The favourite trick of war mongers is to rely on the arts and wiles of scare mongers.
And in Miranda the Devine they've found the perfect scaremonger, and devout war monger to boot ...
And in Miranda the Devine they've found the perfect scaremonger, and devout war monger to boot ...
Now there are many that practice the scare monger art, as with the bromancer over at the lizard Oz ...
To run a story like that, you have to wilfully ignore the headlines that have saturated assorted papers in the past few days ...
The argument has been that as Daesh loses on the battlefield and as it gets weaker as a "state", its next best step is to resort to home-grown terrorism in its quest to impose its delusionalism on the world ...
To please and to help them, the hysterics and the fear mongers are on hand to whip up a fine lather, and in the process hopefully radicalise moderate Islamics so that the war might continue ...
Time being of the essence, the pond will focus on Miranda the Devine, essence of poison, because she offers a chance to take a tour of old battlefields.
First the new battlefield ...
Now the pond has spoken to the reptiles many times about the confronting sight of a Devine in full flower. Many can't make it past a smirking Devine or a portentous Akker Dakker to discover the rancid text beneath the visage.
And what on earth does that banner mean?
And what on earth does that banner mean?
The best the pond could come up with was "All the fucking news, sport and entertainment, handy for fuckers, on any device."
But enough of being distracted by mysteries.
Let's cut in CU to the freely available Devine blog ... the reptiles persist in ignoring the pond on this matter too.
All that's revealed is a single long, tedious and predictable take, but while others will argue with the fear-mongering along the way, and the hysteria and the paranoia, the pond wants to draw attention to one of the punchlines...
Let's cut in CU to the freely available Devine blog ... the reptiles persist in ignoring the pond on this matter too.
All that's revealed is a single long, tedious and predictable take, but while others will argue with the fear-mongering along the way, and the hysteria and the paranoia, the pond wants to draw attention to one of the punchlines...
Okay, let's stop right there, with that talk of fundamentalists funded by Saudi Arabia, so we can go on that promised history tour ...
Yes, back in the day, the Devine was a fierce war-monger, in the Bush camp, blathering on about an Arab Spring, holding out high hopes for Saudi Arabia, and displaying what can only be called a simpering level of mindless stupidity ...
Back then of course George (and Rupert) were very chummy with the Saudis, and the Saudis were right on side, and it was all jolly good, and things were for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
Let us resume with the Devine still gazing through the rose-colored glasses ...
Let us resume with the Devine still gazing through the rose-colored glasses ...
Oh okay, the pond left in the ad for Turandot, because where's the harm? Compared to the enormous harm of the Devine's rampant stupidity ... blaming a leftist mayor while endorsing the total disruption of the middle east on the promise that all would be well in the spring and the garden would grow...
Now let's head a little further back ...
The joy of the liberated Iraqi people ... thanks be unto Donald, George and the Saudis ...
Now, because pain and masochism is a deep part of the pond, let us flash forward a little ...
What's wondrous about all this?
No, it's not in those days that the Devine had a hotmail email account. Every dumb doofus in the world had a hotmail account ... and only the dumbest doofuses didn't know what having a hotmail account meant ...
No, it's not that. It's the way that the Devine went in boots and all backing a war in which the Wahhabist Saudis were also front and centre ...
Sure they dissembled about it ...
Pre-war, Saudi Arabia's public position had been one of neutrality in the conflict; worldwide media reported that, despite numerous American attempts, Saudi Arabia would not offer the American military any use of its land as a staging ground for the invasion of Iraq. In an interview, Prince Saud Alfaysal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister when asked whether Saudi Arabia would allow more US troops to be placed on Saudi soil, the foreign minister replied, "under the present circumstances with no proof that there is a threat imminent from Iraq, I do not think Saudi Arabia will join in"...This was later explained to have been a public front, as Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey and Kuwait, was actually one of the most important allies in terms of offering coalition soldiers its land, including military bases. It was also eventually learned that a high-ranking Saudi prince had been at the White House on the day that the Iraq war began, and Bush administration officials told the prince to alert his government that the initial phase of the war had begun, hours before missiles first landed in Baghdad. Officially, Saudi Arabia wished to see Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath regime go, but feared the aftermath. (Greg Hunt the footnotes here).
... in much the same way that they routinely dissemble about their support for fundamentalist Wahhabism, while running the country on its principles ...
Sure they dissembled about it ...
Pre-war, Saudi Arabia's public position had been one of neutrality in the conflict; worldwide media reported that, despite numerous American attempts, Saudi Arabia would not offer the American military any use of its land as a staging ground for the invasion of Iraq. In an interview, Prince Saud Alfaysal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister when asked whether Saudi Arabia would allow more US troops to be placed on Saudi soil, the foreign minister replied, "under the present circumstances with no proof that there is a threat imminent from Iraq, I do not think Saudi Arabia will join in"...This was later explained to have been a public front, as Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey and Kuwait, was actually one of the most important allies in terms of offering coalition soldiers its land, including military bases. It was also eventually learned that a high-ranking Saudi prince had been at the White House on the day that the Iraq war began, and Bush administration officials told the prince to alert his government that the initial phase of the war had begun, hours before missiles first landed in Baghdad. Officially, Saudi Arabia wished to see Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath regime go, but feared the aftermath. (Greg Hunt the footnotes here).
... in much the same way that they routinely dissemble about their support for fundamentalist Wahhabism, while running the country on its principles ...
And now many years later, the Devine discovers she should have been moaning about the fundamentalist Wahhabists ...
If ever anyone wanted an explanation of why the fear mongering war mongers are fucked in the head, as they bring their fucking opinions fresh fucking daily to your nearest device, the pond would routinely offer up the Devine as the best possible example available ...
And so to return to the rest of the most recent Devine for the wrap-up ...
And so to return to the rest of the most recent Devine for the wrap-up ...
Well for what it's worth, the Devine's failures provide us with a salutary lesson of what not to do ... as if blaming liberals for daring to suggest a society differently from Wahhabist fundamentalists is somehow a thought crime.
Stupid reactionary fundamentalism of a Catholic kind ... and yet no apology from the cheerleaders who applauded and then did their best to forget about the cheerleading when the spring turned sour ...
How different this war feels??
But the drivel stays the same ...
And so to a man who's made plenty of money out of his Saudi connections...
Who belongs to that balding pate? Who is that man hidden in such a hearty embrace? Ah, there he is ...
And here's another one ...
The pond couldn't quite go where this bit of graffiti, spotted yesterday in Newtown, proposed ...
But if it had encouraged verbal struggle against all the Murdochian doofuses like the Devine, the pond would have signed up on the spot ...
Ah Newtown, perfect one day, gloriously perfectly artistic the next ...
Relax, that's just a distraction. Sorry hipsters, you've just been devined again ...
I have an answer:
ReplyDeleteDevineMiranda: "But there's a reason our civilized Judaeo-Christian societies are peaceful, compared with broken Islamic states racked by religious civil wars which are spawning a murderous totalitarian ideology that threatens the world."
Yes there's a reason, Miranda, and it's that our "Judaeo"-Christian societies did our thing in the previous century. Do you really need to be reminded that "our Judaeo-Christian societies" staged two major events that we were very proud to call WORLD wars that slaughtered not just a few thousand, but tens of millions of mostly innocent people to achieve what, exactly ? A "European spring" perhaps ? Finally bringing democracy to Germany ?
Apropos of which, I have a question:
Are the German actions in sinking the Lusitania and in bombarding Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby acts of terrorism ? Or were they just the first practical application of the theory of collateral damage ?
As to the Belgians, well, perhaps we should ask what centuries of colonial exploitation and murder achieved, especially in the Congo.
And so you say, Ms Devine, that "But Belgium's failures provide us with a salutary lesson of what not to do."
I couldn't agree more. Murder and jihad beget murder and jihad wherever they are practised.
And let's not forget the actions of her co-religionists in Northern Ireland, and their exporting of terror to the Netherlands where they killed a couple of Australians...
DeleteGB - re: Scarborough etc, I would say not terrorism, as they all had military infrastructure which was (at least vaguely) targetted by the German ships. Collateral damage, for sure, though I doubt the first such instance. The Lusitania is a slightly more vexed issue, given the British habit of arming their ocean liners to bolster anti-submarine operations and their (probably-illegal) blockade of the continent - Lusitania was not armed, but many others were, and the details of which were and weren't was not available to the Germans.
DeleteOTOH, from that war, the murder of 6,000 Belgian civilians was definitely terrorism.
Of course, Judeo-Christian terrorism has a much longer history than most others, reaching its apogee during the Thirty Years War when the peaceful Protestants squared off against the civilised Catholics, killing 1/3rd of the population of Germany to little purpose, but featuring such highlights as the (Catholic) Sack of (Protestant) Magdeburg. In the interests of even-handedness, I should mention the Protestants introduced that most unpleasant precursor of waterboarding, the Schwedentrunk. Greghunt them all if interested.
Ah well, the primarily European "Judaeo-Christian society" had had this 'myth' (aka public delusion) of war being a "chivalrous" activity, and my recall is that Scarborough et al plus Lusitania were considered a kind of 'betrayal' of chivalrous war. Hence the emotional response.
DeleteSo I kinda took Scarborough/Lusitania to be the origin, as far as Europe was concerned, of 'total war': ie there are no combatants and civilians, there is only "the enemy" and you destroy all of them any way you can (including, BOC, gas warfare).
There had been 'total war' before - Alexander for one, Temujin for another - but they weren't fine, chivalrous "Judaeo-Christian warriors". Of course, the German actions in Belgium (thanks for the link, it's something I'd never taken on board at all properly before) were far more 'total war' than the penny-ante offenses of Scarborough/Lusitania.
And we can get onto the rationale and impact of the London blitz, the fire-bombing of Dresden (and Tokyo) and even the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki some other time.
But Judaeo-Christian terrorism isn't all that old: there wasn't even a "Judaeo-Christian" anything until several centuries after Emperor Constantine anointed the Christian Church as the State religion of Byzantium. Really, it began with The Frankish king Charlemagne in around the late 700s. Plenty of terror, and even some 'total war' long before that, though.
In seven years across numerous countries Obomber's drone strikes alone have murdered some three thousand "collateral" muslim "innocents".
ReplyDeleteAnd never forget Libya. http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/spilling-beans-truth-about-libya-and.html
Attagirl, Miranda. The greatest moral, economic, and social challenge of our time is making amoral praxes righteous again; and, if immorality happens to become necessity for success in an endeavour, so much the better. After all, shit happens, and making shit happen happens; it's probably unavoidable; good for humanity, even.
ReplyDeleteClickbait headline from Fairfax "Public masturbator strikes again"
ReplyDeleteI refuse to take the bait. Surely it's just another whinge about Tony Abbott's world tour?
Definitely a rich lode back in 2003, with the Divine almost evangelical in her enthusiastic shrill on a modern war taking place on her watch. It certainly seems to be a Conservative thing, the thrill of battle, good overcoming evil. I still remember as a kid the almost bed wetting frisson of CS Lewis' Last Battle (an author the Divine is steeped in). Sadly, altho' Conservatives are fervent towards a moral duality, humans share the slaughter of their fellows with all creatures but do it for more esoteric reasons: we are largely unconscious to the evolutionary imperative of killing "the other". And as the Divine so amply demonstrates, it's easier to sway subscribers with belief than with reason.
ReplyDelete