Saturday, September 24, 2005
AL BASRAH.COM
The last time I looked here was the business of the photographs of a rape, which proved to be fabrications. A little bit of googling showed the site was Tunisian in origin. Quite a few people discovered what I had put up a few hours before. Internet research can be effective.
Looking for more on Two Scousers Go Mad in Basrah (British undercover soldiers arrested in Basrah by Iraqi police wearing large black curly wigs reminiscent of football perms favoured by British footballers such as Kevin Kegan in 70s/80s), came across this page in Al Basrah, which has a long video in Arabic complaining about the sale of 70,000 tons of brass and copper. Expect experts can tell from accent who was behind this.
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Two other sites also caught my eye:
We did not expect Iraq fanatics, says Hoon
By Toby Helm, Chief Political Correspondent
British “Pseudo-Gang” Terrorists Exposed in Basra
Kurt Nimmo, September 20th, 2005
under byline: Another Day in the Empire
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Is it just me or is this sort of thing, where Hoon admits in public to general incompetence, a sign of the degradation of politics such that politicans can admit to being useless (lacking any foresight in this case) without any fear of political consequences. Being political hols. right now, it is astute to get all the bad messages out before the House resits.
Part of the explanation for this may be the degradation of journalism and the recycling the the internet (e.g. blogging), which many say is A Good Thing, but which in many cases is a
Thoroughly Bad Thing because so much is an ever increasing mountain of unchecked rumour with a soupçon of unadulterated propoganda slipped in. As an example, we have The Scousers Story, which is now at fever pitch in the Anti-War Blogosphere, with assertion after assertion but no obvious evidence - except for references to historical research on various under cover organisations such as the SAS - that The Scousers were really a "pseudo-gang" aka. Northern Ireland and Kenya during Mau Mau.
If we can all freely have our twopennyworth of conjecture without the need for evidence, I would suggest The Scousers were looking for who had blown up British soldiers in previous
weeks. The allegations that they shot at Iraqi police (currently its one hit or killed) is simply a one-sided allegation by the Iraqi authorities. As yet there is nothing from the British Army or Ministry of Defence, apart from they were obeying the rules. Conjecturally, it would seem likely they did shoot to try to get away because they thought the police weren't police. Events seem to have shown their fears were correct.
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On the basis of this incident and the waves it has created both in Iraq and round the world I would suggest Britain tactically withdraw all forces to somewhere in the desert near Kuwait and wait to see what happens. Their role would then be solely to protect Iraq's territorial sovereignty. If you would argue this is what the insurgents of what ever ilk want the British to do, I would suggest that a dose of Talibanisation will soon bring even Iran-orientated Shi'i to asking for the troops back in order to have some peace and quiet.
If we are going to have troops there on the streets we need to at least double the numbers, which are currently at 8,500. Its a dereliction of duty 9politicians) to put too few men where they are ths in greater harms way. Unfortunately we haven't got them. So logic dictates pitching tents, setting up the deck-chairs and waiting.
¶ Saturday, September 24, 2005
