No mention of John Bolton describing the ICC as an ‘Illegitimate Court’ in 2017, openly making threats against ICC judges and their families.
The UK, per their government, is now on a War Footing and should engage Russia on the ground, DIRECTLY. Supposedly Europe is as war. Martial Law incoming.
Nothing is going to change until these political parasite puppets are dragged into the street and given old fashioned justice. Central Bankers should be close behind.
If we could only work out a way to send all our politicians off to fight Russian forces on the ground we might be onto a winner.
They’d soon show Johnny Russian what’s what. And Johnny Chinaman and Johnny Iranian at the same time, by jingo.
or to fight anywhere at all, come to think of it…
Last night I had a lovely dream.
I saw a big parade with ticker tape galore,
And men were marching there
The like I’d never seen before.
Oh the bankers and the diplomats are going in the army.
Oh happy day! I’d give my pay to see them on parade,
Their paunches at attention and their striped pants at ease.
They’ve gotten patriotic and they’re going overseas.
We’ll have to do the best we can and bravely carry on,
So we’ll just keep the laddies here to manage while they’re gone.
Chorus:
Oh, oh, we hate to see them go,
The gentlemen of distinction in the army.
The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army,
It seemed too bad to keep them from the wars they love to plan.
We’re all of us contented that they’ll fight a dandy war,
They don’t need propaganda, they know what they’re fighting for.
They’ll march away with dignity and in the best of form,
And we’ll just keep the laddies here to keep the lassies warm.
(Chorus)
The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army,
We’re going to make things easy cause it’s all so new and strange;
We’ll give them silver shovels when they have to dig a hole,
And they can sing in harmony when answering the roll,
They’ll eat their old K-rations from a hand-embroidered box,
And when they die, we’ll bring them home, and bury them in Fort Knox.
— Malvina Reynolds, “We Hate to See Them Go” (1960)
They will – and they know they will. Hence their doubling down to utter absurdity. I believe there will be thousands dragged out on to the streets before some form of new justice system takes over.
I see your Rentoul and raise you Richard Haass:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/iraq-war-20-years-later-causes-misconceptions-and-lessons-by-richard-haass-2023-03
Haass, it will be remembered, recently wrote about “a Bill of Obligations” which was essentially a tortuous advocacy of vax mandates. As head of the CFR, he’s where the trail that started with Ruskin, Rhodes and Milner has ended up today.