Time to Set Our Thinking Straight
Ian Buckley on the war | 12.03.2003 00:18
Time to Set Our Thinking Straight
Blair and Bush are looking for weapons of mass destruction in the wrong place, says Ian Buckley
Nothing is certain in an increasingly unpredictable world, but is does seem very possible that by the time this issue goes to press Britain will be involved in an unjust war against Iraq. This will be a war which rivals in sheer shabbiness and blatant partiality the Boer War of a century ago.
To begin, let's explore a few dark facets of our country, which as the junior partner of the US seeks to sort out the affairs of a distant land.
In February's Prospect magazine, Peter Wayne explored the lower depths of London. Wayne - not really a very admirable character - did us a service by revealing that each and every night there is a great crush of homeless outside the crypt shelter of St Martin's in the Fields.
One does not need to be a screaming leftie to see that there is something deeply wrong with a country that allows such conditions, especially when this is combined with asylum-seekers staying in three and four-star hotels. Then again, beside the usual weekly crop of 1,000-plus redundancies, we have such symptoms of rampant decay and degeneracy as a young girl being battered to death yards from her suburban London home.
The press briefly became interested in the huge paedophile scandal of ‘Operation Ore’, with a Guardian report commenting that two New Labour ex-ministers were implicated in the ring being investigated. Since then there has been silence about this particular aspect of the scandal, which makes one suspicious that some form of informal ‘nod-and-wink’ gagging has been suggested to various editors.
Without expressing any sympathy with the alleged perverts already exposed, we should never forget that throwing entertainers to the wolves helps to divert attention away from the really powerful, who can get away with far worse misdeeds. According to rumour, leading paedophiles have been holding high office (not necessarily elective) in both the Labour and Conservative parties. Whatever else the media say against the Iraqi leadership, it's pretty certain that Saddam and his ministers or party colleagues don't get up to such distasteful shenanigans!
The soldiers, sailors and airmen who are forced to do the dirty work of the New World Order are obviously much finer characters than the cowardly inciters to war who slink about in Washington and London. But really, it is the height of foolishness to fight for such a society against a non-enemy thousands of miles away.
Now all of the endless duff chatter emanating from the parliamentary poltroons about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction reminds me that the only time a European city has been doused with depleted uranium and dimethyl methylphosphonate (a component of the deadly nerve gas sarin) was when the Israeli El Al flight 1862 crashed into Amsterdam some years ago.
All of the talk about AI Qaeda and Iraq should be countered by saying that the outfit with the closest links of all to Bin Laden's organisation is the CIA, which basically created the whole movement to use against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The CIA spent billions on this move, but it also shouldn't be forgotten that Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe arranged to send a few millions of British taxpayers' money to Afghan rebels.
Drivel from Blair about such dubious claims is typical of a weak, verbose man who deals with the PR needs of the New World Order rather than any of the real issues.
After the Second World War, Churchill and General George Patton realised (belatedly) that they had been responsible for some mistaken decisions. But nowadays we have to face the fact - as we antagonise potential friends and grovel to potential enemies - that some foolish decisions could be the last we'll ever make.
Israeli blows the gaff
Let me elaborate: how does the prospect of Israeli missile attacks on Europe strike you, involving hundreds of nuclear, biological and chemical warheads? Let's listen to the words of military historian Martin van Creveld, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recorded in an interview published by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.
Midway through the interview van Creveld said that Israeli leader Sharon wants to escalate the conflict still further, starting with the mass deportation of Palestinians. Then the following chilling exchange took place:-
Interviewer: ‘Do you think that the world will allow that kind of ethnic cleansing?’
Creveld: ‘That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.’
The interviewer then proceeded to ask if this wouldn't mean that Israel would become a rogue state, and van Creveld told us that:-
‘Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under.’ [IB's emphasis]
When I first read this interview, it was in the form of a few choice excerpts. It seemed a little hard to believe, so I did a bit more investigation and got hold of the full text of the exchange, which makes it clear as the edited version does not - that van Creveld himself does not approve of these projected future horrors.
This, however, is but a minor point of detail. Such maniacal ideas dominate a considerable section of Israeli opinion, from Sharon through to the messianic movements of the settlers on the stolen lands of the Arabs.
They, at least, have long dreamed of striking down ‘Amalek’, their word for Germans, or indeed other Europeans perceived as hostile. Such thinking as this was also the reasoning (if that's the right word) behind plans for mass poisoning of Germans in the immediate post-war years, as recorded in John Sack's book An Eye for an Eye.
All of the above surely puts all the media hype about Al Qaeda and hook-handed mad Muslim clerics into a rather different perspective. It would seem that the West is endangered by a monster of its own creation.
Who's losing patience?
Let us also remember that Sharon's men in the US - most notably Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz - may well view things along the same lines. This surely gives a whole new angle to the stories that the US government is losing patience with Europe over its lukewarm attitude to war! Bear in mind too that British premiers from Thatcher to Blair have been at pains to point out their friendship and even loyalty to this state.
Maybe we are all Palestinians now.* View it like this: an inner circle of oppression by way of shootings, demolitions and curfews as seen in the Occupied Territories plus an outer circle of more subtle - but still palpable - control by new-fangled laws, debt and TV brainwashing. If the New World Order proceeds for much longer, then the ‘outer circle’ of Europe and America may take on some characteristics of the inner one of Palestine.
Britain is supposedly a free country, but you should never accept that facile verdict until you've tried to express a truly dissenting voice. A few letters ‘agin’ the government in the local press, and you soon may start to hear a number of mysterious clicks on your telephone. Not to mention those e-mails which seem to have taken 50 minutes to deliver!
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz has said that millions of firearms are being distributed to the people in order to fight off Anglo-American invasion. Do you for a moment imagine that Blair or Straw would ever countenance mass distribution of arms to the British people? The propaganda says that the Iraqis are oppressed by a totalitarian government, but this one piece of news shows that the true facts are otherwise. It is we who are oppressed by a totalitarian regime, which takes care to conceal its true nature under a facade of democracy, in order to control its victims more easily.
Let Bush and Sharon have their dreams of conquest and slaughter. But let us remember, according to ancient Greek thought, that after hubris (overweening arrogance) comes nemesis.
* I've always considered that nationalists should support the Palestinian cause. Some may disagree, but what we must never do is emulate the ‘kosher conservative’ attitudes of the Mail or Telegraph.
Blair and Bush are looking for weapons of mass destruction in the wrong place, says Ian Buckley
Nothing is certain in an increasingly unpredictable world, but is does seem very possible that by the time this issue goes to press Britain will be involved in an unjust war against Iraq. This will be a war which rivals in sheer shabbiness and blatant partiality the Boer War of a century ago.
To begin, let's explore a few dark facets of our country, which as the junior partner of the US seeks to sort out the affairs of a distant land.
In February's Prospect magazine, Peter Wayne explored the lower depths of London. Wayne - not really a very admirable character - did us a service by revealing that each and every night there is a great crush of homeless outside the crypt shelter of St Martin's in the Fields.
One does not need to be a screaming leftie to see that there is something deeply wrong with a country that allows such conditions, especially when this is combined with asylum-seekers staying in three and four-star hotels. Then again, beside the usual weekly crop of 1,000-plus redundancies, we have such symptoms of rampant decay and degeneracy as a young girl being battered to death yards from her suburban London home.
The press briefly became interested in the huge paedophile scandal of ‘Operation Ore’, with a Guardian report commenting that two New Labour ex-ministers were implicated in the ring being investigated. Since then there has been silence about this particular aspect of the scandal, which makes one suspicious that some form of informal ‘nod-and-wink’ gagging has been suggested to various editors.
Without expressing any sympathy with the alleged perverts already exposed, we should never forget that throwing entertainers to the wolves helps to divert attention away from the really powerful, who can get away with far worse misdeeds. According to rumour, leading paedophiles have been holding high office (not necessarily elective) in both the Labour and Conservative parties. Whatever else the media say against the Iraqi leadership, it's pretty certain that Saddam and his ministers or party colleagues don't get up to such distasteful shenanigans!
The soldiers, sailors and airmen who are forced to do the dirty work of the New World Order are obviously much finer characters than the cowardly inciters to war who slink about in Washington and London. But really, it is the height of foolishness to fight for such a society against a non-enemy thousands of miles away.
Now all of the endless duff chatter emanating from the parliamentary poltroons about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction reminds me that the only time a European city has been doused with depleted uranium and dimethyl methylphosphonate (a component of the deadly nerve gas sarin) was when the Israeli El Al flight 1862 crashed into Amsterdam some years ago.
All of the talk about AI Qaeda and Iraq should be countered by saying that the outfit with the closest links of all to Bin Laden's organisation is the CIA, which basically created the whole movement to use against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The CIA spent billions on this move, but it also shouldn't be forgotten that Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe arranged to send a few millions of British taxpayers' money to Afghan rebels.
Drivel from Blair about such dubious claims is typical of a weak, verbose man who deals with the PR needs of the New World Order rather than any of the real issues.
After the Second World War, Churchill and General George Patton realised (belatedly) that they had been responsible for some mistaken decisions. But nowadays we have to face the fact - as we antagonise potential friends and grovel to potential enemies - that some foolish decisions could be the last we'll ever make.
Israeli blows the gaff
Let me elaborate: how does the prospect of Israeli missile attacks on Europe strike you, involving hundreds of nuclear, biological and chemical warheads? Let's listen to the words of military historian Martin van Creveld, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recorded in an interview published by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.
Midway through the interview van Creveld said that Israeli leader Sharon wants to escalate the conflict still further, starting with the mass deportation of Palestinians. Then the following chilling exchange took place:-
Interviewer: ‘Do you think that the world will allow that kind of ethnic cleansing?’
Creveld: ‘That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force.’
The interviewer then proceeded to ask if this wouldn't mean that Israel would become a rogue state, and van Creveld told us that:-
‘Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under.’ [IB's emphasis]
When I first read this interview, it was in the form of a few choice excerpts. It seemed a little hard to believe, so I did a bit more investigation and got hold of the full text of the exchange, which makes it clear as the edited version does not - that van Creveld himself does not approve of these projected future horrors.
This, however, is but a minor point of detail. Such maniacal ideas dominate a considerable section of Israeli opinion, from Sharon through to the messianic movements of the settlers on the stolen lands of the Arabs.
They, at least, have long dreamed of striking down ‘Amalek’, their word for Germans, or indeed other Europeans perceived as hostile. Such thinking as this was also the reasoning (if that's the right word) behind plans for mass poisoning of Germans in the immediate post-war years, as recorded in John Sack's book An Eye for an Eye.
All of the above surely puts all the media hype about Al Qaeda and hook-handed mad Muslim clerics into a rather different perspective. It would seem that the West is endangered by a monster of its own creation.
Who's losing patience?
Let us also remember that Sharon's men in the US - most notably Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz - may well view things along the same lines. This surely gives a whole new angle to the stories that the US government is losing patience with Europe over its lukewarm attitude to war! Bear in mind too that British premiers from Thatcher to Blair have been at pains to point out their friendship and even loyalty to this state.
Maybe we are all Palestinians now.* View it like this: an inner circle of oppression by way of shootings, demolitions and curfews as seen in the Occupied Territories plus an outer circle of more subtle - but still palpable - control by new-fangled laws, debt and TV brainwashing. If the New World Order proceeds for much longer, then the ‘outer circle’ of Europe and America may take on some characteristics of the inner one of Palestine.
Britain is supposedly a free country, but you should never accept that facile verdict until you've tried to express a truly dissenting voice. A few letters ‘agin’ the government in the local press, and you soon may start to hear a number of mysterious clicks on your telephone. Not to mention those e-mails which seem to have taken 50 minutes to deliver!
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz has said that millions of firearms are being distributed to the people in order to fight off Anglo-American invasion. Do you for a moment imagine that Blair or Straw would ever countenance mass distribution of arms to the British people? The propaganda says that the Iraqis are oppressed by a totalitarian government, but this one piece of news shows that the true facts are otherwise. It is we who are oppressed by a totalitarian regime, which takes care to conceal its true nature under a facade of democracy, in order to control its victims more easily.
Let Bush and Sharon have their dreams of conquest and slaughter. But let us remember, according to ancient Greek thought, that after hubris (overweening arrogance) comes nemesis.
* I've always considered that nationalists should support the Palestinian cause. Some may disagree, but what we must never do is emulate the ‘kosher conservative’ attitudes of the Mail or Telegraph.
Ian Buckley on the war