Manchester Bombing

[2017diary]

Hope said security guards explained to him the error of his ways

[G-G]

No! You don't. In fact when the Iraq invasion happened, with American & British Armed Forces under leadership of Bush & Blair because Saddam Hussein was being evasive about Weapons of Mass Destruction, I felt they had no choice. None was found, and things could have been handled better, probably, but with the safety of at least their countries they governed they couldn't take the risk.

Terrorist are never going to fight fair, but security could have been tighter, for instance a couple of survivors had said to the BBC that their baggage wasn't checked, and later it was revealed that he was known to the police.

Everytime I go racing my handbag is checked. It's not that big and there's never much in it. However, men with huge overcoats on are not asked to empty their pockets, open their coats to show they are not wearing an explosive vest. On one occasion as I was stopped, a jockey with a large bag slung over his shoulder was waved through. When I asked if they were going to search his bag, the woman said he's a jockey. 'What's his name?' ' No idea'. 'How do you know he's a jockey then?' Well he's carrying a bag with a whip sticking out of it' Oh well yes that makes him a jockey then doesn't it? There are no sniffer dogs at the entrances. They go round the restaurants on Royal visits but otherwise not seen. If that's a general attitude how can you stop all of them all of the time? You can't and you will never be able to. The police and security forces don't have the resources. Makes me really cross when they are attacked because in this case , they knew of him , but didn't have him under 24/7 surveillance. How can they? He had been to Turkey, Germany and Libya in the weeks leading up to Monday, how on earth do they expect anyone to track him when really all he had done to that point is have nasty thoughts?

[Grasshopper]

Good post, G-G.

[Grasshopper]

Only partially-related, but an interesting move by several Gulf states to terminate diplomatic ties with Qatar, on the basis that they are responsible for funding terrorism.

The Qataris have long been associated with this, though I've never really seen any comprehensive evidence to support it. Does such evidence exist, or are the Qataris merely being used a pawn, in the Saudi/Iran scrap over Yemen?

The latter seems a little unlikely, given there are several countries - a couple of whom rarely do the Saudi's bidding for them - who have followed-suit, so there is potentially some substance in this. Which begs the question: what does their evidence suggest, and who does it point towards?

[Warbler]

It likely has its origins in the Egyptian spring. Qatar were funders of Mohammed Morsi and his muslim brotherhood. The Saudis supported Abdul Fattah El Sisi and succeeded in getting him installed as the muslim brotherhood went on a crack down against secularism and restored the links to Gaza

You'll recall that Qatar were the first arab country to involve themselves in Libya flagging Libyan oil. The west stupidly thought this was something of an endorsement in the arab world. In reality (and you didn't need to be genius to know this) they had a horse in the race and were duly caught gun running by the Americans later on

Tension between the Saudis and Qataris have been on rise ever since Egypt. I don't necessarily see this as bad versus good, but bad versus bad to be honest

It's also the case that the Saudis are looking to create a few lightning conductors in the region, and the Qataris are potentially expendable (coming so soon after Trump's visit I think 2 + 2 probably does equal 4 in this case). Also note that the Iranians have been turning up the volume in the last few days about the need to cut out Wahhabism at its source and that the Bahranians have just announced a crackdown against their dissident population in the last 24 hours. That Bahrain, and Egypt have be co-opted into this move is no surprise

The country that's still drifting into the middle east morass of course is Turkey, but that can wait for another day. Trump is going to have decide whether to support or stab the kurds at some point, but given that he seems to be ok with Erdogan's goons beating up Americans in the country's own capital I think we can probably see which way he'll dive on that one

[Grasshopper]

I still find it sort of amazing that the West continues to be so anti-Iran, when to comes to alignment in the Middle East. We have a common-enemy in ISIS, and as far as the region goes, they have a democracy which ranks behind only Israel (admittedly, it's a fair way), in terms of its equanimity.

Instead, we're aligned with Saudi Arabia; a Sunni hereditary-monarchy/dictatorship, whose official religion is the self-same Salafism that ISIS claim as their inspiration.

It is utterly baffling, though no doubt related to the ongoing enmity with Israel, and the deep distrust sewn by the Hostage crisis (just the 30-odd years ago now).

[Warbler]

It goes back a bit deeper, but remember 1943 that Tehran was the venue for a summit involving the three allied leaders. At the start of the 1950's Iran was breaking out and had a functioning democracy. It was much more in step with the west than any of the other theocracies. Sadly for them they elected Mohammad Mosaddegh and he was worryingly socialist and dangerously non-aligned. The British and the Americans were concerned that he might try nationalising the oil industry and using the profits for the people of Iran. The CIA orchestrated a coup (the dead hand of BP is also in there) and a puppet was installed, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Surprise, surprise, he decided it would be a really good idea to sell Iranian oil on western terms and everything went well for a bit. Iran continued to thrive culturally. If you look at photographs of the country in the 60's you'll see people wearing western clothes and hairstyles etc It was quite a hippy sort of stop off. Inevitably this sort of arrangement starts to come under pressure though as an informed population can see their oil wealth being syphoned off by foreign investors and a ruling elite. By the mid 70's the people were on the move in a series of demonstrations, and rest you know. The Soviet Union had also observed the American mistakes, and they began to take a hand. Their strategic objective was to agitate and influence rather than take ownership though

The building blocks in Iran however, are much stronger than they are in places like Saudi Arabia which are hopelessly marooned about six centuries further adrift

There is something called the laws of unintended consequence. The overthrow of Mosaddegh is a classic case of it, as would be the support for Afghan mujihhadin in the 1980's, or support for Pakistan against India. The Bay of Pigs would be another, this was when Castro announced that what was otherwise a nationalist liberation movement was now socialist in nature and fell into the arms of the Soviet Union. The overthrow of Gadaffi will prove to be another, and we might very well be able to say that Saddam already is since its highly doubtful that ISIS would have flourished in Iraq under his rule

The problem stems from American greed, influence alone isn't normally enough for them. They seem to want control all the time, and you run a very real risk of your puppet failing and creating something much more dangerous

[Marb]

I still find it sort of amazing that the West continues to be so anti-Iran, when to comes to alignment in the Middle East.

I'm not sure about this, Grasshopper.

Is the West really still "so anti-Iran?"

The focus on Iran in recent times, was for the most part, because of their Nuclear Enrichment programme, and the theory they were trying to gain Nuclear Weapons, was it not?

Given we were so nearly sucked into a conflict with Bashir Assad, who is partly backed by Iran, if you were looking at this from a purely selfish Western point of view for a second, you'd probably be happy (or vindicated), trying to stop, or slow down, Iran's Nuclear Enrichment programme, wouldn't you?

[Maruco]

For what it's worth, its more likely to do with the World Cup!

[clappers61]

http://johnpilger.com/articles/terro...-minister-know

[Warbler]

the Qataris are potentially expendable (coming so soon after Trump's visit I think 2 + 2 probably does equal 4 in this case).

Trump claiming credit for this (until it turns into a war) then it'll be Obama's fault

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-40175935