Middle East Thread

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Source. One doctor who wasn't on duty that night and who Fisk believes may be pro-regime due to some of the things he said.

 

The doctors who were on duty at the time were away in Damascus giving evidence to the official bodies etc.

 

It's more a claim from somebody who wasn't present, rather than an act of confirmation.

Even the CBS bloke reporting for BBC this morning hìnted that eye-witness accounts are confused and contradictory. I'd want stronger evidence than that before I supported bombing.

[General Dryness]

When negging isn't enough.

 

Racist shit like that should be a banning offence.

 

I'm no supporter of Israel, but that was definitely a bit much.

 

In KopOuts defence, he is something of a tit.

[Stickman]

Funny how Chris Leslie got up yesterday to congratulate May on the bombing of Syria yet in 2013 under similar circumstances he voted against bombing. I wonder what made him grow a "conscience" in these past 5 years.... 

 

Or heaven forbid it's just due to a change of leader as I'm sure the likes of him and Kendall wouldn't want to make such a ghastly situation political  .

 

Or the likes of John Woodcock who wanted the Labour Party to "rise up and back air strikes against Syria" but happily chats away with people who are responsible for what the UN calls "the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet"

 

[Denny Crane]

Don't forget Woodcock is a Erdogan fluffer also. 

[aRdja]

 

They’re blaming Israel I think. It’s gonna get messy.

[Denny Crane]

Remember this fella.

 

Guy Who Hurled Shoes at George W. Bush Running for Iraqi Parliament

The Iraqi journalist jailed for throwing both of his shoes at then-US President George W Bush in December 2008 is running for Parliament in the country’s upcoming election on a platform of anti-corruption and opposing the American occupation.

"White House: a stupid institution with smart missiles," Iraqi Council of Representatives-hopeful Muntadhar al-Zaidi shared in an April Facebook post.

In an April 22 interview with Albawabh News, the former journalist said that after being released from prison, he founded a relief organization for the victims of the US occupation in Iraq and promoted the arrest of Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. His life took a turn for the political and he became more of an activist, joining demonstrations and sit ins.

Iraq is getting rid of terrorists, he noted — now, it must get rid of corruption.

The broadcaster and journalist is well-known for the "shoe throwing incident" in 2008.


Bush told Iraqi press members at the time, "It doesn't bother me. If you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw… I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."

Speaking to US media a week later, the Texan explained that Zaidi was "looking for notoriety" but that Iraqi authorities should not "overreact." Zaidi ultimately was sentenced to one year in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state.

However, to some Iraqis, Zaidi was a hero. A large fiberglass and copper statue of the shoe he threw at Bush was erected by an orphanage in the northern city of Tikrit in 2009


https://sputniknews.com/amp/world/201805011064069655-guy-hurled-shoes-bush-parliament/?__twitter_impression=true

[moof]

I’d vote for him

[Jairzinho]

You need a bit of that.

[ZonkoVille77]

He's a shoe-in to be elected.

[Section_31]

He's the sole man for the job

 

He'll bring an end to any loafing around

 

Hopefully he can stop Iraq becoming a brogue state

[Rico1304]

Latest Joe Rogan has Abby Martin taking about the occupation.

[aRdja]

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/iraq-war-iran-deal/559844/

[SasaS]

He conquered all of Turkey, he's never gonna stop.

Allah Allah Allah

[Jairzinho]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVg3PE8vJ0o

 

First time I've watched this Joe Rogan show. Link was there after watching some of the Empire Files. Think I searched through the Rogan videos a few months ago but hadn't actually heard of the last 30/40 guests. 

[aRdja]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVg3PE8vJ0o

 

First time I've watched this Joe Rogan show. Link was there after watching some of the Empire Files. Think I searched through the Rogan videos a few months ago but hadn't actually heard of the last 30/40 guests.

His thoughts experiments are so stupid.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

The rather pretty, yet morally bereft, Mrs. Assad has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

[Numero Veinticinco]

That's a shame. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[KopOut]

Syria - problems still to be resolved.

China has offered military support (not mentioned in the below article) but I think this particular article is not a bad summation of the Syrian predicament.

 

https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/china-and-the-reconstruction-of-syria/

[sir roger]

Surprised at how low-key the reporting has been about the Saudi coalition killing 29 children civilians on a bus in Yemen.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Surprised at how low-key the reporting has been about the Saudi coalition killing 29 children civilians on a bus in Yemen.

It was on the front page of the BBC.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

We really need to stop selling weapons to the Saudis. But, it will never happen while money matters more than human lives.

 

It was covered in great detail on C4 News last night, but they said they had to omit some footage as it was too graphic to show. The footage they did show was horrible, of kids covered in blood and just looking totally shocked by what they'd been subjected to.

 

Andrew Mitchell was disappointing when interviewed by Cathy Newman. He condemned the Saudis but, when asked, couldn't fully commit to saying that the sale of weapons to the Saudis should, at the least, be looked at instead saying there are stringent rules in place, the Saudis have a right to buy weapons to defend themselves and that they'd just buy from elsewhere. He totally avoided the issue of whether they had the right to buy weapons to carry out war crimes and if we should aid them to do just that.

[Strontium]

Surprised at how low-key the reporting has been about the Saudi coalition killing 29 children civilians on a bus in Yemen.

I'm not.

[sir roger]

I was being a tad sarky to be fair, SD.

 

RE NV's post - it disappeared from the front page within hours yesterday & was only available on the 'World ' news tab until 10 minutes ago when it reappeared on the front page as the Saudis have apparently ordered an investigation.

 

Before it appeared again , the story had been superseded by the Ben Stokes story, Mike Ashley buying House of Fraser  & a visa issue for a chess prodigy.

[Numero Veinticinco]

It was on there this morning. I read it.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Owen Jones slamming both Saudi and Israeli killings and rightly pointing at the government supply of arms to these egregious nations. From the front page of the Guardian.

 

Source: Guardian

 

Will not even the massacre of children in Yemen end the silence over the murderous complicity of the British government? They were little kids on a bus on the way back from a picnic, no doubt laughing and raucous as large groups of children tend to be, and then they were burned to death. At least 29 children were among the 43 slaughtered, an atrocity perpetrated by the aircraft of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies.

 

Consider Britain’s role. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, our government has supplied the grotesque Saudi dictatorship with £4.7bn worth of arms since the war in Yemen began. Aircraft, helicopters, drones, bombs, missiles: all supplied by UK plc to be quite possibly dropped on the heads of children laughing on the way back from a picnic. Just months ago, the British government feted the Saudi dictator Mohammed bin Salman: unveiling a joint £100m aid deal, granting this tyranny humanitarian PR, while BAE Systems announced the sale of another 48 Typhoon jets. It gets worse: British military personnel are directly involved in helping the Saudi war effort – to what extent remains intentionally murky.

 

Thousands have died, mostly at the hands of the Saudi-led forces we are arming; millions have been displaced; and the country has been left on the verge of famine. Yet where is the national outrage? Where is the wall-to-wall news coverage about these horrors committed in our name? The unforgivable failure of the media to hold the British government to account has left most of the population unaware that this war is even happening. If the culpable nation were deemed a western enemy – such as Iran – there would have been calls for US-led military intervention to stop the slaughter long ago. But it’s our good friends and allies, the head-chopping extremism-exporting Saudi dictatorship, and so both the silence and the killing continues.

 

Consider another horror unfolding with direct western involvement. On Wednesday night a pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter were killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike. It is being framed as a conflict between Hamas and Israel, as though an equivalence can be drawn between an open-air prison camp and a regional military superpower. Every death – Palestinian or Israeli – is a tragedy, every attack on a civilian by either Hamas or Israel indefensible. Yet, the human rights NGO B’Tselem reports, 9,456 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces – with western complicity – in the past 18 years, compared with 1,237 Israeli security force personnel and civilians killed by Palestinians. Of the Palestinian fatalities, 2,025 were children. Other estimates put the Palestinian death toll over the same period at up to 9,730. It is perverse to suggest this “conflict” is anything other than overwhelmingly one-sided. And yet as the slaughter continues, British arms sales to Israel are at a record high.

 

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel think they can get away with killing innocents, including children, for a very simple reason: they absolutely can. They enjoy the military and diplomatic support of the west. Occasionally there may be utterances of regret, which are quickly forgotten. But as long as Britain and its allies are complicit – and as long as our media fail in their duty to inform the public of what is happening in their name – these horrors will only continue.