Iain Duncan Smith – death by acronym

IDS’ political grave was prepared after the party conference a few weeks ago. Speaking in the third person, he pathetically mewled: “He is here to stay and he is turning up the volume,” all the while getting more quiet.

Increased Decibels ’Shite
International Disease Spray
Initiatives Dissed Son
Incompetent Discursive Shit
Insipid Delivery Spiel
Inhaling Diaphanous Spew
Islington's Dynamic Sister
Idiotic Dumb Sod
Incapable Demand Satisfier
Irked Demon Shape
Irreversible Decline Spiral
Infamous Dog Scraper
Inquiry Dirt Shame
Inspiration Desert ’Scape
Internal Defeat Syndrome
Ignited Desperate Scramble
Ignominious Departure Suite
Intellect Deficient Sir?
Infected Denial Slime

In November 2002 Mickey Howard told BBC News that “I will never stand for the Tory leadership again.” Quite so, Mike Prince-Dark.

  ¶ 3:43 PM

 

Muz decks the Uzbeks

The Sunday Times on 26 October reported on the Whitehall/Washington diplomatic furore caused by UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray’s acerbic comments on Tashkent’s wide-ranging human rights abuses. He is back in England suffering stress after being threatened with the sack and facing trumped-up allegations for saying stuff, which clearly needs to be said, like the regime still carries out secret executions or boils people to death (20 minutes), especially ones suspected to be Islamists. The Foreign Office, not to mention US Uzbek envoy John Herbst, were outraged at the nerve of the truthsayer, who delivered some of these revelations at a Freedom House conference in the summer. The likes of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch were delighted with the line he took. Russo-Afghan neighbour Uzbekistan now hosts a US air base and the CIA thinks it’s getting loads of top information about potential terrorist threats. When that info is obtained in a style well behind even the Guantanamo pale, it can be discredited.

Murray is clearly a bit of a self-publicist, as he likened his episode to David Kelly while claiming he would outlive the spat. But he has been similarly candid on similar missions to Ghana and Sierra Leone. The only error I can see is that the disclosure should have been made behind closed doors, or in Whitehall’s preferred mode of (insecure) communication – email. Yet some emails bounced back to him because of their explicit content (and explicit language).

And it strikes me he could have said a lot more, like ‘President Islam [only in name] Karimov is doing this with tacit approval as it goes down the path of being a US vassal state. And while impressive figures are bandied about in the name of ‘investment’, precious little is filtering down to the people. In short the regime is corrupt.’

http://www.freedomhouse.org

  ¶ 11:55 AM

 

More Project Americans pass Punish Arabs act

The US House of Representatives has passed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. The act calls for Syria to halt support for terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon, stop its development of WMDs (is it doing that?), cease its illegal import of Iraqi oil and illegal shipments of weapons and other military items to Iraq – cease any sovereign activity. Are you listening Tehran?

The act’s passing was not surprising at all given that: Bush had effectively given Sharon a green light for his sort of response by including Syria in the (pr)axis of evil propaganda; Israeli war planes had menaced Assad's palace a week or so previously; Syria and Israel are still technically at war over the Golan, despite several significant Syrian concessions; and Syria’s army is under staffed, underpaid and under American raps (see earlier mention of Syrian concessions).

It was tragic but telling that the Haifa suicide bomber targeted a mixed restaurant (both in terms of ownership and clientele) but then this should not surprise anyone who correctly regards Sharon as the best weapon that Palestinian fundamentalists have to force embattled refugee communities into religious fundamentalism and vice-versa. You cannot resuscitate outrage and tragedy so repeatedly without devaluing basic interaction between the two communities and this is what the extremists on both side want and need in order to maintain power.

Fundamentalist Israel wants to use the war on terror to assist America in subjugating the Arab world and the fundamentalists in the Arab world (hopeless Palestinians, the terror groups, scions of the Damascus leadership) want to destroy Israel, the only consistently reliable pawn America has in the region.

Hardly startling revelations but at some point, a bottom line has to be reached in this (Palestinian) reaction/(Israeli) over reaction cycle of religiously inspired dementia; as long as it isn't a genocidal purge against the Palestinians that will lock them into eternal martyrdom and put their memory and history up for grabs from any fundamentalist fucko. In other words, the position the Israelis and the Jewish diaspora currently find themselves in.
  ¶ 12:20 PM