Author: Mick Hartley

morrow Iraq should know if it has acquired a constitution with which it can begin working. If so, then in mid-December an election will be held for a national parliament and there is every reason to believe that turnout then will be at least as high and as admirably broad as it was on Saturday. All of which means that those who supported the Anglo-US intervention can start to be less defensive.

Some awful mistakes were made and they have been conceded. Neither Britain nor the United States knew enough about Saddam Hussein’s inconsistent, incoherent, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction to support the scale of claims they made in the months preceding conflict. The decision to disband the Iraqi Army and police once the Baathist regime fell was foolish, if perhaps more understandable than critics are prepared to acknowledge.

The extent to which religious extremism had permeated parts of Shia and Sunni Iraq before March 2003, when the tanks rumbled over the border with Kuwait, was badly underestimated. Numerous matters could have been addressed much more shrewdly and this would have led to a far better security situation.

Nothing in this lengthy confessional should, though, negate the fact that there are many positive aspects to this story. One such is the character of the political and constitutional dialogue in Iraq, as is the rapid development of a free and crusading media and the steady recovery of the economy.

It may take until 2010 before all this bears fruit — longer that many of us hoped and thought at the time the old dictatorship was toppled. Yet, what would Iraq have been destined for in 2010 if Saddam were still in his palaces instead of in a prison awaiting the start of his trial this week, or if he had keeled over to pass on tips to Old Nick, leaving one or other of his sadistic sons in charge of that country?

The real divide over Iraq is not what it was almost three years ago. It is no longer “war versus peace” (a funny sort of “peace”, as the Kurds and Shias could ruefully testify) but “what about the democracy?” versus “so what about the democracy?”

ingly I spotted the Pope’s name too late, when I’d already sent in my nominations, but he seems to have done alright anyway, coming in at a respectable no. 17.

Still, it’s kind of humbling to know that one has played one’s part, however small, in such a momentous enterprise.

A heroine of our time:

An Uzbek woman says she saw government troops open fire on unarmed civilians during protests in Andijan in May.

Her testimony, at the trial of 15 men alleged to have led the revolt, contradicts government accounts of what happened during the unrest.

The Uzbek government says nearly 200 people, mostly “terrorist organisers”, died when security forces put down an armed Islamic uprising.

Human rights groups say 500 or more civilians may have been killed.

Makhbuba Zakirova told the court that she saw soldiers shooting at people waving a white flag.

“Even Hitler did not do such things,” she said.

Mrs Zakirova said that after speaking out in court, she feared for her life and freedom.

Correspondents say her statement undermines three weeks of testimony in what many foreign observers had dismissed as a show trial.

milar to a crime, not just in judicial and political terms, but also in terms of culture, ideology, and especially, the media. Thus, it suffices in Europe nowadays to accuse a politician of having Nazi tendencies, or of inciting to Nazism, for him to turn into something of a bandit. The [Potsdam] Agreement was signed by Britain, the U.S.S.R., the U.S., and China – the important world superpowers at that time.

“Why shouldn’t we learn a lesson [of the Potsdam] experience, which had the greatest impact on the uprooting of Nazism from the world?… Imagine that the way of dealing with statements by Al-Salafiyya Al-Jihadiyya… was comparable to the West’s way of dealing with Nazism. Would a [TV] channel, like Al-Jazeera, for example, dare to spread this ideology and to relate to statements by its leaders and preachers in the spirit of ‘point/counterpoint’ and ‘freedom of speech’? Everybody knows that this channel in particular has had the greatest media impact on the shaping, spreading, and strengthening of this dangerous trend, and that it provides it with wide space to express its ‘acts of heroism’, its statements, and its videotaped operations, to the point where it [Al-Jazeera] has become the primary platform of [Al-Salafiyya Al-Jihadiyya], as is happening today in Iraq.

“Therefore, I still believe that one of the primary missions of the international community today is to repeat its experience with Nazism and to deal with this dangerous barbarian culture exactly as it dealt with the Nazi culture. If this does not happen, the near future is liable to bring many [events], the consequences of which will be far more severe for all of humanity than [the consequences] of World War II.”

And (via), a tale of the religious police in Riyadh produces this from a commenter:

A friend of mine was in Mecca and she was young enough that she didn’t need to cover her face, but tall enough that people are never sure what her age is. So a Religious Police fella came over and smacked her on the leg with a stick. She promptly pulled off her shoe and smacked him on the head with it. The man was so surprised that he can only look at her dad, and her dad shrugged, “didn’t they tell you never to hit a Kuwaiti girl?”

ere ethnically cleansed by Armenian militia?
No Turk is interviewed!

What about the survivors of 1970’s ASALA Armenian terrorism across America and Europe?

No talk about that either.

THIS MEANS Like other Armenian Diasporic Nationalist propaganda this book is false. DO NOT WASTE YOUR time and energy and sympathy for a fascistic discourse, that keeps on with the business of nationalism saying that there was an Armeninan “genocide”.

Does the man approve of anything? Well yes, a couple of books get five-star reviews:

“Complementary Cardiovascular Medicine: Clinical Handbook“, by Richard A. Stein (Editor), Mehmet Oz (Editor)

Wonderul Turkish Doctor

Dr. Oz wondergul doctor
Thank you very much the Turkish Nation.

and “YOU: The Owner’s Manual : An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger“, by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet Oz

Wonderful Turk Does it Again

I thank the Turkish society and government for having contributed to such a wonderful mind. Wonder Doctor Mehmet Oz once again publishes a book and gets to be the bestseller, with a bit of publicity from Oprah’s show.
An excellent healthy diet plan!
Excellent information on general staying healthy.
Book Addresses all of body’s needs.

Thank you Turkish people and Turkey.

I wonder if Richard Mitchell genuinely is his name. Maybe his real name’s something like, oh, I don’t know, some Turkish name….Mehmet something-or-other perhaps….

This Salman Rushdie article would have had considerably more bite had Orhan Pamuk been awarded the Nobel Prize instead of Pinter. The EU would have found itself in a much stronger position to insist that Turkey drop the charges against Pamuk for having supposedly “blatantly belittled Turkishness”.

José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, says that Turkey’s entry into the EU is by no means assured, that it will have to win over the hearts and minds of the deeply sceptical EU citizenry. The Turkish application is being presented (most vociferously by Tony Blair and Jack Straw) as a test case for the EU. To reject it, we are told, would be a catastrophe, widening the gulf between Islam and the West. There is an element of Blairite poppycock in this, a disturbingly communalist willingness to sacrifice Turkish secularism on the altar of faith-based politics. But the Turkish application is indeed a test case for the EU, a test of whether the Union has any principles at all. If it has, its leaders will insist on charges against Orhan Pamuk being dropped at once — there is no need to keep him waiting for justice until December — and on further, rapid revisions to Turkey’s repressive penal code.

An unprincipled Europe, which turns its back on great artists and fighters for freedom, will continue to alienate its citizens, whose disenchantment has already been widely demonstrated by the votes against the proposed new constitution. So the West is being tested as well as the East. On both sides of the Bosphorus, the Pamuk case matters.

From “The Caretaker” (1959):

You know, believe it or not, you’ve got a funny kind of resemblance to a bloke I once knew in Shoreditch. Actually he lived in Aldgate. I was staying with a cousin in Camden Town. This chap, he used to have a pitch in Finsbury Park, just by the bus depot. When I got to know him I found out he was brought up in Putney. That didn’t make any difference to me. I know quite a few people who were born in Putney. Even if they weren’t born in Putney they were born in Fulham. The only trouble was, he wasn’t born in Putney, he was only brought up in Putney. In turned out he was born in the Caledonian Road, just before you get to the Nag’s Head. His old mum was still living at the Angel. All the buses passed right by the door. She could get a 38, 581, 30 or 38A, take her down the Essex Road to Dalston Junction in next to no time. Well, of course, if she got the 30 he’d take her up Upper Street way, round by Highbury Corner and down to St. Paul’s Church, but she’d get to Dalston Junction just the same in the end. I used to leave my bike in her garden on my way to work. Yes, it was a curious affair. Dead spit of you he was. Bit bigger round the nose but there was nothing in it.

From when he had a sense of humour.

ent levels when you consider that the singer may be directing his lines at himself.

….

The young Bob Dylan had crammed a great deal into his career to this date. He had written songs as varied and enduring as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”–songs good enough by themselves to justify most writers’ careers–but at this point his talent was launching itself to a whole new level. Already the subject of real ire from people who accused him of abandoning folk/protest music, he was now facing the noisy hatred of those who would accuse him of committing some Judas-like sin for playing an electric instrument. For a 25-year-old trying to keep his head on straight and shepherd a wild creativity within, it had to be disturbing stuff. With “Like a Rolling Stone,” he lifted himself artistically to the point he had to reach in order to give his talent its needed outlet–and managed to sing about that terrifying and liberating moment at the same time. Effecting the transformation, and crystallizing it, simultaneously, in a song. Quite a special achievement, in a body of work replete with them.

If you think BBC bias is a problem, check out how Belgian Public Radio advertises itself.

From the BBC:

Syria’s Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan has committed suicide, the official news agency in Damascus says.

He was reportedly questioned by a UN investigator last month over the murder of ex-Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.

For many years Kanaan was Syria’s powerful intelligence chief in Lebanon, which was dominated by Syria until its military withdrawal earlier this year.

Hours before his death, he gave what he called his “last” interview, saying he had served Lebanon with honesty.

Mr Kanaan’s chief aide said that he had shot himself in the mouth at his office in the interior ministry.

“Gen Kanaan left his office to go home, then he came back after three quarters of an hour, took a gun from the drawer and fired a bullet into his mouth,” General Walid Abaza told the AFP news agency. […]

Many will now suspect that Kanaan was a sacrificial lamb, conveniently eliminated before the release of the UN report into Hariri’s death, says BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy.

Michael J. Totten, in Lebanon, agrees:

I talked to several Muslims and several Christians in Lebanon about this today. None believe he actually killed himself. This country is rife with conspiracy theories, but I’m inclined to agree with them this time. The Syrian regime is a mafia with an army, and it acts like it.