AEI to Brown - 'Heel, Bitch'

Good piece.  Brown should not even countenance such comment from has-been Bolton.  Agreed that Bolton is the voice of Cheney.  Cheney spends much of his time speaking from his bottom and presumably that is where Bolton is resident.

That said, this is now a question of time.  The closer to the end of the Presidential term of office the less credence these mouthings have.  Almost certainly Bush will be unable to declare war on Iran unless there is major provocation on the part of the Iranians, and crazy they may be, but not that crazy.

Brown will certainly not be drawn into armed confrontation with Iran.  He'll run a mile from that.  Imagine the effect on the UK voting public.  Army fighting in three or more theatres,  the beginnings of economic meltdown, floods, foot and mouth, plague of frogs etc etc.

No, Brown has got some really serious issues at home.  He'll need to deal with those before considering an Iranian adventure.

In a hypothetical press campaign against Iran, the right-wing tabloids will be split, presumably, since I can't see the Mail and Standard supporting it as they did Iraq.  Murdoch's rags will, of course, Irwin Stelzer being Murdoch's mate and parroting exactly the same shit that oozes out of Bolton - Wade and Pascoe-Watson would fall right into line.  Some Tories will be up for it, of course, the Goves and Vaizeys, but you'd expect the Army to split the welkin over it and darkly mutter about Helmand being the one that matters and look what happened last time we took our eye off it.  In other words, it would be a whole lot harder to sell, and Brown's no salesman like Blair was.

"If you run a trucking firm, how do you view the people whose actions pushed up the price of diesel and left US roads crumbling?"

Roads and bridges.

$1 trillion to kill Afghans and Iraqis. Not one red cent to safeguard American drivers' lives (or the city of New Orleans).

"Almost certainly Bush will be unable to declare war on Iran unless there is major provocation on the part of the Iranians, and crazy they may be, but not that crazy".

Actually, unless you count being (more or less) fanatical Muslims, the Iranians are not crazy at all. Iran has not initiated a single war in the past 200 years. How many wars has Britain started since 1807? Let alone the USA, which has attacked some two dozen nations since 1945 alone.

For a fair and balanced summing up of Iran, as regards Israel at least, see:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook08032007.html

Our course is clear, if only Brown had the balls and/or spine to grasp it: sever the `special relationship` (Trans: Washington tells us what to do and we do it), engage the FCO in a fullon campaign to get what remains of the Commonwealth on-side, same applies to our European colleagues (and let`s be frank - we aint gonna have a workable European political entity for at least another generation). So that we can ready to deal with any American meltdown and/or a worsening of global climate conditions.

I mean, rather than sitting around with our thumbs up our arses and heads in the sand!

Is Bush preparing an attack on the Lebanon and Syria and thereby declaring martial law and the Draft in the USA?

It certainly looks creepy enough to appear like it judging  from this recent Executive Order:

I GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, determine that the actions of certain persons to undermine Lebanon's legitimate and democratically elected government or democratic institutions, to contribute to the deliberate breakdown in the rule of law in Lebanon, including through politically motivated violence and intimidation, to reassert Syrian control or contribute to Syrian interference in Lebanon, or to infringe upon or undermine Lebanese sovereignty contribute to political and economic instability in that country and the region and constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070802-1.html

>since I can't see the Mail and Standard supporting it as they did Iraq.

I'm pretty certain The Mail has been against the Iraq War from before the start. At the beginning I just dismissed it as them being anti-Blair at any price, but its continued just as strong as ever. The fact that it does now, with a new Labour PM, Gordon Brown, who Paul Dacre is rumoured to be very close to, only adds to the interest. I read it as one of the more amazing signs of the changing political and party alliances and allegiances of our time.

In fact, the Mail's position on Iran can already be divined through the fact they published all Craig Murray's stuff on maritime borders when the Royal Navy personnel were captured by the Iranians. And their position on Afghanistan is pretty much nailed by Murray's recent extraordinary article on the heroin trade and how NATO and the Americans are protecting it.

Exposing NAZI symapthisers in Europe

I have recently had an article pinted in Hurriyet a Turkish newspaper because no media organisation within the EU will touch my story. This proves without doubt that there is press freedom in Turkey contrary to what we have in the EU where the media go out of their way to hide NAZISM.

 This should help ease the passage towards membership of the EU by Turkey I welcome them because at least they are democratic which is more than can be said of the current members many of whom I have asked for help in my struggle against NAZISM

 There is a copy of a letter which is a reply to correspondence I had with Barroso concerning the convening of NAZI SPECIAL COURTS in Germany. Barroso decided not to answer himself but gave the job to a minion. His reply was that such a court is COMPETENT. This proves that in the EU at the highest level, they are sympathetic to NAZISM, which means they are in agreement with Fascism. I am aware of some dozens of legal proceedings that got to various stages, which were all deliberately lost for the employees by their legal representation, because of NAZI legislation being used to RIG things.

 You may well ask yourself why a Turkish newspaper was prepared to print the story. The simple answer is that the evidence is all in writing so it cannot be denied by the NAZIS in the EU.

If they are willing to risk contesting this statement of facts, I am ready to meet them anywhere in public i.e. not in another of their NAZI convened courts.  

http://fotoanaliz.hurriyet.com.tr/galeridetay.aspx?cid=4775&rid=4369

Follow the numbers from 1 to 7 the last one is the letter from the EU Commission.

I'm pretty sure the Mail was supportive at least in principle in the early days - the Standard (being the same company) was responsible for the famous '45 MINUTES FROM DOOM' headline.  It's clear that the Mail follows the line of 'Brave British squaddies let down by lying, manipulative politicians' and for once I can't find a lot wrong with their attitude there.  Interestingly, this isn't the Conservative policy any more than it was the New Labour one, so in that sense they aren't currently a politically aligned newspaper (I'm dismissing as laughable the idea that they might back Ming's Mercenaries).  Takes some getting used to, that.

The one article that did stand out was the storm in a tea-cup about the BBC journalist Robin Aitken's flatulent whinge about the pro-Blair (but somehow anti-war) 'lefties' at the BBC and that Gilligan chap with his story that got on the air 'because it [the BBC] wanted to believe the story'.  Those anti-war journalists would fit right in at today's Daily Mail, and indeed Gilligan earns his crust with the Evening Standard, these days.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=436794&in_page_id=1770

This does suggest to me that it would be quite bright of Cameron to pull a full clean breast 'I was wrong' job on Iraq and call for immediate withdrawal of British troops.  It would please the Mail readership, the 'Our Boys' army patriots, undermine the Lib Dems and paint Gordon Brown as the one who wants to keep British troops dying.  All of which are very good reasons why the prat won't do it.

The Mail was pretty gung ho about the "removal "of Saddam Hussein (like that was somehow different to invading and occupying another country) pre-war. There was plenty of hysterical blithering pro-war bollocks , articles by apologists such as Ann Clywdd  and Melanie Phillips and their ilk. But they also had considered articles from academics saying for fuck's sake, look at the probable repercussions, history, tribal make-up of Iraq, and the dismal pre-war planning thanks to utter ignorance and willful mis-representation by AEI and PNAC members (often one and the same).

It comes to something, when on a Saturday i read both Mail and Guardian and find the Mail - the right-wing Daily Hate, for God's sake-  is publishing worrying articles by Craig Murray , and investigating UK complicity in extraordinary rendition  the allegedly left-leaning Grunniad often balks at mentioning.

The world has turned upside down indeed.

No, Tom, you are wrong on this one.

In 2002/3, The Mail WAS generally against the war, and The Guardian WAS generally for the war. That is the truth of the matter. I read both papers just about every day in early 2003 and was so disgusted at The Guardian but kept reading because I thought... maybe tomorrow. Some chance!

Although The Mail is a Tory newspaper, and I'm no Tory, I think the editor has a "looser" editorial control than other newspapers. If it's controversial, it seems more likely the Mail will print it than any of the others - Express obsession with Diana excepted. They even went mainstream a couple of years ago with the theory that at least one of the 9/11 towers was "pulled" deliberately. This strategy obviously works for them because their circulation figures are healthy, but it must piss off the govt big time!

Not sure why it would piss the *current* government off, but Blair's strategy was always to go for the Sun readership, which is even bigger than the Mail, and he was certainly upset and needled by the Mail's relentless negativity.  Brown's close friendship with Dacre (another paternalist right-wing Christian conservative, although of the Roman persuasion) is well known, though, and goes back many years, including the time the paper was attacking Blair.

As for editorial control, I think Dacre has had it tightly held for years.  Indeed, where it differs from the Sun is the rein on which the editor is held by the proprietor - Murdoch chops and changes his editors at will and they understand that they exist to print stuff for the boss.  Dacre is totally synonymous with the paper, so can effectively create it in his image each and every day.  He's been editor since 1992.  His wikipedia page (yes, I know) has some interesting quotes:

Dacre on Murdoch: "...he would not accept my desire to edit with freedom"

John Lloyd on Dacre:  the only "British newspaper editor who stamps himself on his newspaper every morning"

Dacre on Brown: "I have an awful lot of admiration for Gordon Brown. I feel he is one of the very few politicians of this administration who's touched by the mantle of greatness"

If you want to be in with the Sun, you go to Murdoch (as Blair did).  If you want to be in with the Mail, you go to Dacre.

Interesting subject this, dontchathink?  Hypothesis - the Mail exists to sell papers, therefore opposing Iraq is sensible, since it's the majority opinion.  The Sun exists to repeat neocon propaganda, therefore supporting Iraq is inevitable, since it's neocon opinion.