IBRAHEEM.dk - - - - - - اللهُ أَكْبَرُ اهدِنَــــا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيمَ

WELCOME!

2020-01-01T19:47:00.066+01:00

If you like my website please tell your friends!
(site is in the process of being reworked from
MYSPEAK to new domain www.IBRAHEEM.dk -
your patience appreciated)

==>> Site News
==>> Note to New Readers

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==>> ENOUGH! Islamophobia - my book

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Site News

2019-12-31T21:00:00.045+01:00

This section is to help my regular readers
quickly find out what is new -

28 June 2011:
New poem:
- Twenty Thousand Lines
Al-HAMDU-Lillah!

27 June 2011:
New poems:
- Territorialism
- EVIL is LIVE
- The Fed Means Red
- Vote the Veto
- The Graveyard of Empires
This breaks the 20,000 lines barrier -
al-hamdu-lillah!
I am writing a poem to celebrate!

21 June 2011:
New poem
- Zionism and Judaism

18 June 2011:
New poem
- The Muslim Quarter

17 June 2011:
New poems
- Peace to the World
- Balloonatics

15 June 2011:
New poems
- Modern Living
- Winter Trees
- Kings and Queens

25 May 2011:
New poem
- Propaganda

05 February 2011:
New poem
- The Power of the WORD

28 January 2011:
New poem
- An Eye for an Eye

20 January 2011:
New poem
- Why ISLAM?

15 January 2011:
New poems
- The Bland Leading the Bland
- We Toll Jews So
This breaks the 18,000 lines barrier -
al-hamdu-lillah!

10 January 2011:
New poem
- Today, Tomorrow, Toyota...?

09 January 2011:
New poem
- Doing Good

02 January 2011:
New poem
- Ireland Recolonised

--------------------2010------------------

25 December 2010:
New poem
- The Cardinal Sins

08 December 2010:
New poem
- Digital Hijra?

07 December 2010:
New poem
- Just a Boy

04 December 2010:
New poem
- Sunni or Shia?

03 December 2010:
New poem
- The Home of the Free

02 December 2010:
New poem
- I Slam

21 October 2010:
New poem
- WYSIWIG

21 September 2010:
New poem
- Ramadhan 1431

01 September 2010:
New poem
- The Pyromaniacs

31 August 2010:
New poems
- From Moses to Mossad
- The Two Missing Letters
- Go to Hell
- Fair or Foul
- The Adhaan
- Invitation to Islam

12 August 2010:
My book now has its own promotional website
where, apart from basic info, you can also read
several excerpts, so do please visit:
ENOUGH! Islamophobia

04 August 2010:
My book ENOUGH! Islamophobia is just about
ready and should be available in about 2 weeks.
Awaiting first printed copy, when that has
arrived and has been checked over, the book
will be released.
Updates to follow here on SiteNews and also on
its own separate weblog, to follow in a few days.

31 July 2010:
Site is in the process of being reworked
to reflect new domain www.IBRAHEEM.dk -
meaning that my current domains
MYSPEAK.info and MYSPEAK.org
will gradually be phased out.
Your patience appreciated!

20 Januar 2010:
New poems
- Tawheed
- Powered by Allah
- Cross-Eyed
Tawheed represents another milestone,
as it breaks the 15,000 lines barrier -
al-hamdu-lillah!

------------------2009--------------------

18 December 2009:
New poems
- The New World Order
- Predators
- Question Time
- State of Affairs

09 November 2009:
New poems
- Triangle Tangle
- Triplets
Triangle Tangle represents another milestone,
it is my 100th published poem -
al-hamdu-lillah!

29 August 2009:
- MYSPEAK on FACEBOOK

04 August 2009:
New poem
- The Tip of the IZberg

03 August 2009:
New poems
- The Law of ONE
- Two Thousand and Twelve

30 July 2009:
New poem
- The Snake of Zion

28 July 2009:
New poems
- Who is a Jew?
- JP2
- Faith-Fully
- Firefighting
- Trinity Revisited
- Eurabia
- Ninetynine Names of Israel
- Interesting
- Tragic But True
- Why Should We

08 April 2009:
New poems
- Shame on the World!
- Ibraheem
- Promises Promises
- NaZionism
- Letter Bombs

30 March 2009:
New poems
- Free America!
- Bush to Obama
- The Changing of the Guard

25 March 2009:
New poem
- Ten Little Georgie Boys
This breaks 10,000 lines of published poetry -
al-hamdu-lillah!

02 March 2009:
New poems
- If I Were a Jew
- Paradox
- Giving
- Minimalism
- Nineteen
- Numbers

--------------------2008------------------

16 December 2008:
New poem
- Blue

10 December 2008:
New poems
- The Hand of Fatima
- The Baboons are Coming
- The Last Crusade
- The Fairground
The Last Crusade breaks the 9,000 lines barrier

07 November 2008:
New poems
- The Idea
- The Giant and the Dwarf

05 November 2008:
New poems
- Hiking Viking
- The Sun is Setting in the West
- Solar Wind
Hiking Viking represents another milestone as it takes the total number of published lines to over 8,000

04 November 2008:
New poems
- The Digital Bard
- Quantum Leap

30 July 2008:
Note to New Readers

27 July 2008:
New poem Which Holocaust??

22 July 2008:
New poem The US is Still Number One

07 July 2008:
New poem The Choice is Yours

24 June 2008:
First post for my new weekly weblog on
Islam-Online's Euro-Muslims Zone

28 May 2008:
Copyright Notice updated

06 May 2008:
New poem Made in Denmark

03 May 2008:
New poem The Holy Trinity

02 May 2008:
New poem Freedom of Expression

01 May 2008:
New poem I Give You My Word

30 April 2008:
New poem The Oak and the Ivy

28 April 2008:
New poem Feast or Famine

27 April 2008:
New poem Grow Your Own

26 April 2008:
New poem The Wordsmithy

21 April 2008:
New poem As the Magpie Flies
- this new poem represents a milestone as it
takes the total number of published lines to
over 5,000

20 April 2008:
New poem Break the Spell

19 April 2008:
New poem A Spade is a Spade

18 April 2008:
New poem Happy Birthday Israel!

04 February 2008:
New poem The Evil Eye

-------------------2007------------------

01 October 2007:
Numerous additions to Favourite Websites
- Press TV
- Fars News Agency
- lots of sites added to Mysteries section

13 September 2007:
MYSPEAK will attend the GPU in London
in November - more here .

09 September 2007:
All posts from Terrorism/Politics now merged
into this parent weblog, labels will be updated
over the next couple of days after which the
merger should be transparent to readers.
Meanwhile, seek by Topics in sidebar.

02 September 2007:
New poem The War on Terror

01 September 2007:
New poem Made in the USA

31 August 2007:
New poem Hands off Iran!!

27 August 2007:
New posts
- Copyright Notice
- Orders

26 August 2007:
New poem MySpeak

25 August 2007:
New poem Man-Made Laws

23 August 2007:
New poem Prophet or Profit?

22 August 2007:
8 lines / 2 verses added to This is My Jihad

21 August 2007:
New poem Cruci-Fiction

20 August 2007:
New poem The Power of Life

19 August 2007:
New poem Whose Land is it Anyway?

16 August 2007:
New poem My Journey to Islam

05 August 2007:
New poem Made in Germany

04 August 2007:
New poem Simply the Beast

03 August 2007:
New poem Jesus Crisis

30 July 2007:
New poem The Exile Under Ishmael

29 July 2007:
New poems
- The Bastard Child
- Victim to Perpetrator

28 July 2007:
New poems
- This is My Jihad
- Soft Power

27 July 2007:
New poem State and Religion

25 July 2007:
One addition to Favourite Websites
- Caliphate 2007

24 July 2007:
New poem Recreate the Caliphate

23 July 2007:
New poem On GWBs Colonoscopy

19 July 2007:
New poem The Bear and the Lions

18 July 2007:
New poems
- The Future of Palestine
- The Right of VETO

Several additions to Favourite Websites
- MPAC UK
- Jews for Justice for Palestinians
- Pro Hijab

14 July 2007:
New poems
- The Jewry is Out
- Little and Large

13 July 2007:
Several additions to Favourite Websites
- Palestine Remembered
- The Carter Center
- Cage Prisoners
- Discovery (Channel etc etc)

11 July 2007:
New poem To Non-Jewish Zionists

07 July 2007:
New poem Like Frankenstein's Monster

05 July 2007:
New poem Intelligent Design

01 July 2007:
New post On Random Mutations

30 June 2007:
New post On Nudity

27 June 2007:
I have now "migrated" the 3 separate weblogs
for Islam/Religion, Travel, and Poems/Musings
and merged them into this, for simplicity.
Unfortunately, I have lost your comments in
the process - feel free to comment again!!

26 June 2007:
New separate weblog for all my poems -
MYSPEAK-poems
This is using a different template in order to
avoid line-overflow and to enable a larger
font to be used, to aid readability, hence also
the soft colours - I want to make it easy for
your eyes to read what I write!
For the time being, old links / weblogs for
poems will stay.

24 June 2007:
New poem Twenty-Twenty

20 June 2007:
New poems
- Muslims of the World UNITE
- From Israel With Hate
- The Chosen Ones
- The Jewish Quarter
(there are minor problems with unwanted
line-overflow here and there which I hope
to sort out).

07 June 2007:
New poem Boycott Israel

06 June 2007:
Several additions to Favourite Websites
- Stop Cluster Munitions
- Alan Hart Diary
- Prison Planet

16 May 2007:
New poem Farewell Falwell

30 April 2007:
Several additions to Favourite Websites
- Hizb ut-Tahrir
- Hizb ut-Tahrir (Britain)
- Khilafah
- Mordechai Vanunu
- Free Vanunu
- Neturei Karta
- Breaking the Silence

Welcome to Viking-Muslim!

2009-12-29T12:25:00.003+01:00

(This is the archive for my weekly weblog on IOL)

First of all, my thanks to IslamOnline.net (IOL)'s Euro-Muslims Zone for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts with IOL audiences -
not only here in Europe but across the wider Muslim world.

Some of you may know me already -
from my website www.MYSPEAK.info
or maybe from the Global Peace and Unity (GPU) event in London where I had my own stand.

*

Why Viking Muslim?
Because it fits in neatly with the overall Euro-Muslim context and places me not only in Europe but in North-West Europe and specifically in Scandinavia as my Viking forefathers were the men and women from Denmark, Sweden and Norway around 1000 years ago.

*

A practical note:
I shall add the posts here in the archive some
time after submitting them to IOL.
I shall add all the posts to the archive exactly as
I submitted them, that is, they will not reflect
any changes IOL may have made, likewise IOL
may occasionally decide not to publish a
particular post - but it will still appear here
on the archive.

My Weblog on Islam-Online

2009-08-30T15:59:00.000+01:00

Click on the link below to get to
Islam-Online's Euro-Muslims section:

Weblog on Islam-Online

There you may or may not find my latest
post, if my current post is not on the front
page of Euro-Muslims, it may have "dropped
off" after a week or so - if so, you can search
on Euro-Muslims for the name of my weblog
"Viking-Muslim" and that should get you some
results.

Or you can click on the link below to go to my
own archive of all posts submitted to Islam-Online:

IOL-weblog Archive

Integrate or Assimilate?

2008-11-24T13:00:00.001+01:00

Post No 13

Standard dictionary definitions of integrate and assimilate are roughly as follows:

Integrate -
to blend into a functioning or unified whole

Assimilate -
to absorb into the culture of a population

In Denmark the difference between the two can be expressed simply by
mentioning the names of two of the country's best known Muslims -
Asmaa Abdol-Hamid and Naser Khader, both grown up in Denmark.
They are excellent examples of integration and assimilation respectively.

Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, mid-twenties, a social worker who wears the headscarf and
refuses to shake the hands of strange men, who ran in last November's general
election for the Unity-List (red-green alliance) and vowed to wear the headscarf
in parliament if elected (which sadly she was not), describes herself as "a humble
slave of Allah" -

Naser Khader, mid-forties, already a long-serving member of parliament, now
leading his own new party (which is disintegrating about a year after being founded...), not married but cohabiting, three children, one from a former
relationship of his, one from a former relationship of hers, and one child together
(one might say a typically Danish situation!), claims to be proud to be a Muslim,
yet most of his private and some of his public life are incompatible with Islamic
values.

So - do you wish to integrate or assimilate?

All the signs are that the vast majority of Euro-Muslims will wish to integrate
but will refuse to assimilate.

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Why Not an Islamic Bloc?

2008-11-24T12:58:00.001+01:00

Post No 12

This article carries on from the last one, about the EU.
To recap: In round figures there are 300 million Americans, less than
5% of total world population, whereas we are now 500 million EU citizens,
or nearly 8% of humanity.
Muslims make up about 20% of mankind but have a combined influence
in grotesque disproportion to their huge numbers.
Now, if Muslim nations and populations wished to join forces and create their
own version of the US or the EU it would be a perfectly natural and understandable
aspiration and of course they should be free to make that decision, and to
implement it, should they wish to go ahead.

Would the Christian West tolerate it?
By all indications and actions, the answer is a clear no - it would not.
But of course it should if it wishes to be taken seriously by the Muslim world.
After all, how can you deny others what you have already chosen to have
yourself?
If nuclear power is good for the Christian West it must be good for Islamic Iran!
What is good for the Israelis must be good for the Palestinians!

It seems to me that the problem can be reduced to this:
The Christian West does not really care what Muslims believe in, the name
of our prophet, how many times a day we pray and where we turn when we do so,
in other words, it is not the faith itself which it sees as "a problem and a threat"
but it has a paranoid fear of that faith being implemented at the practical level,
it is political Islam which represents the red line to the Christian West, a red line
that when crossed, as it was in Iran in 1979, and as it was about to be in
Algeria 1991/92, and as it was in occupied Palestine January 2006, brings an
immediate reaction of zero-tolerance.
It seems inevitable to me that a modern version of the Caliphate will become
so irresistible to the world's Muslims that it will become a reality and probably
sooner than most of us think.
Is there any other way for Muslims to exert the influence which is rightfully theirs?

The rest of the world, and in particular the collective Christian West, will have
to come to terms with both the idea and the reality - and the sooner the better.
Failing to do so would be the definitive proof that it is characterised by pathetic
immaturity and staggering arrogance.

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Thoughts on the EU

2008-11-24T12:54:00.002+01:00

Post No 11

Whatever we may think of the EU as it is today we should never lose track of the simple fact that it was established primarily to prevent another
devastating war on our continent.
For the record, World War 1 cost about 20 million lives, the majority in uniform,
whilst World War 2 cost a staggering 70 million lives, the majority civilians.
The vision of the common Europe's founding fathers, French politicians
Claude Monnet and Robert Schumann (Luxembourg-born),
was disarmingly simple (pun intended!):
If some important national governments (read: primarily France and Germany)
could somehow be persuaded to relinquish sovereignty over their coal and steel
industries, which would then be placed under a separate non-national authority,
that would at a stroke make terrible wars between those nations practically
impossible as they would no longer control the very raw materials and basic
industries required for heavy weapons manufacture.

It is to the eternal credit of Monnet and Schumann that they succeeded
and in 1953 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was born,
which later (1957) evolved into the European Economic Community (EEC),
which became the European Community (EC) which became the European
Union (EU).

You can always find something to criticise and you may argue over the
small print here and there but overall, in my opinion, the whole experiment
has been, and is, a resounding success.

I am not saying that there will never be small local wars again in Europe,
possibly possibly even within the EU itself, but will France and Germany
(who had gone to war over the natural resources in their border region .....
times in a century) ever go to war with each other again? Unthinkable!

Externally the EU seems to be just a "softer" version of the US.
What I personally would like to see is the EU distancing itself from America.
I am not suggesting that the two should have nothing to do with each
other, of course they should, but only insofar as it does not damage the
reputation of the EU as a whole.

Almost everything the GW Bush administration has done around the world
(and at home but that is an internal American problem) during its 8 years
in power has been illegal and barbaric - and tragically the EU has
collectively gone along with most of it and tolerated the rest, seemingly
unable to find a voice and a purpose of its own.
Make no mistake: In round figures there are 300 million Americans, less than
5% of total world population, whereas we are now 500 million EU citizens, or
nearly 8% of humanity.
If democracy matters, and we are endlessly told that it does, and if democracy
has anything to do with numbers, which surely must be the case, then it is high
time the EU starts exerting the influence which is rightfully its own.

My next post will pose the question: Why not an Islamic bloc?

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Those Happy Danes

2008-11-24T12:52:00.000+01:00

Post No 10

Those Happy Danes!!
Recently another survey, and this one much more comprehensive than the
last, now covering 80,000 persons in around 170 countries, concluded that
the Danes are the happiest people on planet Earth, confirming the findings
of the previous one.

Living here you would not know it and I do not know whether to laugh or cry
when I read such reports.
True, it is a well-run little country and on the whole things are going pretty
well materially speaking but do not be fooled.
There are serious tensions close to the surface and big problems out in the
open, particularly as regards immigration and xenophobia, issues exploited
so well by the Danish People's Party and its witch-hunt against all things
Islamic, but there are other problems too.

Currently 300,000 persons out of a total population of 5,4 million, or ca 5,5%
of all Danes, are waiting for significant or serious operations - for a wealthy
little country that is a staggering and disgraceful figure.
It is generally accepted that some of those waiting will die before the over-
worked system gets round to them. Unacceptable is too mild a word.
Yet the government, re-elected last November, has seen fit to join the illegal
and barbaric wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and has had no
problems finding the funds to do so. Priorities anybody?
And hundreds of thousands, probably more than 10%, are permanently on
some kind of "happiness-pills" (valium etc) prescribed by their doctors,
and seeing the world through medically-induced rose-tinted glasses may
indeed distort the results of surveys like these!

Other statistics are perhaps more enlightening:
The Nordic countries plus Austria and Switzerland, all at or near the top
of the happiness-scores, are all world-leaders when it comes to rates of
suicide!

Happy Danes? Another way to answer is like this - these kinds of surveys
can not ask the opinions of all those who have already commited suicide!!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Courtesy Costs Nothing

2008-11-24T12:49:00.000+01:00

Post No 9

Courtesy costs nothing - just a little effort!
I used to contribute regularly to various on-line discussion fora on
Danish websites. Should you wish to join in, a word of caution:
If you voice any support at all for the Palestinian cause
or attempt to explain a little of the background for this ongoing tragedy,
or you admit to being a local convert to Islam, type in your message,
hit "Enter" and just sit back and wait for 5 minutes.
Then the replies come in, not replies really but streams of abuse and
verbal brutalisations, using the most foul language imaginable of which
expressions like "Go to Hell you bloody Islamo-fascist" is mild enough
to permit quoting here.

Occasionally I would reply sweetly that "A little courtesy costs nothing
and what are you trying to tell me?" - and they would come back in an
even more vulgar manner. What is the matter with these people?

For the future of Denmark and the wider world one can only hope that
it is the same very small group of people which is behind those replies,
perhaps using multiple identities each.
I am sure they are not jokers but are serious and
really mean what they write.
The bad news is that, whoever they are, heated debate is one thing,
this is something quite different. What happened to civility??
And most tragic of all, the views they give voice to are just as
fundamentalist, extremist, intolerant, totalitarian etc as those of
the individuals and groups they hate so much!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

All Change Please

2008-11-24T12:45:00.001+01:00

Post No 8

A simple question please:
If a nation's constitution is out of touch with the majority of its population,
which should we change - the constitution or the population???
Well, the answer is so obvious that it hardly needs spelling out:
Of course we should change the constitution to reflect the majority views.

The contortions that Turkey is going through is perhaps the best current
example of this dilemma and in the case of Turkey is a direct consequence
of a secular constitution being imposed upon a Muslim population without
it being asked what it wanted.
Whilst one can understand that it may not have been practically possible to
hold a referendum or something similar in the aftermath of the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1, it is difficult to find any excuse not
to do so as soon as possible afterwards, when things had stabilised.
Of all Muslim nations, Turkey is perhaps the purest of all - whichever source you
consult you learn that more than 99% of the population are Muslim, whether it
is 99,0 or 99,3 or 99,6 is hardly relevant, the fact is that it is a pure Muslim nation
with microscopic minorities of other faiths.
In the mainstream media Turkey is invariably described as a "majority Muslim nation"
and whilst technically correct it is a grossly misleading label as anything over 50%
would mean a majority. I have on several occasions emailed the BBC about this and
asked them to reconsider using the term.

The governing AK party, having won last year's elections with an incredible 46-point-
something % (round that up to AK47??), an enviable increase of 12% over the last result,
has a resounding mandate and is in a perfect position to redress that imbalance between
constitution and people and could do so fairly simply by putting a long list of amendments
to a referendum. And it would probably do so if it felt secure that the generals would stay
out of it all but after the famous attempted "e-coup" before Abdullah Gul's election to
the presidency it is clear that, as usual, the generals would prevent the views of the vast
majority being written into law. So much for democracy!
To its credit, the European Union has made it very clear that the democratic process must
be respected if Turkey wants to proceed as planned on the road to membership of the EU.
Quite a dilemma for the EU as its insistence on this very issue directly or indirectly lends
support to a popularly elected party whose Islamic roots are clear and deep - and to an
outside observer it seems that the green leaves of Islam could and would be sprouting
freely in Turkey if the secular elite, epitomised by the military, would accept the majority
verdict gracefully.

By not doing so, the minority is in effect asking the majority to change - and more or
less openly threatening to intervene if that majority attempts to stand on its democratic rights.
Clearly an unstable situation which must be resolved and as soon as possible.

And as for the EU supporting the elected goverment of Turkey - why is the EU not supporting
the fairly elected Hamas-government of Occupied Palestine?

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Vikings or Taliban?

2008-09-05T13:00:00.002+01:00

Post No 7

Vikings or Taliban - can you spot the difference??

Almost all Danes, certainly the menfolk, would unreservedly and
wholeheartedly say with genuine pride and respect that our
forefathers the Vikings (c800AD-c1100AD) were great guys that
we can really relate to - whereas the very same people would
undoubtedly equally strongly condemn the Taliban as outlandish
fanatics with a death-wish.

May I ask the innocent little question: Why?
Why the dramatic difference in attitudes when the similarities
are so striking and so great?

For both groups, separated by a thousand years and thousands of
kilometres, share the following:

Your blood-line, your family, your clan, who you are, where you come
from, are of the utmost importance, as is your personal honour and
that of your family, clan etc.

Hospitality towards strangers and travellers, including, if the
situation called for it, your worst enemies:
I recall reading a report from Afghanistan where village elders had
arranged for some US soldiers to come on a visit, maybe in an
effort to understand why there are foreign soldiers occupying their land,
and the soldiers described that they were certain some of the locals
at the meeting were Taliban fighters, who remained courteous and polite
but lacking the warmth and openness of the others.
And the reason that the soldiers were neither captured nor shot nor
beheaded was obviously to protect the honour of the elders who had
guaranteed the safety of the strangers for the duration of the encounter.
With principles like that, who needs any man-made written laws?

Another case springs to mind:
In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the Taliban (quite correctly
of course!), refused to hand anyone over to the US in the absence of
credible evidence that anyone on Afghan soil was involved.
Assuming that Osama bin Laden was indeed in Afghanistan at the time,
it would have been unthinkable for the Taliban to hand him over as he
was in the country as an honoured guest and friend, and we have the
feeling that even if evidence had been produced nobody would have
been handed over - because it would betray the trust and honour of
the people involved.
Interestingly, the Taliban a little later did offer that any wanted persons
could possibly be tried in a third country if Islamic law was applied -
and the rest was silence because it is clear that the invasion and occupation
of both Afghanistan and Iraq were planned long in advance, probably even
before GW Bush was elected!

The Vikings would behave in more or less the same manner, providing
food and shelter as required if, say, members of a feuding clan were
passing through the valley, even sitting at the same long table as their
enemies, who had to leave their heavy weapons outside, bringing only
light personal weapons inside, relying entirely for their security, indeed
their survival, on the integrity of the hosts.

Any excuse to prove your manliness - almost any statement could be
taken as a challenge to "choose your weapons" and hand-to-hand
combat would then settle the issue and determine who was the better
man of the two.

Now, if these are the men and the attitudes and actions we admire in
"the best of men" from our own past, why can we not recognise the same
qualities in a different group today and respect and applaud them -
is it simply because it is all happening now or because it is taking
place in a far-off land?

A few words about Allah and Valhalla:
Despite the close similarity between the words there are no linguistic
links to be found whatsoever. Valhalla, which literally means battlefield-hall,
was the abode of the Vikings who had fallen honourably in battle and every
day they would wake up, go out on the battlefield and fight their last battle
over again, die once more, to be brought into Valhalla to be revived by
attending maidens, the Valkyries, and treated to a banquet of pork and
mead (apple cider fermented with honey), accompanied by story-telling
and recitals of poetry.

And how did you determine how someone had fallen honourably?
Simple - if the deadly wounds were at the front of the body it proved
that you were not killed trying to run away and you were therefore
eligible for Valhalla, for which "proper Viking men" openly longed.
The similarity with Muslim Jihadists receiving instant resurrection and
going straight to Jannah/Paradise without having to wait in barzakh/burzakh
like "normal" Muslims is obvious and striking.
Replace the haram pork and mead with halal fruits and spring water,
replace the Valkyries with the dark-eyed Houris, and the situations
are absolutely parallell.

So, can we spot the difference?
Of course there are differences too - the most obvious being the AK47!
Which is simply an indication of the intervening 1000 years and advances
in technology - the most deadly weapons of the Vikings were the best
avaiable in their day and their smiths and craftsmen did much to improve
existing techniques.

Is there anything new under the sun? Probably not!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Which way do I integrate?

2008-09-05T12:56:00.001+01:00

Post No 6

As a fairly recent convert/revert to Islam (and you can read about that in my
poem "My Journey to Islam", no 032 on Poems Index on my website)
I am of course learning more about all things Islamic.
Probably the biggest practical question is this: Which way do I integrate?
In a country like Denmark, where relations between "locals" and "foreigners"
seem to get worse by the month, simply by becoming a Muslim I have
distanced myself from mainstream Denmark, in a way willingly segregating
myself from national norms.
I still wear Western clothes (simple and comfortable and all from natural fibres,
and nothing trendy or fashionable please!) but I have a feeling that might change.
As I am no longer working, in the ordinary sense of the word, I am free of those
"what do I wear" considerations and restrictions.
I have had a full beard ever since it would grow (for a defence of beards read
poem no 048 on Poems Index, "Grow Your Own"), when I was 19 or so, but it
is bigger and wilder now since becoming a Muslim.

Were I a female convert/revert I would certainly wear the headscarf/hijab as
there are two clear exhortations in the Quran for women to cover (24:31 and
33:59) although, as I understand it, the exact degree of cover can be, and
has been, argued by the scholars and there may be no uniform opinion or
interpretation.

I have a suspicion that many sisters and brothers here in Denmark do not
wear the hijab or do not grow beards simply in an effort to "blend in" more
easily or to be openly seen to make an extra effort to "fit in" and that is
perfectly understandable given the current situation.
But, if true, it is also sad because in a free and open society, which Denmark
still claims to be, there should be no such problems and no such needs,
and in law of course there aren't any problems, as para 70 in the Danish
constitution specifically guarantees equal rights (and duties of course!)
for all regardless of faith or race.
Easy to legislate - much harder to implement!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Some things never change

2008-09-05T12:49:00.004+01:00

Post No 5

Some things never change -

And my older brother is one of them!
He is 5 years older than me and has only been outside Denmark twice in his
long life and then only briefly (first trip a few hours tax-free shopping and
second trip about 2 weeks).

I remember, back in the sixties, when the first of the “new-wave” immigrants
started to arrive, mainly from (then) Yugoslavia and Turkey.
Actually they were guest workers, actively encouraged by the Danish government to come here.
My brother used to call them date-pickers, regardless where they came from
and it was clear that he would rather they did not come.

Many years later, when I was back in Denmark in 2001, his favourite joke was:
”Did you know that the Supplementary Benefit Law is the first chapter of the Quran?” – which he thought was very funny.
Although I was still several years away from formally becoming a practising Muslim I had very strong sympathies and empathies for Islam and Muslims.
So, obviously, I was not amused, in fact I was offended, not only on behalf of
Islam and Muslims but in a more general way – that my older brother still had
such a limited view of the world.

True to form, he proudly votes for the far-right Danish People’s Party (founded in 1995), as do sadly also both of my two nieces and their husbands.
In last November’s general election the DPP got almost 14% of the votes and
therefore 25 seats in the 179-member parliament, an increase of 1 from the previous election.
Can anyone explain why so many in such an (otherwise) educated and enlightened nation as Denmark vote for such simplistic not to say primitive concepts and ideas??

As you all know, this is currently not just a Danish phenomenon – many other European nations face the same problem.
That well-known Islamophobe Geert Wilders, Dutch MP, visited Copenhagen a few weeks ago and spoke to several hundred members, including parliamentarians, of the DPP. His suggested “solution” to the “problem” of the creeping Islamisation of Europe? 1. Ban the Quran -2. Close Islamic schools -
3. Stop immigration. It is desperately sad that an otherwise intelligent man can utter such fascistic nonsense and sadder still that so many take him seriously! Whatever else it may be, it is precisely as fundamentalist, radical, extremist, inflammatory etc (you recognise the terms!) as the groups he and others like him hate so much!
As an aside, presumably Geert Wilders would still welcome immigration to the
EU from both America and Israel?!!?
He is known to have visited Israel more than 40 times and of course he is free
to travel where he wants but it does raise serious questions about where he gets his instructions from.

If such attitudes become the prevailing ones, which of course is not the case yet but in Denmark we are approaching a critical point, what chances are there
for Muslims, and other minorities for that matter but Muslims are overwhelming seen as “the problem and the threat”, to make a success
of integration even if they sincerely want to?
The way my brother speaks, he makes it totally obvious that either they should behave like us or “go back where they came from” as he so childishly puts it, and if they don’t want to go we should throw them out.
Denmark in fact a few years ago introduced a voluntary repatriation scheme, offering substantial financial incentives to enable those who accepted the deal to start up again in their home countries.
I have no statistics to hand at the moment as to whether the plan has been a success or failure but will report back here if and when I find out.
But my feeling is that it is most unlikely to be popular.

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Note to New Readers

2008-07-30T12:11:00.010+01:00

Last updated: 28 June 2011

Welcome to my place!
Should you decide to spend some time
browsing my website you will find that the
section with poems is becoming increasingly
important.
Please read this brief post now -
Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy.....

I wrote that on 11 April 2007 and, looking back,
it seems that subconsciously I knew what was
happening already for since then I have only
written a handful of ordinary posts, and not
really about current affairs, but my collection
of published poems has grown from
5 poems totalling 744 lines
to (as of today 28 June 2011)
144 poems totalling 20,191 lines
and there seems to be no slowing down, plus
writing a 400-page book about Islamophobia
which was published last January.

Even so, should you become a regular visitor to
my website -and I hope that you will- expect
most of the activity to be in the poems section.
But of course Site News will always keep you
updated on what is new.

Thank you for visiting my website and if you
like it please tell all your friends!

Denmark a Christian country - but what if...

2008-07-30T11:55:00.007+01:00

Post No 4

Denmark has been a Christian country for at least 1000 years – and that’s official:

Proudly proclaimed in pictures and runes on the larger of the two Jelling stones in southern Jutland, the Danish mainland which connects with Germany and the rest of the continent.

It says: "King Harald ordered this monument made in memory of Gorm, his father, and in memory of Thyre, his mother; that Harald who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian."

This was done by King Harald Bluetooth (935 AD-985 AD), son of King Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra, as far as it can be pinpointed to one specific year it was in 965 AD, and thus roughly four generations after the French missionary - later Saint - Ansgar came to Denmark in 826 AD as an envoy of the catholic bishop of Bremen/Hamburg, but several generations passed before we can say that Christianity was the dominant belief system in the country as a whole and that country may not have been already a coherent Denmark – more likely it was several petty kingdoms at that time.

Catholicism came to an end in Denmark around 1520 with the Reformation of Martin Luther and the country has remained Lutheran-Protestant ever since.

Denmark has an international reputation for being ultra-secular and ultra-permissive and in many ways that is of course true, but did you know that the Lutheran-Protestant church is the official state church, enshrined in the Danish constitution’s para 4 and as such is supported largely.

And that means paid for from the bishops to the local priests and grave-diggers to the upkeep and maintenance of all churches and associated buildings and infrastructure by the state, meaning through taxes – unless you specifically opt out of paying the special church-tax (only about 0.5% of your total taxation) but still you can be as secular as you like but you may unwittingly pay the church tax all your life without knowing it! I opted out of church-tax when I first started paying tax when I was 18 or so.

Para 70 of our constitution guarantees religious freedom for all citizens and specifically prohibits any form of discrimination on the basis of religion or race – but did you know that religious freedom does not extend to our monarch, currently Queen Margrethe II (who is a cousin of the Queen of England), for para 6 of the constitution states that the regent MUST be a lutheran-protestant but does not have to be a member of the church!

So, whether he or she wants to or not – no freedom of choice there! I find that quite extraordinary and in a way quite comical.

Christianity is generally seen here as something typically Danish, indeed one of the more extreme members of that already extreme right-wing party the Danish People’s Party (more about that another time!), Soren Krarup, who is both an MP and a theologian and a priest, has stated bluntly that you cannot be truly Danish unless you are a Christian.

I have not yet had the opportunity to debate him in public but I would like to ask him the following:

- How on earth can it be seen to more “truly Danish” to subscribe to a belief-system which grew up around a Jew from Palestine (Jesus-Isa) than embracing a faith which grew up around an Arab from Arabia (of course Muhammad – pbuh/saws)???
- It is interesting to speculate: Suppose that some of the early Muslims had not only spread South and West and East and North locally but travelled much further North than they did – they would have had plenty of time to have arrived in Northern Europe and Denmark say around 700 even if they had walked all the way, that is well over a hundred years, or about 4 generations, before 826 and the Ansgar that I mentioned at the beginning.

Meaning of course that Denmark could well have been a Muslim country for 1300 years or so instead of Christian for 1000 years – with a mosque in every village and the prayers call ringing out 5 times a day!
And not only Denmark of course.....Food for thought for all Islamophobes!!

It is also obvious from the wording of the runic inscription at Jelling that the Danes (and possibly also Denmark as a country) existed before they were "made Christian" by Harald.

So, logically, if you wish to be "truly Danish" you should become a pagan and worship the old gods of the Vikings like Odin-Woden-Wotan (the god of wisdom who also gave his name to Wednesday!) or Thor (thunder / power + Thursday!) or much older fertility gods like Frej-Frey (male) and Freja-Freya (female) who collectively gave their name to Friday.

Some of the early kings and other rulers who accepted Christianity may well have done so out of conviction and sincerity – but most historians believe that they were at least as attracted by the enormous unifying influence that the new faith gave them, an influence which could be, and was, used for welding smaller realms together into larger “proper” kingdoms – in short, to increase
their strategic power and magnify their self-glorification. And that is a very understandable and human thing to do – if you get the opportunity.

Incidentally, for many years, including of course all the time I lived on my sailing yacht VIKING, I always carried around my neck a pendant in the form of a Thors-hammer (which is called Mjolnir and is used by Thor to bash the clouds, so creating thunder and lightning) – they are very popular with Danish men and, if you take them seriously, they signify that you still embrace the old religion
and the old gods as opposed to the new.

They were widely used throughout the Viking age (c800-c1100) when Christianity began making inroads.

Others preferred the cross. Archaeologists have unearthed a mould for casting jewellery, it is a cast made of a single piece of soap-stone (a very soft rock ideally suited for moulds) and has room for casting 3 pieces of jewellery in one operation – 2 of one and 1 of the other!!
I cannot remember whether it is 2 crosses and 1 Thors-hammer or the other way round but what is interesting is that the craftsman and the vendor did not particularly care what the customer believed in, so long as it was good for business – some things never change!

Is this maybe a distant forerunner of the European Union?!!?

Personally, having spent half my life in other countries, I do not feel particularly Danish one way or the other and I am quite content to consider myself a Muslim world citizen - if that makes me in any way less Danish then that is a small price to pay!

Freedom of Expression

2008-07-19T10:36:00.005+01:00

Post No 3

We still remember only too well
When that Danish newspaper decided to sell
Its principles like some prostitute
And drove like a tank down the route.
Of blatant disregard for all that we know
To be good and decent - when it put on show
Those dreadful cartoons of the prophet of Islam
Muhammad (peace be upon him) - and the harm
And the hurt and the uproar they caused in Muslim lands,
While the Danish Prime Minister was sitting on his hands.

Would they still have accepted and printed them
Had they been of Jesus? NO! They would condemn,
Not only the artists but the very thought
Of such an irresponsible onslaught
On values so dear to so many in the West
But it was not Jesus - and we all know the rest.

In several countries in Europe today
It is quite simply illegal to say
In public that the Holocaust never took place
(The Nazi persecution of the Jewish race)

It may land you in prison for up to three years -
It is hard to believe your eyes and ears
But that is the law as it stands - and of late
An option to use for any EU-member state.

Would they print a collection of drawings which brought
To your attention the abuses and the havoc wrought
The trampling on conventions and basic human rights
The state-terrorism with which Israel fights
The defenseless Palestinians? The answer is NO!
I herewith challenge you to do so!

And if you don't - well it would simply show
And confirm what most of us already know:
That the whole affair was not an accident
But carefully planned and obviously meant
As a direct provocation against Islam.

And THAT if nothing else should raise the alarm
In all civilized minds - for it has no place
In decent interactions in the public space.

But it was only Islam and Muhammad - so who cares?
Should you ask that stupid question
well, the answer stares
You right in the face: Of all mankind
Twenty percent are Muslim, and you will find
They are understandably hypersensitive
To any expression, actual or suggestive
Of contempt or disrespect or ridicule
Of their faith and their prophet.

And only a fool
Would allow himself to be used as the tool
Of those dark and evil powers that rule.

Keep playing with the fire, keep fanning the flames
Of discord and mistrust - and anyone who blames
Islam and Muslims for the resulting mess
Is a hypocrite and liar - and unless
THEY take urgent steps to end this curse
The situation is bound to go from bad to worse.

Like naughty little children, they want it all
And squeal with indignation when we call
Them to account for their unacceptable acts
They may well claim innocence but the facts
Speak for themselves also when each
Individual hides behind freedom of speech

For those truly obnoxious
Here let me state the obvious:

Any right to do anything
Must be balanced by a matching
Obligation to exercise that right
Responsibly and in the light
Of a civilized society, if it wishes to remain
Civilized.

We should therefore refrain
From abusing that right, indeed we must
See it as a gift placed in our trust
To be valued highly, treated with care
And used with some civility to spare!

No right to act before you think!
No right to use those words that stink!

Prove yourself unworthy of that precious gift
And the reaction from society should be swift
If you still cannot moderate what you say
Maybe that right should be taken away!

Eight hundred years later and a New Crusade
Has been fully staged and is now being played
Out in front of your very eyes
But it should come as no surprise
For Fascist ideas are on the rise
A right-wing and Zionist enterprise –

The fear of foreigners is a pitiful sign
And a sad manifestation of the malign.

What happened to compassion and empathy
And international solidarity
With asylum seekers and refugees?
Will everyone answer that question now, please!

More and more applications turned down
Simply because they are Muslim and brown.

"Kick them out and keep the jobs for us
Show them the white Christian is the boss,"
Such idiotic slogans are increasingly heard
Throughout the EU and every word.

Reeks of intolerance and xenophobia
And a longing for some childish Utopia
Which never yet existed and never will
But they play on fears with considerable skill -
Fortress Europe proudly proclaimed
Any problem - Muslims are blamed

So much for the quality of that free speech!
And still the West believes it can teach
The wider World how it should live
When in truth it has little or nothing to give,
That would make this World a better place -
Most of its attempts have ended in disgrace
And in order to atone for every crime
It should wear sack and ashes for a very long time!

Put differently, let me say it again:
Before you speak, let it pass your brain!

Better for everyone to heed that call -
Better for some if they did not speak at all!

To recap once more for those who need to know
Before decent behaviour suffers another blow:
No right to offend my sensibility!
No freedom without responsibility!
No culture without civility!
No humanity without humility!

Made in Denmark

2008-07-09T10:25:00.006+01:00

Post No 2

To those who think it is OK to publish those dreadful cartoons but get
terribly upset when hurt Muslims burn the Danish flag around the world, I wrote two short poems.
Here is the first one.

*****

For decades I have travelled extensively
Without any real problems fortunately.
And being Danish used to help me a lot,
The friendly reception and assistance I got
Was amazing and touching and sometimes such
That I felt it was almost a little too much.

The trouble people went to was not deserved
That kind of treatment should be reserved
For more important visitors than me,
But obviously many did not quite see.
It the same way as I did, so carried on
Leaving me feeling guilty that so much was done.

I always told people wherever I went
Sightseeing or climbing or pitching my tent
Assuming that the locals could understand
That coming from a small unimportant land

Had certain advantages because it is not
Big enough to be a threat to anyone, so has got
To behave in a friendly and forthcoming way
To everyone else, come what may.

That was the situation until recently -
But look again - how wrong can you be!
Too insignificant to upset anyone?
Sweet little Denmark - now what you have done!

First it joined the Coalition of the Killing,
The PM able and more than willing
To make Denmark participate in two illegal wars
Of aggression without any justifiable cause.

First against Afghanistan and then Iraq
Both of those ventures based on a pack
Of lies and fabrications as we now all know,
As if not bad enough, the highlight of the show:

Those dreadful drawings of the prophet of Islam
Causing violent protests and serious harm
To the interests of little Denmark right across
The Islamic world, resulting in a loss
Of goodwill, prestige, business and trade -
The biggest blunders recently made!

Right from Morocco and Nigeria
To occupied Palestine and Arabia
Iran, Afghanistan and Syria
All the way to Pakistan and Indonesia.

Denmarksuddenly on everybody's lips
Instant notoriety which erupts and grips
Hundreds of million Muslims world-wide.
No Scandinavian-looking person can hide

From the angry masses crowding the streets
No use here throwing handfuls of sweets
For Danish flags are set alight
Some embassies experience a fight.

Still, like a brain-dead parrot might screech
The PM keeps repeating: "Freedom of speech!
We have Freedom of Expression - how about you?
Nothing to do with me! Nothing I can do!"
Which was neither statesman-like nor was it true!

Decent people had worked so long
And tirelessly to build the strong
Reputation that Denmark enjoyed,
Overnight it was destroyed
Crashing down around their ears,
Every one reduced to tears.

The world still turns and life goes on
But the total effects of the damage done
Cannot be measured so easily
And certainly not just financially,

It will take a long time to improve
And Denmark should make the first move,
All in all there must be better ways
To add that extra little spark
To the slogan Made in Denmark

Scandinavian and Nordic Flags

2008-06-24T12:33:00.009+01:00

Post No 1

Given the recent burnings of the Danish flag, the Dannebrog (literally: cloth of the Danes) around the Muslim world on the republication of some of those dreadful cartoons, most of the world must by now be familiar with what it looks like.

In fact all the Scandinavian-Nordic flags follow this pattern:
-Denmark: Red background with white cross
-Sweden: Blue background with yellow cross
-Finland: White background with blue cross
-Norway: Red background with blue cross superimposed on white cross
-Faeroe Islands: White background with red cross superimposed on blue cross
-Iceland: Blue background with red cross superimposed on white cross
-The regional flag of Scania - the southern province of Sweden: A mix of the Swedish and Danish flags having a red background with yellow cross.

But have you noticed that the cross of each one is offset?
Have you ever wondered why? Surely a symmetrical flag would be more logical and would look neater, wouldn't it?

All you have to do is turn these flags clockwise through 90 degrees and they are no longer offset but become symmetrical along the vertical axis.
That is because originally they were not flying horizontally from poles or masts but hanging vertically behind the high seat in the main hall of the local strongman, chieftain or petty king, representing his family, clan or little kingdom. And viewed vertically, it suddenly becomes obvious and instantly recognizable as the cross of Christ.

The Danish flag is generally believed to be the oldest flag in continuous use, dating back to the early 14th century, and it is safe to assume that the others were based on the Danish one, as territories changed hands many times over the centuries.

To return to the present, I personally know Danes who get as upset over the flag-burnings as Muslims do over the cartoons but those same Danes also think it is perfectly okay to publish such things - some people really do want it all!

I finally came up with my answers a few weeks ago - you may check them on my next week's blog post on Euro Muslims Zone.

MYSPEAK at GPU-London in November

2007-09-13T23:26:00.001+01:00

Ibraheem will attend the
Global Peace and Unity Event 2007
at ExCel in London on 24/25 November which
last year attracted 50,000 people over the
two days.

A stand has been booked in order to promote
MYSPEAK in general and the poems in particular.

Signed collections of Ibraheem's poems will be
offered in print and hopefully also on CD.

Doing this event is not exactly cheap but it
has to be done and Ibraheem would be very
grateful for any DONATIONS in order to
hopefully break even. This is a one-man
effort and every little bit helps!

Speaking-time on main stage for reading a
poem is being pursued.

Do visit the official website for the GPU2007

Check back here regularly for updates over
the coming weeks.

Latest - Sunday 18 Nov:
All set, flying over tomorrow with 300 CDs,
printing to be done in London.
Stage time still a possibility.
Hope to see you there next Saturday/Sunday -
my stand is G-75 - www.MYSPEAK.info

Copyright Notice

2007-08-27T20:49:00.018+01:00

Updated 31 July 2010

All poems and posts may be freely
copied-distributed-printed if not for profit but
please include the following copyright notice:

Used with permission and not for profit
Copyright © - IBRAHEEM (O.E.H.Johansen)
All Rights Reserved
Original can be found on www.IBRAHEEM.dk

On Random Mutations

2007-07-01T00:11:00.001+01:00

As I understand it, random mutations are
currently held to be responsible for most
genetic changes, and random mutations are
overwhelmingly caused either "spontaneously"
or induced either by chemical agents already
present within that particular organism or from
the outside by cosmic radiation colliding with
genetic material, triggering off chemical
changes and thus effecting a purely random
change. We are also asked to believe in
Darwinian evolution.

Excuse me - but it does not make
any sense to me!

Think of the following experiment:

We have a computer programme, of average
size and average complexity, fully tested and
proven to "work as designed".
We now print out the actual code that is running
when the programme is being executed, be it in
a high-level user-friendly language or something
closer to the machine, like assembler.
We then hang this printout on the wall, either
vertically, which could prove difficult because of
the contigious paper, so hang it sideways around
the room, whichever way suits.
Then take a few steps back and either fire a
shotgun at it or just a single-shot pistol but keep
shooting until you see at least one single
character has been damaged or removed.
Now take the paper down, scan it in carefully
sheet by sheet and attempt to re-compile or
re-assemble it, as this is a prerequisite to
executing the new version.
As a former software consultant over many years
I guarantee you that our programme will not even
compile/assemble which of course means that it
will never run again.

What is the likelihood of any purely random
change actually improving our programme?
Surely non-existant/zero/nil.
If this could be made to work at all, surely any
random change would be harmful, possibly
possibly -on a lucky day- neutral in effect.

This is of course a very crude comparison with
the terribly complex fabric of life itself but doesn't
that make it even less likely that purely random
changes have any possibility at all of effecting
positive changes which might lead to advances
for that particular living organism? I think so.

It seems pretty obvious to me that any random
change would be harmful and therefore lead to
malfunctioning and/or disease and from there
fairly quickly to extinction!
If the above conclusion is correct, it follows that
the whole concept of random mutations being
the main agent responsible for positive
evolutionary changes is absolute rubbish!!

On Nudity

2007-06-30T19:23:00.001+01:00

The annual World Naked Bike Ride recently
(ostensibly to highlight global warming), and
the Naked for Peace section of the anti-war
movement in the US, as well as the latest
exploits of mass-naked-group photographer
Spencer Tunick not long ago, prompted me
to write this post.

My start and end point is: I do not like nudity
unless it is in the company of someone you are
intimate with. All the rest I find embarrassing,
offensive, unethical etc....
And the people who advocate it and participate
must surely be, in some way or other, deranged.

Of course I have heard all the arguments:
-We were all born naked (oh really??)
-When we take our clothes off, we are all naked
(thanks for the info - I didn't know that!)
-What could be more natural? (see below)

My answer to the above "justifications" is this:
Of course being naked is quite natural but there
is a time and a place for everything!

Why on earth anyone would feel the urge to draw
attention to a particular matter or cause by using
nudity is a complete mystery to me.
If publicity were the driving force and the aim,
surely much more powerful and effective means
could, with a little time and effort, be found and
employed?
Of course that would require some imagination.....

If it is done wholly or in part to "shock the
establishment", surely that is already well into
the realms of psychiatry or the sign of adults
stuck in the mental age of puberty.

Whatever the motivation, forcing your own nudity
upon others is not a civilised way to make any
kind of statement.

But they say: "What could be more natural?" -
I am not trying to be gross here but urinating,
defecating and occasionally vomiting are also
perfectly natural things to do.
Does that mean that I should do any -or all- of
those on somebody's table or in somebody's lap
in order to prove a point that I wish to make??
Of course not - and no sane and decent person
would do it or advocate it or even think about
doing so.

As for Spencer Tunick and his exploits:
Does he get some perverse satisfaction out
of directing all his willing victims through a
megaphone - now do this, now do that - and
watch thousands of useful idiots do as they
are told?
A few years ago he had a mass-shoot in Barcelona
in Spain, which is of course a Catholic country.
His most recent outing, setting a new record with,
if I remember right, 23,000 participants, was in
Mexico City in another Catholic country -
do we see a pattern of deliberate provocation
here? Have all these people really got nothing
better to do?

I personally know an old English couple,
practising Catholics, who spend most of their
time living on a nudist campsite on the Spanish
south coast.
Whilst they do not deliberately provoke anybody
with their nudity, I still cannot get my head
around that combination.

The obsession in the Western world with nudity
is surely a sign both of immaturity and the blind
pursuit of material values and the physical world,
superficial as they are.

As for the World Naked Bike Ride:
Although I would not recommend it, if
the participants in these grotesque acts of
exhibitionism truly care about the planet and
global warming, they could start making their
personal contribution to a reduction of CO2
emissions immediately by simply stopping
breathing!

Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy.....

2007-04-11T20:22:00.001+01:00

First of all, my apologies to my regular
readers for the month-long silence.

The main reason is that I find it increasingly
difficult to read and watch the news:

Whether the topic is the imperialistic wars of
aggression on Iraq and Afghanistan, or the
legitimate technological aspirations of Iran,
or the continued terrible plight of the
Palestinians, or almost any other subject in
the news, the West is daily proving to the
rest of the world that it (the West) has little
or no positive role to play anywhere - in its
own perverse view, the West is always right
and the rest is always wrong, so no need for
dialogue, consensus and compromise,

and the West claims it promotes moderation,
but what it really seeks is compliance with its
own narrow interests, which are insatiable
greed and ruthless exploitation,

and, as it pursues its ridiculous counter-
productive and unwinnable "War on Terror",
the West rants and raves about Islamic
"extremism" and what a grave threat it poses
to the "civilised" world but there is nothing
civilised about the general conduct of the
West itself, forever encroaching on Muslim
lands and resources, so inevitably forcing a
healthy, natural, human reaction, which is
no more militant than the methods of the
West, and, by the way, the current revival
of political Islam is not a threat but -
a promise!

All in all, the reality seen and felt by the
rest of the world, in particular Muslims,
is that of hypocrisy, and not just ordinary
hypocrisy -
nauseating, stinking, hideous, revolting,
screaming-to-high-heaven hypocrisy.....

Maybe I'll leave the news alone for a few
weeks and see if I can write some serious
articles or some more poems - Inshallah.....

Happy Birthday Osama bin Laden!

2007-03-10T20:16:00.001+01:00

Whilst realising that birthdays are neither
considered important nor generally celebrated
in the Muslim world, and also realising that there
is doubt whether he was in fact born on a date
equivalent to 10 March 1957 in the Gregorian
(solar) calendar, which would be 8 Sha'baan
1376 AH in the Islamic (lunar) calendar (some
"experts" claim he was born on 30 July 1957),
and also realising that, if you count lunar years
which on average are around 11 days shorter
than a solar year, he did in fact turn 50 about
18 months ago - nevertheless, despite all that,
I would like to say:

Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and in
good health and may Allah protect you for at
least another 50 years - you are an inspiration
to many around the globe.

See also my brief post:
The Face of Osama bin Laden .

NOTE:
When above I call him an inspiration it is to be
understood in the following context:
Having been born into a very wealthy and well-
connected family, the logical path we might have
expected Osama to take would have been to
participate fully in the family business, do and
say all the right things at the right times to the
right people, drink tea and be seen with members
of the Royal House of Saud whenever that
privilege was on offer.
Instead, he decided to give up all that and went
to Afghanistan to fight the brutal Soviet invaders
and occupiers, spending much of his own money
in the process, living in caves and, in his own
words, it is a miracle that he came through it
all alive.

That he is now equally determined to drive the
new but equally brutal invaders and occupiers out
of that achingly beautiful but ravaged country
should be applauded by all good and decent
people everywhere, regardless of creed, colour,
culture.

As for Islamic militancy against the West,
again in the words of Osama, it is only:
"Your goods returned to you".

Well Said Muqtada al-Sadr

2007-02-25T20:11:00.000+01:00

Whilst US and Iraqi leaders have urged the public
to be patient, warning that it will take months
before the security operation now under way
has a tangible effect, and president Bush has
ordered 21,500 more US troops to Baghdad and
Anbar (although the last units are not due until
May), - the leader of the Mehdi Army, Iraq's
largest Shia militia, Muqtada al-Sadr, has issued
a statement which was read to his followers in
Baghdad's Sadr City, and it is likely to add to the
tremendous pressure already on US and Iraqi
forces to show results in the nearly two-week-old
crackdown.

Here are a few excerpts of what he had to say:
"I'm certain, just like all oppressed Iraqis are
certain, that no security plan will work and no
good will come of any occupier. Here we are,
watching booby trapped cars exploding to
harvest thousands of innocent lives from our
beloved people in the middle of a security plan
that is controlled by an occupier who does as
he pleases", he urged Iraq's mainly Shia security
forces to "make your own Iraqi plans independent
of the Americans" and he called on both Sunnis
and Shias to "scorn sectarianism and hoist the
banner of unity".
And what can you say to that, other than Ameen!

Says It All Doesn't It??

2007-02-23T20:04:00.000+01:00

This one caps it all:
In a new blow for Israel's defence minister
Amir Peretz, already deeply unpopular since the
"invincible" Israeli army's dismal performance in
last summer's war against Hizbollah in Lebanon,
he has been photographed observing military
manouvres in the (illegally occupied) Golan
Heights with the army's new chief of staff Gen
Gabi Ashkenazi, and whilst there may be nothing
unusual in that, Peretz was using his binoculars
with the lens caps still on.....
According to the photographer, Amir Peretz
"looked through the capped binoculars three
times, nodding as Gen Ashkenazi explained
what was in view".
To be fair to him, it is a very human mistake
to make but how can he nod repeatedly in
understanding whilst seeing nothing??

But, as one Israeli newspaper pointed out, he is
not the first well-known politician to make this
mistake: US president GW Bush and former
Israeli PM Ariel Sharon have both done it, too.

With Sharon it is perhaps surprising as he was
a soldier and therefore a practical man and surely
used to handling binoculars -
with Bush, well, what do you expect?

Possibly Hizbollah and Hamas will take heart
from this little episode!

Rats Leaving Sinking Iraq

2007-02-21T20:00:00.000+01:00

So, the Brits and the Danes have announced
withdrawals from Iraq:

-British troop numbers in southern Iraq will be
reduced from 7,100 to 5,000 "by late summer",

-Denmark says its force of 460 troops, serving
with the British in the south, will be out by
August but will be substituted by "four
surveillance helicopters and civilian advisors".

Several other nations participating in this brutal
neo-colonialist venture which was always doomed
to failure, are also considering either pulling out
or scaling back their involvement, among them:

-Lithuania (53, said to be "seriously considering"
withdrawing in August with the Danes with whom
they serve),

-South Korea (2,300 and plans to halve it by
April, under domestic pressure to withdraw totally
by the end of the year),

-Poland (900 and the Polish president says they
will stay no longer than December),

-Bulgaria (120, extended until 31 March 2008).

The plans of
-Australia (1400),
-Georgia (800),
-Romania (600)
are currently unknown.

Not surprisingly -for no people likes being
occupied- the news has been welcomed in Iraq.

The official reaction from America is that these
new developments are signs of success!!

-Condi Rice played down the British pullback,
saying it is consistent with the US plan to turn
over more control to Iraqi forces:
"The British have done what is really the plan
for the country as a whole, which is to transfer
security responsibility to the Iraqis as the
situation permits. The coalition remains intact
and, in fact, the British still have thousands of
troops deployed in Iraq",

-A National Security Council spokesman said that
Bush views Britain's troop cutbacks as "a sign of
success" in Iraq and "While the United Kingdom
is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq,
we're pleased that conditions in Basra have
improved sufficiently that they are able to
transition more control to the Iraqis",

-The Danish PM said, after speaking to GW Bush,
that GWB expressed "both understanding and
satisfaction that the situation in Iraq makes it
possible for Denmark and Britain to reduce their
numbers of troops".

Have you noticed something?
All this is happening at the same time Bush is
frantically trying to find 21,500 extra troops to
send to Baghdad!!!
Now, if these other members of the Coalition of
the Killing were really keen to stay on or to help
their mates in Washington, surely they would
offer their troops to the Americans??
Not a word of it! Clearly, they wish to get out:
The rats are leaving the sinking Iraqi ship
while they can.....
And there are no indications that these countries
will reassign the people pulled out of Iraq to
Afghanistan where Bush & Co have used almost
intimidating language in order to drum up more
troops.

This will also be very helpful ammunition for
those in the American Congress who want the
troops out and indeed Senate majority leader
Harry Reid wasted no time in saying:
"There can be no purely military solution in
Iraq. At a time when president Bush is asking
our troops to shoulder a larger and unsustainable
burden policing a civil war, his failed policies have
left us increasingly isolated in Iraq and less
secure here at home".

The official US reaction of "signs of success"
sounds uncannily like the words of Saddam
Hussein's minister of information back in 2003 -
remember?
He was telling international journalists:
"The infidel Americans will be massacred to the
last one and stand no chance at all against the
heroic Iraqi armed forces and will never get
anywhere near Baghdad" - at the same time as
American tanks were rumbling up to the front
door of the Baghdad hotel where he was speaking
- remember now?

The situation is strikingly similar, that of a
deranged leader being out of touch with reality
and the wishes of the majority of his own people
but stubbornly clinging to his sick hallucinations.

As for the neo-Cons' fantasies about the American
troops eventually returning home victorious and
with honour, having liberated Iraq, defended the
world, and made America a safer place - words
fail me, they really do....
As they did recently when GWB said on a TV
show that "the Iraqis owe the Americans a huge
debt of gratitude".
Almost like saying to some hapless victim whose
good legs you have just deliberately amputated:
We did this out of compassion and because we
are super-compassionate we will give you a
free pair of artificial legs.

But the nightmare-scenario often referred to
by many American politicians, that "If we do
not finish the job [whatever that may mean] the
terrorists [whatever that may mean] will follow
us home", is highly likely to materialise -
and who could blame them, after the unspeakable
death and destruction you brought to Iraq??
Should they follow you home, it would be a
perfectly normal, healthy human reaction, and I
for one hope that they will and they do, and wish
them every possible success in their endeavours
which, as opposed to what you did to Iraq (and to
Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine, and to Islam
in general), would be both wholly justified and
richly deserved.

(Un-) Orthodox Romanian Death-Case

2007-02-20T19:54:00.000+01:00

In Romania, a priest and 3 nuns have been jailed
for conducting an exorcism in 2005 that led to the
death of a nun believed to be possessed by devils.

The ritual took place at the secluded Holy Trinity
convent in Tanacu village in north-east Romania
and was led by the convent priest Daniel Petru
Corogeanu (31).
The novice nun, Irina Cornici (23) who grew up
in an ophanage and who had only entered the
monastery 3 months before (and who was known
by others to suffer from schizophrenia) died after
being tied or chained to a cross in a cold room
and left gagged for several days without any
food or water. The causes of death were given
as dehydration, exhaustion and lack of oxygen.

At the time, Father Daniel had this to say:
"God has performed a miracle for her, finally
Irina is delivered from evil. I don't understand
why journalists are making such a fuss about this.
Exorcism is a common practice in the heart of the
Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are
not at all unknown to other priests".

He and four nuns have now been convicted
of manslaughter, Father Daniel got 14 years
(out of a possible 20) and the nuns as follows:
Nicoleta Arcalianu eight years and Adina Cepraga,
Elena Otel and Simona Bardana each five years.
All the defendants plan to appeal against the
verdict in a case which has shocked Romania.

After being sentenced, Corogeanu said:
"We will appeal and hope that it will succeed.
We didn't expect this sentence, but this is the
judge's decision. We will pray to God for help".

The Orthodox Church, which described the
Tanacu incident as "abominable", has promised
reforms, including psychological tests for those
seeking to enter monasteries.

It has banned Corogeanu from the priesthood
and excommunicated the four nuns.

In 1999, when the Vatican issued its first new
guidelines since 1614 for driving out devils, it
urged priests to take modern psychiatry into
account in deciding who should be exorcised.

Now, having read the above, consider this:
Ignoring other aspects, what would the Western
world's reaction have been if a comparable event
had taken place not in an Orthodox convent but
in an Islamic madrasa or in a masjid (mosque)??

Whilst the actual event here has of course been
reported, and at the time in quite a sensationalist
manner, there has been no generalising of it,
no public debates, no Europe- or world-wide
Christian or secular soul-searching, no political
damnation.

Clearly what was at work in that convent and
which led directly to the unnecessary death of this
young woman was a fundamentalist, benighted,
inhuman, radical, extremist, evil ideology -
yes, you recognised the terms, all the very things
that the collective West is constantly accusing
those of who support the current revival of
political Islam. Why are they all silent on this?!?

If these are indeed "common practices" in at least
that part of the Christian world, and Fr. Daniel
says so, then this was carried out quite literally
with the blessing of the Church and in the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Halleluja! Halleluja! (All together now) Halleluja!

I trust we shall hear no more criticism of the
Taliban!

Also, the Pope must have known about this
tragedy when he chose to select that deeply
offensive medieval quote for his now infamous
speech last year - oh the folly and hypocrisy!!!

Mahmoud Abbas - the Dancing Bear

2007-02-20T19:49:00.000+01:00

So, the 3-way meeting in al Quds (Jerusalem) of
Condi Rice, Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas was
a waste of time and breath - oh what a surprise!

The 2 of them repeated to Abbas and the world,
like deranged parrots, all the conditions that the
new Palestinian government must fulfil before
America and Israel will consider talking to it.
We have heard it all ad nauseam but repeating
those conditions does not make them any more
reasonable!

Why must the Palestinians recognise Israel?
All Israel's actions, particularly all those illegal
"facts on the ground", make it absolutely clear
that Israel has NOT recognised Palestine and
has no intention of doing so.
Besides, Yasser Arafat did recognise Israel many
years ago and what did that bring his people?
Nothing but the continuation of suffering, misery
and despair.

Why must the Palestinians renounce violence?
Israel, the occupier, is using savage violence
against the Palestinians, the occupied, every
single day in one way or another and is in
continuous breach of its obligations under the
Geneva and other treaties and conventions.
Besides, according to international law, the
occupied have a legitimate right to resist the
occupier and the occupation.

Why must the Palestinians honour, respect and
implement past agreements when almost every
act by the Israelis directly contradicts and negates
those self-same agreements?
Besides, it is surely no coincidence that the title
of that frequently mentioned "agreement",
The Road Map, rhymes with Load of Crap??
Read the text of it, including of course the long
list of amendments attached by Ariel Sharon,
and you will soon see that it is a road map to
Nowhere and to Hell for both parties and the
Road to Ruin for hopes of a functioning
Palestinian state.
The Road Map is irrelevant to the Palestinian
struggle because it was only meant to buy time,
and lots of it, for Israel to implement its
"Final Solution for Palestine".

Yet there was Condi Rice, telling Abbas and the
world that a future Palestinian state could not be
founded using violence and terror!!
Why not indeed? Most nations are founded that
way, including of course Israel and some of those
Zionist terrorists later became prime ministers,
including Yitzak Shamir and Menachem Begin -
many current Israeli politicians are openly proud
of those facts, including Benjamin Netanyahu.
And the United States of America was founded by
insurgency and civil war which eventually was
successful in throwing out the occupiers and
colonisers.
Right now, America is using violence and terror
to re-create 2 sovereign nations, Afghanistan and
Iraq, neither of which was any threat to America,
in America's own sick image according to its own
perverse and evil ideology.
Same old story, as with Iran's disputed nuclear
programme:
We may, because we say so, but you may not!

The time is long overdue for at least Russia to
leave that useless Quartet and say clearly that
it doesn't want to play anymore and start aiding
the Palestinians directly.
That would at a stroke reduce the Quartet
to a Trio.
And several individual EU countries could also
without causing any major problems for
themselves start direct aid to the PA and to the
legitimate Hamas-led government.
There can be no excuse for NOT doing so.

Nor can there be any excuse whatsoever for
all Arab (and Muslim) nations not to help, and
if America objects and threatens their banks,
as it has done up to now, well, the time is long
overdue for those Arab governments to do what
they know to be right and overrule American
objections, failing that, it is to be hoped that
"the Arab streets" will finally explode and
demand justice not only for themselves
but also for their brothers and sisters in
occupied Palestine.

Mahmoud Abbas would look much more sensible
and decent if he would simply tell America+Israel
that unless there are real concessions from Israel
then please don't call me because it is bad for my
status back home to be seen with you two.
Little more than their unpaid dancing bear or
underpaid clown, he looks more and more silly
and irrelevant to the Palestinians and their
struggle.

Did he get any of the 9,000 or so mostly illegally
held prisoners released?
Did he get any of the 600m USD illegally withheld
tax money?
Did he get anything at all??
Really, he should be ashamed of himself but if he
is not, surely most Palestinians are!

Anybody Left in Israel??

2007-02-20T19:46:00.000+01:00

It is one scandal after another in Israel and
it must now be legitimate to speculate aloud
whether any politician or high-ranking official
currently serving is "clean" - from the president
and prime minister down, they are either falling
like autumn leaves or under some kind of
investigation.

-The former justice minister Haim Ramon,
accused last summer during Israel's grotesquely
savage onslught on Lebanon, has now been found
guilty of sexual harassment,

-One of Olmert's closest aides over many years
has resigned pending an investigation into her
affairs,

-The PM himself is under investigation for a bank
deal from when he was finance minister,

-The nation's figurehead president Moshe Katsav
is "on leave" pending the investigation of his
alleged multiple rapes and, as he is due to retire
anyway this coming summer, he will lose his
immunity then, if not impeached by parliament
in the meantime,

-Army chief Dan Halutz resigned shortly after the
dismal performance of Israel's "invincible army"
against the resistance fighters of Hizbollah,

-The head of the tax authority Jackie Matza
resigned a few days ago amid allegations that
appointments were influenced by businessmen
in exchange for tax breaks,

-And now the police chief Moshe Karadi has
resigned after a government commission
reported that due to alleged misconduct he
should be removed (for failing to make sure
that the police thoroughly investigated the
1999 murder of a suspected crime boss and,
separately, for having ignored links between
senior officers and leading figures within
criminal circles).

Oh the proud Jewish State of Israel!
Oh the pure heart of Zionism!

And these are the people, supported blindly by
America and the rest of the West, who refuse to
talk to the God-fearing, clean-living, straight-
dealing Islamists of Hamas and Hizbollah.....

It certainly tells the Islamic world all it needs
to know about Israel and the West.

Muslims of the World unite!

Straight-Talking Putin

2007-02-11T19:41:00.000+01:00

At the Security Conference in Munich, the Russian
president Vladimir Putin has raised quite a few
eyebrows, temperatures and voices with some
unusually harsh and forthright comments on
American foreign policy.

Remember last year how VP Dick Cheney accused
Moscow of using its energy resources as "tools of
intimidation or blackmail" only to get an instant
lecture from Putin on how America is today using
"democratising" other nations and regions (read:
Middle East) for its own narrow ends just like
the colonial powers 100 or 200 years ago were
using "civilising" other nations as the pathetic
and obscene excuse for robbing them of their
natural resources. Nothing has changed!

Putin's language in Munich was remarkable:
Referring to "the almost uncontained hyper use
of force in international relations" that was
forcing countries opposed to America to seek
to build up nuclear arsenals.
True or false? Undoubtedly true.

"It is a world of one master, one sovereign ...
it has nothing to do with democracy. This is
nourishing the wish of countries to get nuclear
weapons. This is very dangerous, nobody feels
secure anymore because nobody can hide
behind international law".
True or false? Undoubtedly true.

About NATOs Eastwards expansion:
"The process of NATO expansion has nothing to
do with modernization of the alliance or with
ensuring security in Europe, on the contrary,
it is a serious factor provoking reduction of
mutual trust".
True or false? Probably true.

About the missile defense system:
"I don't want to accuse anyone of being
aggressive" but he suggested it would seriously
change the balance of power and could provoke
an unspecified "asymmetric" response.
True or false? Undoubtedly true.

"Unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved
a single problem, they have become a hotbed
of further conflicts".
True or false? Undoubtedly true.

"One state, the United States, has overstepped
its national borders in every way".
True or false? Undoubtedly true.

On Kosovo, Russia has said a solution imposed
against Serbia's consent could serve as a model
for other separatist provinces elsewhere in the
world. America, which for reasons best known to
itself supports Kosovo's independence, maintains
that the Kosovo situation is a "one-off" because
the province has been under UN rule since 1999
when Serb forces were expelled following a brief
aerial war with NATO.
But if America supports independence for Kosovo,
why not Chechnya and several other Russian
mini-republics in the Caucasus?

First reaction from Washington was that it was
"surprised and disappointed" by Putin's remarks.
"His accusations are wrong" Gordon Johndroe,
Bush's national security spokesman, said,
conveniently without elaborating!

US Republican senator John "AIPAC" McCain who
was also attending the conference, described
Putin's remarks as "the most aggressive speech
from a Russian leader since the end of the Cold
War" and said:
"Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy
a genuine partnership with the West so long as
its actions at home and abroad conflict
fundamentally with the core values of the Euro-
Atlantic democracies. In today's multi-polar world
there is no place for needless confrontation".
Please read that again, slowly, and you will
probably want to scream!
Perfect Newspeak as you would expect from this
arch-neoCon and arch-Zionist, perfect rubbish!

Senator Joseph Lieberman said Mr Putin's speech
was "provocative" and that its rhetoric "sounded
more like the Cold War".

New US defense secretary Robert Gates said
only that Putin "was very candid".

NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,
disappointed by Putin's criticism about NATO
expansion, asked: "Who can be worried that
democracy and the rule of law is coming
closer to somebody's border?".

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the
president's speech was not "confrontational" and
attributed his blunt words to the sense that the
number of conflicts fomented by Washington
"was constantly growing" and that international
law was being undermined by such actions,
saying:
"It is in the interest of the United States,
the European Union and other countries that
international law is upheld, not further
destroyed. Until we get rid of unilateralism
in international affairs, until we exclude the
possibility of imposing one country's views
on others, we will not have stability".
True or false? Undoubtedly true.

Whilst stressing that I am no fan of Putin, partly
because of his savage behaviour in the Caucasus
and partly because of his systematic rolling back
of democratic reforms, I absolutely applaud these
comments about American foreign policy which to
any rational observer is as untenable as it is
indefensible, and as ridiculous as it is outrageous.
Well said Vladimir Putin, more of the same please!

Angela Merkel, Iran and the Real World

2007-02-11T19:37:00.000+01:00

At the Security Conference in Munich, the
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that
"the international community is determined to
prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Tehran needs to accept demands made by the
UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
What we are talking about here is a very, very
sensitive technology, and for that reason we
need a high degree of transparency, which Iran
has failed to provide, and if Iran does not do so
then the alternative for Iran is to slip further
into isolation".

Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, also at
the conference, repeating Iran's position that
it wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons,
said: "We believe the Iranian nuclear dossier
is resolvable by negotiation".
And in a reasonable and civilised world that
would of course be true but that is not where
we find ourselves.

Yet again, as a citizen of the European Union
of which Ms Merkel currently is the unofficial
president, I am embarrassed and ashamed.
Why?

1. Firstly and for the nth time, Iran, as a
signatory to the NPT, has an inalienable right
to pursue nuclear technology.
Compare this with non-NPT nuclear weapons
states Pakistan, India and Israel - what is she
talking about and who is she talking to?

2. There is, as I understand it, not a scrap of
evidence to suggest that Iran is trying to develop
nuclear weapons or even that it wants to.
Again, compare with Pakistan, India and Israel!!!

3. About a year ago, Iran's supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent a fatwa to the IAEA
stating explicitly that the Islamic Republic of Iran
is not and has no intention of seeking nuclear
weapons. Should we believe him?
I believe we should, for the simple reason that,
ultimately, he is not accountable to a fickle
electorate like mere politicians but to his Creator.
Laugh if you must.

4. Last Summer, during Israel's grotesquely
savage destruction of Lebanon, Germany, and
that means Ms Merkel, authorised the sale of 3
nuclear-capable submarines to Israel, subsidised
by one third, that is, one of the 3 was free, a gift
from the German tax-payers.
Incredibly, Germany did not obtain any guarantee
from Israel that they would not be used to carry
nuclear warheads, at a stroke ripping up the long-
standing very strict non-proliferation regime that
Germany has adhered to. Why oh why?
A few murmurs of protests in parliament, apart
from that nothing, no major rallies, no mass
demonstrations. Why oh why?

What does Israel need submarines for anyway?
There can only be one answer: To be able to
directly threaten Middle East countries from the
water, specifically Iran from the Gulf.
So Germany is openly stoking the fires on the one
side and telling Iran it cannot and must not be
allowed to pursue peaceful technology.
Excuse me, the lady is insane and should
be impeached immediately!
In the circumstances, it would be perfectly
reasonable if Iran wanted nuclear weapons, given
the state-terrorism of America in Afghanistan and
Iraq, Iran's direct neighbours to the East and
West respectively, plus the nuclear weapons
of that ultimate rogue state Israel.

5. Would Ms Merkel, and everyone else for
that matter please take the time to read the
text of the NPT.
That would make it clear to her that not only
is it the right of non-nuclear NPT countries to
pursue the technology, but Articles 4 and 5
of the treaty obliges the nations already in
possession of the technology to make it
available to NPT nations wishing to have it!!
This is obviously to prevent the unacceptable
situation of "nuclear apartheid" and the Iranian
president is quite right to point out precisely this
point again and again.

6. Whilst realising that Germany itself is not a
nuclear weapons state, will Ms Merkel please give
the world a guarantee that America is no longer
storing even one single nuclear warhead on
German soil. If she cannot give such a guarantee
she should keep her mouth shut!

7. The NPT (Art.6) also has a solemn undertaking
from the nuclear weapons states that they will
enter into meaningful negotiations in good faith,
the goal being, over time, to phase out ALL their
own nuclear weapons, but that is typically and
hypocritically "forgotten" these days.
Seeing that Ms Merkel appears to have a personal
love-affair with the Monster himself, GW Bush,
will she please phone him every day to remind
him of this promise?

Seems we have to boycott Made in Germany, too -
is there anyone decent out there left to buy
anything from???

17 Uyghurs in Guantanamo

2007-02-11T19:29:00.000+01:00

Did you know that there are 17 Uyghurs
in Guantanamo despite having been told for
years they are not a threat to the US?

Looks like a secret deal between the US and
China, to keep them out of China.
Seems we have to boycott Made in China, too -
is there anyone decent out there left to buy
anything from???

There is a full article, dated 26.01.2007, on the
official website of the World Uyghur Congress
and you can read it here .

I have also added their website to my Links
section, should you need it.

Muslims of the world unite!

Uyghur Activist Executed by China

2007-02-11T19:25:00.000+01:00

An ethnic Uyghur Muslim activist, Ismail Semed,
has been executed by China in Urumqi, capital
of Xinjiang province, for "attempting to split the
motherland", for possesion of firearms and
explosives and for being a founder-member of
the outlawed separatist group East Turkestan
Islamic Movement (unsurprisingly considered
a "terrorist" organisation by China and the US).

He was convicted of the above offenses, none
of which have been proven according to rights
groups, in October 2005.
Semed's wife, Buhejer, who was only allowed
10 minutes with her husband before he was
executed, said: "When the body was transferred
to us at the cemetery I saw only one bullet hole
in his heart".
She also said her husband had told the court
during his trial that he had been forced to
make a confession.

The World Uyghur Congress said: "His trial, like
most Uyghur political prisoners' trials, was not
fair". So far the Chinese authorities have
remained silent on the execution.
And the EU and the UN??

Uyghurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims, and live
mainly in Xinjiang province in North-West China,
8 out of its 19 million inhabitants are Uyghurs
whose first language is Turkic.
Attempts to re-establish an independent state in
the 1930s and 40s were successful but short-lived
and there has been sporadic violence since around
1990 in Xinjiang (which means "New Territory" in
Chinese!), where some Uyghurs still want to form
an independent Islamic state, aspirations which
are perfectly reasonable given the history of the
region, aspirations which China invariably sees
as a threat to the coherence of the country and
therefore suppresses brutally.

We all recognise the scenario: From Chechnya
to Aceh to Yala to Jolo to Somalia to Kashmir to
Palestine - political Islam is simply not tolerated.

Muslims of the world unite!!!

"Epicurean Masters of the World"

2007-02-11T19:21:00.000+01:00

Did you also miss out on this?
An 11-course gala-dinner at a luxury hotel in
Thailand's capital Bangkok, prepared by 6 chefs
from Germany, France and Italy, all of course
"Michelin 3-star" rated, for a mere 1m Thai Baht,
today 22,884.90 Euros or 29,761.90 USD or
15,253.00 GBP.
No names were being revealed but the bookings
were mainly from the filthy-rich from the Middle
East, Asia, Europe and the US and included
tycoons from shipping, real estate and gaming.

Officialy at least, the profits will go to charity and,
according to the owner of the Dome restaurant
where this event took place, the main purpose
was to "improve the standard and inspire Thai
chefs to raise their level of inspiration".

To put this obscene bacchanalian extravagance
into perspective, a quick calculation shows that
that same money for just one of the guests would
pay for food, clothing, education and basic
medication for 50 (fifty) orphaned children
in occupied Palestine for a whole year.
Obscene is too mild a word and everyone involved
should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves but
of course they won't be, for only good people are
capable of that.

Mickey Mouse Heads for Bahrain

2007-02-10T19:15:00.000+01:00

Yes really! Saudi billionaire (and where did that
money come from please??) prince Alwaleed bin
Talal is in discussions with potential investors for
an 8bn dollar Disney theme park in Bahrain and,
according to reports, Kuwait Finance House, the
region's second largest Islamic bank, is involved
in those talks.

Prince Talal already indirectly owns 10% of Euro
Disney, which operates Disneyland Paris, and last
year he secured the rights to distribute Disney
merchandise across the Middle East and Africa.

This will of course not please any good Muslim
and for several reasons:
-The Disney empire and label are, as we all know,
American.
-The whole Disney empire is known for its
enthusiastic support for Israel.
-This kind of superficial plastic nonsense is
anathema to anyone with a spiritual aspect
to life.

It is to be hoped that, should it ever be built,
it will have to close quickly because of lack of
business.
But, should it go ahead, it may well increase
revulsion for the West and a rise in Islamist
feelings, which would be a natural effect and,
should that happen, it would have been good
for something!

Keep the Middle East a Mickey Mouse Free Zone!

Agent Orange in Vietnam

2007-02-10T19:11:00.000+01:00

For the first time, America has agreed to help
towards cleaning up a site in Vietnam where
Agent Orange and other chemicals were stored
during the Vietnam war.
A 1m dollar study into the removal of the highly
toxic chemical dioxin from the soil at the former
US base at Da Nang, now the city's international
airport, is to be carried out and the US will pay
400,000 dollars towards that, the rest coming
from the Vietnamese government and the
Ford Foundation.

Dioxin is an ingredient in Agent Orange, one of
several herbicides that US forces sprayed in order
to destroy vegetation, thus denying the Viet Cong
their natural cover.

Vietnam, along with many veterans from the war,
from the US and other countries, believes at least
four million cases of ill health and disability are
linked to the spraying.
Whilst the US admits that dioxin is dangerous
when absorbed into the body (for example by
eating fish from contaminated lakes) it disputes
the link between the spraying of the chemical
from the air and ill health. Excuse me -
where does America think it goes??

That link is increasingly obvious:
Independent studies have shown that in certain
affected areas the dioxin level in the soil is 13
times higher than normal and the local people
have up to 20 times more dioxin in their body
fats, and in one particular place the locals have
200 times the normal levels of dioxin in their
blood.....

Children born in areas sprayed have alarmingly
disproportionate rates of mental and physical
problems, clearly related to genetic defects,
photos or films of them are harrowing to watch.

Nguyen Trong Nhan, from the Vietnam Assoc
Of Victims Of Agent Orange and a former
president of Vietnamese Red Cross, believes the
use of Agent Orange was a war crime and he also
claims that Vietnam's poverty today is a direct
result of the massive scale of the spraying -
a total of around 80m litres of several different
"agents" were used, others with names like Pink
or Green or White, and of these Agent Orange,
having been found to be the most effective,
accounted for 45m litres, or just over half the
total with which 10% of the total land area of
Vietnam was sprayed during 6,000 flying missions!
It was also secretly used over parts of
neighbouring Cambodia.

Agent Orange was produced mainly by Monsanto
and Dow Chemical who in 1984 paid the Vietnam
veterans in the US 180m dollars but refused to
admit any wrongdoing.
The former president of Vietnamese Red Cross
mentioned above started a lawsuit in the US in
2004 against the chemical companies involved
and, strange timing, a joint US-Vietnamese
project to examine the long-term genetic impact
of Agent Orange was cancelled shortly after.

Clearly the US is not prepared to admit when it
was not only wrong but horribly wrong and it
confirms to the world, if confirmation were
needed, that the reality is the exact opposite
of the projected Hollywood-make-believe-image
of a compassionate and always brotherly helpful
America.

Having now found more than half a trillion dollars
for its idiotic, self-inflicted and unwinnable
War-on-Terror, contributing 400,000 dollars to
this clean-up study is not just an insult to the
Vietnamese and to humanity in general, it shows
us again that Ayatollah Khomeini was right all
those years ago when he described America as
The Great Satan.

The Mecca Declaration

2007-02-10T19:07:00.000+01:00

So, Hamas and Fatah have reached an agreement
on forming a unity government - maybe it was
the serene and sacred surroundings of Mecca that
persuaded the parties that it was now or never,
or maybe it was the promise by King Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia of 1bn dollars in aid, or maybe it was
the clear signs back in Gaza and elsewhere,
demonstrations -some organised by children- for
unity and an end to inter-Palestinian violence,
that convinced them?
Whatever it was, they did reach an agreement
which, at least on paper, should work.
Of course the agreement is not fair because
Hamas won those elections a year ago with an
absolute majority, so has an inalienable right to
form a government of its own choosing, which
it did - and we all know what happened.
Now Hamas has accepted a distribution of cabinet
posts which will not guarantee it the majority to
which it is entitled, most importantly the posts of
interior, foreign and finance minister will go to
independents, but Ismail Haniya stays as PM.

Once again, Hamas has shown a remarkable and
admirable flexibility and pragmatism in the face
of impossible difficulties, and the entire world
should warmly applaud that - if only the leaders
of the West, most notably America and Israel,
were big enough and wise enough to act like this!

Why "once again"? Because not long ago, those
same Hamas leaders persuaded their people that
participating in practical politics and democratic
elections just might be worth trying and that
must have been terribly difficult - but they
succeeded in doing that and they delivered
the election result that the vast majority of
Palestinians wanted, only to have the "civilised
world" tell them that it liked the elections but
not the result, so it added political isolation and
crippling economic sanctions to the illegal and
brutal occupation they have endured for so long,
expecting that Hamas, or Palestinian support for
it, would crumble - neither has happened and
the clear winner, both morally and practically,
is of course Hamas.

The overriding objective of the agreement is to
bring inter-Palestinian violence to an end, and all
good people will hope and pray that it does just
that. Whether it will make the so-called
"international community" lift the financial and
political siege remains to be seen but hopefully,
at the very least, it will split the Quartet down
the middle, with America and the UN refusing to
budge from their ridiculous demands, and with
Russia and the EU taking a pragmatic and nearly
human approach, namely that of resuming
official relations with the legitimate Palestinian
government both in terms of aid and assistance
and in terms of normal contacts, without any
conditions attached.
In this context, the Mecca Agreement will become
a very serious test of the integrity of the West -
which no doubt explains the deafening silence so
far from Washington, London, Brussels!!!

Israel will of course never be satisfied whatever
the Palestinians do and it is up to the "civilised
world", should it still exist somewhere, to tell
Israel that the time for it to comply with
international law is 40 years overdue.
Sadly, no tragically, there is not even the
smallest sign that that is about to happen.....

US Iraq War Amputee Center

2007-01-30T19:02:00.000+01:00

As anti-war protests gather momentum in
America and GW Bush insists on sending 21,500
more troops to Iraq against the wishes of the
American people, expressed in the new Democrat-
controlled Congress, which itself is now doing
battle with the White House, a new rehabilitation
center has opened for soldiers returning from Iraq
either as amputees or with severe burns.

So far nearly 3,100 have been killed and around
20,000 injured, of these more than 500 have lost
at least one limb, many of them due to IEDs,
mainly roadside bombs, one of the insurgents'
most effective weapons.

For these, the privately-funded 50m dollar
high-tech Center for the Intrepid has just opened,
promising the soldiers: "We're going to take care
of you for as long as you need us, to get you back
to where you want to be".

All well and good, and nice words too, but where
does America think these young formerly fit men,
and women, would like to get back to?
They would all like their limbs and their former
lives back and of course they will never get either.

And why call it the Center for the Intrepid?
The typical American blend of make-believe
Hollywood romantics and Federal propaganda:
What is intrepid about going to Iraq as hapless
cannon-fodder to illegally invade a sovereign
nation based on a pack of obscene lies just in
order to serve the insatiable greed of Western
Corporate Totalitarianism?

They should never have been sent!
They should never have gone!
Far from being "intrepid all-American heroes"
they are state-terrorists pure and simple and
we should call things by their proper name.

Question: Is America going to provide the same
kind of facility throughout Iraq, and Afghanistan,
to help the tens of thousands maimed for life as
a direct result of its savagely brutal overseas
adventures?? Of course not - but it should!

Human Bomber Strikes in Israel

2007-01-29T18:54:00.000+01:00

There has been a successful Palestinian human
bombing mission in Israel, the first since April last
year, which is remarkable, given the desperate
plight of the Palestinians.

It was unusual in that it was the first to take
place in Eilat, Israel's southern resort town on
the Red Sea, 3 people were killed as the bomber
detonated in a bakery in the morning.

Immediately all the predictable statements
came from the usual sources:

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert vowed to continue the
"Ongoing and never-ending struggle against
terrorists" - so why don't the Jews set a good
example by stopping their own daily terrorist
attacks on the Palestinians?

Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz said:
"This is a grave incident, it's an escalation
and we shall treat it as such" - presumably
by blowing more Palestinian women and
children to bits?

In Washington the White House condemned
the violence and said it held the Hamas-led
government accountable - which shows yet again
how blind to reality the US Admin is, for one of
the groups claiming joint responsibility is allied
to president Abbas' Fatah party, but of course
when did the facts on any matter interest the US?

"Failure to act against terror will inevitably affect
relations between that government and the
international community and undermine the
aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state
of their own" - alway this brutal arrogance from
the Great Satan.

A Hamas spokesman in Gaza called the attack
a "natural response" to Israeli military policies
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its
ongoing boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian
government. "So long as there is occupation,
resistance is legitimate".
Adding pointedly: "The right thing is for Fatah
weapons to be directed towards the occupation
and not Hamas".

A Fatah spokesman said: "We are against any
operation that targets civilians, Israelis or
Palestinians".

Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
claimed joint responsibility for the attack, and
apparently a 3rd previously unheard of group
was also involved.

Both main groups said the bombing was meant
to help bring an end to weeks of Palestinian
infighting that has killed more than 60 people
in the Gaza Strip since December.

Islamic Jihas's website proclaimed:
"The operation has a clear message to the
Palestinian rivals. It is necessary to end the
infighting and point the guns toward the
occupation that has hurt the Palestinian people".

The bomber was identified as:
"Mohammed Saksak, 21, of Gaza City.
Saksak's family said he had left their home
three days ago and not returned.

Relatives said he was despondent because he
was unemployed and his baby daughter died
recently of an illness. Also, his best friend was
killed in a clash with Israeli forces, and his
brother is a top Islamic Jihad militant".

Is anyone still surprised that young men do
these things??? You shouldn't be but instead
should remove the causes, which are there
for any rational person to see, and those
causes could be removed relatively quickly,
if the World had the will to do it, but it doesn't,
so the suffering continues.....

Read also my post on Human Bombers .

Hamas-Fatah Violence

2007-01-29T18:50:00.000+01:00

For once, I agree with King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia that the infighting between the two main
Palestinian factions Fatah, in power for so long,
and Hamas, elected by a landslide a year ago,
which has now cost around 25 lives over the
last few days, is, in the words of Abdullah,
disgraceful, a tragedy and a grave crime:
"What is happening on the pure land of Palestine
is a disgrace, which has tarnished the history of
the honourable national struggle of the people
of Palestine".
He has invited Palestinian leaders to a meeting
in Mecca, and they have agreed, probably to be
held in the Haram as-Sharif itself - and what
better place?

The infighting is also, of course, totally
counterproductive, serving only the external
interests of "divide and rule", and Israel and
America, both assisting Abbas' Fatah movement
with money and weapons, must be rubbing their
hands with evil glee right now.

Palestinian PM Ismail Haniya of Hamas, during
a call for calm, criticised "troublemakers who are
trying to veer away from the path of our people
by receiving dirty American funding and arms" -
a clear and sharp reference to president Mahmoud
Abbas and Fatah which the U.S. recently promised
86m dollars to help with weapons and training.

The underlying reasons for the problems?
Three:
-Outside interference, see above.
America+Israel+the-West-in-general will do
ANYthing to try to prevent political Islam from
functioning and getting another platform,
however small.
-Fatah has never really accepted the results of the
election one year ago, casting serious doubts on
their democratic credentials - this is of course no
reason for Israel and America to stop dealing with
Abbas/Fatah, neither being seriously interested in
democracy themselves!
-The crippling sanctions, and political isolation,
put on Hamas by "the civilised world".
Palestinians being human, this has undoubtedly
contributed very seriously to the general feeling
of hunger and desperation especially in Gaza and,
as I keep saying, the world should be thoroughly
ashamed of itself - but apparently isn't.

Any solution?
Yes of course, there are always solutions!
That so-called "civilised world" must accept
Hamas for exactly what it is and deal with it as
it deals with any other legitimate government.
The EU and Russia should bravely take the lead
here and break ranks, go on, I dare you to do it!

Restoring the aid and political contacts would
make an enormous difference and could possibly
even redeem parts of the Western world in the
eyes of Hamas, who must surely by now have
given up entirely on the West.

Hamas Elected One Year Ago

2007-01-25T18:45:00.000+01:00

On the first anniversary of their spectacular
election victory in occupied Palestine, any true
believer in democracy would warmly congratulate
Hamas, one year ago the overwhelming choice of
the Palestinians.

Hamas and its followers have faced a dreadful
year through no fault of theirs: An international
boycott, a virtual freezing of aid (other than what
could be smuggled in by returning government
ministers), political isolation, a brutal invasion of
Gaza by Israel on the pretext of retrieving their
captured soldier but to any rational observer a
clear attemp to destroy the Hamas government,
regular attempts by Israel to disrupt the latest
truce, Israeli raids on banks doing legitimate
business, very disturbing clashes, probably
encouraged or engineered by "outside forces",
between Hamas and the ousted Fatah
movement, the list continues...
Given that each one of these problems is a major
problem on its own, it is no less than a miracle
that the Hamas government, led by that fine
principled man Ismail Haniya, is still intact
and in power after a full year of these brutal
onslaughts and humiliations.
Lesser men would long since have buckled and
failed where Haniya and Co have steadfastly
refused to compromise and remain unbowed.
You are heroes, every one of you!
Stand firm, remain true to your ideals and one
of these days the world, whether it likes it or not,
will have to deal with you.

Ahmad Yusuf, a senior Hamas political adviser,
when asked about their first year in power, said:
"It's been like a world conspiracy against this
government - led by the United States. Arab
countries have collaborated with Washington.
Elements in the ousted Fatah party have
attacked the new administration, and the
Israelis have continually tried to undermine it.
With this combination of powers working against
this government, I think just to keep ourselves
surviving - and our people still not starving to
death - that to us is a big achievement".

For Palestinian anger is directed against the
Israelis and the international community, there
has been no wavering in support for Hamas,
proving that although jobless and hungry, they
can still tell right from wrong and friend from foe.

Haniya and Hamas, here is hoping that this
coming year will see the world coming to its
senses and deal with the government which the
people of Palestine elected to represent them.

Morally, of course, the world has no choice but
to deal with Hamas and, anyway, Hamas the
political party is now so strong that it cannot
be ignored.

In the words of Ahmad Yusuf:
"If the Israelis fail, or the world community fails,
to deal with Hamas that will mean that there will
be no chance for peace at all". Ameen!!

Let me say it again:
Haniya and Hamas, were I a Palestinian,
I would vote for you!

Lebanon: Oil Spill, Cluster Bombs etc

2007-01-25T18:40:00.000+01:00

A report by the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) on the effects of Israel's grotesquely
savage attack on Lebanon last Summer says:

-The huge oil spill created during the conflict has
largely been contained,
-Many bombed sites contain hazardous materials,
-The team found no evidence that weapons using
depleted uranium were deployed, suggested by
a number of reports,
-The team did confirm that Israel used white
phosphorous,
-Other significant threats to health and the
environment remain, including pollution of water
supplies and unexploded ordnance.

Of the oil-spill, caused when Israel bombed the
Jiyyeh oil-fired power station, releasing about
15,000 tonnes of oil, UNEP director Achim Steiner
said:
"The marine environment appears to have largely
escaped serious long-term damage linked with
the oil spill. I can only praise the international
emergency response effort for moving as quickly
as the difficult circumstances permitted at the
time".

The team also says it found unexploded cluster
bombs "throughout its survey" of southern
Lebanon and it believes there may be a million
bomblets left across the region.
Remember, these were dropped during the last
72 hours of the conflict, when everyone knew a
cease-fire agreement was imminent, causing the
UNs Jan Egeland to describe it as "completely
immoral". Another act of pure evil by Israel.
If not found and removed or detonated, they
will lie there for years, like land-mines, waiting
for children to be tempted to play with them,
or for animals etc to step on them.

The confirmed use of white phosporous by
Israeli forces is very interesting and significant.
Phosphorus weapons cause chemical burns, and
human rights groups believe they should be
treated as chemical weapons (i.e. outlawed).
The Geneva Conventions ban their use against
civilian populations, but Israel maintains the
weapons were used only to mark targets.
Remember the Americans in Fallujah??
Same old story:
America and Israel are always perfect and
the rest of the world is always wrong!
But it is high time the rest of the world call those
2 nations what they indisputably are:
Terrorist states and barbarians!

Lebanon Donor Conference

2007-01-25T18:37:00.000+01:00

At a donor conference in Paris, Lebanese
PM Fouad Siniora has been pleading with
representatives from around 40 countries to come
to the rescue of his tiny nation, already hugely in
debt and the situation severely aggravated by the
effects of Israel's grotesquely savage attack last
Summer, and it was hoped that at least 4bn
dollars would be pledged.

In which case, Siniora will be pleased:
Donors including the US, France, the EU and
Saudi Arabia have already pledged approx
$7.6bn in aid and loans.

Individual pledges so far:
US: 1bn dollars (inc new 770m)
France: 650m dollars
EU: 520m dollars
Saudi Arabia: 1.1bn dollars
World Bank: 1bn dollars
EIB: 1.25bn dollars .

Before the conference, Mr Siniora warned that
"the cost of helping Lebanon, however expensive
that might seem, is much less than the cost of
not helping Lebanon".

But who should really pay for this?
If you destroy something, you pay reparations,
that is reasonable and well established.
In which case Israel and America should pay all
of the costs which can be related to the attempted
destruction of Lebanon last Summer by those 2
terrorist states.
OK so America is paying something substantial
but you can be sure that amount will not be
deducted from the annual aid to Israel of approx
3.5bn dollars, (or 5bn dollars, depending on what
is considered aid).
Why the EU or France should pay anything here is
a mystery to me, OK, buying influence is one
consideration but still.....

More UK Staff to Kabul

2007-01-25T01:00:00.000+01:00

The British government is sending up to 35 extra
"diplomatic staff" to Afghanistan, which will make
that impoverished shattered country one of the
Foreign Office's biggest overseas missions.

Official comment says the move is an attempt to
"prevent the country suffering the same level of
chaos and violence as Iraq".

Apparently, this is to be achieved by staff
focusing on tackling drug production and
corruption as well as building institutions.

There is currently between 50 and 100 UK-based
"diplomats" in Afghanistan, including counter-
narcotics specialists and the head of the "enlarged
family" will be one of Britain's highest profile
diplomats, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, currently
ambassador to Saudi Arabia, fluent in Arabic,
and previously ambassador in Tel Aviv where
he learnt Hebrew.
That last qualification will certainly not endear
him to the Taliban, nor do they speak Arabic,
unless Sir Sherard is planning to recite the
Quran to them which I am certain would be
appreciated, but being overwhelmingly
Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in the
country, the Taliban speak Pashto.

It is clear that what Britain and the wider West
hope to achieve by staying on in Afghanistan
is at all costs to prevent another outbreak of
political Islam, which is here to stay anyway,
whatever the neo-Crusaders do.
They may be able to keep it repressed so long
as they stay, and pay and die, but eventually,
this year or next year maybe, they will have to
go home and leave Afghanistan to the Afghanis,
which of course civilised nations would have
done all along, but this is the Wild West where
"might is right" and "we know what is good for
you", which could be summed up in one word:
Fascism.
The West has absolutely no chance of what it
would see as long-term success in Afghanistan,
or Iraq, but of course arrogance and stupidity
frequently walk hand in hand -
they are probably "Siamese Twins".

Congress says NO to GWB

2007-01-25T00:56:00.000+01:00

The revolt by the newly empowered Democrats
in the US Congress, and the brave Republicans
who are joining the growing chorus of, to put it
politely, unease at GWBs plan to send about
21,500 additional troops to Iraq, has now
resulted in a resolution which will be voted
on by the full Senate, stating that sending the
extra troops to Iraq is "not in the national
interest" of the United States.

The response from VP Dick Cheney was
predictable: "President Bush has made his
decision on Iraq, the fact of the matter is
we need to get the job done".

There we go again - as if another 20,000 or for
that matter 200,000 troops, which America has
not got anyway, would "solve the problem", which
is of course entirely of America's own making and
richly deserved. Oh the folly, the stupefying
arrogance!

This also of course overrules the clear call for a
change of direction not only in Iraq but generally
expressed in the mid-term elections in November.
Democracy? No room for that in the Bush admin!

Incidentally, I don't believe GWB makes any
decisions himself, they are made for him by
the still more evil and devious people in the
background, like Cheney, who indisputably
played a murky role in 11 September.....

One supporter of GWBs more-troops-for-Iraq
plan is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani
(who should also tell the world what he really
knows about 11 September), also running for
president in 2008, who said:
"I believe we should give the president the
support to do this. I want us to be successful
in Iraq, I know how important it is to the overall
war on terror. Success in Iraq means a more
peaceful world for America, it means a victory
against terrorists. Failure in Iraq means a big
defeat against terrorists and the war on terror
is going to be tougher for us".
Again, oh the folly, the stupefying arrogance!
Do these people in high places not know ANYthing
about the real world? There IS no successful
outcome for America in Iraq, and if Iraq is a
hotbed of radical Islam now, then it has been
turned into one by America's brutal meddling in
a sovereign nation which was no threat to the US,
and as such, if some of that hatred for the Great
Satan was to follow the US home, that would be
no surprise to rational people and richly deserved
retribution for the death and destruction caused
to Iraq and Iraqis.

By far the greatest contribution America could
make towards a safer and more peaceful world
for everyone would be for ALL American citizens
to return to US soil immediately and stay there
for at least a generation.

Triad Trouble

2007-01-23T00:51:00.000+01:00

Condi Rice, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin
have met in a Black Sea resort to discuss among
other things Iran and its nuclear programme in
the "light" of recent UN SC sanctions.
All 3 agreed that taking Iran to the UN SC had
been the right thing to do - a very strange opinion
to have when the pursuit of nuclear technology is
an inalienable right for any nation which has
signed the NPT.
Did they mention India, Pakistan or Israel?

They also agreed that the door to talks should
remain open if Iran accepts the EU proposal
put forward last Summer and abandons its
enrichment programme (to which it is entitled,
see above). How magnanimous of them!
What stupefying arrogance, what megalomania!!

This is perfect Newspeak and the fact that nobody
immediately speaks out in a loud voice to correct
such obscenities is desperately sad and a terrible
indictment of the world of politics.
What does Putin gain from playing this game?
Russia has very serious business interests in Iran
and should guard them fiercely and in my view
ought not to go along with all this illegal nonsense
but should veto such resolutions, in order to let
the West know that it needs Russia, and probably
more than Russia needs the West.

Putin did again call for "a resolution of the
nuclear problem using purely diplomatic methods"
in glaring contrast to America which still refuses
to rule any option out.
Compare this with America's insistence that
Hamas must renounce violence if it wishes the
West to talk to it.
Yes, you are right: Nauseating hypocrisy!

And Condi Rice repeated that America considers
Iran "a troublemaker" in Iraq by supporting
insurgents with money and bombs.
If Iran, a direct neighbour of Iraq and as such
with every right both to be alarmed and to be
actively influencing events there, is a trouble-
maker, what words do we use to describe
America's presence in Iraq?
Same nauseating hypocrisy!

She also repeated that Washington is not
interested in talking with Iran and Syria about
the future of Iraq, saying: "If the Iranians and
the Syrians wish to support stability in Iraq,
there are plenty of ways for them to do it.
The only reason to talk to us would be to
extract a price, and that's not diplomacy,
that's extortion".

And she should know - extortion being the most
accurate shorthand for US worldwide diplomacy,
amongst countless examples, refer to the Hamas
case above.

Iraq: 24 US Troops Die in 24 Hours

2007-01-23T00:47:00.000+01:00

Well, what a week-end: When the counting was
done, America had lost, it seemed, 24 maybe
25 servicemen in one day or one week-end,
depending on which reports you read, 13 of
those in a helicopter crash which may yet turn
out to be due to hostile fire.
Whilst wishing nobody dead, well, with the usual
handful of exceptions of course, this is actually
good news both for Iraq, which has every right
to evict or kill the occupation forces, and for
America, could its leaders with their radical,
extremist, evil ideology only see it, because
it just might speed up the day when sensible
Americans, and they do exist, shout enough
is more than enough and demand a quick
exit from this insanity.

There is also the simple question of how long
America can afford to sustain this level of brutal
interference and meddling in the rest of the world.
Having already wasted more than 500 billion
dollars on this madness, there must be a limit,
probably not to the madness but certainly to
the money!

The real question to ask here, though, is not the
cost to America in terms of money and lives but
the cost to Iraq and Afghanistan, two sovereign
Muslim countries which were no threats to the
US, now shattered and set back a decade at
least and all thanks to the Great Satan.

GWB - Only 2 More Years!

2007-01-23T00:43:00.000+01:00

The most incompetent and dangerous president
in American history, the 43rd person to hold this
high and once (possibly) noble office, originally
indisputably fraudulently "elected" and, just like
his blood-brother, that other well-known war-
criminal and mass-murderer Ariel Sharon,
incredibly re-elected, has only 2 more years to
cause death, destruction and mayhem in this
world which belongs to us all but which is seen
by him and his henchmen to exist only to serve
Western Corporate Totalitarianism.

Will he succeed in blowing up the planet before
he is forcibly retired on 20 January 2009?
Nobody has tried harder, not even long-time
top candidates like Stalin and Hitler.....

Second US AC in Gulf

2007-01-23T00:39:00.000+01:00

America is sending a second aircraft carrier into
the Persian/Arabian Gulf, no doubt as a very rude
message to Iran, which intends to complain to the
UN SC about the detention in Iraq of several of its
citizens, claimed by Iran, and supported by Iraqi
statements, to be diplomatic staff.
As ever, America thinks the whole world is the
Wild West and its own playground.

But there could be other reasons for its arrival:
Newspaper reports say that Israel has recently
made test-flights with fighter jets all the way to
Gibraltar, the entire length of the Mediterranean,
possibly in preparation for strikes against Iran's
nuclear installations, so having a second US AC in
position would help to counter Iranian retaliation,
whether against Israel or American targets in Iraq.

Don't rule anything out, Israel is as paranoid as
ever and its so-called government might well go
for such a "heroic" measure in the near future,
to stave off calls for the resignation of Olmert
and Peretz, and in an effort to restore some
national pride (badly bruised last Summer in its
ill-chosen showdown with Hizbollah) in typically
illegal and brutal fashion, to the Zionist state.

And America, as paranoid as ever, might think
that a good idea, to "solve the Iranian nuclear
problem once and for all" (as their tiny cowboy
minds would see it) or might simply have to go
along with whatever its Zionist masters have
decided. Also, don't forget, the neo-Cons are
running out of time!

That Britain would make Gibraltar available for
Israel to practice totally illegal and outrageous
ventures should surprise nobody, given the
hideous bunch of war criminals currently in
charge of the Queen's backyard.

Jordan going Nuclear too??

2007-01-23T00:33:00.000+01:00

Jordan's King Abdullah II has said he would be
interested in his country getting nuclear power
of its own, joining recent aspirations expressed
by Egypt and Turkey last year, and only days
ago the 6-nation GCC (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the
United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman)
said it is exploring setting up a joint project and
has already commissioned a study. And why not?
If you have reached that technological level and
you can afford it, and Iran obviously falls into
both those categories, then ANY country has the
right to pursue it, so long as they adhere to the
norms and safeguards stipulated and agreed by
international bodies. Period, end of story.
As Iran's Ahmadinejad has said, "nuclear
apartheid" is unacceptable and of course
he is right.

Jordan's desire for nuclar power has a peculiar
ring to it though, to start with, surely the country
could not afford it?
Is it all just something he has been instructed by
Condi Rice to say now, as the evil Americans
explore all devious ways to rattle Iran?

Gulf Cooperation Council explained

2007-01-23T00:30:00.000+01:00

Following hot on the heels of US FM Condi Rice,
new US defence minister Robert Gates has
visited the Middle East:
The headquarters of Central Command's naval
staff, which is located in Bahrain with the US
Navy's 5th Fleet.
Then he went to Qatar to meet with the Emir.
Afterwards he visited an air base from which
Central Command's air staff plans, runs and
monitors air operations throughout the Middle
East and Central Asia.

The Gulf Cooperation Council was formed in May
1981 between the following 6 Arab and Muslim
nations:
The United Arab Emirates
The State of Bahrain
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The Sultanate of Oman
The State of Qatar and
The State of Kuwait,
and the introduction to the charter declares,
amongst other things, these noble ideas:

"The underpinnings which are clearly provided for
in the preamble of the GCC Charter, confirm the
special relations, common qualities and similar
systems founded on the creed of Islam, faith in a
common destiny and sharing one goal, and that
the cooperation among these states would serve
the sublime objectives of the Arab nation".

Can the Western stooges clinging autocratically to
power in all these places tell us how their actions
serve that Arab nation??

The suggestion a few days ago by the Iranian
president, that the Gulf states should kick the US
military out of their countries altogether, was very
quickly brushed aside but of course his idea is not
only courageous, it is clear and logical and would
indisputably serve those nations and the region
much better than the current "voluntary
occupation" by the Great Satan.

Go on, all you auto- and kleptocrats:
Hold free and fair internationally monitored
elections, ask your people what they want and
you can rest assured that when the results are in
and counted, it will be one loud piercing cry of:
Americans go home!
Go on, do it, and do it now!

As it is, the Gulf Cooperation Council is certainly
living up to its name, but not the noble way it
was intended, for the cooperation is with the
West and its evil ambitions for the region.

Or do the letters GCC stand for:
The Gates and Condi Club??

Olmert: Already Time to GO?

2007-01-23T00:27:00.000+01:00

The Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, already in deep
trouble over the disastrous war against Lebanon
last Summer, and also over a property deal in
Jerusalem, now faces a criminal investigation
into his role in the privatisation of Israel's second
largest bank, Bank Leumi, in 2005, when Olmert
was finance minister in Ariel Sharon's Likud-led
government. Olmert is accused of having
promoted the interests of two close friends.

What with record low ratings in the polls, the
resignation of army chief Dan Halutz, all the
sexual misdemeanour and rape charges against
president Moshe Katsav and others -
what a pathetic glaring contrast to the
God-fearing, clean-living, straight-dealing
men of Hamas and Hizbollah!

Doomsday Clock Moved Forward

2007-01-23T00:24:00.000+01:00

The scientists who look after the so-called
Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 to warn of
the dangers of nuclear weapons, have moved
it forward by 2 minutes and it now stands at 5
minutes to midnight, the first adjustment since
2002.
They cited "North Korea's first nuclear test,
Iran's nuclear ambitions, U.S. flirtation with
bunker- buster nuclear bombs, the continued
presence of 26,000 American and Russian nuclear
weapons and inadequate security for nuclear
materials" and, for the first time, also included
climate changes with the phrase "Global warming
poses a dire threat to human civilization that is
second only to nuclear weapons".

Interestingly, the same scientists moved the clock
two minutes forward in 2002, to seven minutes to
midnight, following the 11 September attacks on
the United States.
Now that we all know that those attacks were, in
part at least, planned or carried out, or certainly
allowed to happen, by the American government,
are we going to re-adjust the clock accordingly?
Precisely because of that home-made idiotic
War-on-Terror (WOT?), the world is a much
more unsafe place for us all.....

First Muslim in US Congress

2007-01-19T00:18:00.000+01:00

My belated congratulations to Keith Ellison,
the first Muslim ever elected to the American
Congress, in Ellison's case to the House of
Representatives as a Democrat for the 5th
Congressional District in Minnesota, gaining
56% of the votes. Whilst a practising Muslim,
he would describe himself as a moderate.
He still took his oath of office using a Quran
and not the Bible, much to the disgust of
several lawmakers. But why should a Muslim
use the Bible for events like that - it would be
totally meaningless.
America, as so many other countries, has still
not really accepted that Islam exists - but it
does and is by all accounts the fastest growing
faith on the planet, so do yourselves a favour
and get used to it now, learn something about
it, and read the Quran with an open mind,
at least once, for one thing is certain:
Islam is here to stay!
And may Keith Ellison be the first of many!

Update 23.01.07:
A fellow Muslim, CrusaderWatcher, has
commented and having now read Ellison's
initial statements on Israel-Palestine I must
say I am deeply disappointed, and it again
proves the total Zionist stranglehold on
American politics. Wake up America.

Ahmadinejad in Latin America

2007-01-18T00:15:00.000+01:00

The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been on a tour of
Latin American countries with newly elected or
re-elected left-wing leaders, calling first on his
best friend in the region, Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela, then moving on to meet the new
president of Nicaragua, former Sandinista leader
and former president Daniel Ortega, later he
went on to Ecuador to watch the inauguration of
the new president there, Rafael Correa, and was
also to meet Bolivian president Evo morales.
Iran has also close and friendly relations with
Lula de Silva's Brazil.

Isn't it amazing??
In its blind, extremist, radical, ideological pursuit
of political Islam and natural resources in the
Islamic world, GW Bush's America has completely
ignored its own huge backyard and, for the
foreseeable future, the countries of Latin America,
with a few exceptions, are a lost cause for the
yanquis.
May it remain so for at least a generation!

That is a major geo-political change and a
South or Latin American version of the EU
is likely to emerge soon as a counterweight
or common defence against America -
seems like a sensible direction to go.

Saudi FMs advice for Iraq

2007-01-17T23:57:00.000+01:00

American FM Condi Rice has had a few busy days
running around the ME, trying to drum up support
for GWBs latest "plan" for Iraq, basically sending
around 20,000 more troops.
Predictably, the Gulf States plus Jordan and Egypt
have endorsed the "plan", their unrepresentative
and undemocratic governments little more than
the lackeys of the West.

Amongst other things, Saudi FM Prince Saud
al-Faisal told a news conference:
"The Iraqi government must stop the resistance,
bring everyone into the political process and
realise the hopes of the people" adding that Shia
militias must be disbanded and the U.S.-backed
constitution, seen as pro-Shia, revised.

Why not start at home? How about realising the
hopes of the Saudi people?
And why this paranoid fear of Shias?
Could it be because Saudi has about 20% Shias?

Roll on free and fair elections in all Arab countries,
and the West would get the democracy it claims it
so desperately and nobly seeks.
There would be Islamists in power from Morocco
to Saudi Arabia - bring back the Caliphate!

At the same news conference Condi Rice said:
"We have the same goal, which is an Iraq unified
with its integrity and territory intact which
doesn't face outside interference".
How obscene can you get?
America is by all accounts building 14 permanent,
sorry "enduring", bases in Iraq - will they all be
handed over to Iraq when US troops leave?
There was no outside interference before the
illegal invasion in 2003, the tragic bloody mess
that Iraq is today is wholly and entirely the fault
of America and the neo-Cons and their perverse
fantasies of re-engineering the world to suit only
the insatiable greed of Western Corporate
Totalitarianism.
America really is the Great Satan,
as Khomeini so astutely observed.

Mahmoud Abbas increasingly irrelevant

2007-01-17T23:52:00.000+01:00

Sadly, but not unexpected, the Palestinian
president Mahmoud Abbas has made himself
increasingly irrelevant and almost ridiculous,
most recently by going to Jerusalem to receive
the "kiss-of-death" directly from Olmert himself,
returning with vague promises of $100 million
of the Palestinians' own money, illegally withheld
for months (there is $600 million more), if Abbas
could specify what it would be spent on, vague
promises of a prisoner release, reneged on a few
days later, and very vague promises of possibly
starting negotiations soon.
Although Israel claims to support Abbas, most of
its actions undermine him: only days after his
visit, Israel announced its decision to build a
new settlement in the Jordan Valley.
Nice friends to have!
Then Israel OKed a weapons-deal for Fatah
with Egypt. More humiliation for Abbas!

Now America has promised around 85 mill dollars
to equip and train Fatah security forces but of
course the price will be more compliance from
Abbas, the expectation that he will agree to
almost anything.

Last month, Israel proposed setting up a
provisional Palestinian state, with a border
based on the illegal separation barrier Israel
is building in the West Bank.
The only sensible thing Abbas has said recently
was to rule out that he would even consider a
"provisional" Palestinian state in "temporary"
borders. No doubt, if accepted, it would become
quasi-permanent, allowing Israel to beaver
away behind their barrier, creating more illegal
"facts on the ground" whilst preparing how best
to engineer the next crisis which would, as ever,
allow Israel to seize still more land.
Israel is only serious about two things -
more land and fewer Palestinians.

And now Abbas has been promised a real effort
by Condi Rice to revive the so-called peace
process, long dead of course. Ha Ha Ha!
America's sudden love for Abbas has nothing to
do with wanting a Palestinian state but everything
to do with ignoring, curtailing, containing, the
legitimate government of the Palestinians, led by
Hamas. To talk only to the president and not to
the government is simply ridiculous and will lead
absolutely nowhere, which will suit both America
and its Zionist masters fine - Israel's greatest
fear is serious honest negotiations using
international law as their reference, so such
negotiations must be prevented at all costs and,
as always, between them America and Israel
will find a way to do just that.

In the meantime, the Palestinians wait and wait,
suffer and starve, and the world should be
thoroughly ashamed of itself, but isn't.

Abbas' biggest problem is that, just like America
and Israel, he has never truly accepted the
Hamas election victory almost a year ago but
Hamas did win, a clear absolute majority that
anyone claiming to believe in democracy should
welcome and be proud of and, as a matter of
course, be eager or at least willing to deal
with the resulting government.

The more Abbas cosies up to America, the more
he will look to the Palestinians like a traitor and
if he believes for one moment that America has
the best interests of his people at heart then he
is gravely mistaken. In terms of foreign policy,
America exists only for Zionism.

Bush and "Signing Statements"

2007-01-17T00:12:00.000+01:00

Whilst there is nothing wrong in principle with
the practice of the American president adding
"signing statements" (an addendum where he
normally queries the constitutionality of certain
sections) when signing new legislation into law,
the way they have been used by the 43rd
president, GW Bush, frequently in order to
actually modify the meaning of laws already
crafted, agreed and passed by Congress, and
frequently to assist the relentless neo-Con pursuit
of that laughable and failed project, the "War on
Terror" (or WOT?), is now worrying lawmakers
in Washington, and the sheer number of times
he has used them is simply staggering, more
than 700, and whilst that number itself may be
meaningless, you realise what is going on in the
Bush White House when you hear that this is
more than ALL previous presidents combined!

Far from being the straight and honest guy
he posed as before "elected" first time, and
vowing to restore the honour to the White House
(which Bill Clinton had dragged through the mud
or rather the sleaze), Bush has turned out to be
devious and dishonest, to the degree that you
can more or less safely assume that he thinks
and means the exact opposite of what he is
saying, but of course that is not restricted to just
him - many, quite likely most, Western politicians
are soon re-engineered to play the game when
they enter politics, maybe young and idealistic.

But wait a minute:
Bush claims to be a born-again Christian - should
his faith not prevent him from this kind of at best
questionable and at worst despicable behaviour?

GW Bush: "We are going forward"

2007-01-17T00:09:00.000+01:00

The latest hallucinations from this deranged
president is that at least 20,000 additional
troops are needed in Iraq and he is clearly
determined to go ahead no matter how loud
the objections from the new Congress.

Aside from the obvious fact that what Iraq needs,
and needs desperately, is fewer US troops, not
more, and also aside from the welcome and
hilarious fact that the US armed forces are now
stretched very thin thanks to the mis-adventures
of this administration, - his pig-headed obstinacy
raises serious questions about his attitudes and
personal commitment to democracy:

The results of the mid-term elections were a loud
and clear call that American voters wanted a new
direction, not only in Iraq but generally and, if
this man truly believes in democracy, he must
accept the results and heed that call -
if he doesn't, then holding elections is reduced to
more or less a sham, a farce, a show to keep the
population pacified whilst the real government,
the one behind the scenes, carries on with its
evil work as if no elections had taken place.
GWB has already shown that, whilst maybe not
actually deaf, he is certainly very hard of hearing.
Good Americans, shout louder!!
Remind your CEO and CIC that he is now
a lame duck and must act like one.

Instead he is still fantasising about "victory" in
Iraq and Afghanistan and against al-Qaida etc.
What a fool, what an idiot, what a sick man!

A couple of days ago he said:
"If we do not succeed in Iraq, we will leave
behind a Middle East which will endanger
America" whereas any rational person can see
that the longer the Americans stay in Iraq and
elsewhere, the more the general hatred of
America will grow, and richly deserved.
And of course, America will remain hated in the
Middle East and the entire Muslim world until it
ends its automatic support for and protection of
Israel, which is in complete contradiction of the
US national interest anyway.

Asked if he owes the Iraqi people an apology for
botching the management of the war, he said:
"Not at all. We liberated that country from a
tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American
people a huge debt of gratitude".
Well, that is certainly one way to look at it!
Try to sell that to those tens of thousands of
Iraqis who have had loved ones or relatives
killed, maimed for life or gone missing as a
direct result of the illegal invasion and
occupation of Iraq which GWB and the
neo-Cons so desperately wanted at any cost.
Well, you got it, you evil monster and
war-criminal!
The tragic bloody mess that is now Iraq was
entirely predictable and where it will end nobody
knows, least of all GWB and his butchers.

Announcing his decision to send 20,000 more
troops to Iraq, GWB said: "We are going forward".
Don't forget a body bag for every one of them!

PS An explosion outside a Baghdad university
as students were heading home killed at least
65 people on Tuesday in the worst of several
attacks on mainly Shia areas.
The attacks, and the announcement of four US
military deaths, came on the same day the
UN said more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died
last year in sectarian violence.

I hope all Americans who support this war are
thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

I don't like Condi Rice

2007-01-17T00:05:00.000+01:00

Whilst realising that there are more pressing
matters to write about, I must say this:
As for the current American Secretary of State,
formerly National Security Adviser, Condoleezza
Rice, whenever she speaks, it is difficult, very
difficult, to believe that she is a professor of
political science from Stanford University.

Whatever she says, it is either worn-out,
self-evident, pompous pious platitudes or it is
such obvious and outrageous lies that you want
to scream!
How people like that can live with themselves
is a mystery, but obviously they can, and are
probably proud of what they are doing too!

As an aside, did you know that her first name,
Condoleezza, is a proper musical expression,
is Italian, and means that the indicated section
is to be played "with sweetness", and we are
told her mother knew very well what it meant
when she selected it.
We are entitled to ask: So what went wrong???

She is apparently an accomplished pianist:
Keep your bloody fingers off Beethoven,
he is too good for you!
Leave Beethoven for the Pope!

Somalia sliding back where it was...

2007-01-17T00:01:00.000+01:00

SOMALIA is on the slide back to where it was.
Having had no proper central government for
15 years or so, and having been "ruled" by the
various warlords who are operating along clan
loyalties, and with a totally non-representative
internationally-backed transitional government
wielding neither influence nor power holed up in
the provincial town Baidoa, it must have been a
relief to most in Somalia to see the emergence
of the Union of Islamic Courts, which, with their
strict interpretation of Islam, finally brought
some law and order, stability and security to the
parts of Somalia which they controlled -
sadly using the past tense here as the Ethiopian
army, helping its friends in Baidoa, and backed
by the West, has dislodged the UIC and driven
them from power. Predictably, the warlords have
moved straight back in, and almost certainly will
return the situation to the utter chaos it was.

Ethiopia's invasion of its neighbour Somalia is
of course totally illegal and a flagrant breach of
various treaties and conventions, just like the
invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq
by the Great Satan and Co - and not a squeak
from the international community. As usual the
UN SC could not agree on anything substantial,
so, just as in the case last Summer of Israel's
grotesquely savage destruction of Lebanon and
its friendly people, giving the time to Ethiopia
to remove the UIC and for the US to, again
totally illegally, send aircraft in to shoot and
bomb "suspected al-Qaida hideouts" on the
Kenyan border, in one attack locals insisted
that 31 civilians had been killed by US fire.

Isn't it amazing, the Ethiopian government
which until very recently was being criticised
and harassed by the West about flawed elections,
brutal suppression of protests, and threatened
with the prospects of aid being withheld failing
improvements, suddenly everything is OK and
nothing is a problem. Why? Simple:
Because the rising power in Somaia was Islamist.

Here, yet again, we see the long bloody fingers
of the Great Satan: Any situation is OK and to be
preferred, from lackeys and stooges, posing as
democratically elected representatives, to brutal
dictators, made-to-measure and installed if not
readily available, to absolute chaos, mayhem
and anarchy, anything goes, absolutely anything,
so long as it is not political Islam.
Is it not clear to all by now?

Political Islam, if the democratic choice of the
majority of the people, has every right not only
to exist but to prosper which, if left alone, it no
doubt would and THAT is the nightmare-fear of
the West, and it is easy to see why:

Compare the elected pathetic compulsive liars
of America, Britain, Israel etc, who only serve
themselves and vested interests, with the god-
fearing, clean-living, straight-dealing leaders of
Hamas, Hizbollah etc.
Which would you rather have?

The time for the Islamic world to unite is long
overdue - bring back the Caliphate!

Free Speech and "those cartoons"

2007-01-16T20:33:00.000+01:00

(first posted early 2006)

1.
The refusal of the Danish PM Anders Fogh
Rasmussen to publicly distance Denmark from
those dreadful drawings of Muhammad (pbuh)
published last September by the biggest daily
newspaper JyllandsPosten is intriguing:
Just imagine if those drawings had ridiculed the
Jews in general, made fun of the Nazi death
camps or exposed Israel's continued illegal and
barbaric occupation of Palestine - then the PM,
prodded by Jewish organisations everywhere,
would have wasted no time in denouncing those
drawings, the artist and the paper which
published them.
But it was only Muhammad (pbuh) and Islam,
so who cares?

Well, there are about 1.4 billion Muslims
worldwide which means that about 1 in
every 5 of us humans is a Muslim.
If democracy matters, which we are told it
does, and if democracy has anything to do with
numbers, which surely must be the case,
then the Jews have an influence in grotesque
disproportion to their tiny numbers: as far as I
can find out, approx 14 million worldwide,
which means that the Jews currently represent
a shrinking 0,22% of a total world population
of 6.4 billion.
For comparison, there are approx 1.6 billion
Christians of all denominations so, overall,
there are just over 100 Christians and almost
100 Muslims for every Jew in this world.
Just thought that might interest you.

2.
The Danish PM kept repeating like a parrot
that in Denmark we have freedom of speech
and a free press and there was nothing he or
the government could do in the matter.

That is not true:
Yes, we do have freedom of speech and that
is very nice to have. It is also a luxury which
we should neither take for granted nor use
frivolously as clearly was the case here.
But even in liberal permissive little Denmark
there are still blasphemy laws which, like all
other laws, should either be enforced or
scrapped.
And, stating the obvious but frequently ignored,
freedom without responsibility leads to anarchy.

He could also, and now probably wishes he had,
have used his own personal freedom of speech
to publicly distance himself from the sad affair.

Must share these jokes with you

2007-01-13T23:49:00.007+01:00

An Israeli recently arrived
at London's Heathrow airport.

As he fills out a form,
the immigration officer asks him:

"Occupation?"

The Israeli promptly replies:

"No Sir, just visiting!"

=========================

Q:
What is the Zionist national dish?

A:
Occu-pie

Q:
And what do they drink with it?

A:
He-brew

=========================

How to Waste 500 BILLION Dollars

2007-01-10T23:44:00.000+01:00

The Bush administration has now spent around
half a trillion or 500 billion dollars on its so-called
War on Terror (or WOT? for short), around 300
billion alone on the disastrous war in Iraq.

There are now 300 million Americans, and the
simple maths are unbelievable but true:

It means that this insane administration has
by now spent around 1,000 dollars for every
single American on the war in Iraq and approx
1,700 in its wider WOT? - and Bush wants to
keep spending more but hopefully the new
Congress will not let him!

Think about it:
1,700 dollars for each American -
and WASTED!!!

Wasted because America and Americans now
undoubtedly have many more enemies worldwide
and therefore a lot less security.
Hallelujah, what an American success story!!!

NOTE:
Updated in response to a comment by a reader
who pointed out that my original maths were
seriously wrong. He was right, so herewith an
update with apologies.

Revert or Convert??

2007-01-10T18:48:00.000+01:00

Al-hamdu-lillah, having been attracted gradually
to Islam over the last few years, I recently
embraced Islam officially by becoming a Muslim.

Now, do I call myself a Revert or a Convert??
Good question!

More and more the term revert is used and the
logic is that Islam is the natural religion for any
person to have as any baby is by definition pure
and innocent and "born upon the fitrah" so, in
effect, we are all born as Muslims although many
"opt out" by embracing other belief systems, or
are forcibly "opted out" by parents who follow
another religion, and some grow up to become
declared atheists.
By this definition, anyone choosing in later life to
consciously adopt Islam should be called a revert
because that person, whether aware of it or not,
has been there before and is returning home,
so to speak.

A convert, on the other hand, is someone who
chooses to adopt a belief system which he or
she has never had before, for example a non-
Christian deciding to become a Christian, and
therefore converts from whatever that person
was before and to Christianity.

All well and good, but it is confusing for most
people, especially non-Muslims, to understand
how someone who has only now technically
become a Muslim can be referred to as a revert,
for the simple reason that it implies going back
to something they do not know you ever were,
or could have been, as a baby exercises no
freedom of action in such matters.

Everyday English is full of words starting with re
which all imply going back, either to a former
state or to a former point -
return, retrieve, revolve, resume, rearrange
reappear, reconsider reaction etc,
I am sure you get my drift, as they say.

So what to do?
Well, for the time being, in order to minimise
confusion for non-Muslims that I come into
contact with (and this is a kind of dawah if you
look at it the right way!), I shall therefore refer
to myself as a convert to Islam, and I hope that
all my Brothers and Sisters in the deen will
forgive me!

And, by the way, should anyone ask me:
Are you a Sunni or a Shia?
I shall answer: >>> I am a Muslim!

Nuclear Head Rolls in US

2007-01-08T23:21:00.000+01:00

The head of America's National Nuclear Security
Administration, Linton Brooks, has been fired
because of repeated lapses of security at some
of the nation's most important and extensive
installations, such as the Los Alamos facility in
New Mexico, ranging from theft of computer
files containing personal data of employees,
failing to report this to his bosses for 8 months,
classified documents were found at the home of
a female employee with top-secret clearance
(during a drug raid!!), misplaced and/or lost
computer discs containing classified information,
alleged misuse of credit cards, etc.
This is particularly disturbing when we hear that
the agency has a total of 37,000 employess,
most of them contractors.

It would appear that the IAEA should focus on
America, which in turn should stop persecuting
Iran - same rules for everybody!

Tali Fahima Freed Early

2007-01-08T23:18:00.000+01:00

Tali Fahima, the first Israeli imprisoned for
"collaboration with the enemy", and sentenced
to 3 years in late 2005 for aiding the Palestinian
resistance, has been freed nearly a year early,
released for good conduct, but with restrictions:
banned from leaving the country, contacting
foreign agents, entering the West Bank.
In order to avoid the charge of treason
(=probable life sentence), she pleaded
guilty to lesser charges.

She befriended Palestinian resistance leader
Zakaria Zubeidi, who has "most wanted" status
in Israel, and visited him regularly at his house
in Jenin in the West Bank, often acting as his
human shield to protect him from assassination
by Israel.

In the past, Fahima once called the Israeli
security service Shin Bet a "terror organisation".

And speaking to supporters at her release, she
said: "I don't regret anything, and I will continue
to work against the occupation and for peace".

Tali Fahima, thank you so much for showing us
all that there are decent right-thinking Israelis
who can clearly see what must be done and have
the courage to start doing it.
Keep up the good work - you are a heroine!

The Face of Osama bin Laden

2007-01-02T23:07:00.000+01:00

Look carefully at this face, especially the eyes,
and ask yourself 3 questions:

- Is this the face of a madman?
- Is this the face of a moron?
- Is this the face of a barbarian?

Surely any rational person will answer:
No - No - No.

So what is the matter with the West???

Counterfeit Brand Goods

2007-01-01T23:07:00.000+01:00

(First wrote this note in September 2004)

On the Chinese campaign against counterfeited
Western luxury brand goods:

If you truly cannot tell the difference between
the fake and the genuine article, does it really
matter that you buy fakes?
Rather than being a problem, it seems to me to
be a clear demonstration of how ludicrous and
superficial the whole culture of fashion is:
Modern people, and not just in the West, happily
paying exorbitant prices in order to be able to
parade themselves, like unpaid models, proudly
advertising the goods of the companies that just
robbed them!

Go buy a copy for a fraction of the price, be chic
and smart and maybe, over time, even put the
real brands out of business!

2006 REVIEW

2007-01-01T22:58:00.000+01:00

MIDDLE EAST:

ISRAEL-PALESTINE-LEBANON:
The year started in a very promising fashion:
That evil man and well-known war-criminal Ariel Sharon
was struck down and finally silenced by a massive stroke
in early January. Excellent news!

Three weeks later, Hamas won a convincing and impressive
victory in elections judged to be free and fair in Palestine.
More excellent news!
Elections which the collective West had been exhorting
them to hold for some time and to which the brutal Israeli
occupiers eventually reluctantly agreed -even in Jerusalem-
so the Palestinians voted, but instead of congratulating
them on a job well done and rewarding them, the West did
not like the results and promptly denounced the winners as
terrorists, made ridiculous demands that no self-respecting
Palestinian would ever accept and when Hamas, personified
by that fine and principled man PM Ismail Haniya,
steadfastly refused to bend, the West added a financial
boycott and political isolation to that long-suffering
occupied people.
Who can blame the Palestinians if they loathe, despise
and hate the West!

Weeks later, the elections in Israel produced the exact
opposite of those in Palestine, a vague and indecisive
result but some semblance of a coalition was cobbled
together, led by Sharon's new party under Ehud Olmert,
the former Mayor of Jerusalem, who wasted no time in
showing the world that he is a worthy successor to the
Butcher of Sabra and Shatila.

Olmert soon flew to Washington and every word that he
uttered was enthusiastically applauded, in particular when,
in a speech to the joint Houses, he talked of the Jews and
"our historic rights to our land", everyone, VP Cheney
included, leapt to their feet clapping madly.
In their joint press-conference, Olmert and that other
well-known mass-murderer and war-criminal GW Bush
both referred to Israel, possibly for the first time in public,
as the Jewish State of Israel - was this to prepare world
opinion for further expansion of existing apartheid laws
and ethnic cleansing operations?
Bush called Olmert's plans for the West Bank "bold"
although those plans are of course totally illegal, as they
entail Israel keeping all their large settlements, plus the
Jordan Valley "for security reasons".
Wonderful term isn't it, just quote "security" and you
can do whatever you want, although that doesn't make
what you are doing or intend to do legal.

*

Later in the year, in June-July-August, Israel, as so often
before, showed its true face, that of brutal arrogance and
complete disregard for human life and international law,
when, void of all compassion and decency, in a
continuation of the state-terrorism which the Zionists
have indisputably embraced from the start of the
Jewish State,

(well, from before the start actually, as was demonstrated in
July when right-wingers, among them former PM Benjamin
Netanyahu, openly and proudly celebrated the 60th
anniversary of the pure act of terrorism that left the British
HQ in Palestine, the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in ruins
and 92 people dead, blown up by the terror-group the Irgun,
headed by Menachem Begin, who later became Israeli PM,
another man wanted by the British intelligence services for
terrorism was Yitzak Shamir, who also later became PM,
nice people these founding fathers of the Jewish State of
Israel! Sorry about the digression but it was relevant.....)

it seized the opportunity provided by elements of Hamas
& Co in Gaza and by Hizbollah in Lebanon when those
groups grabbed 1 Israeli soldier from Gaza and 2 from
south Lebanon. Note that these were soldiers and as such
legitimate targets of any resistance. Currently, there are
about 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, about 300
women and 150 minors.
Are they all "dangerous enemy combatants?!!?

Any sensible government guided by reason would negotiate
the release of a small number of its people, and indeed
Israel has done this many times in the past, but this time
Israel invaded Gaza and Lebanon in an orgy of violence
and destruction, leading all rational observers to conclude
that this had been planned long in advance between Israel
and Washington, in an effort to bring about the longed-for
dream of the neo-Cons, "the New Middle East", by once
and for all crushing resistance in Gaza and more
importantly Lebanon.

The dream quickly turned sour and soon to nightmare, not
only for the residents of Gaza and Lebanon, who were
systematically bombed to bits, infrastructure the length and
breadth of Lebanon and Gaza, civilians fleeing in panic, old
people left behind, civilians hiding in buildings (Qana II),
emergency and rescue vehicles and their personnel, even
a UN post and 4 observers, all were savagely blown away,
whilst that loathsome pair GW Bush and Tony Blair did all
they could to delay an immediate ceasefire in that
discredited forum, the UN Security Council, so as to give
their Zionist masters time to "complete the job".

The dream of smashing Hizbollah and Hamas turned out
be collective Zionist and neo-Con hallucinations:

To the north, the unstoppable Israeli army, the pride of the
Jewish Nation, using the latest American equipment, spent
more time carrying back their dead and wounded than
going forward, and in the end was fought to a standstill in
the hills of south Lebanon, and chose to go home (and
without their 2 captured comrades!), whilst Israeli
warplanes were busy virtually carpeting the south with
presents ("From Israel with Hate") in the form of
unexploded cluster bombs during the last 72 hours of the
conflict at a time when both sides knew a ceasefire was
imminent, this was called "completely immoral" by the
UNs Jan Egeland, surely one of the best sound-bites of
the year --- and the reason for the Israeli defeat, for there
is no other way to describe it? Hizbollah's heroic resistance
fighters. I salute every one of them and in particular
Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Were I Lebanese, I would vote for you!

Far from being crushed or seriously weakened, Hizbollah
emerged more popular than ever, leading to its demands
for more power in the coalition, when that was rejected,
they withdrew their cabinet ministers which effectively
paralysed the "government", and at year-end many of their
supporters were still camped outside the residence of PM
Fouad Siniora, demanding a government of national unity.

And to the south, at year-end, despite Israel's wanton
destruction and collective punishment, and despite deadly
internal strife between Fatah and Hamas, no doubt partially
as a result of hunger and the hopeless overall situation and
no doubt partially stoked from the outside (guess who!),
and despite their offices having been bombed, many of
their elected representatives arrested and taken away, and
a near-successful assassination attempt on the PM - the
Israeli soldier remains in captivity and Haniya and Hamas
remain unbowed.
Were I Palestinian, I would vote for you!

*

In Israel, recriminations and intense soul-searching gripped
the nation and there can be no doubt that the misadventure
in Lebanon will have a lasting effect on the national psyche,
and richly deserved. May it put a damper on their regional
aspirations and reduce their stupefying arrogance!!

To add to Israeli woes, their distinguished and immaculate
president Moshe Katsav was accused of multiple rapes and
other sexual misdemeanors against female employees, the
justice minister resigned over sexual harassment charges,
and the PM Ehud Olmert was in trouble over a property
deal in Jerusalem.
What a glaring contrast to the God-fearing clean-living
straight-dealing people of Hamas and Hizbollah!!

*

Sadly, but not unexpected, the Palestinian president
Mahmoud Abbas has made himself increasingly irrelevant
and almost ridiculous, most recently by going to illegally
occupied Jerusalem to receive the "kiss-of-death" directly
from Olmert himself, returning with vague promises of $100
million of the Palestinians' own money, illegally withheld for
months (there is $600 million more), if Abbas could specify
what it would be spent on, vague promises of a prisoner
release, reneged on a few days later, and very vague
promises of possibly starting negotiations soon.
Although Israel claims to support Mahmoud Abbas, most of
its actions undermine him: only days after his visit, Israel
announced its decision to build a new settlement in the
Jordan Valley. Nice friends to have!
Then Israel OKed a weapons-deal for Fatah with Egypt.
More humiliation for Abbas!
Israel is only serious about two things -
more land and fewer Palestinians.

*

At year-end, the European Investment Bank approved loans
of 275m Euros to Israel, whilst the EU is doing what it can to
starve the Palestinians into submission -
see European Union below.

*

At the height of Israel's barbaric onslaught on Lebanon,
various nations put on a distasteful scramble to evacuate
their own citizens, which can only have encouraged Israel
further, taking that to be another green light to destroy
anything and anyone left behind.
Lebanon should ban all those who chose to leave from ever
returning - no nation needs those who only want the good
times.

*

After Israel's even by its own standards extraordinary
Summer-display of pure evil, one would have thought that
all nations, except for America and Britain of course, would
have shunned Israel for a considerable time and treated its
leaders as untouchables, or at least communicated with the
Zionist state out of the public eye, but no, such reasonable
expectations of decency were soon dashed.

Later in the year, PM Olmert went on official trips to Europe
(Italy, the Vatican, Germany, others?) as if nothing had
happened, and was courteously received wherever he went,
leaders of supposedly decent nations warmly shaking
hands with that..... that.....
(still searching for the right word).

And the very same people refuse to meet with, talk to, or
even consider talking to, the fine and principled men who
make up the leadership of Hamas and Hizbollah.
That tells the Islamic world just about all it needs to know
about the collective West!

*

Immediately after the ceasefire, Tony Blair went to the ME,
incredibly visiting Beirut without being lynched, and the
same in Ramallah. What did he hope to achieve, having
had so much direct personal responsibility for the death
and destruction during the previous weeks?
Why was he allowed in? Amazing! Fouad Siniora and
Mahmoud Abbas, had they had any self-respect, or any
respect for their brutalised populations, would have told
that war-criminal to stay away, but no, he came, spoke his
usual obscenities, and found time to visit the parents of the
captured Israeli soldier, promising to do what he could.

Did it even cross his mind to visit Huda, the poor Gaza-girl
who had all other members of her family blown away in an
instant by a shell from an Israeli patrol boat whilst having
an innocent afternoon on the beach?
Did it even cross his mind to visit, or make serious enquiries
about, the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel?

*

Condoleezza Rice also visited of course, and typically in
Lebanon she met with pro-Western PM Fouad Siniora
but not with pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, and she
went to the West Bank to meet President Mahmoud Abbas
(Fatah) but did not go to Gaza to meet PM Ismail Haniya
(Hamas) - again, it gives the Western game away.
If America, Britain etc had any serious intentions to try to
solve ANY issue in the ME, they would wholeheartedly and
unreservedly talk to ALL the legitimate parties to the various
conflicts, but of course they don't and we know why.

*

In a massive show of worldwide support for the Palestinians,
the UN General Assembly on 1 December voted
overwhelmingly, up to 82% in favour, on various resolutions
condemning Israel, confirming that the occupation and
settlements, and the annexation of Jerusalem, are all illegal
and therefore null and void under international law, and
reaffirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinians.

If democratic majority decisions mean anything in this
world, and we are asked to believe they do, in particular by
the war-criminals in Washington, London, Tel-Aviv and
quite a few other places - then the civilised world, should
it still exist somewhere on this planet, must act on these
decisions AND ACT NOW!
Free Palestine!
Long live Hamas!
Ismail Haniya for president!

*

Have you made use of my Petitions against Israel yet?
If not, please do it NOW by visiting

PETITIONS

Participation is free so there are no excuses!!

*

IRAQ:
The tragedy in Iraq continued unabated, since the bombing
of the Shia shrine in Samarra early in the year, getting
increasingly sectarian, and there are good reasons for
believing that foreign forces are at work stoking that
growing sectarian hatred, and it is not Iran, as repeatedly
claimed by America and Britain, but -yet again- Israel,
probably assisted by US and UK special, very special, forces.
The BBC revealed during the year that Israelis are assisting
Kurdish forces in the North, and only fools would rule
anything out.

America and Britain has numerous times accused Iran of
"meddling in Iraq" and of course Iran is involved in what is
going on in Iraq in many ways, probably all positive, for the
simple self-evident reason that Iran, as a direct neighbour,
has every reason and every right to be alarmed, to use its
influence and to be involved.
It is the regional outsiders, the neo-Crusaders, who have
absolutely no right, legal or moral or other, to impose their
perverse concepts of right and wrong on this part of the
world.

The overall verdict on the invasion and subsequent events
must surely be: abject dismal total failure.
Iraq and the Iraqis are undoubtedly worse off today than
under Saddam, brutal dictator that he was, and there is no
end and no hope in sight, currently an average of almost
100 are killed daily, for no real reason.

May all Shias, Sunnis and Kurds unite to drive the
occupiers out!

For the Americans, December has been the deadliest month
this year, with 112 (?) dead, and the official total US death
toll broke the 3,000 barrier just before the year ended.
Well done Iraqi insurgency, more power to you!!

Also, in other ways, too, Iraq is bleeding:

Apparently around 70% of the country's current significant
oil production is unaccounted for. How do you explain that?

And there is a massive exodus of educated people who have
the money and the contacts to flee, this combined with the
deliberate targeting by snipers of the very same educated
people, academics etc, reports estimate over 500 such
assassinations so far, will set Iraq back decades, and that is
obviously what somebody wants. Now, who can that be??

*

So, Saddam Hussein was executed on 30th December.
No tears from me, he was obviously an evil tyrant, but no
worse than many others created or supported eagerly by
the West, and it is amazing how quickly a good guy, worthy
of sipping tea with Donald Rumsfeld, can be turned into a
monster when he no longer serves the interests of the West.

His trial was undoubtedly not fair, as the US-installed
"government" was, for this trial only, able to pick and choose
laws or sections of laws from around the world more or less
as they pleased, in order to make sure of his conviction.
Also, the trial should not have taken place in Iraq itself so
long as it is under occupation. Maybe the Hague would
have been the proper place. Or maybe they should have
kept him in prison in Iraq until there is stability and law
and order, should that ever be achieved.

The timing of his execution, at the start of the Eid al-Adhaa
festival, and with 2,5 million Muslims performing the Hajj
(pilgrimage) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, seems crassly stupid
and grossly inept, and both the execution itself and the
timing will of course do absolutely nothing for reconciliation
in that country, if we can still refer to Iraq as one country.
In all probability, Iraq will break up into 3 parts, and that
may have been the evil plan all along, or at least "Plan B",
if Iraq refused to roll over and greet the invaders with
flowers and sweets.

As the Iranian Foreign Ministry immediately pointed out,
Saddam was executed for only one of his crimes, the
massacre of 148 Iraqis from the Shia village of Dujail in
1982, which means that the vast majority of his crimes
against humanity were not examined, presumably in order
to prevent scrutiny of US support for his regime. His case
was closed very quickly. If they had gone on to the case of
the Iran-Iraq and Kuwait wars, certainly his alliance with
America would have surfaced. So the Americans made
an effort to close his case with Dujail.

Also, because the current "government" is Shia-dominated
and in the Dujail-case the victims were Shias, this will make
it appear to all other Iraqis that it is sectarian revenge, as
Saddam of course was a Sunni, and that is a very bad
message to send out across the country! For that reason
alone, all the other cases against him should have been
brought to trial, yes, it would have taken several years,
but it would have been well worth it, for the cohesion
of Iraq.

Apparently, among Saddam's last words were:
"God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine
is Arab." If he truly meant the last 3 words, it shows that
he was not all evil and we should at least applaud him for
reminding us all that "Palestine is Arab".

*

By the way, do not dismantle the gallows yet, there are
many more equally deserving of that fate who should be
rounded up and lined up immediately:
Georgie, Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Tony, Sharon, Olmert to
name the most obvious, in terms of crimes against humanity
they are certainly the equal of Saddam, and collectively they
are no doubt guilty of more death and destruction, and I am
sure donors could be found for their one-way tickets to
Baghdad, or maybe they could all get free seats on one
of those "extraordinary rendition" flights.

*

Prediction for 2007:
Things will get much worse, will spiral out of control into
full civil war (isn't it already?), anarchy and chaos -
Thank you America (+Britain+Israel etc etc etc)!

*

IRAN:
Iran, persecuted on all fronts by the rabies-infested
Western wolves, kept up the defiant confrontational line
of rhetoric at every opportunity, President Ahmadinejad's
performance at the UN General Assembly was particularly
impressive.

Full marks to Nejad also for organising first the Holocaust
cartoon competition, which surely was a logical response
to those dreadful cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
published in Denmark last year and which led to mass
demonstrations and violence throughout the Muslim world
early this year, and then the symposium on the Holocaust
which, apart from general condemnation, also attracted
scholars and speakers from around the world, including
some orthodox Jews who, like so many of us, consider
Zionism to be an abomination, a most refreshing way to
handle a subject which, despite its claims to freedom of
speech, is taboo in the West, as proven by the sad fact
that in several EU member states you risk going to prison
for up to 3 years for seriously questioning the Holocaust.

*

Of course the main topic over the year was Iran's nuclear
programme, the UN Security Council finally in December
passing some weak sanctions at the insistence of the West,
and it would have been so nice if Russia or China had
simply vetoed the resolution, as America invariably does
for Israel.
That Iran has an inalienable right to pursue nuclear
technology is indisputable, so let Iran get on with it, it is a
member of the IAEA and the NPT, but for how much longer
is a good question: Iran could simply withdraw from the
NPT, there is a simple formal procedure for doing so, and
then what would the West do? Surely some inspections and
insight into what they are doing must be better than none
at all?? Aaahh, but you don't understand:
If Iran is pushed into withdrawing, the West may use the
lack of access as an excuse to press for further sanctions,
maybe under UN Chapter 7 which could eventually open
the way to using force.
But the Iranians are masterful and brilliant negotiators and
would surely outmanouver the shameless blood-thirsty
demagogues of the West and string it out at least until
America's Presidential elections in 2008!

Also, Iran is not Iraq: the country is 4 times and the
population 3 times bigger than Iraq, so would represent a
formidable challenge should anyone be stupid or arrogant
enough to attack.
As for a full-scale invasion, Iran has no need to worry:
America, for all its technology, cannot even control Iraq,
despite having had 140,000 troops there for several years,
and as for the their much-trumpeted "smart" weapons,
they are not much good when, as so often is the case,
they are operated by fools.
With the US and the UK hopelessly and helplessly bogged
down in Iraq, the troops are simply not available and
consequently invading Iran is just not a realistic proposal,
al-hamdu-lillah!

Airstrikes against its nuclear facilities, by either Israel or
America, are of course a possibility but most of them are
deep underground (the Iranians have not forgotten Osirak,
May 1981, but in case they had, Israel chose to remind the
world by celebrating the 25th anniversary of this blatant act
of state-terrorism, for which, as with all its other acts of pure
barbarism, Israel incredibly went unpunished), so difficult
to destroy or even disable, and Iran would certainly retaliate,
either against American targets in Iraq or against Israel.

That Iran is ready for any confrontation was demonstrated
several times this year, with massive military manouvres
being held on land and sea, and several new types of
missiles being test-fired.

Amazingly, Iran has so far not used the 2 arguments that
may be its best cards: tie negotiations over its own nuclear
programme to the nuclear WEAPONS programmes of Israel
and India, Israel helped to nuclear arms by the West
decades ago, and India rewarded by America this year for
having developed nuclear weapons on its own in defiance
of international opinion, including that of the US.
Yes, the West really is insane.
Maybe Iran is holding these 2 "trump" cards back for later??

Also, with both Turkey and Egypt, and further away also
Australia, revealing aspirations for nuclear power, Iran's
position looks more and more reasonable.

*

The president was weakened by the recent "mid-term"
elections as many moderates were elected across the
country and in particular in Tehran but he will be clever
enough to draw the right conclusions.

*

Iran has also pulled off a master-stroke this year: although
its much-publicised long-awaited Euros-only oil-exchange
did not quite materialise, after much hesitation, Iran has
changed many of its investments into Euros and will charge
many oil-customers in Euros. A brilliant start and it is hoped
that Venezuela and Russia may soon follow!!
Why should energy be priced in dollars worldwide?
Absolute nonsense, from which mainly America benefits.

*

Prediction for 2007:
No change, maybe an increase in rhetoric on all sides
but no action.

*

SYRIA:
Syria showed admirable restraint and great wisdom by
ignoring the very threatening noises Israel was making at
the beginning of the brutal onslaught on Lebanon. Zionist
accusations were flying, as were Israeli jets, some of which
during the first day or two repeatedly buzzed the seaside
home of President Assad in a clear violation of national
airspace and international law.

The Syrians also showed their great compassion and
generosity by taking in hundreds of thousands of Lebanese
fleeing the death and destruction.

*

Following this summer's events, we should also once
more ask the question: who killed Rafik al-Hariri??
Syria was accused from day one of course, but it never
made sense. More likely, those with most to gain from
implicating Syria did it - and who is that?
Israel and America of course!
Hariri's death led directly to enormous pressure on Syria to
pull its 15,000 troops out of the south of Lebanon, which it
duly did after a UN-SC resolution, leaving the way clear, the
evil planners in Israel and America thought, to first smash
Lebanon, pending any petty excuse, which came with
Hizbollah's snatching of the 2 soldiers, leaving the road clear
to the next target, Syria, thus surrounding and isolating Iran.
Simple, isn't it??

*

Elsewhere in the Middle East,
the same unrepresentative governments continued to
oppress their people, with the blessing of the West, which
cares nothing about democracy, freedom and human rights,
what the West is promoting around the world, and in
energy-rich Muslim countries in particular, is brutal
exploitation for its own insatiable greed, and it can be
summed up as Western Corporate Totalitarianism.

Late in the year, there was Tony Blair again in the ME,
telling everybody how vitally important it is that the "forces
of moderation" unite to "pin back the forces of extremism"
across the region and he explicitly called Iran "a major
strategic threat", whereas anyone who is not brain-dead
can see that it is Israel and its servants in the West which
pose, to use Israel's own description of Iran, "a clear and
present danger" to the whole region.

Over and over again, the West is making it clear to the
Islamic world that as far as it is concerned, the only good
Muslim, whether individual or nation, is a compliant one,
and that is a fatefully confrontational view:

There are currently around 1,3 billion Muslims in this world,
meaning that one in every 5, or 20%, of us humans is a
Muslim, indicators point to Islam being the fastest growing
faith on the planet, and that ultimate nightmare-fear of the
West, political Islam, is on the rise everywhere, either
simply because "now is the time", but more likely as a direct
logical healthy natural and above all very human reaction
to the West's incessant encroaching on the Muslim world,
that long slow march of Western Corporate Totalitarianism.

If the West is hell-bent on a deadly confrontation,
then it will undoubtedly get it for this simple reason:
Good Muslims only submit to their Creator!
The West has been warned and, should it still go ahead
as planned, don't blame Islam for the consequences.....

Roll on real democracy, genuine free and fair elections
in all Arab and Muslim countries!
If those elections were held tomorrow, once the votes were
counted, all those countries would have anti-Western and
stridently anti-American governments, and richly deserved
too. It cannot happen too soon!

*

AFGHANISTAN:
Following the illegal invasion in late 2001 based on a pack of
lies (did you know that Osama bin Laden is still not officially
wanted by the US for anything in connection with Sept 11?
Check the FBI website
http://www.fbi.gov
the poster on OBL was last updated in November 2001 and
makes no direct mention of it!), Afghanistan was supposed
to be the showcase of the "War on Terror" (the WOT? for
short), with "real" democratic elections, quotas for women
in parliament (in itself an affront to democracy!), "proper"
central government, and the "elimination" of the Taliban.
And what have we got? A bloody chaotic mess! Ha!
Another richly deserved dismal failure for the collective
West! The real losers are of course the Afghan people who
deserve much better but continue to live, like the Iraqis
and the Somalis, without security, jobs, utilities etc etc etc,
and worst of all, without any real hope of things improving
as long as the occupation continues.

If the West thinks that the Taliban will go away, it is again
sorely mistaken: the Taliban are Afghanis who have every
right to live in Afghanistan according to their traditions and
their understanding of their religion. The outsiders who
have no moral or legal right to be there are the occupying
powers, who are forcing their own perverse contemporary
norms on a proud and fiercely independent people, and it
was always doomed to failure, but the leaders of the West
are so far gone in their hallucinations of superiority to even
consider that they might conceivably be wrong. The sooner
the invaders and occupiers leave the better, for themselves
and for Afghanistan. So long as they remain, things will get
worse.
No people likes being occupied: ask the Palestinians,
they know about these matters!

This year the Taliban and their friends surprised (almost!)
everybody by coming back so strongly, and adopting the
insurgency tactics used so successfully in Iraq (human
bombers and car bombs and other IEDs, in particular
roadside bombs) they made a real impact and won grudging
respect from the Coalition of the Killing, which lost
surprisingly many soldiers, especially Britain and Canada.
As in Iraq, far too many civilians got caught out in the
middle, and we shall never know the exact number, and of
course some of those were killed by insurgency actions,
but it is equally clear that many were what the Coalition
so clinically calls "collateral damage", civilian deaths and
maimings as a result of botched operations, faulty
intelligence, cowardly over-reliance on airstrikes etc.
Not the way to win hearts and minds!!

*

According to reports, corruption, both official and unofficial,
is now as bad as in pre-Taliban days, as is the cultivation of
opium poppies and production of heroin, the only real
growth industry in the country. How sad, and what a terrible
indictment of the West and its motives, that both corruption
and heroin were well on the way to being eradicated by the
Taliban when it was itself brutally "eradicated" by the West.
May all the heroin be smuggled successfully out of
Afghanistan and end up on the streets of Western cities!

*

Prediction for 2007: starting in the spring, the insurgency
will get much stronger and gain wider popular support, and
the central "government" in Kabul will continue to be more
or less irrelevant, if anything it is part of the problem rather
than any solution.

*

PAKISTAN:
It is difficult to think of a more unnatural "ally" of the
US, yet there it is, with its unelected military ruler, sorry
President Musharraf (some would say "Bush-arraf",
or the "Bush and Mush" show) clamping down on
expressions of political Islam, banning various groups,
brutally supressing movements for autonomy or
independence in energy-rich Balochistan, test-firing
new missiles, grappling with the enormous task
of rebuilding the parts of Kashmir devastated by the
huge earthquake just over a year ago, having regular spats
with massive neighbour India, routinely being accused
by the Afghan "government" of aiding the insurgency,
somehow avoiding assassination attempts, continuing his
impossible high-wire balancing act, and running for
President in 2007 in elections which 2 former PMs,
Benazir Bhutto and Nawar Sharif, have vowed they will
return to Pakistan to contest - how much longer
can all this continue?

*

Prediction for 2007:
How much longer can all this continue?

*

INDIA:
The world's largest democracy (1,1 billion, meaning that
currently every 6th person on planet earth is an Indian
national) was rewarded by the world's most expensive
"democracy", America, (unless you can raise several
hundred million dollars for your presidential campaign,
forget it, and even if you clear that hurdle, you still first
have to say "Yes, I will and Yes, I do" to the Zionist lobby -
America a democracy? Ha!) in a nuclear deal which,
once again and this time surely so conclusively and
comprehensively proves to all the nauseating hypocrisy
of America, that no-one will ever take it seriously again:

America is to provide civilian nuclear expertise and
technology, and nuclear fuel to India, and in return??
India, which is a founding member of the IAEA but has
never signed the NPT, and which developed nuclear
weapons in the mid-nineties in defiance of world opinion,
including the US, will open up the 14 of its 22 nuclear
installations which it terms "civilian" to limited inspections
by the IAEA but the remaining 8, which it terms "military",
will remain off limits.
This means that India can redirect all its own nuclear fuel,
made from its own large uranium deposits, towards making
weapons, uninspected and therefore undetected, and rely
on the American fuel for energy generation.
Whilst it is generally known that most Americans are stupid,
some of us thought, or rather hoped, that there were limits,
but no!

As if to celebrate the deal's passage through the US
Congress, India immediately test-fired a new type of
nuclear-capable missile!

Of course, the hidden US agenda by helping India is
containment of China, the world's largest non-democracy
(1,3 billion, meaning that currently every 5th person on
planet earth is a Chinese national).

Wonderful news for non-proliferation! (That was a joke!).
What it means is that America is rewarding India for rogue
behaviour of the worst kind at the same time it is ranting
and raving about and directly threatening ("no option has
been ruled out") IAEA-member and NPT-signatory Iran for
pursuing its inalienable rights under those treaties to
nuclear technology, as Iran claims for energy and other
peaceful purposes only, and so far there is not a scrap
of evidence to the contrary.
This has nothing to do with nuclear matters but everything
to do with Islam, more specifically political Islam and quite
specifically The Islamic Republic of Iran.
Can you all see it now?
Do you agree that this is nauseating hypocrisy?
Thank you!
Tragically for the world, American foreign policy is, in about
equal measure, indefensible and untenable, outrageous
and ridiculous.

Remember GW Bush crowing to PM Manmohan Singh
earlier in the year: "One hundred million Muslims in India,
(get it right: there are approximately 150 million!) and not
ONE member of al-Qaida!".
Even should that have been a rare fact emanating from the
lips of GWB, they surely will be signing up now!

*

INDONESIA:
With parts still reeling from the devastating tsunami which
struck at the end of 2004, exactly 2 years ago, and new
natural disasters affecting the same and other parts during
the past year, Indonesia has been busy on many fronts.

Time was found to ban the local edition of Playboy-
magazine after demonstrations by Muslim groups.

Later in the year, the cleric Abu Bakr Bashir, imprisoned for
3 years for allegedly being the spiritual leader of Jemmah
Islamiyah, which he always denied, and therefore found
indirectly responsible in part at least for the 2002 Bali
bombings, was released after serving about half the
sentence, much to the disgust of Australia and America,
and towards the end of the year his conviction was quashed
altogether.

*

AUSTRALIA:
The government of PM John Howard continued to side so
obviously and laughably with America in its "War on Terror"
(the WOT? for short) that it, as one of only 7 nations, even
voted against the pro-Palestinian resolutions which were
passed overwhelmingly by the UN-GA on 1 December.
No nation which claims to be decent and compassionate
could possibly vote against those!

*

Australia, one of only 2 nations which have signed but so
far failed to ratify the Kyoto-protocol on CO2 emissions
(the other being "big dirty" America of course), at year-end
openly talked about reviving its nuclear power generation
programme, shelved many years ago, and if you like
nuclear power it suits Australia perfectly as it has huge
uranium deposits. Should be more good news for Iran!

*

EUROPE:

The EUROPEAN UNION:
Having had the proposed EU Constitution voted down
by France and the Netherlands in 2005, the EU was still
debating what to do next and there was nothing to
celebrate on that front.

*

Following the election victory of Hamas in occupied
Palestine in January, the EU decided, no doubt in close
consultation with America and Israel, that it did not really
like democracy after all and tried to solve the "problem" by
political isolation of the Hamas government, when that did
not work, a financial embargo was added.
This kind of behaviour is indisputably a kind of terrorism!!!

*

Introducing the Euro was surely one of the three
boldest projects yet by the EU
(the other two being the Single Market in 1992 and the
massive expansion eastwards in 2004, when 9 former
Communist countries, plus Malta, were admitted in one
go, adding more than 100 million people).
Now the Euro will be 5 years old on 1st January and
by all accounts (no pun intended!), it is going from
strength to strength. Long may it continue!
More power to the Euro! Happy Birthday!!

*

Talking of money, the European Investment Bank has
just approved loans of 275m Euros to Israel, whilst the
EU is doing what it can to starve the Palestinians into
submission (see above) - I used to be proud of it but it
is with great sadness that I now have to say I am
ashamed to be a citizen of the European Union.
What happened to the ideals of the founding fathers
of the noble European project?

*

The EU Parliament again proved its independence by
publishing a report about the intriguing subject of
"extraordinary rendition" by America but the
interesting aspects were that several EU member states
-Britain, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania among them-
were indicted by the report as having aided and abetted
such operations by allowing their territories to be used
for stop-overs and in some cases also secret detention
facilities. So far Poland appears to be the worst and
most obvious case but nothing is settled yet.

We can expect this unsavoury saga to continue in 2007
and there is reason to believe that the new Congress in
America, with both Houses now controlled by the
Democrats, may be more cooperative.
Something really stinks there.....

*

As the year rings out, Bulgaria and Romania join as full
members of the EU, bringing the number of member
states to 27, adding another 30 million people and
bringing the total number of EU citizens closer to that
magic figure of 500 million, 489 million actually.
For useful comparison, America officially broke into
300 million this year and Russia is losing people fast,
mainly due to emigration and vodka, current
population approx 144 million, down around
10 million in as many years.

Round those 3 figures off and keep them in mind:
EU...500 m --- USA...300 m --- Russia...150 m.

*

With Turkey and its accession negotiations, it is a very
different matter. It seems increasingly clear that the
EU is no longer sincere about the whole project
(assuming that was once the case), no doubt partly
due to direct pressure from a small number of EU
states, mainly Austria, France and Germany, and
partly due to the rampant Islamophobia now
gripping the West.

Using the Cyprus issue as the excuse whilst deviously
"moving the goalposts", the EU seems quite content to
let this drag on and on until the good Turks realise they
are not welcome and walk away from the negotiations.
That is no way to treat some of the friendliest people
on the planet.

Whether full membership is in Turkey's best long-term
interest is a very good question - it is already an
Associate Member and as such has many of the
benefits that full membership would bring.

*

DENMARK:
Little Denmark continued to make headlines for all the
wrong reasons when the cartoon-issue refused to go away,
leading eventually to angry and violent demonstrations
across the Muslim world, fully understandable and justified
in my view. Danish dairy exports to the Middle East
dropped, temporarily at least, by half and although the
products have since been reintroduced on the shelves,
there is no obligation to buy!!

Denmark, through its PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is
currently a staunch ally of America, and he wastes no
opportunity to be seen with his mate Georgie. Denmark is
sadly also a member of the Coalition of the Killing and has
about 500 troops in Iraq and about 350 in Afghanistan,
a handful have returned in bodybags, and at least one
bereaved father is suing the government for participating
in an illegal war, or two, for let it be clear that there is no
international law which permits attacking, invading and
occupying a sovereign nation which is not demonstrably
an imminent direct and serious threat to yourself.
It therefore follows that any government, or rather the
individuals within it, who authorize such actions are guilty
of war-crimes and crimes against humanity, and they
should be treated accordingly: instead of the red carpet
treatment wherever they appear, they should be seized,
put in handcuffs and flown straight to the Hague!!

*

In September, a "terror-plot" was allegedly uncovered in
Denmark's 3rd largest city Odense, unsurprisingly in the
immigrant, meaning Muslim, quarter, doors kicked in
during the night, whole families taken away, and 9 men
kept in custody, rumours of connections with "terror-cells"
and "radical Imams" in Germany, most, maybe all, have
since been released without charges.
Excuse me, what is going on here? Most Western nations
now suffer from this Zionist-inspired automatic suspicion
of any Muslim or anything Islamic.

*

For your information, out of a population of 5,3 million,
there are about 200,000 Muslims in Denmark.
Officially there is one more since 15 November 2006
when I finally made the Shahada, al-hamdu-lillah,
and I have the paper to prove it.

*

BRITAIN:
During the past year, PM Tony Blair regularly made himself
still more ridiculous and still less credible, should that be
possible, most of the time sounding and acting more like an
American vice president or a special envoy for the Jewish
State of Israel. Anyone taking the time to actually think over
and analyse his major public utterings must be shaking their
heads in disbelief.
Both he and his mates in America (and elsewhere!) are
obviously so deeply and inextricably entangled in the web of
fantastic lies they have woven over the years, that all they
can do is add to those lies, hoping against hope that nobody
will notice - if their decisions and actions did not have such
tragic consequences for the world, it would be great
entertainment!

More than once during the year, Tony Blair talked about
the danger of the "evil ideology of a small number of Islamic
extremists", whereas to any rational person surely the evil
ideology is that which invades and occupies sovereign
nations, which are no imminent threats, on packs of
obscene lies and then describes those illegal and barbaric
acts as both noble and necessary, in order that the civilised
world may survive.
Or his remark that it was "not a clash of civilisations but a
clash about civilisation". That is simply obscene!

This deliberate use of language is deeply disturbing and
very sinister, is utterly unhelpful if the aim were truly to
solve any of our world's pressing problems, and is of
course totally lamentable and unforgivable.

In view of the indisputably evil policies that the West
is pursuing, it is a case of accusing your opponents of
being and doing exactly what you are and do yourself,
but because "we" (count me out please!) are against
"them", and because "we" could under no circumstances
be "bad", "we" are assumed to be "good", in which case
our opponents must be "bad", and then repeat this kind
of Newspeak so often that the general population gets
conditioned into believing it.

Classic propaganda technique and both Hitler and Stalin
would be proud of these mass-deception schemes, quite
possibly the most extensive in recorded history.....

Quote: "The broad mass of a nation is more likely to fall
victim to a big lie than to a small one".
Now, who said that?

Readers of my long poem The AXIS of EVIL will already
know the answer, which is:............. Adolf Hitler
in 1925 in his book Mein Kampf ("My Struggle").

*

Former FM Jack Straw added to the already volatile
"Muslim wardrobe debate" when he said that women
should not wear the niqab (face veil).
Having relied to a large extent on the Muslim vote in his
own constituency over the years, here is hoping that next
time he will be voted out of office by the wearers of the
offending piece of cloth!

Incidentally Jack Straw, interviewed on Islam Channel TV,
said, and I quote: "If we want to do good in the world, we
must have a close relationship with America".
Excuse me Jack? Of course I understand the words but
I cannot get my head round those sentiments - it must be
absolutely clear to anybody who is neither blind nor deaf,
nor a fool, that the current America is doing little but pure
evil in the world - or am I missing something Jack??

*

New FM Margaret Beckett repeatedly stated Britain's
objection to America's Guantanamo Bay prison, saying it
should be closed, as did just about everybody else world-
wide, but she failed to point out that what Britain is doing
in its own prisons on British soil is no different, in terms of
disregard for international law concerning detainees etc.

*

July saw the 1st anniversary of 7/7, the London bombings,
and predictably all the "proper" things were said by all the
"proper" people.
Equally predictably, not a word was said about all the
inconsistencies and wide open questions left, most
worryingly the Labour government's refusal to hold an
official and public inquiry, on the feeble justification that it
would direct valuable resources away from preventing the
next terror attack on Britain.

If you wish to explore some of these issues,
click on the URL below

http://www.officialconfusion.com

and you will find it very interesting and informative!

*

Mysteriously, during Israel's grotesquely savage destruction
of Lebanon and its friendly people, Britain claimed to have
uncovered a sophisticated "terror-plot", the aim of which
was to blow up several transatlantic airliners with an
assortment of liquids, allegedly combining to form TATP.
Promptly, all planes were grounded and complicated and
time-consuming new "security-measures" were put in place
(among them, mothers travelling with babies requiring
feeding-bottles, had to test-drink the contents in front of
staff!), causing enormous inconvenience to passengers,
airlines and all staff. Most probably did not believe a word
of it, but it was swallowed, along with all the other lies and
slanders against Muslims.

*

Interior Minister John Reid visited a masjid (mosque) in
London's East End and advised Muslim parents to "look out
for suspicious behaviour in their children". Words fail me!!
Has he given, or is he going to give, the same advice to
Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, etc, not forgettting
atheist, parents? If not, he should keep his mouth shut!

*

GERMANY:
The "Grosse Koalition", or government of national unity,
of Angela Merkel did itself no favours on the inernational
stage this year:

Angela seems to have a personal love-affair with Georgie,
even walking hand-in-hand with the monster himself at
the G8-summit in Russia.

And at the height of Israel's grotesquely savage destruction
of Lebanon and its friendly people, Germany proudly
announced the sale to Israel of 3 diesel-powered
submarines capable of carrying nuclear missiles, the
German state (read: taxpayers) subsidising the cost by one
third, that is, one of the three was FREE and, worst of all,
Germany obtained no guarantees from Israel that they
would NOT carry nuclear missiles, at a stroke obliterating
Germany's long-sacred stated policy of strict non-
proliferation. Incredibly, besides some objections from
the Greens, it was passed by parliament!

*

Also, during the Lebanon-crisis, Germany announced
it had foiled a "terror-plot" (suitcases containing timing
devices wired to gas canisters, a shopping list in Arabic and
a couple of telephone numbers in Lebanon, left on trains)
allegedly involving Lebanese.
Ha ha ha! Do you really think we are all so stupid?
False-flag terrorism, real or imagined, is one of the major
growth industries in the Western world - may it pay the
price for its own arrogance and evil intentions!

*

Late in the year, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, on a visit to
Germany, whilst ranting and raving about Iran's nuclear
programme, let slip what the world has known for many
years: that Israel has nuclear weapons.
During the same interview, he said it was OK for America
to have nuclear weapons because, wait for this,
"America is a civilised nation" - Excuse me???
Apart from being demonstrably incorrect, the implication,
the unspoken message, was that Iran is NOT civilised,
which is an astounding accusation for Israel, of all nations,
to make!

*

Was the submarine deal yet another way for Germany,
60 years after Hitler, to still make reparations and wear
sackcloth-and-ashes for what Hitler did to the Jews?
I used to admire Germany, but no more!

*

ITALY:
Finally the end came for PM Berlusconi, but only just,
the election results were close. New (read: old) PM Romano
Prodi immediately confirmed that Italian troops would be
withdrawn from Iraq, a decision, surprisingly perhaps,
already taken earlier by Berlusconi.
Ominously, when Israeli PM Ehud Olmert visited Italy late
in the year, Prodi promised that his government would
support the Jewish nature of Israel, to which Olmert replied
that the assurance personally meant a lot to him.
It seems that nobody dares call Israel what it indisputably is:

By its very nature, the Jewish State of Israel is a state
based on racism, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, exclusivity,
the superiority of the Jews in a class system bordering on
apartheid, systematic legislation to marginalize its Arab
citizens (nearly 20% of the population).
Israel has also, indisputably, made state-terrorism
its chosen way of life.

*

RUSSIA:
President Vladimir Putin, surely the most robotic human
ever seen, is steadily and stealthily concentrating more and
more real power for himself in the Kremlin, the Duma is still
there of course but largely an irrelevant talking-shop.

From mysterious ways to re-nationalise Yukos, to equally
mysterious deaths of dissenters, the rolling back of
democratic reforms are there for all to see.

But I like Putin's dry sense of humour, you may not believe
it but, yes, he really does have one, herewith 2 examples
from this past year:
During the G8-summit in St.Petersburg, after one of GWBs
"lectures" on the beauties and benefits of democracy, Putin
asked innocently: "You mean, like they have in Iraq now?".
I hope that hurt!
At a later conference, off the record but it was still reported,
he offered his opinion that Israel's president Moshe Katsav
was "a mighty man and we are all jealous" (Katsav was of
course accused of multiple rapes and other sexual
harrassment of female employees). Yes, he did apologise
later, that is, to women and not to Kasav, acknowledging
that the joke had been "inappropriate".

*

Russia is of course the energy giant of Europe and Putin
knows it, using strong-arm tactics which are quite
unacceptable against any former USSR republic which
does not toe the line: Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus have all felt
what it is like to "negotiate" with Putin's energy bosses.

*

Targeted assassinations of journalists and others who dare
to investigate or speak out, are not uncommon, although it
is difficult to exactly pin the blame anywhere in particular.
However, the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko,
former KGB-man turned exposer of murky sinister plots, in
London late in the year, is mysterious and deeply worrying
and it does point to high places as such an operation
requires a level of sophistication and access simply not
available to even the most advanced crime syndicate.

*

In that almost forgotten (repressed?) European tragedy,
Chechnya, Russian troops are accused of widespread
and very serious human rights violations.

Late in the year, a European court ordered Russia to pay
277,000 Euros in compensation to relatives of a Chechen
family shot dead by Russian troops. Human rights groups
say they were innocent civilians executed by a paramilitary
police unit and the court found Russia guilty of violating
the European Convention on Human Rights.
It said five members of the Estamirov family, found shot
dead outside their home in the Chechen capital, Grozny,
in February 2000, at the height of the second Chechen
war, had been the victims of unlawful killing by the
Russian state. Amongst the dead were a baby and a heavily
pregnant woman. The court in Strasbourg, France, said
there had been delays in the investigation by the Russian
authorities, after six years it had failed to produce any
results and no-one had been charged.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, 60 civilians
were allegedly killed in the same part of Grozny on the
same day by the same Russian police unit.

The European court is due to consider another case
connected to this incident. An increasing number of cases
alleging gross human rights violations by Russian security
forces in Chechnya are being brought before the court in
Strasbourg - abundant proof that relatives of those killed
have no faith in the Russian justice system.

And proof also that the European justice system does work.
Does it have jurisdiction over Israel-Palestine, I wonder???

*

In many ways, it is fair to call the Chechens "Europe's
Palestinians" and Russia is behaving just like Israel, with
the same brutal arrogance and complete disregard for
human life and international law.
And Europe reacts with the same timidity towards both
Russia and Israel, forever afraid of upsetting its "special
friends". Russia is admittedly the European energy-giant
for the foreseeable future, so it makes sense to have at least
a working relationship with the Arctic Bear, but that cannot
mean abandoning the principles that the new Europe is
built on. We have no right to abandon the Chechens to the
whims of a merciless and increasingly undemocratic Russia.

*

The situation with Israel is or course much simpler,
or should be, as Israel has nothing to offer that cannot
easily be obtained elsewhere from civilised countries,
in fact Israel needs the EU and needs it badly as currently
almost half of Israel's total external trade is with the EU so,
if the EU had the political will, it could easily exert real
pressure that Israel would have to take very seriously.

For mysterious reasons, that political will is simply and
sadly not there. But if enough of us get together, that will
could be "encouraged" within the EU!

Have you made use of my Petitions against Israel yet?
If not, please do it NOW by visiting

http://myspeakx.blogspot.com/search/label/PETITIONS

Participation is free so there are no excuses!!

*

Elsewhere in EUROPE:
FRANCE experienced further riots in the run-down
immigrant-quarters of the big cities.

The NETHERLANDS, in a piece of unequalled crude
electioneering, banned the burqa (full veiled dress).
Of the nation's 1,6 million Muslims, an estimated 100
women actually wear it, so obviously a huge problem
and a real threat to national cohesion and security -
you understand what I mean?

AUSTRIA released British historian David Irving,
serving a 3-year prison sentence for casting doubt
on the extent of the Jewish Holocaust.
I say it that way because there have been many other
holocausts, and more than one is happening right now,
most notably and tragically that of the Zionists against the
Palestinians, but the Jews want us to believe that the one
against them is the only one ever, or at least the only one
which matters, both of which are of course nonsense.

The POPE disgraced himself with his, to put it politely,
ill-chosen quote-selection for his major philosophical
speech in Regensburg, Germany, in September, he later
went to Turkey as planned, despite serious misgivings
resulting from his PR-disaster, was generally well received
and even went to pray with the local Imam in that glorious
beautiful Camii Sultan Ahmet ("Blue Mosque"), which was
seen as a wonderful gesture of respect, reconciliation and
solidarity (however, he had his hands the wrong way round,
doesn't anybody tell them these things, or was it a subtle
provocation??).

Towards the end of the year he received Israeli PM Ehud
Olmert in the Vatican and apparently gave him an official
letter exonerating the Jews of any responsibility for the
death of Jesus.
So re-writing basic Christian history is quite OK but we
risk going to prison if we wish to revise the Holocaust??
Same old story: nauseating hypocrisy!!

Although I preferred his predecessor, JP2, I still respect
and admire this Pope but freely admit that I like him a lot
less after this past year, mainly because of that quote,
which he must have selected and used on purpose and
for a reason.
For a man of such razor-sharp intellect and vast learning to
do something so crassly insensitive and at such a perilous
time in Western-Islamic relations, raises serious questions
about his integrity as a human being.
With all the other demonising of all things Muslim and
Islamic taking place, sadly it seems that the Vatican is
part of that conspiracy.

*

Elsewhere in the WORLD:
In SOUTH AMERICA, elections in several countries
confirmed the general swing to the Left, the re-election
of Hugo Chavez in oil-rich Venezuela was good news for
anti-Americans everywhere, and in that context his
close alliance with Iran is important.
Lula da Silva was re-elected in BRAZIL.
In NICARAGUA former Sandinista-leader Daniel
Ortega, who ruled the country from 1979-90 and then
lost the next 3 elections, made a come-back and will
become president in January.
In MEXICO the 50/50 result in the presidential election
has split the nation and that is surely not over yet.

NORTH KOREA continued to press on with its hotly
disputed missile and nuclear programme and reportedly
tested some kind of device - or did it?
Experts may not yet have agreed on what actually took
place last Summer. But the mere fact that NK is, and
very openly, defiantly, provocatively pursuing this, and
so far more or less unpunished, is yet another proof of
America's real agenda elsewhere in the world:
Imagine the reaction if NK were an Islamic state!

In SUDAN the tragedy in Darfur continues and it is
one conflict where a solution seems difficult to see,
and if seen, it would have to be implemented which
might be even more difficult.
But the eyes of the West will remain on Sudan, and
also on neighbouring CHAD, not for humanitarian
reasons but because they both have OIL!

And SOMALIA is on the slide back to where it was.
Having had no proper central government for 15 years
or so, and having been "ruled" by the various warlords
who are operating along clan loyalties, and with a totally
non-representative internationally-backed transitional
government wielding neither influence nor power holed
up in the provincial town Baidoa, it must have been a
relief to most in Somalia to see the emergence of the
Union of Islamic Courts, which, with their strict
interpretation of Islam, finally brought some law and
order, stability and security to the parts of Somalia
which they controlled - sadly using the past tense here
as at year-end it seems inevitable that the Ethiopian
army, helping its friends in Baidoa, and backed by the
West, will dislodge the UIC and drive them from power.
If that happens, surely the warlords will move straight
back in, returning the situation to the utter chaos it was.

Is it a coincidence that Somalia is an Islamic country?
Here, yet again, we see the long bloody fingers of the
Great Satan: any situation is OK and to be preferred,
from lackeys and stooges, posing as democratically
elected representatives, to brutal dictators, made-
to-measure and installed if not readily available, to
absolute chaos, mayhem and anarchy, anything goes,
absolutely anything, so long as it is not political Islam.
Is it not clear to all by now?

*

AMERICA:
Until early November and the mid-term elections,
when the Democrats won control of both Houses,
it was business-as-usual for the
neo-Cons, neo-Colonialists, neo-Fascists, neo-Crusaders
in and around the White House:
The same nauseating drivel about America and its allies
making great sacrifices in a heroic effort, "the calling of
our generation", to save the world from radical-extremist-
brutal-Islamofascism.

As the year ran out, and the US death toll in Iraq reached
3,000, this was released by the White House:
"We will be fighting violent jihadists for the peace and
security of the civilised world for years to come. The brave
men and women of the US military are fighting extremists
in order to stop them from attacking on our soil again.
In the New Year, we will remain on the offensive against
the enemies of freedom, advance the security of our
country, and work toward a free and unified Iraq".

Selecting just one phrase from the above obscene
demagoguery: civilised world.
There the born-again Christian state-terrorist goes again!!
Study history you fool, if you can read:
The Islamic Empire, the Caliphate, the Khilafa-state, was
indisputably highly civilised and may well have been the
closest to perfection this world has yet seen.
Inshallah, may it soon return and you can experience
it for yourself!

There speaks the same man who, before first elected,
and remember: not elected properly that's for sure,
vowed to bring back the honour to the White House,
which Bill Clinton had dragged through the mud with
his sexual escapades!

If America ever recovers its standing in the world after
GWB and Co, it will take a generation or more -
and richly deserved, too!

Surely nobody believes one single word flowing from the
lips of this gang of consummate and compulsive liars!
The collective leadership of
WESTERN CORPORATE TOTALITARIANISM
always willing to do anything in order to satisfy
its insatiable greed!!

*

As for the Secretary of State, formerly National Security
Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, whenever she speaks, it is
difficult, very difficult, to believe that she is a professor
of political science from Stanford University.
Whatever she says, it is either worn-out, self-evident,
pompous pious platitudes or it is such obvious and
outrageous lies that you want to scream!
How people like that can live with themselves is a mystery,
but obviously they can, and are probably proud of what
they are doing too!

As an aside, did you know that her first name, Condoleezza,
is a proper musical expression, is Italian, and means that
the indicated section is to be played "with sweetness",
and we are told her mother knew very well what it meant
when she selected it.
We are entitled to ask: So what went wrong???

She is apparently an accomplished pianist: keep your
bloody fingers off Beethoven, he is too good for you!
Leave Beethoven for the Pope!

*

With the official US death toll from the brutal
mis-adventure in Iraq now totalling 3,000 (Hallelujah!)
and December now the deadliest month of this year,
at 112 (?) (Hallelujah!), and despite the "reality-check"
given this bunch of war-criminals by the electorate in early
November, GWB has still not personally admitted that the
whole thing has been a disaster, for Iraq and for America,
he is still hallucinating about achieving something, that
defeat is not an option, that "short-term" up to 30,000
more troops may be sent (if he can find them!),
that it is all worth-while in order to support the "young
democracy" which will be a model for others in the region
to follow (!!!), so that Iraq "will be able to defend itself"
(from America, one presumes and hopes!) and one which
"will be an ally in the War on Terror"
(no printable comments.....).

With such deranged and deluded persons in charge of
such a powerful nation, one wonders what is next and
fears for the planet.

What the rest of us have learnt, and a long time ago,
is that occupations NEVER work, whether in Palestine,
Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else, and even the militarily
most powerful and technically advanced nation in the world
CANNOT achieve its evil aims that way - al-hamdu-lillah!!

Listen to that great Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore:
"When ants grow wings, they perish".
Think about it.....

There are stark parallels between America's experiences
in Iraq and Israel's experiences in Lebanon last summer.
Intoxicated with the arrogance of power, and fooled by
their technical superiority, both these evil nations or, to be
fair to decent Americans and decent Israelis, these nations
led by small groups of evil people (so stop them, remove
them, you decent ones!) have, we hope, both realised the
hard bloody way that sheer military power has its own
limits of practical use, and despite the immense suffering
and destruction so needlessly caused, that, if the lesson
has truly been learnt, will be a good thing.
It is to be hoped that it just might be remembered
in high places, where decisions are made.

*

Those mid-term elections surely were the beginning
of the end for the whole neo-Con "Project for the New
American Century" - and the entire world will be a much
better and safer place for it!

As they say:
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck
and quacks like a duck, that is probably all because.....
because it is a duck - and the 43rd American president has
already, in between his habitual hallucinatory hollerings,
been heard quacking, because he is now, al-hamdu-lillah,
a lame-duck president until he leaves office in January 2009.

The first casualty of the election results was Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, although GWB insisted
only days before that he would stay!

Next to go was US Ambassador to the UN, that well-known
thug John Bolton, who was never properly appointed via
Congress but "smuggled in through the back door" and who
stood no chance of being accepted by the Democrats.
We eagerly await, who will be next??

*

For the ridiculous and scandalous Indian nuclear deal,
now safely through both Houses and signed by GWB,
see INDIA elsewhere in this article.

*

America went through the 5th anniversary of the
11 September attacks, and according to polls, more than
40% of Americans now believe that their own government
was at least complicit in the whole ghastly thing.

Try to imagine what that must feel like:
to accept, through rational examination of the facts
available, that the government that you once trusted
(well, up to a point at least), the government which
5 years ago you believed told you the truth about what had
happened, and which you believed had correctly blamed
"foreign Islamic terrorists", and which therefore invaded
2 sovereign Muslim nations, Afghanistan and Iraq, with
your blessing, in order to pursue these evil perpetrators
and in order to make the world safer for you and your
children, these noble undertakings having now cost your
country around half a trillion dollars (?), 3,000 dead and
many thousands more physically and mentally maimed
for life -
you now reluctantly realise that those same people who
told you all this for so long were at least partially to blame
and quite likely arranged the whole thing themselves
(with a little, or a lot of, help from their Zionist masters).
For any decent patriotic American, it must be very painful,
and probably many will reluctantly choose, against their
better judgment, to continue to "live the big lie" because
that is easier.....

Alternatively, try impeachment, it really does work.

*

About the half trillion dollars mentioned above:
There are now 300 million Americans, so that would mean
this insane administration having by now spent around
16 million dollars for every American on the war in Iraq and
its wider so-called War on Terror - and Bush wants to spend
more (but the new Congress may not let him!) -
staggering, baffling, incredible, shocking, unreal, outlandish,
ermm..... (lost for words). Think about it:
16 million dollars for each American - and WASTED!!!

Wasted because America and Americans now undoubtedly
have many more enemies and therefore a lot less security.

*

On a favourite subject, the entire American political
establishment is so under the control of Jewish/Zionist
interests, that former Republican presidential candidate,
now newspaper columnist, right-winger Pat Buchanan,
once wrote in exasperation:
"Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory".

Last summer, during Israel's grotesquely savage destruction
of Lebanon and its friendly people, one motion, preventing
ANY American money from reaching Hamas, Hizbollah
or any other "enemies of Israel", went through Congress
410-0, yes, four-hundred-and-ten to ZERO.

Is America really a free nation??
It seems that, to enter politics at all in the US, you first
have to submit to a lethal injection of Zionist-virus.
Good Americans - please stop this INSANITY
and please stop it NOW!!

*

UNITED NATIONS:
So one General Secretary is leaving and another is
arriving, and so what, what difference will it make?

America, true to form, made a mockery of the UN Security
Council and reduced the highest law-enforcing body in the
world to the status of an expensive and ostentatious
irrelevance, by always finding the most disingenous form
of words to somehow justify Israel's barbaric actions in
Gaza and Lebanon.
Good that the super-abrasive John Bolton is now gone,
there might be welcome changes in style but don't expect
any in substance: America exists only to serve Zionism.

*

A new Human Rights Council, created to replace the
discredited former one, was inaugurated during the year,
member states were elected and, predictably, neither Israel
nor America was seeking a seat, presumably knowing they
stood no chance of getting elected, as the whole world has
learnt the brutal way that human rights and Israel/America
are mutually exclusive.

*

There is much talk of reform of the UN, expansion of the
Security Council and so on, to reflect the world as it is now
and not as it was at the end of WW2, and that is all well and
good, and would certainly be both useful and reasonable,
but there is one reform which, if not implemented, will
render all other reforms meaningless window-dressing,
and that is of course:
abolish the right of Veto in the Security Council!

It could be so swiftly and easily done but of course it will
not happen - America, as ever obeying its Zionist masters,
would promptly Veto such a natural and decent move to
democracy!!!
But without that vital change, the UN, as exemplified by
the SC, is terminally dysfunctional, or, in plain english,
a waste of time and money.

The overwhelming support for the resolutions supporting
the Palestinians, voted on by the GA 1st December, shows
precisely what the problem is: there is universal, almost
total, world-wide support for Palestine so what would
happen if the SC-Veto was abolished?
Democracy would swing into action, demanding that Israel,
finally, decades overdue, complies with international law -
with what? Shock-Horror!! With WHAT? International law?
YES!
And failing that compliance, face being removed from the
illegally occupied territories with massive military force,
just like the UN-SC authorised the eviction of Saddam
Hussein and his merry men from Kuwait -
can anyone think of one valid reason to treat Israel
any differently??

Beethoven

2007-01-01T22:25:00.000+01:00

Ludwig van Beethoven
(17.2.1770 - 26.3.1827)

This article is work-in-progress and will
hopefully be added to from time to time.

Let me say it right away:
In my opinion Beethoven has done more than
any other composer or any artist or scientist or
philosopher or statesman that I can think of to
justify the presence of humanity on earth!

Let me also make it clear that I am not a
musicologist, this is merely a collection of my
personal thoughts and opinions on the great man.

*

B leaves you no choice,
in his major works at least:
You either cover your ears and go away,
or you stay and surrender.
Although in one sense brought up with classical
music, as my mother loved Mozart, Haydn, Bach
and Beethoven, in those days I never really took
the time to seek it out myself, it was more a case
of accidentally becoming acquainted with it
through my mother's repeated listenings to
her 78 rpm LPs.

I surrendered to B many years ago, in the 1980s
when I was working in Saudi Arabia.
After work or during week-ends I would often lie
by the swimming pool, listening to music on my
Walkman. Cassettes were incredibly cheap, no
doubt pirated copies from the Far East, so buying
lots was not a problem, that way you could
experiment more easily and the ones you did not
like you either passed on to or exchanged with
your colleagues.
It was a real education for me:
I would listen to the same symphony several
times in one day, first concentrating on following
one particular instrument or theme, then, next
time, concentrating on something else, or
learning how to enjoy the whole at once, until,
maybe in an unguarded moment, it just seems
to enter you and take hold of you, take you over.
My favourite pieces of music have become
like good friends: You know them well, yet
every time you meet you discover something
new about them.

*

You frequently have the impression that B has
left a bit from the sketch book in the finished
work, as if to let you into a secret or let you look
over his shoulder.
A good example of this can be heard in his 5th
and last piano concerto, the so-called Emperor
(not named by B), opus 73 in B-flat major,
where, in the transition from the slow intimate
middle movement to the boisterous last, the
instruments fade all but out and, without the
normal break, drop a half-tone and hesitate there
as the piano rejoins, first softly and tentatively in
a handful of rising notes, almost like a question
mark, as if it is looking for something, then it
finds something useful but, as if not quite sure
yet, it runs through the little jingle again and
then it knows those were the right notes for it
absolutely hammers them home as the final
movement opens. Magnificent!
That whole concerto is surely one of Bs most
complete works, possibly the closest to technical
perfection he ever came.
I challenge anyone to change a single note
anywhere in it and call it an improvement!

That concerto is also remarkable in that it leaves
the pianist no room to improvise and show off, as
was normal in Bs day. The piano parts and the
orchestral parts are so tightly integrated that
everything has to be written down, and it was.

*

Most of Bs themes are wonderfully simple, they
are introduced and repeated a couple of times,
then he takes them apart, plays around with
them and puts them back together in a variety
of delightful ways, like a small child would
instinctively and innocently play with a simple
set of construction blocks.
The above comparison is neither insulting nor
ridiculous - there is a childlike profundity and
sincerity in Bs music.

There is a parallel here with Albert Einstein
asking himself "naive and childish" questions
like: "What would the world look like if I rode
on a beam of light?", taking those simple
questions at face value and then spending
years attempting to answer them.

*

Or he lets a simple theme develop almost
endlessly, wonderful examples of that are to
be heard in his 6th symphony, the Pastoral
(so named by B), opus 68 in F major, which was
largely written during long solitary walks in the
wooded hills around Heiligenstadt outside Wien
(Vienna) where he used to take lodgings for the
Summer in order to get away from the city.

In his own notes he describes the symphony as:
"More feeling than painting". Indeed!
During the symphony several simple themes
develop seamlessly, like natural organic growth,
like a few acorns sprouting and taking root and
before we know they have grown into a huge
forest of mature oak trees right before our
eyes/ears.

In the first movement there are hints pointing
forward to the coming movements and in the last
there are echoes going all the way back to the
beginning - and the effect is to wrap the whole
work together, make it one organic whole instead
of a collection of related but separate movements,
giving this, and many other of his greatest works,
a holistic quality all their own.
For I know of no other composer who does this.

Once, in Bonn, I stood in the Beethovenhaus for
45 minutes leaning against the doorway to the
attic room where he was born, listening to
the Pastoral start-to-finish on my Walkman,
sometimes gazing at the bust
(which is set at his actual height, 160cm),
sometimes gazing at the laurel wreath on
the floor, or just gazing...

About the 45 minutes: That was a recording
conducted by Rafael Kubelik, my favourite
among the many versions I have of the 6th.

The version with Herbert von Karajan only
takes 38 minutes. Isn't that astounding?
The same piece of music, the same number
of bars, yet played in 15% less time.
To me, the Pastoral so obviously cries out
to be dwelt on, stroked and caressed,
made to last, and not rushed to the finish.

*

Or, like the Creator himself, where B finds
chaos he generates order, he forces order upon
things in the universe of sounds he creates,
maybe best expressed in that titanic work,
the Choral Symphony, opus 125 in D-minor,
his 9th and sadly the last.

Imagine, if we can:
Here is a man who knows he is a genius both as
a pianist and a composer, also knows that time
is running out, in most respects disappointed and
bitter, suffering from several ailments and in
practical terms so hard of hearing as to be deaf,
excuse me? Yes, DEAF!

Eighteen months in the making, 70 minutes to
perform, and the very least we can do today in
return for B giving us this masterpiece of truly
gigantic proportions is to take the time to listen
to it with open minds and hearts.

But how do you attempt to describe it?
It is in some places almost terrifyingly forceful,
wild yet strictly controlled, in other places so
soothingly tenderly beautiful as to be angelic,
it is full of surprises, there is never a dull
moment.
And the intriguing, probably unique, way he
laboriously arrives at the main theme for the last
movement through having the cellos calling up
the main theme from each of the previous
movements in turn and, one by one, rejecting
them, leaving the bemused cellos to continue
searching when, suddenly, everything falls into
place and, after a moment's silence, they break
into that glorious tune that we all know as
Song of Joy, but it has not become that yet for
this is a symphony which still adheres to some
of the rules.

After working over this beautiful simple tune
several times and in many ways, one feels
that any other composer would have been
well satisfied, indeed overawed, with himself,
and put the pen down. But not B.
He returns to the entry point for that theme and
out of the blue introduces the human voice, first
only one, later 4 solo voices and a choir of 200,
and it is only now the tune becomes Song of Joy,
with some of the variations almost impossible
to sing.
Also remember, in those days, you either wrote
a purely instrumental symphony or you wrote an
opera - doing what B did in the 9th was an
outrageous innovation.

One has the impression, probably correct, that B
put absolutely everything into it because he knew
it would be his last completed major work.
Towards the end the choir sings "This kiss for the
whole world, the whole world, the whole world"
and these words are Bs own, they do not come
from Heinrich Schiller's poem Ode an die Freude
(Ode to Joy), parts of which B set to music here.

Sadly, this is B saying goodbye -
but what an incredible way to do it!
How could an old, bitter and twisted, ailing man
write such a positive and affirmative work,
one absolutely bursting with youthful energy
and optimism, and of such monumental heroic
proportions?
Where did he get the energy, the power,
the motivation to persevere and see this
enormous project through?

That he was practically deaf only increases
the sense of wonder, no, disbelief!
Maybe, as I say in a song I wrote about him
many years ago called Thank You Ludwig
"Freed of the constant distractions forced upon
your ears, I wonder, Could you hear the inner
music clearer than before?"
(And if I ever get my songs converted from
cassette tape to digital format, you will be able
to listen to that song right here).

Surely, it is one of the finest expressions of the
aspirations of the human spirit and one of the
greatest intellectual achievements ever.

Once, in Frankfurt, I went to a series of concerts
in Die Alte Oper (Old Opera House) running over
2 weeks, and culminating in Bs 9th.
I cannot remember which orchestra it was but
the conductor was Sir Georg Szolti, since that
night one of my favourites.
Not a single microphone or amplifier, of course,
and it was just overpowering, both the volume
and the effect.
Of all the live concerts I have been to this is
easily the best. I was already familiar with the
9th before going and went to concerts regularly
in those days but this was different, and to
experience it all happening right there in front
of me was just amazing.
At the end I felt simultaneously completely
drained and fully recharged.
And I was very quiet, so was my German
girlfriend. What can you say after that?
For a while at least, it was as if everything worth
saying had just been said when the great man
wrapped up proceedings with that almost endless
final flourish - "I have s p o k e n !".
Indeed! And some of us did get the message...

The whole work has "awesome genius"
written all over it.

Freude, schoene Goetterfunken
(Joy, beautiful sparks of God)
as one line in Schiller's poem goes -
and who would disagree?

There is a revelatory, prophetic, messianic
dimension to Bs greatest works.
But this is not a megalomanic B playing the
Creator, surely this is the Creator playing
through B.....

B makes me proud to be a human being and,
in a narrower sense, proud to be a European.
B would be proud to know that his Song of Joy
is now the official melody of both the Council of
Europe and of the European Union (which as an
organisation has no connection with the Council).

He would be proud - but not surprised.

*

If you do not get to know Bs music you only
have yourselves to blame. Go on, do it!
There is more music in any 12 bars of B
than in 50 years of rock'n'roll!

(to be continued, inshallah...)

If I Ruled the World

2007-01-01T22:22:00.000+01:00

I would:

- disable and dismantle all nuclear weapons,
starting with those of America, then Israel,
then the rest.

- give Israel 90 days (feeling magnanimous)
to evacuate all its 400,000 or so settlers from
the illegally occupied territories including,
of course, East Jerusalem and Syria's Golan
Heights, leaving behind all buildings and other
infrastructure undamaged (but demolishing and
removing that outrageous wall!).
No help would be given and where they would
go would not interest me.
On expiry of the 90 days, anyone still there would
be removed by "massive military force" just like
Saddam Hussein was removed from Kuwait.
Any future uncivilised conduct by Israel would
result in the immediate dissolution of the state of
Israel, resurrection of Palestine in its old borders
and the introduction of "one person one vote".

- confine all American citizens to American soil,
to be reviewed after 25 years, pending civilised
behaviour.

- permanently close down Hollywood and MTV.

(to be continued, inshallah...)

Favourite Quotes

2007-01-01T22:17:00.000+01:00

"Your goods returned to you"
(Osama bin Laden - b.1957 - al-Qaeda,
on Islamic militant attacks on the West)

"It is a sip from the glass that
Muslims have been drinking from"
(Ayman al-Zawahiri - b.1951 - al-Qaeda,
on the London bombings 7.7.2005)

“I have always held the religion of Muhammad
in high estimation of its wonderful vitality.
It is the only religion which appears to me
to possess that assimilating capability to the
changing phases of existence which can make
itself appeal to everyone.
I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad
that it would be acceptable to the Europe of
today. I believe that if a man like him were to
assume dictatorship of the modern world, he
would succeed in solving its problems in a way
that would bring it the much needed peace
and happiness”
(Sir George Bernard Shaw - 1856-1950)

"An increase in Knowledge
without an increase in Wisdom
will mean an increase in Sorrow"
(Bertrand Russell - 1872-1970)

"The perception of time as
Past, Present and Future
is only an illusion, however persistent"
(Albert Einstein - 1879-1955)

"Worlds on worlds are rolling ever
From creation to decay
Like the bubbles on a river
Sparkling, bursting, borne away"
(PB Shelley - 1792-1822 - lines from Hellas)

"Jesus I like,
but I don't know about His followers"
(Mahatma Gandhi - 1869-1948)

"In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth is a revolutionary act"
(George Orwell - 1903-1950)

"The greatest Freedom
lies in the strictest Discipline"
(Unknown)

"Democracy is Majority Rule with Minority Rights"
(Unknown)

"Rock and Roll is Poison for the Soul"
(Myspeak)

"Is-ra-el.....il-le-gal"
"Is-ra-el.....go-to-Hell"
(Myspeak)

(to be continued, Inshallah...)

I Wonder.....

2007-01-01T22:15:00.000+01:00

- how many new-born baby boys in the Muslim
world have, since 11 September 2001, been
named Osama?

- if you knew where Osama bin Laden was,
would you tell America and claim the
25 million USD?

- will the Palestinian victims of Israel's illegal
and barbaric occupation ever be given the same
attention and compensation as Jewish victims
of Nazi Germany?

- is it a coincidence that Israel rhymes with illegal?

- why it is that the Christians generally support
the Jews when, according to their scriptures,
their prophet Jesus was killed by the Jews?

- if the thoroughly despicable behaviour of the
biblical Jacob, who renamed becomes Israel,
in any way explains the matching behaviour
of Israel today?

- why it is that Britain, the former colonial
masters of America, then defeated and kicked out,
feels that it must always go along with whatever
America does, no matter how illegal or idiotic?

- is the Special Relationship between Britain and
America a psychological function of the rulers
having been defeated by the ruled?

- why there have been no child-prodigy poets
but several composers?

- is music essentially
intuitive / instinctive / emotional
and poetry essentially intellectual?

- is it a coincidence that Allah
(pronounced: Allahhh), which was the name
of the chief semitic deity in Arabia long before
Islam and was therefore naturally adopted by
Muslims as the word for the Creator, sounds like
a sigh, like breathing itself, the very essence
of (at least mammalian) life?

(to be continued, Inshallah...)

Me and My Shadow

2007-01-01T22:09:00.000+01:00

In the 1980s I worked several years in
Saudi Arabia as a freelance computer consultant
with ARAMCO at their headquarters in Dhahran
which is just north of the tropics.
Prior to that I had never been so far south,
in fact, although well travelled, I had never
been outside northern Europe.

When I first landed at Dhahran International
airport it was early May and early morning but
32C and I remember thinking -maybe hoping-
as I walked down the steps from the BA747,
that the heat was coming off the engines.
However, the heat followed me across the
tarmac and I soon realised that it was a normal
late Spring night in Arabia.

The following day I was walking with my new
project leader from our office tower block to the
personnel office, less than 10 minutes walk away,
to get an ID card for me. It was roughly local
noon and my colleague was using an A4 writing
pad to protect his head from the sun.

As we walked along chatting I sensed that there
was something unusual, something new,
something different.
Well, I reasoned with myself, you are new here
so of course everything seems different.
That did not pacify the inner queries for long.
They became more focused:
It is not your surroundings, it is something
personal. What do you mean, I countered,
it is nothing personal. Yes, they came back,
it is something personal and there is something
missing here! Don't be so ridiculous, I thought,
as you well know, everything is here.
No it is not, came the inner promptings,
are you going to investigate or not?

I felt an urge to look around me in order to find
out and then, as I looked over my shoulder, I
suddenly instinctively looked down at my heels
and there was what I was seeking, or rather it
was not there: my shadow!
I stopped and looked on the ground around my
feet several times until I found the sad remains,
a mini-shadow about 5 cms long but at least it
was a real shadow and it was mine!
Nothing was lost, just changed.
Thus reassured that everything was OK,
although different, we continued.
My colleague found the incident most amusing.

Sometime later, reflecting on that experience,
it struck me that it was another wonderful
confirmation of just how comprehensive our
on-board software is:
Somewhere in there in the real PC, the one
just behind our eyes, is a real-time programme
monitoring our shadow, whether present or
absent, and clearly referencing tables of
averaged-out values from stored data on what
is normal or acceptable, or I would not have
been alerted, through other programmes, to
the fact that my current shadow had reached
abnormal values.

What amazing creations we are.....

Sketches from MOROCCO

2007-01-01T21:30:00.000+01:00

1. SOFT POWER
Seen in a small roadside cafe in Morocco
but sadly the situation is typical:

In the single cooling cabinet you are greeted
by 7 different soft drinks (which I never drink
anyway, I consider them unfit for humans).
However, closer inspection reveals that every
single one of them is a product of
The Coca-Cola Company.
So, in truth, the apparent choice of 7 represents
no choice. This is neither free market forces nor
healthy competition - it is a cancer and we all
know that cancer is a dreadful disease.
This is American "soft (drinks!) power"
at its worst and the solution is simple:
Stop buying and drinking it.

Incidentally, if you would like your toilet bowl to
be extra clean and bright, pour your Coca-Cola
into it and leave overnight.
It really does work and I can think of no more
appropriate use for this crap!

*

2.
In Tetouan, in the colonial days the Spanish
headquarters, I wander around in the medina
(old town) which is now a designated
Unesco World Heritage Site.
As medinas go, it is quite small and it is easy
to find your way round. Along narrow streets,
under arches, through little markets, vendors
everywhere, past simple tiny restaurants,
I come onto a small square with another market,
this one mainly with stalls selling hardware,
most of it used, well used.
I stop here and there to look, not really to buy
anything, when suddenly, cutting through the
surrounding sounds, I hear a voice, a simple
unaccompanied chanting which makes me stop
and listen. I have a feeling that I know what it
must be but am not sure.

I had bought an english translation of the Quran,
and a Bible, in Gibraltar where I had spent the
previous winter with my sailing yacht and in the
Spring sailed across for my first visit to Morocco.
When I went to Morocco, I had read the Quran
a couple of times without really being able to
connect with it in any meaningful way.

Now, looking to find the source of this
strangely moving sound, my eyes fall on an old
radio-cassette player, the door to the cassette
compartment is missing, I can see the tape
turning slowly and as I watch this pathetic
battered machine struggling to push out the
sounds, I realise that it is verses from the
Quran and although not understanding more
than the occasional word here and there,
I just stand and listen.
When the tape stops, the young man who is
running the stall and who has been watching
me, restarts it. For me. I smile and put my right
hand to my heart in that lovely Arabic gesture of
thanks. And listen to the tape again.
This time with tears in my eyes...
Decrepit player, poor quality recording, average
performer, foreign language -
all in all, not much chance of anything coming
out of this, one would think.
But this moves me almost beyond description,
it is so beautiful and pure, so sincere and serene,
so dignified and direct, the exact opposite of the
obscenities of Madonna, Michael Jackson,
MTV and all.

When the tape stops the young man wants to
sell it to me but I politely thank him and walk
on a couple of alleys, sit down with a mint tea,
still not sure why that voice touched me so
but feeling strangely grateful that it did.....

*

3.
It is mid-morning. I am in a backpacker hotel in
Fes-el-Bali (old Fes), just inside the magnificent
gate Bab Bou Jeloud, which looks old but isn't,
and I am getting ready to go out to find some
breakfast and then - there is that sound again,
the beautiful chanting, pouring through my
open window with the African sun.
I look and this time the sound is not coming from
a worn-out machine but instead from a worn-out
man, a beggar in the street just outside.

When I get onto the street and approach him,
I can see that, like so many Quran singers,
he is blind. I listen to him for a while.
Of course I give him something.
I would have given him something anyway
but he did more for me than I did for him.....

Some time later I bought a Quran cassette and
I listen to it from time to time and it still has that
wonderful effect on me - I do not know which
surahs (chapters) I have on the tape but one day,
inshallah, I will find out and be able to
understand the Arabic instead of, as now,
reading the Quran in English.

*

4.
The White Camel is a carpet and crafts store
high up in the kasbah quarter in Tanger.
I sometimes call in to sit and talk with the owner
over a mint tea or two. Today there is already
another Western visitor when I arrive, a young
American of Scottish descent and with Viking
looks but in Muslim clothes.
I recognise him for we met briefly in an internet
shop a day or two ago.
He has bought a carpet and is having it sent back
to America. I soon learn that he is not just trying
to look like a Muslim, he is a Muslim, has been for
some years and has already been to Makkah for
the Hajj (pilgrimage).
Sometime during our conversation I ask him
whether it is not difficult for an American to
get a visa for Saudi Arabia (this is before
September 11) and the moment he answers,
in his American-English, I know how silly
my question is:
"No, they just love white American Muslims!".
Obvious!

*

(to be continued, Inshallah...)