“The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle
is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have
an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are
too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of
anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinctions and
create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout
history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over
and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power,
but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either
their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or
both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on
their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and
justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust
the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves
become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the
other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again.
Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful
in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that
throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even
today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically
better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no
softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human
equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no
historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of
their masters.”
George Orwell.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Monday, March 3, 2014
Best Actor
And the Oscar for Best Actor 2014 goes to... US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said, "You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests."
You couldn't make it up, really.
You couldn't make it up, really.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Libya, Syria... and now Ukraine
Western hypocrisy has gone into overdrive. And the media are in lockstep with their governments. We've had a 'humanitarian' intervention into Libya that toppled a government (still illegal under international law, by the way, without a specific UN resolution) and left a country in chaos, then we had a cheering of Egyptian 'activists' while the Western paid military toppled another government (elected, this time) and massacred civilians without a single sanction being imposed by the US or Europe (and with US politicians talking about the military 'restoring democracy'). We had Syria being stirred into civil war by outside hands, but again described as a 'people's uprising', with the West immediately recognising the opposition as the legitimate government (shortly before they fragmented). And now we have the Ukraine, with EU and US dignitaries repeatedly visiting the demonstrators in Kiev and offering encouragement and support (can you imagine Russia and China coming to New York or London to encourage the Occupy protesters? No, me neither), referring to them as the 'people of Ukraine' (never mind the East Ukrainians), with the Western media gushing over their demands (to topple an elected president) while failing utterly to mention the far right groups within the protester camps, and with everyone in the West referring to the parliament that formed afterwards under the occupation of the protesters as 'the interim government'. When the Ukrainian president was in power, the media here quoted the protesters. Now that the president has been ousted and the Eastern Ukrainians are starting to protest, the media here now quote 'the interim government'.
The bias is so obvious, I don't know how any news reader can keep a straight face on the TV anymore.
But the other thing to mention here is the sheer incompetence of Western meddling (I can't dignify it by calling it diplomacy). Libya is reeling (as is Iraq, that other 'successful intervention'), Egypt is a military state and Syria is so bad that even the liberal and neo-con interventionists hesitated to demand more intervention.
The West has been encouraging the separation of Ukraine from Russia (like they did with Georgia, and look how that turned out), and now they are surprised that Russia has mobilised to support ethnic Russians in Ukraine and the strategically vital zone of the Crimea.
Western commentators are currently bleating about Russia crossing red lines, threatening stability in the Ukraine, and threatening the Ukraine itself.
The US backed Georgia not so long ago and hinted that they might lend it NATO support. Russia struck across its border, and US promises never materialised. Now the EU is promising Ukraine entry into its market and the US (via the IMF) is promising loans. Meanwhile the Russian army has mobilised on the border and 'armed men' have seized control of airports in the Crimea. What do you think will come of the West's promises now? Hmmm?
Western hubris, arrogance and sheer stupidity have pushed Russia into a corner and forced it to act. Russia was never going to abandon either its ethnic population in Ukraine nor it's vital Black Sea base in the Crimea. The Ukrainian economy was in meltdown, and the EU was never going to give it the money it needed to avoid crashing, and neither will the US. What an earth were these people hoping to gain from this? The US have warned Russia against military action, but there are no NATO forces nearby that can make that threat credible. They can't threaten Russia with sanctions, because it's too big, supplies Europe with most of its gas and oil, and is a UN security council member.
Both halves of Ukraine are going to come to blows, and Russia will not let its side fall. If the tension is not resolved in the next couple of days, then the only way to prevent civil war on a Syrian scale will be to partition the country, with Russia getting Crimea and the industrial east, and Europe (and NATO) getting the EU-friendly west. And this partition would have to be done pretty quickly.
And what is the West going to do with its side of the Ukraine (apart from complain about Ukraine immigrants flooding into the EU as cheap labour)? Does it even really want it?
They said the world changed after 9/11. It did. The leaders of the US and the EU, both on the left and the right, got a whole lot more stupid, infinitely more arrogant and a whole lot more hypocritical. And they also forgot all the most basic rules of diplomacy.
Diplomacy is about the art of the possible, not the fulfilment of ideological fantasies.
You know, if you stripped away all the ideology, all the rhetoric, and just concentrated on the actions, you'd think the West was already at war with Russia - or rather, that the Cold War never ended. Because they're not treating it as another sovereign nation in a global forum - they're treating it as an enemy that must be outwitted, outmanoeuvred and defeated. They think that Russia must step down and surrender its interests or be considered an irrational enemy, regardless of its case. And all this while both NATO and the EU blatantly expands towards Russia's borders.
And after Russia, China is next.
What are our leaders (and the idiot media commentators who cheer them on and deliberately misreport on their behalf) thinking?
Weren't two world wars enough?
The bias is so obvious, I don't know how any news reader can keep a straight face on the TV anymore.
But the other thing to mention here is the sheer incompetence of Western meddling (I can't dignify it by calling it diplomacy). Libya is reeling (as is Iraq, that other 'successful intervention'), Egypt is a military state and Syria is so bad that even the liberal and neo-con interventionists hesitated to demand more intervention.
The West has been encouraging the separation of Ukraine from Russia (like they did with Georgia, and look how that turned out), and now they are surprised that Russia has mobilised to support ethnic Russians in Ukraine and the strategically vital zone of the Crimea.
Western commentators are currently bleating about Russia crossing red lines, threatening stability in the Ukraine, and threatening the Ukraine itself.
The US backed Georgia not so long ago and hinted that they might lend it NATO support. Russia struck across its border, and US promises never materialised. Now the EU is promising Ukraine entry into its market and the US (via the IMF) is promising loans. Meanwhile the Russian army has mobilised on the border and 'armed men' have seized control of airports in the Crimea. What do you think will come of the West's promises now? Hmmm?
Western hubris, arrogance and sheer stupidity have pushed Russia into a corner and forced it to act. Russia was never going to abandon either its ethnic population in Ukraine nor it's vital Black Sea base in the Crimea. The Ukrainian economy was in meltdown, and the EU was never going to give it the money it needed to avoid crashing, and neither will the US. What an earth were these people hoping to gain from this? The US have warned Russia against military action, but there are no NATO forces nearby that can make that threat credible. They can't threaten Russia with sanctions, because it's too big, supplies Europe with most of its gas and oil, and is a UN security council member.
Both halves of Ukraine are going to come to blows, and Russia will not let its side fall. If the tension is not resolved in the next couple of days, then the only way to prevent civil war on a Syrian scale will be to partition the country, with Russia getting Crimea and the industrial east, and Europe (and NATO) getting the EU-friendly west. And this partition would have to be done pretty quickly.
And what is the West going to do with its side of the Ukraine (apart from complain about Ukraine immigrants flooding into the EU as cheap labour)? Does it even really want it?
They said the world changed after 9/11. It did. The leaders of the US and the EU, both on the left and the right, got a whole lot more stupid, infinitely more arrogant and a whole lot more hypocritical. And they also forgot all the most basic rules of diplomacy.
Diplomacy is about the art of the possible, not the fulfilment of ideological fantasies.
You know, if you stripped away all the ideology, all the rhetoric, and just concentrated on the actions, you'd think the West was already at war with Russia - or rather, that the Cold War never ended. Because they're not treating it as another sovereign nation in a global forum - they're treating it as an enemy that must be outwitted, outmanoeuvred and defeated. They think that Russia must step down and surrender its interests or be considered an irrational enemy, regardless of its case. And all this while both NATO and the EU blatantly expands towards Russia's borders.
And after Russia, China is next.
What are our leaders (and the idiot media commentators who cheer them on and deliberately misreport on their behalf) thinking?
Weren't two world wars enough?
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Getting hot in the Middle East
Some interesting news recently: France has agreed to supply the Lebanese army with weapons, and Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay for it.
On the surface, this looks like just another arms deal in a world of arms deals. One commenter went so far as to suggest that this was an anti-semitic plot against Israel, but frankly, that's unlikely.
Make no mistake; this deal will have been done with Israel's tacit agreement.
The target of this deal is not Israel, but Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, supplied and supported by Syria and Iran, is a major force in Lebanon. An unofficial but very heavily armed and organised political and military force, it's proven too strong for Israel to unseat without getting stuck in an occupation quagmire, and the Lebanese army is too weak (deliberately kept weak by Hezbollah's involvement in the political process) to assert its authority over the entire country.
But the wind has been blowing against Hezbollah lately, with Iran feeling the squeeze of sanctions and strike threats, and Syria, its most immediate ally, now reeling in a Western-initiated, Saudi financed civil war. The fact that Hezbollah felt the need to intervene on the battlefield on Assad's behalf is a measure of how worried they are, and of how high the stakes are.
And, at this moment of turmoil and weakness, Saudi Arabia just happens, for no apparent reason, to open its generous cheque book to the Lebanese Army.
The implications are obvious - Saudi Arabia is looking to provoke a civil war, this time in Lebanon itself, with the aim of crushing or weakening Hezbollah.
Turning up the heat
In the war for geopolitical influence in the greater Middle East, and in the conflict between Sunni and Shia, Saudi Arabia is winning. And it is doing so without the deployment of a single Saudi soldier.
Well, if you don't count the ones they sent to Bahrain to stamp on the embers of the so-called 'Arab Spring' there.
But with the retreat of, first, the USSR, then the US, from the region, Saudi Arabia is emerging as a colossus.
It was involved, along with Qatar, in the removal of Gaddafi and his meddlesome, pro-African revolution, anti-oil dollar ways. He's gone now, and Libya is in turmoil, but no matter. It is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia, and it can stay in turmoil for all the Saudis care - it's one less oil producer to compete with.
The Saudis were also involved, this time snubbing Qatar, in bringing down President Morsi in Egypt and returning the country to military rule. The grinding down of the Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia's most hated enemy) that is currently going on will be much to Saudi Arabia's liking.
Saudi Arabia, of course, has been instrumental in keeping the Syrian civil war going, doing all it can to knock out Iran's last ally in the Middle East. And it has been making sure that the Saudi backed militias prevail over the ones backed by the US, EU and Qatar. The Syrian Opposition is a mess of competing loyalties, and while it appears to be losing against Assad's forces on the ground, it nonetheless continues to keep the country in an unstable state. If Assad is busy handling problems on his doorstep, then he will have less time to meddle with Saudi Arabia's plans in the rest of the Middle East.
And so we come to the next domino: Lebanon. You see, the real war in the entire Middle East is between (Shia) Iran and (Sunni) Saudi Arabia. And Iran is having its tentacles in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon slowly snipped off. Turmoil in Lebanon will look terrible in the Western media, but for the Saudis it will be a welcome message to Iran: Look at what is happening to all your friends.
Try the Falafel
So how do other countries feel about this? Well, Israel is happy, as it has been quietly allied with Saudi Arabia ever since the Saudis requested (and paid for) their help a couple of decades ago to solve a problem in the Yemen. With the British no longer willing to fight in Aden or the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis needed other soldiers to fight their wars. Pakistani mercenaries are useful, and America's willingness to stamp on Saddam Hussein proved very useful, but nothing is as useful as Israel's vociferous anti-Iran stance and its willingness to ignore international law to enforce its interests. So Saudi Arabia can use Israel's help, and it can provide a useful service in return.
It can make sure Egypt honours its peace deal with Israel and maintains its side of the Gaza blockade (which Morsi's government had gone soft on). It can keep Syria, Israel's old enemy, destabilised and no threat to anybody anymore.
And it can kick the legs out from under Hezbollah and leave them too busy fighting for their own survival to bother Israel any more.
So Israel is happy.
Non?
Then there is France. Now what France is up to in all this is something of a mystery to me. Just lately France has gone interventionist mad, with robust insertions into Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic. When you consider that they were once mocked as being Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys for not getting involved in the Invasion of Iraq, you can see that this is quite a change for the truculant Gallic nation that prefers to say 'Non'. And having just lost their triple-A rating on the world finance markets, you'd think the French would be more cautious about getting into expensive interventions.
Then again, that may be why it is happy to boost its defence industry with Saudi money. And who wouldn't? And France remains a staunch ally of Israel anyway, in spite of the EU's weak finger wagging over the Palestinian issue.
You're either with us and against us?
And how does the US feel about this? Well, that's a difficult one too, as the US has long since ceased to pursue a rational foreign policy, mixing as it does its geopolitical interests with its humanitarian interests - feeling sorry for downtrodden people while supporting Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Since its disastrous venture into Iraq, where it was forced to leave empty handed, the US has declared its intention to pivot towards the Far East (and antagonise China instead). It committed aircraft to Libya but declined to do so in Syria, even as the CIA trained anti-Assad militias in Jordon and unleashed them across the border in a major offensive (which failed). And while backing Israel and the Sunnis in the west, and maintaining its hostility against Shia Iran in the east, it offers drones and missiles to the Iranian backed Iraqi government in the centre.
What is the US trying to achieve? Quite honestly, I don't know. It could be a plan so cunning that mere mortals like myself cannot understand it. Or it could just be foreign policy incompetance on a grand scale.
Either way, it looks a million miles away from what Saudi Arabia is doing.
So keep an eye on Lebanon. If those arms get delivered, and if the conflict next door is unresolved, it could blow up.
On the surface, this looks like just another arms deal in a world of arms deals. One commenter went so far as to suggest that this was an anti-semitic plot against Israel, but frankly, that's unlikely.
Make no mistake; this deal will have been done with Israel's tacit agreement.
The target of this deal is not Israel, but Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, supplied and supported by Syria and Iran, is a major force in Lebanon. An unofficial but very heavily armed and organised political and military force, it's proven too strong for Israel to unseat without getting stuck in an occupation quagmire, and the Lebanese army is too weak (deliberately kept weak by Hezbollah's involvement in the political process) to assert its authority over the entire country.
But the wind has been blowing against Hezbollah lately, with Iran feeling the squeeze of sanctions and strike threats, and Syria, its most immediate ally, now reeling in a Western-initiated, Saudi financed civil war. The fact that Hezbollah felt the need to intervene on the battlefield on Assad's behalf is a measure of how worried they are, and of how high the stakes are.
And, at this moment of turmoil and weakness, Saudi Arabia just happens, for no apparent reason, to open its generous cheque book to the Lebanese Army.
The implications are obvious - Saudi Arabia is looking to provoke a civil war, this time in Lebanon itself, with the aim of crushing or weakening Hezbollah.
Turning up the heat
In the war for geopolitical influence in the greater Middle East, and in the conflict between Sunni and Shia, Saudi Arabia is winning. And it is doing so without the deployment of a single Saudi soldier.
Well, if you don't count the ones they sent to Bahrain to stamp on the embers of the so-called 'Arab Spring' there.
But with the retreat of, first, the USSR, then the US, from the region, Saudi Arabia is emerging as a colossus.
It was involved, along with Qatar, in the removal of Gaddafi and his meddlesome, pro-African revolution, anti-oil dollar ways. He's gone now, and Libya is in turmoil, but no matter. It is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia, and it can stay in turmoil for all the Saudis care - it's one less oil producer to compete with.
The Saudis were also involved, this time snubbing Qatar, in bringing down President Morsi in Egypt and returning the country to military rule. The grinding down of the Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia's most hated enemy) that is currently going on will be much to Saudi Arabia's liking.
Saudi Arabia, of course, has been instrumental in keeping the Syrian civil war going, doing all it can to knock out Iran's last ally in the Middle East. And it has been making sure that the Saudi backed militias prevail over the ones backed by the US, EU and Qatar. The Syrian Opposition is a mess of competing loyalties, and while it appears to be losing against Assad's forces on the ground, it nonetheless continues to keep the country in an unstable state. If Assad is busy handling problems on his doorstep, then he will have less time to meddle with Saudi Arabia's plans in the rest of the Middle East.
And so we come to the next domino: Lebanon. You see, the real war in the entire Middle East is between (Shia) Iran and (Sunni) Saudi Arabia. And Iran is having its tentacles in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon slowly snipped off. Turmoil in Lebanon will look terrible in the Western media, but for the Saudis it will be a welcome message to Iran: Look at what is happening to all your friends.
Try the Falafel
So how do other countries feel about this? Well, Israel is happy, as it has been quietly allied with Saudi Arabia ever since the Saudis requested (and paid for) their help a couple of decades ago to solve a problem in the Yemen. With the British no longer willing to fight in Aden or the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis needed other soldiers to fight their wars. Pakistani mercenaries are useful, and America's willingness to stamp on Saddam Hussein proved very useful, but nothing is as useful as Israel's vociferous anti-Iran stance and its willingness to ignore international law to enforce its interests. So Saudi Arabia can use Israel's help, and it can provide a useful service in return.
It can make sure Egypt honours its peace deal with Israel and maintains its side of the Gaza blockade (which Morsi's government had gone soft on). It can keep Syria, Israel's old enemy, destabilised and no threat to anybody anymore.
And it can kick the legs out from under Hezbollah and leave them too busy fighting for their own survival to bother Israel any more.
So Israel is happy.
Non?
Then there is France. Now what France is up to in all this is something of a mystery to me. Just lately France has gone interventionist mad, with robust insertions into Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic. When you consider that they were once mocked as being Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys for not getting involved in the Invasion of Iraq, you can see that this is quite a change for the truculant Gallic nation that prefers to say 'Non'. And having just lost their triple-A rating on the world finance markets, you'd think the French would be more cautious about getting into expensive interventions.
Then again, that may be why it is happy to boost its defence industry with Saudi money. And who wouldn't? And France remains a staunch ally of Israel anyway, in spite of the EU's weak finger wagging over the Palestinian issue.
You're either with us and against us?
And how does the US feel about this? Well, that's a difficult one too, as the US has long since ceased to pursue a rational foreign policy, mixing as it does its geopolitical interests with its humanitarian interests - feeling sorry for downtrodden people while supporting Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Since its disastrous venture into Iraq, where it was forced to leave empty handed, the US has declared its intention to pivot towards the Far East (and antagonise China instead). It committed aircraft to Libya but declined to do so in Syria, even as the CIA trained anti-Assad militias in Jordon and unleashed them across the border in a major offensive (which failed). And while backing Israel and the Sunnis in the west, and maintaining its hostility against Shia Iran in the east, it offers drones and missiles to the Iranian backed Iraqi government in the centre.
What is the US trying to achieve? Quite honestly, I don't know. It could be a plan so cunning that mere mortals like myself cannot understand it. Or it could just be foreign policy incompetance on a grand scale.
Either way, it looks a million miles away from what Saudi Arabia is doing.
So keep an eye on Lebanon. If those arms get delivered, and if the conflict next door is unresolved, it could blow up.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Why do men fight?
In an age where masculinity appears outmoded - where masculinity is in fact mocked and derided, the issue of why men fight becomes a vexing question.
And there have been many answers to that one question - or perhaps questions raised by that one question.
Is it that men are inferior to women? Surely if they were not so egotistical or vain, if they were more able to empathise and cooperate, then they would see there was no need to fight? The pen is mightier than the sword, good deeds are better than bad, we are one species and only have one planet to live on. If men could learn to share, then they would no longer need to destroy.
Or perhaps it is masculinity, that cult that is supposed to direct us and tell us what to do? Perhaps it is simply a mistaken cult, one that can be shaped to be different? For is not masculinity just an idea? And cannot ideas be changed?
Maybe it's the system? The capitalism that pits one against the other, that competes for resources, that demands a loser for every winner? Perhaps it is civilization itself - that monstrous entity that corrupts us, that consumes us and uses us as fuel to maintain itself?
Or perhaps it is God who makes us do this, because He made us in his own image? Or even the Devil, who hates what God made and therefore whispers temptations into our ears and leads us to our doom?
But consider this. We have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. We don't really know much about that common ancestor, but genetically we do know that the chimpanzee is our closest relative. A brother. And chimpanzees fight too. Viciously and frequently.
Ah, but that is different, you say. Men fight for causes, for honour, for flags, for pay, for the motherland, for family. Or for stupidity, and the lies of other men. Take your pick.
But at the point of fighting, at the point when a man engages his opponent, whether in a bar or a battlefield, does any of that other stuff really matter? At the point of death, at the point of driving home the blade, charging the blood soaked horse or crashing the burning plane into the enemy's ship, are any of those causes really thought about? Pondered over? Repeated to one self?
Or, at the point of naked aggression, is there something else? Something we dare not speak of? Something that those who do not fight will never understand? Or would prefer to not understand?
Now ask the question: Why do chimpanzees fight?
When you can answer that question - truly properly answer that question - then we can answer the question of why men fight, and therefore dispense with all that philosophical, theological or ideological nonsense that we currently fill our heads with.
And there have been many answers to that one question - or perhaps questions raised by that one question.
Is it that men are inferior to women? Surely if they were not so egotistical or vain, if they were more able to empathise and cooperate, then they would see there was no need to fight? The pen is mightier than the sword, good deeds are better than bad, we are one species and only have one planet to live on. If men could learn to share, then they would no longer need to destroy.
Or perhaps it is masculinity, that cult that is supposed to direct us and tell us what to do? Perhaps it is simply a mistaken cult, one that can be shaped to be different? For is not masculinity just an idea? And cannot ideas be changed?
Maybe it's the system? The capitalism that pits one against the other, that competes for resources, that demands a loser for every winner? Perhaps it is civilization itself - that monstrous entity that corrupts us, that consumes us and uses us as fuel to maintain itself?
Or perhaps it is God who makes us do this, because He made us in his own image? Or even the Devil, who hates what God made and therefore whispers temptations into our ears and leads us to our doom?
But consider this. We have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. We don't really know much about that common ancestor, but genetically we do know that the chimpanzee is our closest relative. A brother. And chimpanzees fight too. Viciously and frequently.
Ah, but that is different, you say. Men fight for causes, for honour, for flags, for pay, for the motherland, for family. Or for stupidity, and the lies of other men. Take your pick.
But at the point of fighting, at the point when a man engages his opponent, whether in a bar or a battlefield, does any of that other stuff really matter? At the point of death, at the point of driving home the blade, charging the blood soaked horse or crashing the burning plane into the enemy's ship, are any of those causes really thought about? Pondered over? Repeated to one self?
Or, at the point of naked aggression, is there something else? Something we dare not speak of? Something that those who do not fight will never understand? Or would prefer to not understand?
Now ask the question: Why do chimpanzees fight?
When you can answer that question - truly properly answer that question - then we can answer the question of why men fight, and therefore dispense with all that philosophical, theological or ideological nonsense that we currently fill our heads with.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Feelgood factor
Quote from Guderian in a Spiked article:
People in the Third World have never had it so good and it's thanks to heroes like me. Every espresso I have at Costa Coffee makes Guatemalan children very happy, I have seen the pictures and they always smile. I drink water from some company that vaccinates (or is it fumigates?, I forget) children in some African country, they also smile in the picture. My bananas make peasants in some other loser country very happy because a nice lady in London tells them how lucky they are to be paid a fair price. I am very precious and all the brown people know it. My mum was right.
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