One of the Middle East's more repulsive regimes is that of Bahrain. it, along with Saudi Arabia, is reputed to be funding the utterly ruthless ISIS...that's the ones that Dave now thinks he wants to go to war with. Incidentally that's interesting becasue the last time he wanted to go to war in Syria it was against Assad, who is currently fighting ISIS.
Needless to say, alongside the royal family of Saudi, the royals of Bahrain are close friends of the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas and the PM (prime minister, or pig man if you prefer).
This short video (90 seconds) summarises the relationship between the Brits and the Bahrainis.
Needless to say, alongside the royal family of Saudi, the royals of Bahrain are close friends of the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas and the PM (prime minister, or pig man if you prefer).
This short video (90 seconds) summarises the relationship between the Brits and the Bahrainis.
Apparently they are incredibly rich and buy vast amounts of arms from us, but rarely seem to use them for anything except putting down their own people... Plenty spare to be giving to ISIS then?
Incidentally, if you're confused about which side the UK is on, or should be on, or may end up on, then the Rev Stuart's piece here may (or may not) help you to make up your mind.
It won't make any difference, of course, what you think, or even what Dave thinks, because the UK will be on the side that Mr Obama decides it is on.
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Update: Some more news about the people we do business with.
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Update: Some more news about the people we do business with.
Someone found this post Funny obviously a DM reader.
ReplyDeleteThis whole Middle East catastrophe has been manufactured by energy giants wanting to pipe oil and gas into Turkey and the Med only Assad stands in their way.
Maybe climate change needs to happen faster to prevent WW3.
It is a catastrophic mess.
DeleteNothing the West can do now will make it right.
There is too much hatred there. There is too much money.
I wonder if we stopped supplying them with arms...
Any idea why we give financial aid to one of the worlds oil rich countries?
It's called business unfortunately. Business rules the world, even in Scotland. If countries took a moral stance and didn't trade with others with poor human rights records, their economies would be buggered. Unfortunately the human race has yet to grow up.
DeleteAnd a relevant point to WW3, I see there is a story of a Russian sub somewhere off the coast, but we are relying on the French maritime aircraft for support. Of course, Osbourne is going to address this point next week.
Doesn'tt he tosser understand that before you replace a military asset, you keep the old one there, They may not be as effective as the replacement, but it's better thank nothing. That's why the Shackeltons were used well past their sell-by date for AEW. Oh, and there will be more carrier aircraft as well, The Vulcan bomber proved that in the Blackbuck raids on Port Stanley airfield. If buggerlugs hadn't scrapped the Harrier and Sea Harrier fleets we'd have them ready and waiting.
I think we sell more arms than we have for ourselves. I'm really bloody angry about the submarine story though. It shows just how ill-thought those defence cuts were.
zog
Oops, my paragraphs got a bit mixed up........... I blame the wireless keyboard......
Deletezog
I know that we have to trades with them, but should we really sell them weapons when they are either giving or selling on the weapons to ISIS. At very least they are supporting ISIS, because Saudi wants to rule the Middle East.
DeleteWe have to do business with countries with dubious human rights records...after all we have dubious human rights issues ourselves, and if I'm not mistaken both the UN and teh Council of Europe has criticised our welfare policies.
You ask if Osborne understands... The answer is no. He couldn't even refold napkins. How they hell would he understand anything?
He's reduced the deficit upwards by 100% and despite the fact that we are all in it together, the rich have double their incomes.
Better Together.
If Osborne is to continue with his austerity sham then he is going to have to make even more cuts to welfare to accommodate the additional military spend.
ReplyDeleteWill Cameron tell parliament how much cash he is setting aside to deal with the additional refugees his bombing is going to create?
Somehow I don't think that will happen.
He could have taken a statesman position and said that more than enough bombs are being dropped on Syria and that our focus will be on humanitarian actions but I don't suppose they teach that at Eaton.
He learned nothing from his Libya disaster but we did!
This is what I'm wondering about.
DeleteMassive increase in military, new planes, new divisions, but no more personnel?
Maybe they are going to deploy some of the hundreds of admirals they have to actually get out there and do something?
Cameron? Statesman?
Yup....
Tris
ReplyDeleteBahrain and Saudi, two countries I will never ever visit but two countries that we will trade with and have close relations with because we live in an ignorant class ridden midden of a country. It really annoys me when I hear people say they are not interested in politics, or worst yet they don't care.
We have allowed ourselves to be so beaten down and conditioned that we will accept anything now while we wait on the latest Iphone, just about affordable but you have to skint yourself to get it, but do you really need it, well yes because you are told you need it. One of the greatest tricks this country, and most of the western world, have carried out has been to convince us that we have no power, a message reinforced by the media and an elite who are fighting with everything they have to stay at the top.
If we really want Costa and Amazon to pay tax then all we have to do is stop buying their things overnight and they will brick it. If we want the Tories out then the millions who don't vote have to get off their arse and start voting for what they want. It isn't rocket science, but they have us by the balls because we allow them to have us by the balls and I have no idea how we change it by convincing the majority.
Just today I was having a conversation with someone and I said to them that I accepted the referendum vote as soon as the Dumbarton result came in, and we suspected we had lost within a couple of hours of the first votes coming in, but what I find hard to accept is the lost opportunity that the YES vote potentially was. We can all rant about the tactics used by scumbags in government, unionists and the media but deep down I really believe that some people when voting no knew that what they were doing was wrong, deep in their hearts they knew it was wrong but they have been conditioned by fear and lies so much their whole lives they couldn't vote any other way.
People like Brown, Rennie, Davidson, McDougall, Darling knew that they were voting for themselves not for any real belief in this horrid, selfish, shitty little country that will do anything to keep them in their place and the rest of us down, and we accept it, and not just us, every person in the industrialised world accepts it and you wonder what the tipping point is.
The middle east is a basket case built on hatred of each other, of the wrong religion and of mainly British involvement throughout history. Anything good that has come out of this country has mainly came about by accident, we blame America but we made America, we blame capatalism but we designed and exported capitalism, we blame oppression and we are the masters of oppression. This is my next blog so sorry for the rant but I get so frustrated at what we have allowed ourselves to become, but other than rant and get frustrated I don't have the answers, I can only hope that my developing hate (what an awful word) for people like Cameron and Osbourne, for the Red Tories doesn't consume me or all of us because that is exactly what they want and have been doing for hundreds of years.
Bruce
It is just so sad that far too many people know nothing about this country, how it works and what it does to them. As long as they have their iphone, that they are told to be thankful for the crumbs that fall off the table then nothing changes.
And let's not forget the miserable state pension that people were frightened into believing they might lose.
DeleteWell, we were sold a pup. There is no doubt about that.
DeleteI think we made a terrible mistake listening to people like Darling, McDougall, Curran, Baillie, and most of all Brown.
The Vow, not delivered, signatories are now gone, but for Cameron. Miliband... Clegg...
Soon Cameron will be gone too, and no one is left to be held responsible.
Brown used the occasion to get one over Darling, and then washed his hands of it all.
And despite the 55/56 SNP elected members in London, no one listens to Scotland.
Of course, those who read the history knew that that is what would happen.
Once you have told them you want to be part of them, then you have given away everything and allow yourself yo be ignored.
Good rant there Bruce!
It makes you laugh. The Brits have the second lowest state pension in the developed world, next to Mexico. Millions of pensioners are living below the poverty line, and BT went around telling them that they'd lose it.
DeleteEven the tiny countries of Jersey and Guernsey can manage MUCH better.
Nevermind Tris. The new antibiotic resistant bacteria will have reduced the elderly population by more than half in twenty years time, thus doubling pensions at a stroke...
DeleteCan't help thinking, looking at the condition of some of them in geriatric hospitals, that that will be doing them a great service.
DeleteBut I suspect that the Uk will probably want to buy more nukes with the extra money, don't you?
Updated the story with a link to some more of the nasty practices that our "friends" get up to.
I always agree with Bruce but I have to say that where companies who trade here but put there head offices somewhere to save tax, sorry but boycotts will not work, and then there will be lots of little people out of the minimum wage jobs they are presently not managing to keep themselves with.
DeleteNo, if we want to tackle Amazon etc, there have to be changes made, some outside of this country, but the one thing which needs to be done is for England to stop voting Tory or us voting for Scottish Independence, then we at least can tackle the law on making impossible for a company to trade here but not to have it's head office here.
As for Bahrain, well they and the Saudi's, Westminster would sup with Hitler if he had had oil and money. Thankfully missed the heir to Saxe Coburg lot wittering on about Climate Change being responsible for Isis, then Husband turned off M Fallon, some idiot in the Government doing a Malcom Rifkind impersonation doing impersonation of the heir.
I strongly disagree with Helena about boycotts. The big companies will never change as long as they get away with what they are doing. The only thing they understand the language of the purse.
ReplyDeleteShop as much as you can at small local stores. Buy in small amounts and only what you need and have planned for. That way you spend less and throw out less.
Surely the thing to do is for the government to ensure that big companies pay their tax. A decent government would.
DeleteShopping local is grand, and absolutely to be encouraged. But I can buy a jar of coffee for £3 is a superstore, and, if I could get it in a corner store (which I can't) it would be nearer £5.
Most people really can't afford local stores for anything other than the odd thing that they have run out of. I know there are exceptions, and if you can afford it then it is a great idea...supporting local business and local jobs.
But yes. I do boycott some stores. I now buy most of my groceries from Aldi.
Please don't tell me they are tax fiddling.
I see that after months of money missing from Labour's referendum accounts being ignored in the media, within one day of the WFI's similar problems surface, the Guardian headlines it and makes sure that an SNP MP is in the headline.
ReplyDeleteThey will not win this way. The constant drip of SNP BAD means the little boy will get eaten by the wolf
It might have worked if they didn't continually turn out to be wrong.
DeletePeople who are neither one thing or the other politically eventually get fed up of the lies.
Returning to the topic...
ReplyDeleteAs I currently understand it, Saudi Arabia and possibly some of the Gulf States are funding ISIS.
If that is so, and given the deaths of innocent people in Paris and elsewhere, the Middle East, anybody, anybody at all?
What the hell is our foreign policy about?
Alec Salmond had it right a while ago when he pointed out that ISIS has to be financed in order to succeed. We, as part of the GB nation, appear to turn a blind eye to that.
Just as a classroom question:
If you knew that the classroom bully was being paid to create mayhem, would you:
a) Ignore both the bully and his backers?
b) Ignore the bully?
c} Ignore his backers?
It is frankly dangerous to ignore the fundamentalist reading of Islam that some Muslims are caught up in. It is reminiscent of literal interpretations of the Bible by Christians. There are end days, the last 5000 of the devout winning against all odds,etc, etc.
That is not something most Muslims I have corresponded with would see as a viable reading of the Koran, but it is an interpretation. We are dealing with a millenarian cult here, and that, to some folk is an attractive proposition.
The following article is interesting, I think. Quite how you talk people out of that frame of mind is well beyond my pay grade.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/