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Evidence and threats combine to
redress an anti-Semitic calumny
Repeatedly, during the month of August,
World Vision Ireland, the
Irish branch of an international charity, broadcasted a 15-second
radio advertisment seeking donations, which included a grievous
calumny against Israel relating to the Hamas/Israel war that was
then raging in Gaza. Initially I assumed this was just a
careless mistake, but after lodging a serious of complaints to WVI
that were effectively ignored, I had to conclude that WVI wanted its
false inference to be believed. After all, it made Israel and
Jews look bad (as usual).
My complaints to WVI pointed out that its
advertisment opened with a declaration that "Children should not
be a target". No-one can argue with this.
However it then immediately linked this statement to
the ONLY current conflict in the Middle East where
children are NOT a target, namely Gaza. As
anyone who pays attention to current events surely knows, the IDF
goes to
unprecedented lengths to avoid
civilians and children, even though too many (a number that is
nevertheless historically low in proportion to the quantity of
munitions hurled by the IDF) were, sadly, getting killed and
injured, either as collateral when the IDF would attack legitimate
Hamas targets (exacerbated by Hamas's human shield policy) or due to
IDF mistakes.
On the other hand untold numbers of innocent children were and are
directly and deliberately targeted by, for example,
snipers in Syria and
head-hackers in Iraq. World Vision
Ireland's advertisment ignored such documented truths in favour of
falsehoods about Gaza. An obvious conclusion to draw is that this
was because only in Gaza can Jews be blamed, which would be
tantamount to anti-Semitism.
To add force to my complaint, I prepared this short
Youtube clip, which I think is pretty damning:
However it was only when I
eventually upgraded my complaint by directing it to the broadcaster
Newstalk itself that there was finally some action. I
accompanied this renewed complaint with reference to formal
guidelines
published by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, on the basis that
the advertisment contravenes Article 3.2 (Offence, Harm and Human Dignity) of the
BAI General Commercial Communications Code,
and threatened that my next step was an appeal to the BAI itself.
I kept stressing that the deliberate linkage
of child-targeting to the Gaza conflict is an anti-Semitic calumny that
should not be broadcast.
Very quickly, Newstalk responded, saying the
WVI had reworked the ad to exclude the remark inferring that Israel was
targeting children. It was broadcast in this form on 22nd August but
entirely withdrawn shortly afterwards.
The lesson I take from this episode is that
if you are polite no-one will pay attention to you . But if you are
direct, evidence-based and threatening, you can be surprised at how quickly
people will respond.
Anyway, I am pleased at the small way I have
helped to redress an anti-Semitic wrong.
ISIS will continue rampaging across
fresh territories until militarily stopped,
but will be incapable of running its own state, ISISstan
ISIL, ISIS, IS or whatever they choose to call
themselves on whatever day of the week, have been rampaging across huge
swathes of first Syria then Iraq over the past few weeks, striking
terror into the hearts of all those they come into contact with as well
as great chunks of people observing from afar.
Their carefully choreographed and videographed
decapitations of the unfortunate yet indescribably dignified and
courageous US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff have only
served to remind the world that there is no depravity to which they will
not unhesitatingly descend.
Koran 47:4 Beheading of Infidels:
“So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle],
strike [their] necks …”
Their religious cleansing of
the wrong
kind of Muslims (Shi'ites),
the wrong
kind of monotheists (Christians) and
the wrong
kind of worshippers generally (Yazidis)
is of a scale, ferocity and brutality scarcely seen
since that murderous thieving paedophile warlord Mohammed first launched
his bid to conquer and destroy the world in the Seventh Century.
As of now (September 2014) ISIS have effectively
dissolved portions of the Syria/Iraq border and created a new caliphate, which for
convenience I will call ISISstan. It is not only territory that ISIS are
seizing.
They are breaking into the banks and removing billions of US dollars,
Syrian pounds, Iraqi dinars, bullion and other valuables.
Where there are oilfields (eg
in
Deir Ezzor
in Syria) and gas fields (al-Shaer),
they will of course grab those and the resultant revenues.
The Iraqi army, lavishly equipped by the Americans with the best in
uniforms and weapons, fled at the first onslaught of ISIS into Iraq
leaving all the US matériel behind as they tried to melt back into the
civilian population. Thank you very much; ISIS now have their
hands on that too.
So with enormous reserves of cash, oil and
military equipment, not to mention tremendous motivation and sense of
righteousness as they carry out to the letter the depraved word of Allah,
ISIS now looks unstoppable.
Of course the successes of ISIS have been predicated on
the massive power vacuum created by the craven flight from Iraq of US forces under the benighted leadership
of Barack Obama, unarguably the worst, most malicious, ahistorical
president the US has ever seen. The rise of ISIS was entirely
foreseeable. Indeed George W Bush described it very precisely way back in
2007:
Right now, it is very hard to predict
where this is all going end, other than to state with great confidence
that the valley of tears that ISIS are causing to fall is far from being
filled. This hell will go on for years, or decades.
But, even if ISIS is as unstoppable as it
seems, will it be able to create and run an ISISstan Caliphate that by any
recognizable definition is some kind of functioning state that would
secure at least a chance for even medium-term survival? I very much
doubt it, for these reasons.
Firstly,
it is great to have at your disposal countless up-to-date US Hummers, tanks,
armoured personnel carriers,
artillery, small arms, maybe even aircraft
etc. But these items have to be operated and
maintained, for which they will need expertise, spare parts, and of course
ammunition. Especially expertise. Where is all that going to
come from once the first tank breaks down?
A body such as ISIS whose whole philosophy is centred on
Islamic destruction in the name of Allah is psychologically ill-suited
to the grind of technical maintenance and administrative organisation
needed to keep complex equipment in tip-top working order.
Its wonderful US arsenal is going to steadily degrade and
certainly the chunkier items are going to pretty quickly become
unusable.
Secondly, it is one thing to
follow your Prophet's example and instruction by rampaging across territory
mercilessly killing, crucifying, abducting, enslaving or converting every
child, woman and man you encounter, and stealing everything you can lay your
hands on. But what do you do then, once you've set up your Caliphate?
Are the boys from ISIS really the type of people who can set up
Ottoman-style
vilayets
each run by a governor reporting back to
Caliph al-Baghdadi?
Yet without an organization along such or similar lines, how is Mr
al-Baghdadi to ensure both that he both holds the land he has conquered
and that they continue to be run, over the long term, along strict
Islamic lines?
How will he ensure that the oil revenues, for example, do not dissipate
among rabbles of warlords that will inevitably spring up,
For that matter, how is he going to run those oilfields and gasfields?
Who, with access to the necessary large-scale expertise and complex
equipment, is going to dare get involved with the constant, looming
threat of beheaded foreigners, reneging on deals and simple looting?
The multi-nationals? The independents? Russia? China?
Saddam's oilfields were in constant decline, so are
Iran's. Yet their problems with gaining access to expertise
and technology were as nothing compared with those that ISISstan
will encounter.
Thirdly,
if ISISstan is to survive as a state, it must do so economically.
There is no way round that central constraint. Oh, for a while the
plundered billions will be sufficient to keep things going, assuming
ISISstan has figured out how to safely store the stuff (I doubt a numbered
Swiss bank account is the answer). But ultimately, some kind of commerce
will need to re-emerge, some semblance of civic services (water,
electricity, hospitals, schools) to be re-established, all of which requires
the engagement of the ordinary populace.
Yet how can such activities reasonably be
facilitated by an outfit that holds its cowed people - those it doesn't
kill or incarcerate - in such utter and obvious contempt?
And will the excitable young ISIS lads
really be interested in such boring administrative stuff that includes
very little killing or pillaging?
How can an ISISstan cope with economic
realities when it is mired in Seventh Century thinking?
In conclusion, an ISISstan is doomed to
implosion from the very start. That does not mean it doesn't pose
an existential threat to millions of people, merely that it is unlikely
to become a state.
ISIS can continue only for as long there are
fresh areas to attack, murder, rape, terrorise and plunder for that is all
it knows how to do.
ISIS will stop only when it is stopped and
effectively exterminated as Naziism was exterminated, and this will happen
only through determined military action with boots on the ground. In other
words another Middle East ground war is almost inevitable, if not under
Obama's baleful watch then under his successor's.
Under no scenario, is the future in that
benighted region other than ugly.
Impressionist/comedian Mario Rosenstock takes off Joan
Burton singing Miley Cyrus's infamous "Wrecking Ball", without doubt his
best ever performance. At least it always makes me crack up, and Mario's
certainly better than Miley.
For those unfamiliar with Irish politics, Joan was till recently deputy
to Eamon Gilmore, leader of Ireland's Labour Party, whom she sought to
depose and to whom
“she” dedicates the song.
Since 2011 Labour has been the junior
party in a ruling coalition with Fine Gael. Joan has since succeeded in
getting rid of him and stepping into his shoes as party leader and Tánaiste
(deputy prime minister).
I've decided to return to blogging, but on as-and-when
basis and in chronological order of writing, rather than trying to publish batches of pieces in a kind of
magazine format as I did for over a decade since starting in 2002.
The main reason I have been off the blogosphere for over a
year is Facebook. Facebook is also why I am now returning.
On the one hand, FB is wonderfully easy for accessing interesting news
stories, expressing your thoughts, getting feedback, engaging in
discussion. You can spend hours every day, and indeed I often
have, to the detriment or exclusion of other more worthwhile activity.
So, yes, I have been sucked in by FB, like a junkie after a few heroin
jabs. And to a lesser extent by
Twitter also.
On the other hand, FB is not an appropriate medium for expressing any
kind of deep or detailed analysis, thoughts or ideas. So while I have been
chattering away on FB mindlessly, other mentations have been nibbling
away at my brain saying come on, grow up, get a bit more depth to your witterings, develop your arguments properly.
So I am back. The itch must be scratched once
more, with a mixture of depth, shallowness, prejudice, snarkiness and sometimes even
humour.
But first, let us stand for the Argentine Anthem ...
I had intended to publish this clip to celebrate
Argentina's World Cup victory. But with a parrot like this, no-one needs
to cry for Argentina for only claiming silver.
There are four categories of casualty in Gaza. It is not
clear, due largely to Hamas obfuscation, how many fall into each, but
only two of the groups deserve sympathy.
1 First, there are the Hamas fighters who have
fallen, whom Hamas make every effort to hide or else miraculously
turn into post-mortem civilians. At the same time they threaten local and foreign journalists alike
who might otherwise reveal the truth about such casualties. Such
casualties are
worthy only of contempt.
2 Then there are the children and babies. Without doubt
everyone of those is an innocent victim, whose loss is unequivocally a
terrible human tragedy, whatever the circumstances.
• The other two categories are the non-fighting adults.
A free-ish election in 2006 brought Hamas to power with a plurality of
votes - 440,409 (45%). A year later, Hamas consolidated its grip through
extreme violence against Fatah who had come second with 41%.
• The Gazan population in 2006 was 1.4m of which some 45%
were/are under 16. Thus it is reasonable to assume that half, ie 700,000,
were 18 or over and thus eligible to vote in 2006. This, incidentally,
compares with the 991,000 who actually
“voted” (evidently
many Gazans subscribed to the Sinn Fein mantra -
“Vote early vote
often”).
3 Anyway, as noted some 440,000 Gazans voted for Hamas
(including Hamas fighters of course). In other words these men and women
took positive action to bring the current catastrophe upon their own
heads. They are thus unworthy of much sympathy as victims and constitute
the third category.
4 That leaves in the fourth category: those non-fighting
adults who did not vote for Hamas and so as casualties must be
considered as genuinely innocent civilian victims. Depending on what
electoral or population numbers you want to believe, they number
anything from zero to half a million.
• There is also a kind of fifth category: those
non-existent victims that are included in the casualty numbers Hamas
that release. Bloggers have done some analyses which show the same names
popping up on the same Al Jazeera lists. There are probably a lot of
invented names there as well.
Think of all this when the media slavishly broadcast
Hamas's propaganda casualty figures.
People still trot out the old saw that Saddam never had
any weapons of mass destruction, especially when it came to invasion in
2003, and that WMD were the only reason for that invasion.
But here's the thing Saddam's WMD: they haven't gone
away, y'know. And they never did. And with ISIS now running the
show they'll probably be back in action before too long.
My (somewhat truncated) letter to the Sunday Times on
3rd August 2014:
Jihadists - It's all just a scam; you're being conned
We in the West should declare loud and often that there
are no 72 virgins for shahids or anyone else, it's all a scam.
They won't believe this, of course, at least not at
first. But the idea is simply to sew little seeds of doubt in the minds
of the sex-crazed Jihadists hot for martyrdom and an eternity of carnal
debauchery unavailable at home. Even a tiny such seed could be enough to
deter them at the last minute.
And when one of them hesitates, so surely will another
... then another ... and another ...
I recently stumbled over an online ad for Stena Lines.
How bizarre to expect you to pay good money to join a sinking ship. What
were they thinking? I wrote to them to ask, and now await their
reply.
“The Lemon Tree”, by Sandy
Tol (2006),
is a delightful novel-style history of modern Israel and Palestine told
through the eyes of a thoughtful protagonist from either side, with a
household lemon tree as their unifying theme.
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as
This examines events which led to BP's 2010 Macondo blowout in
the Gulf of Mexico.
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded BP through adventurous
acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless
cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term
technical sustainability.
Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in
refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in
Russia.
The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that
had become poisonous and incompetent.
However the book is gravely compromised by a
litany of over 40 technical and stupid
errors that display the author's ignorance and
carelessness.
It would be better
to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying.
As for BP, only a
wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will
prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once
mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history.
This is
nonagenarian Alistair Urquhart’sincredible story of survival in the Far
East during World War II.
After recounting a
childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen,
Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on
Germany in 1939.
From then until the
Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr
Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall
of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror.
After a wretched
journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless
garrison.
Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in
1941, he is, successively,
part of a death march to Thailand,
a slave labourer on the Siam/Burma
railway (one man died for every sleeper laid),
regularly beaten and tortured,
racked by starvation, gaping ulcers
and disease including cholera,
a slave labourer stevedoring at
Singapore’s docks,
shipped to Japan in a stinking,
closed, airless hold with 900 other sick and dying men,
torpedoed by the Americans and left
drifting alone for five days before being picked up,
a slave-labourer in Nagasaki until
blessed liberation thanks to the Americans’ “Fat Boy” atomic
bomb.
Chronically ill,
distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the
British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s
is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this
unputdownable book.
There are very few
first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese
brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical
document.
+++++
“Culture of Corruption:
Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies”
This is a rattling good tale of the web
of corruption within which the American president and his cronies
operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both
a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and
sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP.
With 75 page of notes to back up - in
best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing
allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with
the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife.
Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett,
Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris
Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book.
ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community
organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine
it is.
+++++
This much trumpeted sequel to
Freakonomics is a bit of disappointment.
It is really just
a collation of amusing
little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour
and situations. For example:
Drunk walking kills more people per
kilometer than drunk driving.
People aren't really altruistic -
they always expect a return of some sort for good deeds.
Child seats are a waste of money as
they are no safer for children than adult seatbelts.
Though doctors have known for
centuries they must wash their hands to avoid spreading infection,
they still often fail to do so.
Monkeys can be taught to use washers
as cash to buy tit-bits - and even sex.
The book has no real
message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and
try to look for simple rather than complex solutions.
And with a final
anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in
its tracks. Weird.
++++++
A remarkable, coherent attempt by Financial Times economist Alan Beattie
to understand and explain world history through the prism of economics.
It's chapters are
organised around provocative questions such as
Why does asparagus come from Peru?
Why are pandas so useless?
Why are oil and diamonds more trouble
than they are worth?
Why doesn't Africa grow cocaine?
It's central thesis
is that economic development continues to be impeded in different
countries for different historical reasons, even when the original
rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
Argentina protects its now largely
foreign landowners (eg George Soros)
Russia its military-owned
businesses, such as counterfeit DVDs
The US its cotton industry
comprising only 1% of GDP and 2% of its workforce
The author writes
in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to
digest.
However it would
benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative
points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide
natural break-points for the reader.
+++++
This is a thrilling book of derring-do behind enemy lines in the jungles
of north-east Burma in 1942-44 during the Japanese occupation.
The author was
a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to
harass Japanese lines of
command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide
intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of
India.
Irwin
is admirably yet brutally frank, in his
descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a
prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing
in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness.
He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of
Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved
authority of the British.
The book amounts to
a very human and exhilarating tale.
Oh, and Irwin
describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF
Brennan.
