More on Syria

[rowan]

Republican John Mitchell: ‘How families, when all eaten up and no hope left, took their last look at the sun, built up their cottage doors, that none might see them die or her their groans, and were found weeks afterwards skeletons on their hearths. How every one of those years, ’46, ’47 and ’48, Ireland was exporting to England food to the value of 15 million pounds sterling.’

He accused the British government of deliberately starving the Irish people, of making use of the potato blight to ‘thin out these multitudinous Celts.’ While the potato crop might have failed, there was, Mitchell insisted, still more than enough grain, cereals and live-stock in the country to have fed the population, but it was exported to England.

‘Insane mothers began to eat their young who died of famine before them; and still fleets of ships were sailing with every tide, carrying Irish cattle and corn to England.’

British involvement in the West Indies slave trade is estimated to have killed upward of 2 million - by the most conservative estimates. A manual for slave-owners advocated 'terror' tactics to combat rebellion, with slow-burning a favorite method of execution - ensuring plenty of screaming to traumatize the other slaves.

Opium Wars: By the 1830s the scale of problems caused by the trade forced the government to respond. China was being drained of silver to pay for the opium, its administration was being corrupted and the extent of addiction (estimates of the number of addicts go as high as 12 million) was seen as a threat to both state and society.

India: The English threw aside the mask of civilization and engaged in a war of such ferocity that a reasonable parallel can be seen in our times with the Nazi occupation of Europe”- writers John Newsinger in The Blood Never Dried.


“You will find that we have been incomparably the most sanguinary (bloodthirsty) nation on earth.” Whether it was in “China, in Burma, in India, New Zealand, the Cape, Syria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc.” The Burmese had no chance against our 64 pound red-shot shot and other infernal improvements in the art of war.

“Searing with hot irons . . . dipping in wells and rivers till the victim half suffocated . . . squeezing testicles . . . putting peppers and red chillies in the eyes or introducing them into the private parts of men and women . . . prevention of sleep . . . nipping the flesh with pincers . . . suspension from the branches of a tree . . . imprisonment in a room used for storing lime . . . ” This everyday abuse and violence continued until the end of the British Raj.

Sudan, Battle of Omdurman, September 1898: On this occasion the Sudanese conveniently launched a frontal assault on the invading army and were massacred in a display of overwhelming firepower. Modern rifles, machine guns and artillery destroyed the Sudanese army before it even got close enough to the British to begin inflicting casualties. One NCO described the slaughter as ‘dreadful.’ The troops were ordered to ‘bayonet and shoot everyone we saw.’ The young Winston Churchill, a participant in the battle, wrote home that the victory was ‘disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the wounded.'

World War I: The most terrible conflict in human history had been fought not for democracy, liberty or freedom, but to protect the British Empire from its powerful German rival. To this end, millions of lives had been sacrificed.

Egypt: Crowds were machine gunned and bombed from the air and heavily armed mobile columns were despatched to ‘pacify’ the countryside, shooting anyone who resisted, burning villages and flogging suspects (in one village every man was publically flogged). By the end of April the revolt had been put down with 1000 Egyptians killed, over 1500 imprisoned and hanged.

India: Protesters decided to proceed with an anti-Rowlatt rally on the afternoon of 13 April at the Jalianwalla Bagh, an enclosed space. The meeting was banned but they decided to defy it. General Reginald Dwyer decided to make an example of them. He marched a detachment of Gurkhas to the rally any without any warning opened fire on 20 to 25 thousand people peacefully listening to speeches. The troops continued firing for over ten minutes. By the time they finished the bodies were piled ten to 12 deep around the exits.

Iraq: Punitive columns were despatched throughout the countryside, burning villages, shooting rebels and seizing livestock, and rebel strongholds and concentrations were shelled and bombed from the air. The British used gas shells in quantity. Rebel fatalities were official 8,450, but a figure of over 10,000 is more realistic. Bombing had played an important part in the suppression of the revolt with the RAF dropping 1000 tons of bombs.

Palestine: The British with the help of Zionist death squads brutally defeated the Great Revolt in the spring of 1939. By the end of the conflict some 5000 rebels had been killed. The Zionists proceeded to establish the state of Israel, driving out some 700,000 Palestinians in the process. .

India still had to face the greatest disaster to befall the country in the 20th century, the Bengal famine of 1943-44. The British administration responded with ‘a callous disregard of its duties in handling the famine.’ The result was a terrible death toll from starvation and disease in 1943-44 that totalled more than 3.5 million men, women and children.

Churchill’s attitude was quite explicitly racist. He told Amery, ‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.’ Amery, on one occasion said, ‘I didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s.’

The coup d’etat that finally overthrew Iran's first democratic government in August 1953 was organised by the CIA with Britain’s M16 very much in a supporting role. The Shah’s brutal dictatorship rewarded its American sponsors with a renegotiated division of the oil spoils. The government received 50% of the profits. The AIOC had a 40% share in this consortium. Royal Shell had 14% and the French state oil company a 6% share.

Mau Mau Revolt: The official British figure for rebels killed in action was 11,503, but the real number was much higher. Some estimates go as high as 50,000, and this is much closer to the truth. 160,000 people were interned during the course of the emergency, even more were imprisoned for emergency offences. Electric shock was widely used, and so was fire. Women were choked and held under water, gun barrels, beer bottles and even knives were thrust into their vaginas. Men had beer bottles thrust up their rectums, were dragged behind Land Rovers, whipped, burned and bayoneted.

Anyone thought suspicious could be flooged, tortured and, if necessary, killed with virtual impunity. They described the torture they had carried out with as much concern as they talked about the weather: ‘By the time I cut his balls off he had no ears and his eyeball, the right one, I think was hanging out of its socket. He died before we got much out of him.’

Zimbabwe: On 24 October 1893 a Ndebele attack was routed by machine gun and artillery fire and a few days later at Imbembesi another attack was beaten off. As Frederick Courtney Selous observed, the Ndebele ‘were in each case driven off with heavy loss by the fire of the Maxim guns.’ The conquest ‘will ever be remembered as one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of British colonisation in Southern Africa.’

‘Wipe them all out . . . everything black,’ urged Rhodes. Robert Baden-Powell, the future founder of the Boy Scouts, acknowledged the ‘extraordinary bloodthirsty rage of our men.’[/i]

Indonesia: The battle for Surabaya had cost the natives at least 10,000 casualties. It unleashed a nationalist uprising that spread throughout Java and threatened to engulf the British. The battle of Surabaya is still celebrated in Indonesia every year on ‘Heroes Day.’ Indonesian casualties have been estimated as some 20,000 killed.

General Suharto effectively took power and launched a general massacre of the left. Even while the Confrontation was still under way, the British collaborated with the generals in a massacre that cost the lives of over 500,000 men, women and children, many of them slaughtered with the utmost bruality.

British participation in the Korean War made the Labour government and its Conservative successor party to a terrible conflict that left Korea effectively laid waste. The war cost the lives of between 500,000 and 1 million South Korean civilians and of 1.5 million North Korean soldiers and civilians. British governments stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with their American ally throughout the slaughter.

Iraq: In December 1998 when Clinton launched the punitive air raids against Iraq, British aircraft took part in the attacks that hit 250 targets. The government supported UN sanctions that by 1996 were estimated to have killed some half a million Iraqi children. Iraq, which had had no involvement with the 11 September attacks whatsoever, was to be invaded again and occupied as part of the war on terror. The invasion of Iraq began on March 2003. Its catastrophic consequences for the Middle East have been well documented.

Greg Dyke wrote of how Campbell had ‘turned Downing Street into a place similar to Nixon’s White House. You were either for them or against them. I was quite shocked by these similarities between the Nixon White House and Blair’s Downing Street.’ The American political system, however reluctantly and belatedly, called Nixon to account. The British political system has signally failed with regard to Blair.

Libya: In 2011 NATO invaded Africa's most prosperous nation to seize control of the lucrative oil industry, allowing its leader to be tortured to death in the streets, and bringing about civil war and widespread terrorism.

[Zhivago]

Straight up it's the case that in both instances Britain should have done more, but India was a mess of its own makingor at least far from being able to put it all on the Brits. And Ireland had enough food not to have a famine, but many people ce to the growing USA and ignore the problem in Ireland, and if Irish controllers of food production/distribution are going to ignore the problem it's more than a little perverse to then try to but more blame on the Brits than the Irish, and barking mad to call it a genocide.

The reality is that there were deliberate government policies prioritising food supplies for one group over another group resulting in millions of deaths. In this sense it is not unreasonable to compare them to similar atrocities caused by deliberate resource allocation and prioritisation policies, such as those by Maoist China and Leninist/Stalinist USSR.

The main difference is that you're a British imperialist apologist. Not really different to any other imperialist apologist. Your victim blaming, highlighted in red is disgusting.

I'm not apologising for Britain with regards to these situations, in both instances I think our actions deplorable. But, and it's a big but, it's not like India and Ireland couldn't have solved the problem without even vaguely needing us, and that shifts it away from being anything akin to a genocide.

You are absurd. They were colonies. They had no autonomy. They didn't need us, we deprived and denied them their own agricultural produce.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Republican John Mitchell: ‘How families, when all eaten up and no hope left, took their last look at the sun, built up their cottage doors, that none might see them die or her their groans, and were found weeks afterwards skeletons on their hearths. How every one of those years, ’46, ’47 and ’48, Ireland was exporting to England food to the value of 15 million pounds sterling.’

He accused the British government of deliberately starving the Irish people, of making use of the potato blight to ‘thin out these multitudinous Celts.’ While the potato crop might have failed, there was, Mitchell insisted, still more than enough grain, cereals and live-stock in the country to have fed the population, but it was exported to England.

‘Insane mothers began to eat their young who died of famine before them; and still fleets of ships were sailing with every tide, carrying Irish cattle and corn to England.’

British involvement in the West Indies slave trade is estimated to have killed upward of 2 million - by the most conservative estimates. A manual for slave-owners advocated 'terror' tactics to combat rebellion, with slow-burning a favorite method of execution - ensuring plenty of screaming to traumatize the other slaves.

Rowan!

I presume the John Mitchel (Only 1 l) that you are quoting here is the John Mitchel of Young Ireland who was condemned, transported, escaped to America and became a vocal editorial proponent of the pro-slavery Confederate States of America during the Civil War. A man who wrote that negroes were, "... an innately inferior people," or that slavery was inherently moral, good in itself, and who promoted it for its own sake?

Are the rest of your sources as 'selective' in their opprobrium?

And yes, I know that you will claim that this is argumentum ad hominem, but it serves as a perfectly sound example to show that judging events of two centuries ago by the standards of today can expose very inconvenient contradictions.

[rowan]

As you say, Sarge, judging events of two centuries ago by today's standards can be problematic. That also applies to attitudes. Regrettably pro-slavery attitudes were so prevalent among Europeans of the age that it is simply unreasonable to condemn any individual (above others) solely on that basis. Here's some other quotes:

Law inspector, Captain Edmond Wynne: ‘Although a man not easily moved, I confess myself unmanned by the extent and intensity of the suffering that I witnessed, more especially among the women and children, crowds of whom were to be seen scattered over the turnip fields, like of flock of famishing crows, devouring raw turnips, mothers half-naked, shivering in the snow and sleet, uttering exclamations of despair, whilst their children were screaming with hunger.’

Irish Nationalist MP, William Smith O’Brien: ‘If there were a rebellion in Ireland tomorrow, they would cheerfully vote 10 or 20 millions to put it down, but what they would do to destroy life, they would not do to save it.’

Lord Palmerston’s biographer: ‘The summer and autumn of 1847 nine ships arrived at Quebec and St John carring a total of two thousand of Palmerston’s tenants from Sligo. The Canadians were shocked at the conditions of the immigrants who arrived in a state of complete destitution. No representative was there to meet them with any assistance, and they were left to be in the snow, barefood and in rags, during their first Canadian winter.’

[SerjeantWildgoose]

As you say, Sarge, judging events of two centuries ago by today's standards can be problematic. That also applies to attitudes. Regrettably pro-slavery attitudes were so prevalent among Europeans of the age that it is simply unreasonable to condemn any individual (above others) solely on that basis. Here's some other quotes:

Law inspector, Captain Edmond Wynne: ‘Although a man not easily moved, I confess myself unmanned by the extent and intensity of the suffering that I witnessed, more especially among the women and children, crowds of whom were to be seen scattered over the turnip fields, like of flock of famishing crows, devouring raw turnips, mothers half-naked, shivering in the snow and sleet, uttering exclamations of despair, whilst their children were screaming with hunger.’

Irish Nationalist MP, William Smith O’Brien: ‘If there were a rebellion in Ireland tomorrow, they would cheerfully vote 10 or 20 millions to put it down, but what they would do to destroy life, they would not do to save it.’

Lord Palmerston’s biographer: ‘The summer and autumn of 1847 nine ships arrived at Quebec and St John carring a total of two thousand of Palmerston’s tenants from Sligo. The Canadians were shocked at the conditions of the immigrants who arrived in a state of complete destitution. No representative was there to meet them with any assistance, and they were left to be in the snow, barefood and in rags, during their first Canadian winter.’

Extremely interested by your last from Palmerston's biography. I met Mary McAleese in 1997 at the memorial to those who died aboard the famine ship quarantined off St John New Brunswick.

I have absolutely no problem with any of the quotes you have used in this post and think that Smith O'Brien's sums up well the role played by the authorities in their failure to address the causes and effects of the Great Famine.

Accounts of starvation are harrowing no matter from where they come, but to portray the Irish famines as a deliberate English policy to eliminate the celtic Irish as Mitchel did is simply false. The famines of the 19th Century arose in Ireland as a consequence of the prevailing and almost global economic orthodoxy of laissez faire, rapacious absentee land-owners who reduced the agricultural peasant to a level barely above that of serf whose survival (For which neither the land-owner nor the government cared much) was utterly dependent on a single, highly vulnerable crop (The potato) and the British (English) government's failure to take effective steps to avoid or alleviate either cause or consequence.

These economic policies were not deliberately designed to eradicate the Irish peasant and, while too late and extremely poorly managed, efforts were made by the government to ship Indian corn in to Ireland. At the same time, of the more than 3 million Irish who emigrated as a consequence of the famines, more than half made the relatively short journey to England or to the (British) Army.

Ireland is the only country in Europe whose population today remains below that of the mid-19th Century and this is a direct result of an Gorta Mór and the emigrant hemorrhage that it presaged. The 19th Century famines were an abhorrent consequence of neglect and ineptitude. They are a deserved and lasting stain on England's history, but - and this is an important point of semantics - they were not genocide.

[Stom]

I wonder who the most murderous regimes of the last two centuries would be,the Soviet Union (under Stalin) would be one perhaps with the other being China under Zedong? It's not going to be the UK and the USA even if one doesn't like the imperial past of the UK and their current foreign policies, not even close, it's probably not even Hitler's Third Reich, nor the supposed Commies in North Korea, Cambodia or Ethiopia

While scrolling through the mostly gibberish on this thread, I stumbled across this.

Surely these 2 are only numbers 1 and 2 because of the sheer size of their countries? Perhaps it would be more pertinent to measure murderousness as a %age of population?

We might see a few changes then.

[Digby]

I wonder who the most murderous regimes of the last two centuries would be,the Soviet Union (under Stalin) would be one perhaps with the other being China under Zedong? It's not going to be the UK and the USA even if one doesn't like the imperial past of the UK and their current foreign policies, not even close, it's probably not even Hitler's Third Reich, nor the supposed Commies in North Korea, Cambodia or Ethiopia

While scrolling through the mostly gibberish on this thread, I stumbled across this.

Surely these 2 are only numbers 1 and 2 because of the sheer size of their countries? Perhaps it would be more pertinent to measure murderousness as a %age of population?

We might see a few changes then.

It's not unreasonable to also look at that, but there's only a tiny amount I'd allow a defence of 'I only killed that many as there were so many more left I didn't kill'

[Stom]

I wonder who the most murderous regimes of the last two centuries would be,the Soviet Union (under Stalin) would be one perhaps with the other being China under Zedong? It's not going to be the UK and the USA even if one doesn't like the imperial past of the UK and their current foreign policies, not even close, it's probably not even Hitler's Third Reich, nor the supposed Commies in North Korea, Cambodia or Ethiopia

While scrolling through the mostly gibberish on this thread, I stumbled across this.

Surely these 2 are only numbers 1 and 2 because of the sheer size of their countries? Perhaps it would be more pertinent to measure murderousness as a %age of population?

We might see a few changes then.

It's not unreasonable to also look at that, but there's only a tiny amount I'd allow a defence of 'I only killed that many as there were so many more left I didn't kill'

Sure. Just saying it's easier to commit mass genocide when your remote communities number in the millions rather than the thousands.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

‘Mass genocide’ is a bit like ‘very pregnant’; it either is or it isn’t.

Trying to eradicate European Jewry by killing them all is an act of genocide, there is no need to qualify it by adding the adjective.

Trying to eradicate Edinburgh Rugby Supporters is also an act of genocide, but as there are only 30 or 40 of them (And 5 of those are Baz) the adjectival qualification seems not only superfluous, but inappropriate.

[morepork]

That John Mitchel sounds a right cunt.


I can't believe he got the ABs coaching job.

[canta_brian]

That John Mitchel sounds a right cunt.


I can't believe he got the ABs coaching job.

He made a right cunt of that job too. Didn't pick Merhts in 2003.

[rowan]

"Not one person has said they know anyone who is sick, anyone who was attacked, they never smelled anything, they never heard anything, and, right now, there is no evidence whatsoever. So, again, that's not definitive proof, but there's also no proof that it even happened."



https://steemit.com/news/@emmafiala/ame ... ten-to-him

Meanwhile, it appears that the only ones blocking the inspection are the UN themselves:

The UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) continues to prevent chemical inspectors from entering Douma for their investigation, citing safety concerns. They have offered no timetable for when the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors will be allowed in.

http://theantimedia.com/un-security-tea ... ors-douma/

[Stones of granite]

"Not one person has said they know anyone who is sick, anyone who was attacked, they never smelled anything, they never heard anything, and, right now, there is no evidence whatsoever. So, again, that's not definitive proof, but there's also no proof that it even happened."



https://steemit.com/news/@emmafiala/ame ... ten-to-him

Meanwhile, it appears that the only ones blocking the inspection are the UN themselves:

The UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) continues to prevent chemical inspectors from entering Douma for their investigation, citing safety concerns. They have offered no timetable for when the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors will be allowed in.

http://theantimedia.com/un-security-tea ... ors-douma/

Yeah, strange that. Strange that a column of western reporters can wander around unmolested, but as soon as the U.N. turn up, a mob organises itself and unknown gunmen rattle a few shots off at shadows.
Strange that.

[rowan]

"Not one person has said they know anyone who is sick, anyone who was attacked, they never smelled anything, they never heard anything, and, right now, there is no evidence whatsoever. So, again, that's not definitive proof, but there's also no proof that it even happened."



https://steemit.com/news/@emmafiala/ame ... ten-to-him

Meanwhile, it appears that the only ones blocking the inspection are the UN themselves:

The UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) continues to prevent chemical inspectors from entering Douma for their investigation, citing safety concerns. They have offered no timetable for when the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors will be allowed in.

http://theantimedia.com/un-security-tea ... ors-douma/

Yeah, strange that. Strange that a column of western reporters can wander around unmolested, but as soon as the U.N. turn up, a mob organises itself and unknown gunmen rattle a few shots off at shadows.
Strange that.

You've unwittingly made the point.

[Stones of granite]

"Not one person has said they know anyone who is sick, anyone who was attacked, they never smelled anything, they never heard anything, and, right now, there is no evidence whatsoever. So, again, that's not definitive proof, but there's also no proof that it even happened."



https://steemit.com/news/@emmafiala/ame ... ten-to-him

Meanwhile, it appears that the only ones blocking the inspection are the UN themselves:

The UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) continues to prevent chemical inspectors from entering Douma for their investigation, citing safety concerns. They have offered no timetable for when the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors will be allowed in.

http://theantimedia.com/un-security-tea ... ors-douma/

Yeah, strange that. Strange that a column of western reporters can wander around unmolested, but as soon as the U.N. turn up, a mob organises itself and unknown gunmen rattle a few shots off at shadows.
Strange that.

You've unwittingly made the point.

Only if you shut one eye and hold your cock in your hand while thinking about how roughly masculine Putin is.

[rowan]

Lavrov is all poise and dignity in this interview with a rather brash BBC journalist:

[Digby]

I don't know anyone was expecting you to really put your cock in one hand and stroke one out whilst admiring the Russian leadership

[kk67]

... it serves as a perfectly sound example to show that judging events of two centuries ago by the standards of today can expose very inconvenient contradictions.

..and some very inconvenient consistencies.

Yet another war somewhere far away against a feudal population stuck in the 17th century and consisting of blokes in dresses who are armed with viciously sharpened guava segments.

[canta_brian]

... it serves as a perfectly sound example to show that judging events of two centuries ago by the standards of today can expose very inconvenient contradictions.

..and some very inconvenient consistencies.

Yet another war somewhere far away against a feudal population stuck in the 17th century and consisting of blokes in dresses who are armed with viciously sharpened guava segments.

Well since you started it

If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.


Wibble

[kk67]

Don't forget those dirty, Hun spies. Playing their filthy underhand game.

[rowan]

The Lavrov interview is a good one actually. Both he and the BBC interviewer certainly got to present their viewpoints, which in the latter case were pretty much Downing Street's verbatim. But Lavrov was undoubtedly the more composed of the pair. & only wish he had spoken his mind about Boris Johnson's callous Hitler comments toward the end of the interview. You could tell he would've like to have thoroughly trashed the mop-haired one, but provided a diplomatically evasive response instead, to his credit.

[rowan]

The Lavrov interview is a good one actually. Both he and the BBC interviewer certainly got to present their viewpoints, which in the latter case were pretty much Downing Street's verbatim. But Lavrov was undoubtedly the more composed of the pair. & only wish he had spoken his mind about Boris Johnson's callous Hitler comments toward the end of the interview. You could tell he would've like to have thoroughly trashed the mop-haired one, but provided a diplomatically evasive response instead, to his credit.

[Stones of granite]

Lavrov is certainly a polished operator - unfazed at getting caught out in a bare-faced lie about Spiez Lab finding BZ in the Salisbury samples. Mind you, you don’t get to be Sov., er I mean Russian Foreign Minister without tell8ngna few whoppersover the years.

[rowan]

He certainly made some interesting points about the Novichoks, such as America being the first country to patent them. While on the subject of Syria, he correctly points out that America's threat to strike Syria if they used chemical weapons (this just prior to the attack which allegedly occurred), seemed more like an invitation to the terrorists to stage an attack (real or not) even as they were evacuating. America then struck as promised, to punish Syria (trampling over international law in the process), inspiring some of the terrorists to resume the fight. Meanwhile, the UN inspectors were right next door in Lebanon, due to arrive the following day! But really it was no more than a furious beating with a feather duster; designed to make Trump and his allies look strong, but ultimately harmless.

[kk67]

The West have been treating Syria like a scab they don't want to heal. It's hard not to conclude we have ulterior motives.