Libya is next?

Well the revolt has continued to gain momentum throughout the Arab and African regions. Bahrain has seen its Shia majority demanding a fair share of there nation from there Sunni Autocrats, and its King appears to have killed any chance of a compromise when he took part in a clamp down against protesters that left several dead. Iran was also in the firing lines, though despite wishful thinking its doubtful at present that the current protests will be anything over then a repeat of the election demonstrations as the Greens unlike the revolts in Egypt, and Tunisia do not have the support of the poor, they are instead a coalition of the wealthy urban elites who are resentful of the constraints the Islamic Republic places on there personal liberties both economic and social, and are lead by on of the Republic's key strong man whom carried out one of the regimes worst atrocities in 1988. Though the continued use of armed suppression should at least take the polish off the regimes moral legitimacy.

But the big story is of course concerning the great dictator of the Mediterranean, Gaddafi of Libya. It looks like this is the end for the "Islamic Socialist" demagogue. After weeks of escalating protests and violence the Libyan government has turned to the last resort to prop up a crumbling Autocracy the bayonet. The military has been ordered to crush the protests and his son Saif Gaddafi went on television to announce a fight to the last man. "Now comes the role of the National Guard and the Army, we will not lose one inch of this land. 60 years ago they defended Libya from the colonialists, now they will defend it from drug addicts. Most of he Libyans are intelligent, they are not Baltagiya (thugs) Benghazi is a million and a half not the few thousands who are in the streets. We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet. We will not lose Libya. We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us.

We will live in Libya and die in Libya." And even that appears to be failing him. Two Air-force Colonels have taken there jets and scarpered over the sea to Malta, not only is the loss of two senior military officers an embarrassment but it confirmed reports that the Air Force has been ordered to bomb rebelling towns and settlements. The second city Benghazi has effectively fallen and all is far from well in the capital. Another severe embarrassment is that the Libyan diplomatic corps is also in revolt, at present the diplomatic revolt includes Malaysia, Morocco and India as well as most of the staff at the U.N. including its deputy. This perhaps even more so then the defections from the military could severely undermine the regime to the point of collapse, diplomats and ambassadors are crucial to creating to creating a favourable image of a nation and its government to the international community and given there high level access have information on at least some of the skeletons in the regimes cupboard like for example the prison massacre .

Of course had this occurred back in the 1980's or 1990's the diplomats defecting wouldn't matter to much, after all, the regime was close to pariah status after the US and UK blamed Lockerbie on the Libyan government, what few states that did support Libya where part of the anti-imperialist camp and probably would stick with Libya regardless out of a group survival instinct. However in the early 2000's that all changed, Europe particularly Berlusconi and Blair where keen to re-rehabilitate Libya in the eyes of the international community why do this for an old foe, especially since this was the war on terror and Libya had been caught arming the IRA and the aforementioned Lockerbie attack? well it had less to do with an spirit of forgiveness and more to do with the fact that Libya is a mostly untapped energy giant just sitting in Europe's doorstep. Well to fair it wasn't just oil, Italy was able to use Libya as a dumping ground for its illegal immigrants and refugees, where I'm sure they received the best in humane treatment. Despite the cynical nature of big business this does at least mean that Libya has become dependent on economic ties, which are now in danger of being severed, so overall it looks like his days are numbered.

Crocodile tears at the inquiry

bLIAR's (couldn't resist) return performance, as that is what the Chilcott Inquiry ultimately is a platform for Blair and co to stem criticism by repeating there talking points for a while and appearing suitably chastised and besieged, seems to have been no more than a damage control exercise after realising that saying he regretted nothing while his face was plastered with that famous cheeky little grin might of come off as a bit bloody and socio-pathic.

So this time we were treated to that rarity of nature a reptile crying, unfortunately since the scaly ones are used to showing genuine emotion that routine came across as particularly sloppy and cringing " I shouldn't have said that I don't have any regrets, as you know that sounded like I didn't care about the deaths, which was..wasn't my intention I y'know deeply deeply regret the deaths of are soldiers, are allies, the civilians "helping" us in Iraq and the Iraqi's who died" which may or may not be better then child like pride at death and destruction but it's still pretty horrible, though it was amusing to clearly hear the audience murmur "too late".

We also learned that the legal case to go topple a regime just becasue you don't like them might not have been air tight,what with you know national sovereignty being the fundamental Tenant of international relations ever since a little called the Treaty of Westphalia was signed to the end the thirty years war, where otver half the population of Europe was slaughtered by mercenary forces using axes and knives becasue nearly every kingdom "republic" and Duchy collectively said to hell with everyone else's claims I want more power and influence in the world hmm.... Why does that sound so familiar?

* picture source

Chilcot inquiry two, the return of the killer inquiry?

Just a quick one, looks like someone on the inquiry must have been asleep and only just woke up to realise that Blair story was a bit dodgy, especially on details,

"The panel are concerned in particular about his evidence relating to the legality of the invasion, the Guardian has learned. Blair's evidence seemingly contradicted that given by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general at the time, about the number of discussions the pair had about issues of law between 7 March and 17 March 2003, three days before the attack on Iraq."

Also it appears Clare Short will be called to the panel,

"In most of the runup to the war Gordon and Tony were in one of their fallen-out phases and Gordon was marginalised, not included and not in the inner group.

"He was saying to me, 'They think they're going to have a quick and successful war and then they'll be very powerful and they'll have a reshuffle.'"

Short added: "He thought they wanted him out of the Treasury, because there was tension about how you spend the money of the government, and they were going to offer him the Foreign Office and he was saying, 'I won't accept it. I'll go and join you on the backbenches'."

This could be good news for Gordon depending on Clare's appearance and how Number 10 play it. take from that what you will.

Tony Blair at Chilcot the Aftermath

Talk about a fizzle rather then a bang.Rather unsurprisingly the Inquiry not only let Blair off the hook but let him get on his soapbox for some last minute proselytizing from the book of Bush. It was unsurprising though really. A Government does not indict its old leader, especially when most of the cabinet where in close to the centres of power during the events in question, especially not publicly.

Madam Miaow has her own take on this farce.

And here's an account from the protest outside on the streets by Harpy Marx.

I didn't expect much from Chilcot and his colleagues but I didn't expect this:



He starts off by trying to link Iraq with 9/11 again by association. Though this clip is only a sound bite, this accusations is so false that I'm going to spend quite sometime pointing it out as some people do still believe it, and thats very dangerous for future foreign affairs.
This time he appears to imply that Iraq's weapon capabilities could be used by terrorists, Umm how exactly? ignoring the exhaustion of Iraq's military and technology -They couldn't even buy North Korean Rodong missiles- how exactly would groups like Al-Qaeda supposed to get hold of them? was Saddam going to sell them some old Scuds? thats the only possible link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, and its not a very good one for a number of reasons. Saddam's Ba'athist regime was a Secular movement, his regime was also plague by Islamic terrorism of the Shi'a community who in response to Saddam's oppression had begun to ally with Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran, one of the reasons for Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 was to remove the Islamic Republics as a threat to his regimes stability. So it seems unlikely that Saddam would ally in any capacity with radicals,

Further Al-Qaeda itself is a Saudi Wahhabi branch of Islamic extremists many of the senior members including Bin Laden opposed Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and the Ba'athist movement as a threat to there interpretation of Islam.

Its true that AL-Qaeda would love to acquire much deadlier weaponry, but why would they go to an enemy with a crumbling military when they could go to Pakistan, where they have many supporters and fellow travellers in the military and intelligence services, and where their armaments program has not been curbed and where they do have nuclear weapons, which Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has been more then generous in sharing. The only countries he hasn't tried flogging his secrets to are India, and Israel, probably has something against the letter I, a bit like the KKK and loathing for the lower case t.

And perhaps the most important reason why Saddam and Al-Qaeda wouldn't work together is that it would have no benefit to Saddam. Arming Al-Qaeda would be a direct provocation to the Americans, who remember monitor everything going in and out of the country. Al-Qaeda can't inflict lasting damage on the Americans, nor could they advance Iraq's geo-political interests. Saddam couldn't gain influence over Afghanistan Iran is in the way, all of Saddam's other enemies are also very close to the West(Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait etc.) again provoking American response and so on.

"In the course of these discussions do you think you gave him any commitments?"

Oh come on, could you have phrased that any more softly? I could rest my head and fall a sleep on that sentence, unsurprisingly he rebukes that by saying that he only committed to dealing with Saddam's removal, which they don't bother questioning, Thats understandable I mean pursuing that line of questioning only has the potential to prove or disprove definitively whether Britain and America manipulated events to achieve the needed justifications for there commencement of the invasion. You'd think and Inquiry into the conduct of said conflict would be interested in finding settling that question once and for all. Its not a trial so they can't demand evidence, but at least ask, if not that then for some elaboration.

They also manage to muck up the issue of regime change (which is illegal) After he makes the claim that the UK/USA were united on dealing with Saddam, to let him divert it back onto WMD disarmament. Which if you remember Fern Britton managed to catch him out on that one. Yes Fern Britton was a tougher interviewer than Chilcot and Co.

Then there's the constant references to Iran which has many disturbing implications. I also quite like this little gem "Nobody, but NOBODY, thought that Iran would end up supporting Al-Qaeda because they both wanted to destabilise Iraq." There are two
extremely glaring flaws here. First what do you mean Nobody thought Iran would support Al-Qaeda? They aren't supporting Al-Qaeda. There supporting the Iraqi government which is headed by the Pro-Iran Islamic Dawa party which first came to prominence in Iraq as an anti Saddam insurgent group during the Iran-Iraq war. Why would it support a radical Sunni Islamist movement that has relatively little following in Iraq and is an enemy of its regime? The answer is simple it doesn't, what it does do is lead onto the second problem, Western laziness in identifying the "enemy". Time and again you will hear references to a growing number of Al-Qaeda groups all over the world, as if it is some sort of vast monolith sitting atop a global web of stockpiles and fanatics. When it isn't for example lets take a look at the most recent example, the Yemeni "Al-Qaeda" Lenin s Tomb does an excellent job of debunking this myth. In short just because your enemies share the same broadly defined religion does not make them the same organisation. If what Blair says is true and isn't just him being lazy, then this is a galling admission of the sorry state of our actual planning or lack thereof in regards to the invasion. In short if you can't even be sure who it is your actually fighting then how can you anticipate anything? like there goals and there capabilities? simple you can't. Again why didn't the inquiry pick up on this or correct him?

I could go on but really whats the point? all this did is confirm my and I suspect your suspicions of what would actually happen a white washing so Blair can move on to his trying work as an after dinner speaker once and for all.

Tony Blair at Chilcot

Well here its folks, the master of deception and the father of all lies himself as been summoned before the Chilcot inquiry, he will asked some potentially tough questions though unless he slips up he'll no doubt manage to turn his testimony into a piffy series of soundbites for the afternoon news.

So with it being a whole seven years since the invasion I though it would be best to remind are selves of what all this thus is about, and thought it best to so in song.
Fortunately for your ears a young group of radical musicians by the name of Convict/dead centrefold beat me to it by several years. So without further ado I give you Send the Troops by Convict