Such A Shame Nobody Was Listening

"Iraq presents far from ideal conditions for achieving strategic goals. Saddam Hussein is the culmination of a violent political culture that is rooted in a tortured history. Ethnic, tribal, and religious schisms could produce civil war or fracture the state after Saddam is deposed.

Should an unwelcome occupation continue for a prolonged time, a force initially viewed as liberators can rapidly be relegated to the status of invaders. To reduce the amount of resentment about the occupation in Iraq and the surrounding region, it is essential that military forces hand over responsibilities to civilian agencies as soon as practicable.

If the Iraq war were to progress rapidly with few civilian casualties, the occupation would probably be characterized by an initial honeymoon period, during which the United States will reap the benefits of ridding the population of a brutal dictator. Nevertheless, most Iraqis and most other Arabs will probably assume that the United States intervened in Iraq for its own reasons and not to liberate the population. Long-term gratitude is unlikely, and suspicion of U.S. motives will increase as the occupation continues."

Doctor Andrew Terrill and Doctor Conrad C. Crane, what a shame it was that nobody was listening when you wrote those words.

In February 2003.

Fulfilling All The Cliches

Once upon a time the cliche of the totally out of touch Tory was a byword in British politics. It used to be that the patrician Conservative with his and hers matching four by fours and three kids named Tarquin, Rosamund and Arabella was accused (with justification or not) of not having the faintest clue how the man on the street lived.

Some things really never change. Whilst Tarquin, Rosamund and Arabella are now generally just as likely to be scions of Labour and Lib-Dem great houses as Conservative ones, there is still something really special about the sheer ignorance about daily life shown by the smug, grinning new crop of Blu-Labour Cameronites. 'Special' like bowel surgery is special.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado I give you Iain Dale, proving that Blu-Labour's rising stars (and deeply informed and clever pundits, let us not forget - after all our Iain has his own TV Show on politics and everything) are capable of being every bit as ignorant of real life as their Party ancestors, but with a special Cameron twist. Yes, the cliche has now extended itself to a truly global scale.

"Shout Out Liverpool alerts me to the Iraqi Roulette blog, which details every day life in downtown Baghdad. Horrifying reading. Is it really this bad?"

Oh. My. God.

The Answer To The Question

Well, the future Mrs Right-Wing Zionist Conspirator never did manage to ask Nigel Farage the burning question on account of finishing work late. But he fielded some really tough ones rather well, including the one about 'What do you think should be done about British troops in Iraq?'.

The answer was one of quite astonishingly commonsense pragmatism. He doesnt believe that British troops have been given the equipment to do the job of 'counter-insurgency', let alone fight the war that we should be fighting. He also doesnt believe that any British interests either were served or are being served by British troops being in Iraq. He pointed out that not only was Saddam Hussein not truly a real threat to Britain, WMD or not, but that by creating a 'meeting engagement' situation in Iraq we have allowed Syria and Iran, the actual true threats (regimes of madmen as he referred to them) to become the focal points and logistic powerbrokers for Islamic power in the region.

And, most tellingly of all, this 'little Englander' has a strong enough grasp of foreign affairs that he understands that, no matter how distasteful the idea may be, the truth is that the only end to the murderous internecine hatred between Sunni and Shia (with both trying to off as many Kurds as possible on the way to killing each other) is a three-state solution.

And he's right of course.

He identified immigration as the absolute key issue that concerns the British public today. A year ago you'd have been hard put to find a single UKIP official to admit that there was any issue at all facing Britain today that wasnt the EU itself. He wants - shockingly - actual proper work permits to be issued instead of National Insurance numbers for everyone who gets off the boat or plane, EU nationals or not. The fascist! Or something.

In short, I was very impressed. The man's shorter than I realised as well, he actually had to look up at me when pumping my hand and asking me to stand at the Locals next year...I didnt have the heart to tell him I havent been a member for about fourteen months.

Mrs RWZC will endeavour to ask the question next time he's available, of that I have no doubt. Until then, I have to give a definite thumbs up to UKIP's new supremo - if the party's next big policy initiative on Law and Order is as excellent as their Flat Tax proposals and Education paper then I have to predict one new UKIP member and one renewed one for early next year.

The Mighty One Returns...

...and he is Exasperated. Worlds tremble, empires crumble. At least they should, because as always this guy is so totally, utterly in tune with the reality of the world that I have to pinch myself every time he writes just to make sure he didnt lift the thoughts right out of my head.

One day he'll actually write something I disagree with, but I doubt very much that day is coming soon.

Sublime

From the ever-wonderful Cox and Forkum. The European Union, of course, says this verdict is 'barbaric'. But the Saddam Hussein regime torturing and murdering hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of its own citizens wasnt 'barbaric'. It just wasnt worth, you know, mentioning.

Ever.

Random Thoughts on Path to 9/11 Part 1

Firstly, in purely cinematic terms...wow. Fantastically gritty docudrama style photography, edgy close up shots of the key players such as Harvey Keitel, last seen by this Zionist Conspirator in the excellent National Treasure delivering wonderful lines such as 'This is not a day for Um'. The characterisations were all quite believable as well, the portrait of the hideous Madeline Albright was so accurate physically and vocally that it made this Blogger want to gouge his eyes out at the sheer horror of the Wrinkled Queen Of Appeasement.

The history behind the drama went right the way back to the first World Trade Centre bombing back in 1993, and from the word go gave us convincing characterisations of the FBI and CIA teams involved with the ongoing investigations, if not always of those they were tracking. I wasnt overly impressed with the idea of Ramzi and Khalid sitting in a decadent western nightclub drinking and dirty dancing with black women in unlikely makeup - artistic licence taken a bit too far there methinks. The portrait of Zawahiri was eerily believable however.

Interestingly, the soon to be Mrs Zionist Conspirator sat through it quite happily, asking questions aplenty, particularly about Afghanistan. Now regular visitors to this Blog know exactly how I feel about Afghanistan and the way we have treated the Northern Alliance who actually did 90% of the dying and groundfighting in Afghanistan - much the same way I feel about Iraq, and the equally despicable way we treated the Kurds who shed a large amount of their own blood and have been pushed aside. The portrait of the Northern Alliance warlord Masoud was quite excellent, I must find the name of the chap who played him.

'Are there any men left in Washington?' asks Masoud when the order not to go after Bin Laden because of worries over 'civilian casualties' (hey how does 2996 civilian casualties grab you) is given. 'Or only cowards?'

Cowards, old bean. This was the Clinton Administration.

'I bet he did sleep with her though, right?' asked the Zionist Conspirator Fiance when Clinton's infamous 'I never had sexual relations with that woman' denial was briefly screened. Well, she was only a teenager at the time so why should she know about US presidential history? A two-minute potted 'events that prove Bill Clinton was a philandering lying scumbag traitor to the American people' lesson ensued, though as I pointed out if you want a fairly clear pre-Whitehouse biopic that does everything but call its central characters Bill and Hillary, you could just go watch the excellent 'Primary Colors'.

As we watched events such as the folied Millenium bomb plot unfold, we mused on the basic problem with the combatting of terrorism. Namely that people really dont take notice when a bomb plot is foiled. It hasnt hurt anyone (well unless your an Islamic child pornographer from Forest Gate anyway), and life just goes on as it did before. Ironically, the better the security services do their jobs, the less help and support they get from a fickle, media-brainwashed public that would rather believe the Guardian when it says that its all made up and the latest terror raids are meant to take pressure off Tony Blair in some fashion.

She did laugh when I told her that the latest bunch of bearded Islamofascists to be caught with their pants and bombmaking equipment down have had their martyrdom videos unearthed in Wycombe Forest - how embarassing for them in Court...the phrase 'bang to rights' rather covers it methinks.

I await Part 2 tonight though I will have to wait until Tuesday to watch it as Conception has its first full pre-Committee meeting tonight in Ferndown - I will ask for a minute's silence, I hope someone else will do the same.

Because no matter how many plots we foil, we should never forget the ones we didnt.

Mike Jericho Joins The Ranks

Which ranks? These ones. The ranks of those like me who, as Mike himself puts it, 'openly and freely admit that the attempt to bring Democracy to Iraq has been a dismal failure'.

I particularly liked this line:

"I propose that not a dime more be spent nor a drop more of western blood be spilled in seeking to make tame the savages who populate the region. It is a phyricc exercise which we can ill afford to indulge in."

I second that proposal wholeheartedly, oh my yes I do.

What angered him off so? Mike was writing this in response to this Telegraph article.

"Thousands of jubilant Iraqis looted the British military base in Amarah yesterday, only a day after the Army pulled out of the camp. Everything from doors and window frames to corrugated roofing and metal pipes was pillaged from Camp Abu Naji, previously Britain's only permanent base in Maysan province."

Great. Note the 'jubilant' part. Sounds kinda familiar doesnt it - what's with this Arab compulsion to steal everything that isnt nailed down?

"The Queen's Royal Hussars had departed Camp Abu Naji on Thursday, taking up new positions in the desert and marshes near the border with Iran. The British stressed that the redeployment was a tactical move, not a withdrawal. But this was not how Iraqis viewed it. As news spread through Amarah that the British had gone, locals rushed on to the streets shouting "God is great" and drivers sounded their horns in celebration.

Hundreds gathered around the local offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric whose followers had fired 281 mortar rounds and rockets at the camp, to offer their congratulations. A loudspeaker repeatedly broadcast the triumphant message: "This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupiers." "

Got all that? We are not the liberators, even though we spent years and hundreds of millions of pounds (perhaps billions) protecting these bastards from Saddam with the no-fly zone and then removed the man who had oppressed them for decades from power. No, we are the 'Occupiers' who have mortar shells and rockets fired at us and then respond with truncheons and riot shields.

Such overwhelming gratitude, you BASTARDS.

"First indications of what would follow came a few hours later as a crowd gathered outside Camp Abu Naji. Iraqi soldiers positioned inside the base dispersed them with shots into the air.
But the following morning a mob of between 2,000 and 5,000 returned, hundreds of them armed with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades. After sporadic fighting the Iraqi troops retreated to a corner of the camp as the base was stripped."

So that policy of NOT disarming/imprisoning/wiping out al-Sadr and his murdering lunatics when we had them pinned in Najaf and instead letting them go to murder again has really worked well for the West then. All that time, all those dead British troops, all those squaddies who risked their lives to come home to the hate of 'our' Muslim population, all those resources - and within a single day of leaving our friendly 'house-Iraqis' to take control they fold and let the enemy take over control again.

There is no purpose to us being there any longer. I remember when the idea of regime change was first mooted watching a hilarious BBC 'debate' on the subject, hijacked as usual by a bearded pundit who clamed that 9/11 was actually carried out by Mossad and the Jews, the Jews control the media blah blah blah. What also stood out was a moment when a monumentally smug Islamic 'academic' from Bradford or some other blight on the British landscape informed the audience that no matter how we debated, however hard we tried to bring democracy to a country such as Iraq, it was 'incompatible with the tenets of Islam'. I was appalled at the statement at the time, but now I know why the bastard was so smug.

Because he was right, and he knew it too.

Iraq