"Report on Iraq war offers devastating critique of Tony Blair" by Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger New York Times July 07, 2016
LONDON — On July 28, 2002, about eight months before the US-led invasion of Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain sent President George W. Bush a personal note that alarmed some of Blair’s top national security aides — and was greeted with relief in Washington.
“I will be with you, whatever,” Blair wrote, in what appeared to be a blanket promise of British support if the United States went to war to topple Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. Getting rid of Hussein was “the right thing to do,” Blair wrote, predicting that “his departure would free up the region.”
Fourteen years later, Blair’s pledge was revealed publicly Wednesday as part of a voluminous, seven-year official investigation into how and why Britain went to war in Iraq.
The main conclusions in the report, by the independent Iraq Inquiry Committee, were familiar: that Britain, like the United States, used flawed intelligence to justify the invasion, that Iraq posed no immediate national security threat, that the allies acted militarily before all diplomatic options had been exhausted, and that there was a lack of planning for what would happen once Hussein was removed.
Yet the report still had enormous resonance in Britain, in part because it came at a moment when Britons are engaged in a debate over their country’s place in the world after their vote last month to leave the European Union.
The report also amounted to a moment of searing public accountability for Blair, whose legacy has been defined in Britain almost entirely, and almost entirely negatively, for his decision to go into Iraq alongside the United States.
Blair’s note to Bush was part of what the report showed to be a campaign to back the United States before the war and to steer the White House toward building diplomatic support for efforts to address the perceived threat from Iraq.
The report’s 2.6 million words describe a prime minister who wanted stronger evidence of the need for military action and a more solid plan for occupying Iraq and reconstituting a government there. Beyond its pledge of fealty to Bush, the July 28, 2002, note warned broadly of the risks of “unintended consequences” from an invasion and presciently forecast that other European nations would be reluctant to back the war.
But by the time the invasion was launched, most of Blair’s warnings and conditions had been swept aside, the report concluded. The chairman of the committee, John Chilcot, said Wednesday that Blair had been advised by his diplomats and ministers of “the inadequacy of US plans” and their concern “about the inability to exert significant influence on US planning.”
Blair chose to override their objections.
Within hours of the report’s release, Blair appeared at a nearly two-hour news conference in which he acknowledged missteps and intelligence failures but defended his decision to go to war. Now rejected by his own Labour Party, his place in British history defined by those crucial days in 2002 and 2003, he looked humbled, even haunted, saying not a day went by when he did not think about decisions he made more than a decade ago.
Awww, me neither. You war-criminal assholes ruined my life as well as millions upon millions of others.
Print ended.
“There will not be a day of my life where I do not relive and rethink what happened,” Blair said. “People ask me why I spend so much time in the Middle East today. This is why. This why I work on Middle East peace.”
Yeah, he's a real hero.
A decisive moment seemed to come when Blair’s draft of the 2002 note to Bush, classified “Secret-Personal,” circulated to two senior aides, David Manning and Jonathan Powell. The report disclosed that they urged Blair to soften or delete the “I will be with you, whatever” declaration and not to tie his political fate too tightly to Bush’s judgments.
Manning, a former ambassador to Washington and Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser, testified that he had told Blair the sentence was “too sweeping,” that it seemed to “close off options,” and that there was “a risk it would be taken at face value.”
Blair later said he thought he had amended the sentence, but he had not.
Blair insisted that he had provided no “blank check” to Washington, and the note quickly moved to an assessment of the many difficulties of such a war, including building a political coalition to back it and the “need to commit to Iraq for the long term.”
He warned of “unintended consequences,” like large numbers of Iraqi civilian casualties or an eruption “of the Arab street.”
The report concluded that Blair and the British government both underestimated the difficulties and consequences of the war and significantly overestimated the influence he would have over Bush.
That's why people were out in the streets protesting against it. We didn't underestimate those things, although things have turned out way worse than our greatest fears.
The results have haunted Iraq, the United States, and Britain ever since: more than 200 British dead, including 179 soldiers, at least 4,500 American dead, and more than 150,000 Iraqi dead, most of them civilians, as sectarian warfare, terrorist groups, and actors like Iran have filled the vacuum left by Saddam.
That Iraq number is definitely lowballed -- and that was more than 7 years ago!
Look at the goddamn NYT try to blame Iran for it, too! What a pos they are.
“The UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted,” the report said. “Military action at that time was not a last resort.”
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I was just asking about that report, and honestly, none of this is new and the Chilcot report totally ignored the influence of The Lobby.
Related: Prop 102: Iraq and Government Lies
Yeah, Bliar knew the lies were war crimes; that's why he wanted the second UN resolution as cover. The charade is over.
"Boris Johnson won’t seek to lead Britain; Michael Gove will" by Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle New York Times June 30, 2016
LONDON — On a day of intrigue and betrayal, predictions about the next prime minister of Britain were overturned Thursday as the presumed favorite, Boris Johnson, said he would not run after his ally in the Brexit campaign, Michael Gove, suddenly announced his candidacy.
Gove had once ruled himself out. His U-turn Thursday wrecked Johnson’s prospects and enhanced those of Theresa May, the home secretary, who had backed the Remain campaign, but with little enthusiasm.
Related:
"May argued Sunday that this relative neutrality would help her build consensus between the 17 million who voted for a British exit, or ‘‘Brexit,’’ and the 16 million who voted to remain in the June 23 referendum.... Her top priority will be to frame a negotiating strategy for leaving the union, after the referendum in which she sided with those who wanted to remain. On Monday, May insisted that “Brexit means Brexit,” as she sought to reassure right-wingers that she was committed to the policy, adding that “there will be no attempt to remain inside the EU. There will be no attempts to rejoin it by the back door, no second referendum.”
And no second thoughts.
With Johnson out, the prospect of a race between May, 59, and Gove, 48, the justice secretary, also indicated that the next prime minister would not seek to keep Britain in the duty-free single market of the European Union if the price was no restriction on immigration from the bloc.
The sense that Johnson might try to reach a softer deal with Brussels, and his unwillingness to promise key jobs to Gove and other leaders of the campaign to exit the European Union, helped doom his candidacy, legislators said.
Gove said Thursday that he had “come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.”
May supported staying in the European Union but was a relatively quiet voice in that debate and made no enemies. She is considered a candidate of continuity who is farther to the right than Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced his resignation the day after the vote to leave the bloc.
The more things change.... !!!
On Thursday, May ruled out a second referendum or any effort to rejoin the union, emphasizing that there must be better control of immigration.
“Brexit means Brexit,” she said.
“The campaign was fought, the vote was held, turnout was high, and the public gave their verdict,” she said. “There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum.”
She said that negotiations with Brussels would take years and that they would not start before the end of the year, despite impatience among European leaders. It is notable that the chairman of her campaign is a Brexit supporter, Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons.
While the bookmakers made May the new favorite to succeed Cameron, she is vulnerable to charges that, in her years as home secretary, she failed to reduce net immigration to Britain.
Johnson, in his own speech, included a reference to Brutus in “Julius Caesar” and spoke of “a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” It was not a time to “fight against the tide of history, but to take that tide at the flood and sail on to fortune,” Johnson said.
Johnson himself played Brutus to Prime Minister Cameron’s Caesar. But he got to be Caesar for only a very short time before Gove took on the role of Brutus. Johnson, a betrayer betrayed, seemed more rueful than angry. And he was silent about which candidate he might now support.
Maybe he can get a better job.
Gove, who was a close friend of Cameron before backing the British exit, appears to have been encouraged to run by Cameron aides, who vowed privately to try to block the ascension of Johnson, regarded as more interested in the game of politics than in the substance.
And now he has been eliminated!
Also see: Farage says he’ll step down as head of UK Independence Party
May, the daughter of a vicar, portrayed herself as a candidate for ordinary voters. “If you’re from an ordinary working-class family, life is just much harder than many people in politics realize,” she said. “You have a job, but you often don’t have job security.”
If selected by the Conservatives, she would be the second woman to become Britain’s prime minister, after Margaret Thatcher....
Related:
"The biggest issue now is whether May will evolve as prime minister into a consensus-seeking centrist like Merkel or turn right toward her Conservative Party’s most vocally anti-European lawmakers. While Thatcher was famous for inflexibility, May has highlighted the need for Conservatives to look critically at their uncaring image and reach out to the poor and marginalized..... If two, three, or even more women end up sitting around the table at the next G-8 Summit, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, that could radically reshuffle how we view the opportunities for women in global leadership roles. ‘‘It could disrupt our image of who world leaders can be,’’ she said."
Not only that, but with Merkel, May, a possible President Clinton, and Janet Yellen head of the Fed and Christine Lagarde at the IMF, there will be 5 women occupying the most powerful positions in the world and there will be no more excuses for why the world is in such shit shape. I've been told as long as I can remember that if women ran the world there would be no more wars.
Well....
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"Conservative Party starts choosing leader as pound sinks" by Danica Kirka Associated Press July 05, 2016
LONDON — With the British currency plunging to its lowest point in three decades, Home Secretary Theresa May scored a substantial victory in the first round of voting to determine who will follow David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister.
That is how the $y$tem puni$hes you for voting the wrong way.
May garnered just over half the votes cast, with 165 Conservative Party members of Parliament backing her. Her strong showing does not guarantee that she will eventually reside at 10 Downing Street, however, as lawmakers will vote until they narrow the field to two candidates and then put the matter to a vote before the entire party membership.
That means more twists and turns are likely in the vital leadership race. The victor, to be announced Sept. 9, will be charged with becoming prime minister
The British pound was down sharply Tuesday, as were shares in UK real estate companies, amid concerns that the exit from the European Union will hurt property prices in Britain.
Amid the upheaval, Bank of England governor Mark Carney projected a sense of calm Tuesday as he relaxed capital requirements for banks to free up money for loans for homes and businesses.
Yeah, printing and dumping money on it solves any problem.
‘‘The bank can be expected to take whatever action is needed to promote monetary and financial stability, and as a consequence, support the real economy,’’ Carney said. ‘‘These efforts mean we can all look ahead, not over our shoulders.’’
The Bank of England has cited commercial real estate as one of the risks to the British economy. The sector had taken in capital from overseas and had become ‘‘stretched,’’ the bank said.
Financial groups Aviva Investors, Standard Life, and M&G Investments stopped trading Tuesday in commercial property funds following a rapid increase in investors trying to liquidate their holdings. They said they stopped trading to protect other investors who wished to remain in their respective funds.
See:
UK funds freeze assets
Standard Life fund halts withdrawals after Brexit
Pound halts worst two-week drop since 2009
Still falling.
The funds buy commercial property and offer shares to investors. Some of those investors now appear worried that companies might opt to leave London to move operations to mainland Europe to retain access to the lucrative EU market. That would leave empty office space and weigh down on commercial real estate values in Britain’s capital.
‘‘The dominoes are starting to fall in the UK commercial property market, as yet another fund locks its doors on the back of outflows precipitated by the Brexit vote,’’ Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said after the move by Aviva. ‘‘It’s probably only a matter of time before we see other funds follow suit.’’
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Who do you think could best mother along the economy?
"After a startlingly swift transfer of power, Theresa May became Britain’s prime minister on Wednesday, but in a surprise appointment, May named Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became a fiery advocate of the Brexit campaign as foreign secretary. Philip Hammond, who had been foreign secretary, replaced the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne. May is also expected to promote several women to powerful jobs and, because she argued for Britain to remain inside the European Union, to give key positions to several of those who took the opposing view, to create a political balance. That referendum divided the nation, with the majority of voters in a number of less affluent areas opting to quit the bloc, while most of those in London, Scotland, and Northern Ireland took the opposite view. On Monday, May outlined some of the economic changes she hopes to make, speaking about taming excessive executive pay, and arguing that big multinational companies must pay their fair share of tax....."
Related:
Post-Brexit, a call for a 15% corporate tax rate
Lowering it is fair?
Millennials, Brexit is your wakeup call
Welsh reject EU, but its money will be missed
What can the EU gain from Brexit?
Stocks continue to rebound
US stock indexes end strong week with tiny gains
At a record high now.
Stocks slump, ending 4-day rally, on new Brexit worries
In Europe, McDonald’s keeps ‘Mac’ and “Mc’
McDonald’s to offer McGriddles all day
France welcomes London businesses following EU vote
Deutsche Borse-London merger of exchanges advances
One way get around the vote whose ramifications are roiling financial markets.
"A British jury convicted three former employees of Barclays of plotting to improve the bank’s trading results by rigging a benchmark interest rate known as the Libor. The trial, the third in Britain on the scandal involving the London interbank offered rate, followed a half-decade investigation that led to billions of dollars in fines and shook the reputations of some of the world’s biggest banks. In January, a jury in a separate case acquitted six former brokers at other financial institutions of helping a former trader at UBS and Citigroup manipulate the Libor. The trader, Tom Hayes, was convicted on criminal charges in August. To set the Libor and other rates, banks submit the rates at which they would be prepared to lend money to one another, on an unsecured basis. Libor is used to price more than $300 trillion in securities. In the latest case, the conspiracy was intended to increase profits traders made from interest rate swaps and other derivatives contracts with so-called counterparties, which could include other banks, governments, and pension funds, prosecutors said. Jay Vijay Merchant, Alex Pabon, and Jonathan J. Mathew were each convicted of conspiracy to defraud. The jury was unable to reach a verdict regarding two other former Barclays employees. Sentencing is expected this week."
Related: British Lay LIBOR Investigation to Rest
"Former Barclays traders sentenced in Libor-rigging case" by Chad Bray New York Times July 07, 2016
LONDON — Four former Barclays employees were sentenced Thursday to prison terms — the longest of which was 6 ½ years — after three of the traders were convicted last week of plotting to manipulate the benchmark interest rate known as Libor.
The convictions came in the third trial to focus on a scandal involving Libor, the London interbank offered rate.
A half-decade investigation into activity by traders around the interest rate led to billions of dollars in fines and shook the reputations of some of the world’s biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS, as well as Barclays.
Two former Barclays traders, Jay Vijay Merchant and Alex Pabon, as well as Jonathan J. Mathew, a former rate submitter at the bank, were convicted on a charge of conspiracy to defraud last week, and their convictions were announced Monday.
Merchant, who supervised Pabon, received the longest sentence of 6 ½ years in prison. Mathew was sentenced to four years in prison, while Pabon received a sentence of two years and nine months.
At Thursday’s hearing, Judge Anthony J. Leonard said the men were highly culpable in the matter and said their behavior showed “an absence of integrity that ought to categorize banking.”
Peter Johnson, a former Barclays trader and Mathew’s boss, pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in October 2014 and was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison, alongside the other men.
To set Libor and other rates, banks submit the rates at which they would be prepared to lend money to one another, on an unsecured basis, in various currencies and at varying maturities. Libor is used to price more than $300 trillion in securities.
Barclays was the first bank to settle the matter and paid $450 million in penalties. The ensuing scandal cost Robert E. Diamond Jr., then the bank’s chief executive, his job.
In the latest case, the Serious Fraud Office of Britain claimed that derivative traders at Barclays in New York and London, including Merchant and Pabon, conspired with rate submitters in London to try to manipulate the benchmark interest rate.
The conspiracy was intended to increase the profits that traders made from interest rate swaps and other derivative contracts with counterparties, which could include other banks, governments, and pension funds, prosecutors said.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on charges against two other former Barclays traders. The Serious Fraud Office said Wednesday that it would seek a retrial against those men.
British prosecutors have had mixed results in their efforts to pursue criminal charges in the Libor matter.
Tom Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was convicted of criminal charges in August and is serving 11 years in prison.
But in January, a jury acquitted six former brokers of criminal charges that they had helped Hayes manipulate Libor.
They showed leniency and blamed soccer fans instead.
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Related: Mass. companies brace for Brexit’s side effects
Can you make $en$e of the mixed me$$ages?
"EU’s new crises raise questions about what more can be done" by Lorne Cook Associated Press July 02, 2016
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Europe in turmoil. Britain dealing the European Union a heavy blow. People power causing the EU great angst over what its mission should be. Terror strikes in a major capital.
‘‘We cannot continue as if nothing had happened. . . . Europe’s crisis is deep,’’ warned EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker. ‘‘A period for reflection, clarification, and discussion is called for.’’
Those comments and events ring true today — but they are actually from June 2005.
So much has changed since then, yet so little appears different — except perhaps that Europe rallied to Britain’s side after the July 7 bombings. Today, the UK appears to be in virtual quarantine out of fear that its anti-European streak might be contagious.
They capture the way I feel after 10 years of blogging.
Though the crises today may be different — Europe’s failure to manage a surge of refugee arrivals, Greece’s debt mountain, and future in the shared euro currency — they raise the same questions.
Indeed it’s unclear what Europe might do now that it could not have done a decade ago, as far-right parties cry victory in the wake of Brexit and shout for others to follow the UK lead.
‘‘The challenge for Europe’s leadership is to address the legitimate grievances of people dissatisfied with Europe, without kowtowing to the ideologies of the extreme left or right,’’ said Etienne Davignon, president of the Friends of Europe think tank.
They can't do that serving banks. That's why things are as they are!
‘‘We must not use the current crisis as an excuse to push endlessly for ‘more Europe,’ ’’ he said. ‘‘The answer is responding quickly to specific questions from citizens who want a better and more secure life.’’
It's called the Shock Doctrine.
‘‘I will not say that nothing has to change, but things moving in the right direction will not change,’’ Juncker told reporters in Bratislava as Slovakia took over the EU’s rotating presidency from the Netherlands....
He said that when?
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"EU commission seeks sanction on Spain, Portugal on deficits; Says the two countries have veered off track" by Esteban Duarte and Corina Ruhe Bloomberg News July 07, 2016
Punishing the Iberian countries could be a contentious issue. That’s because while other countries, including France and Italy, have all received warnings in recent years after missing targets on deficit or debt, no country has so far been sanctioned. Populist parties have been making gains across Europe, a wave that’s been driven in part by a rejection of the EU’s supranational powers.
“Fines may not be the best way to punish countries that fail to deal with their expenditures; they could make things worse,” Javier Diaz Gimenez, a Madrid-based economics professor at IESE Business School, said in a phone interview. “While public embarrassment alone won’t be enough to stop the spending, they also won’t want to give euroskeptic parties an opportunity to criticize the EU.”
EU finance ministers have a meeting scheduled for July 12, when they may discuss whether to enable the commission to go ahead with the penalty procedure. Since the rules were beefed up in 2011 and 2013 in response to the debt crisis, the commission has more powers to push for sanctions against member states including fining countries that persistently breach their commitments....
And you wonder why the British wanted out?
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Related: Spain and Portugal may escape EU fines over budget deficits
It looks like Austria will be next to leave after the massive vote fraud in the recent round of elections.
Don't fly out through Turkey whatever you do:
"Istanbul bombers were Russian, Uzbek, Kyrgyz nationals" by Erin Cunningham Washington Post July 01, 2016
Really?
ISTANBUL — The three suicide bombers who brought horror and bloodshed to Istanbul’s main airport were identified Thursday as nationals from Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, adding fresh leads for investigators digging into suspected Islamic State networks.
It's cover story crap!
The various homelands underscored possible connections between Islamic State cells and Turkey’s large communities of workers and others from the Caucasus region and Central Asia. There has been no claim of responsibility, but Turkish officials have said they believe the Islamic State was behind the carnage at Ataturk Airport.
And who could ever question governments or the war pre$$?
Senior Turkish officials cited the home nations of the attackers. But authorities did not immediately release their names or other details about their possible movements and planning before the attack, which claimed 44 lives and wounded more than 230 in another potential blow to Turkey’s already flagging tourism industry.
The details on the attackers’ origins are likely to expand the international scope of the investigation and offer a chance for wider assistance from Russia, which plans security talks Friday with Turkish officials.
The broad topic outlined for the meetings looks to find ways to ease the conflict in Syria, but the airport attacks could shift greater focus to the Islamic State and its dependence on Turkey as a lifeline.
I'm sorry, who is throwing ISIS a lifeline?
That a slip-up oopsie or.... ??
In recent months, however, Turkey has sought to increasingly close off the militant group’s routes for sending supplies and recruits into Syria.
Even as Turkey still reeled from the violence, the assault on one of the world’s busiest airports — and a symbol of Turkey’s modern economy — threatened to propel the country into an even wider war with the jihadists.
Turkish police staged raids in at least two cities, detaining at least 13 suspects in connection with the attacks.
Counterterrorism units raided 16 addresses in Istanbul and launched operations in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, according to Turkish officials and the state-run Anadolu news agency....
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Who you gonna call for better security?
"Airports remain at risk if security cannot respond in seconds, expert says" by Ashley Halsey III Washington Post July 01, 2016
Rafi Ron, a former security chief at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport who now works as an airport security consultant in the United States and other countries, declined to say whether that response would come in the form of police snipers, SWAT teams, or other means.
‘‘I really don’t want to get into the technical detail. I don’t think we should be discussing the defensive tactics,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s more than one way to respond in a matter of seconds.’’
Ron points out that airports are familiar terrorism targets, with an explosion that killed and injured dozens in Moscow five years ago and the attacks in Vienna, Paris, and Rome in the 1970s.
Done by Gladio groups, no doubt.
‘‘There is a lot that can be done,’’ said Ron, who was instrumental in setting up the current security system in Tel Aviv. ‘‘It’s not a common practice in most of the Western world. It is more common in the areas that are identified as high-risk areas. Certainly, at airports in war zones, I assume these types of measures are happening.’’
At Baghdad International Airport, civilian cars are not allowed to drive to the terminal. Passengers must transfer to approved buses or taxis at a parking lot at the perimeter of the airport, after which they pass through two screening checks, including one with sniffer dogs, before reaching the terminal. Inside the terminal, there are two more X-ray machines prior to check-in, another after immigration, and a final one at the gate. So far, Baghdad has avoided a fatal attack on its airport during the country’s war against the Islamic State.
Israel’s aviation security — at Tel Aviv and on flights from abroad that are departing for Israel — is among the tightest in the world.
Yeah, it's strange how ISIS is all around Israel but doesn't attack them. It only attacks Israel's enemies and Muslims!
Several miles before travelers arrive at the main terminals of Ben Gurion airport, they first pass through a military checkpoint, where the identities of taxi drivers and passengers can be scrutinized. Travelers whom guards deem suspicious can be questioned and their baggage searched several miles from the terminals.
Israeli authorities freely acknowledge that they profile passengers. Young Muslim men, including from the United States, are often subjected to second and third screenings, including strip searches and examinations of their personal electronic devices.
But in Europe and the United States, passengers and visitors have easy airport access.
That's interesting seeing it is Israeli or Israeli-based firms providing security at all the airports that have been attacked -- including in Turkey. Just made up with them, too.
After the terrorist attacks in Brussels, where a bomb was detonated in the terminal area before the security checkpoint, questions were raised in Britain over where the ring of security should be placed at an airport and whether the existing security arrangements were enough to prevent attacks. As in Brussels, passengers entering airport terminals in Britain do not immediately go through security checks.
At US airports, security responsibility is shared by the Transportation Security Administration and local law enforcement agencies. Most airport law enforcement officers lack the ‘‘combat skills to do what is required to meet this type of challenge,’’ Ron said.
You see where all this is going, right?
‘‘If you look at the airports that serve Washington, D.C., and ask yourself the question, how long would it take for somebody to actually respond to an active shooter, you won’t be able to avoid the conclusion that the situation would be much worse than in Istanbul.’’
GET READY FOR IT, Americans!
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Also see:
Girl who says she was groped on a plane sues
That's why the TSA is getting new scanners.
Paris attacks findings: gross intel failure, police rivalry
Then all the spying and surveillance is worthless, isn't it?
EgyptAir pilots tried to put out fire in doomed plane
Is that the lame excuse they are coming up with for another war game shoot down?
After 20 years, healing and heartache from TWA Flight 800
Good to see the Globe finally telling the truth about that.
"The US planemaker, which celebrates its centennial on July 15, also plans to showcase technologies that may change flying for passengers and pilots in a special pavilion at the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom. An Embraer E175 jet that will be converted into a flying laboratory are among technologies that Boeing and Brazil’s Embraer unveiled Thursday, along with...."
As opposed to Saddam's non-existent mobile biological weapons labs.
Boeing said to be poised to win $3.5 billion in orders
From Spain and Germany.
Boeing, Airbus duel for $12b order from SpiceJet
That's India.
Boeing will sell 100 planes to Iran
That's one corporation not afraid of the Zionist Lobby.
Trains Crash Head-on in Italy, Killing at Least 25 The circumstances that led to the collision were unclear. A team of inspectors from the transportation ministry will work with local prosecutors to determine the cause, officials said.
Vatican leaks trial nears end with requests for convictions
It's an illegitimate child case? Thank God! Even if they are powerless to do anything about it, it's only an embarrassment.
"In a separate development, the Vatican said Francis will meet with Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders during his Sept. 30-Oct. 2 trip to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. That will add a strong interreligious dimension to an already politically delicate trip."
What airport is he flying out of?
Body of US student reported missing in Rome found
Rome Police Arrest Homeless Man in Murder of U.S. Student
That will choke you up if you read it.
"Thousands of Bosnians raised their hands in prayer Saturday as a truck bearing 127 coffins passed through the capital on its way to Srebrenica, where the newly identified victims of Europe’s worst massacre since World War II will be buried on the 21th anniversary of the crime. The remains will be buried Monday near some 6,000 other Srebrenica victims previously found in mass graves (AP)."
See: Celebrating Srebrenica
I can no longer hear the screams.
NDUs:
I nearly screamed when I saw the lead....
Before even getting into it, the whole thing stinks. They just had the soccer championship in France and security had to have been on alert already. And yet it's another "gross intel failure." Hate to say it, but the total $urveillance tyranny has utterly and completely failed and must be done away with -- unless this is another in a long line psyop sh**.
Now that doesn't exclude the possibility of the event be real in some form. The preponderance of evidence lately would suggest not, but I haven't even begun the to investigate the incident nor do I really want to anymore. I don't need to step in a pile of sh** when I smell it in front of me. You go around.
Okay, Truck slams into revelers in Nice, at least 80 dead.
First thing I notice is the different byline in my printed paper. Not like I was going to read it anyway, and I'm also going to ignore him, too. What I did note is this:
"It also would be difficult to pick a more meaningful time to attack France. Targeting this city on Bastille Day is like attacking a scenic city in the United States on the Fourth of July."
Early indications are they came through Turkey.
Related:
New York to step up security after Nice attack, Cuomo says
NICE ATTACK 2016 - FALSE FLAG
“77 dead on 7/14” – numerology signals false flag
Yeah, they like to screw with our minds.
Now They've Stolen "Normal" from Humanity....What's Left?
Click on it and find out.
Putin on Nice Attack: Humanity Needs to Unite in Order to Defeat Terrorism
I can't figure out Putin, the Globe tells me they have, and I am now worried about the safety of candidate Trump and President Obama.
France to Escalate Strikes in Syria and Iraq After Nice Attack
French Minister Manuel Vas: ‘We Must Learn to Live with the Terror, Like Israel’
I suppose the false flag artists within the U.S. government and those that it works with put them off for a couple of weeks so they can welcome Trump to Cleveland (which could be the city of champions this year, what with the Cavs winning the NBA title and the Indians in first place) -- or not?
It's also interesting that the attack takes attention of what should have been today's top story, reported tomorrow. Who benefits and who is hurt by it?
Across the channel:
"Britain’s new foreign secretary often lacks diplomacy" by Dan Bilefsky New York Times July 14, 2016
(I see a NYT byline and I groan)
LONDON — Britain’s new foreign secretary, has a quality unusual for a nation’s top diplomat: He can be spectacularly undiplomatic.
Johnson has suggested that President Obama had an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire,” written a poem insinuating that Turkey’s president had sexual relations with a goat, and likened the European Union — which he helped lead the campaign for Britain to leave — to Hitler’s Third Reich.
And that was only this spring.
In December, he compared Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to Dobby the House Elf, a “Harry Potter” character. In 2007, he wrote that Hillary Clinton looked like “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.” In 2002, he referred to Africans as “flag-waving pickaninnies.”
So it was with no little shock that the world reacted to the news Wednesday evening that Britain’s new prime minister, Theresa May, had named Boris Johnson to lead the rarefied Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which employs 14,000 people in nearly 270 diplomatic offices and works with the secret intelligence service MI6.
Informed of the appointment, the State Department’s spokesman struggled to keep a straight face. The French foreign minister told a radio station that Johnson had “lied a lot to the British people.”
(Please see beginning of this post for another guy who lied a lot)
Putting Johnson — whose aspirations for prime minister were dashed by the betrayal of an erstwhile ally, Michael Gove — at the helm of the foreign office might have been an astute move by May. He will frequently be out of the country.
His defenders argue that for all of his verbal daggers, Johnson is at heart a liberal internationalist.
Here, however, are some of Johnson’s memorable utterances that might shadow him in his new role as Britain’s top diplomat:
In May, Johnson told The Sunday Telegraph that European history had been marked by ill-fated attempts to unify the Continent, in efforts to re-create the “golden age” of the Roman Empire. “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically,” he said. “The EU is an attempt to do this by different meth-ods.”
My print copy was chopped right there.
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Related:
"Ultimately, opponents of the Boeing sale are rejecting the very premise of diplomacy — the notion that a certain measure of give and take, even with largely hostile foreign regimes, can promote a peace that’s in every party’s mutual interest. Boeing’s sale to Iran should go forward not because of the jobs it provides in the United States — though that certainly helps — but because it would signal that the US government keeps its commitments and lets reality, not ideology or wishful thinking, guide its policies toward the world...."
(Blog editor just shakes his head considering the unreality that is presented day after day in the agenda-pushing war pre$$. What more do you want?)
French president’s hairdresser gets notice over pay
Losing control of Newark gates to cost United $412m
Growth rate brings Ireland ridicule, scrutiny
Sorry I missed those, and I wouldn't be going anywhere near an AmeriKan airport this summer. You are better off traveling by horse if you are fishing around for a lift (how about that yacht and dock, huh?).
More than 200 wounded in truck attack; 25 on life support
Obama orders flag to half-staff
On Nice attack, Trump gets it, Clinton doesn’t
It's not just Nice, it is Dallas, too. The political geniuses in the administration and campaign have horribly miscalculated. They thought the false flags would redound favorably upon them after setting up this whole situation of fear, crisis, failure, repeat. Yes, the short-term agenda is being advanced, but long term it is undercutting their very justification for rule.
Been a lot of chatter in the alternative media about what might be coming down the next couple of weeks, be it chaos at the conventions, an assassination attempt, Clinton getting dumped and Sanders stepping in, or a state of martial law being declared with Obama postponing elections. Whether they want to drop the lone fig leaf of a facade that separates them from fascism and allegedly validates their legitimacy is a desperation measure, and there is always the option of installing the loose cannon Trump via the Trojan horse and surrounding him with Zionist moles. That all depends on what you think Trump is. I suppose we will know by fall.
