Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [5]

[Orwell]

As to Australia being invaded, if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck and kicks the First Ducks off the pond, it's an invasion. Australian Aboriginals call it Invasion Day or Survival Day and we call it Australia Day. I don't really have much interest in Australia Day, though I don't hate it. I'd prefer any National Day to fall on the date Australian Aboriginals first got the vote in their own country and became actual citizens of the place. 'Inclusion Day'?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{{Cameron is in full squirm and wriggle mode over these offshore tax havens. For several reasons- the funniest reason is his Dad had a massive tax haven account- first Cameron said it was a 'private mater' (which rather humorously Snowden mocked him about) then he had to make another statement saying he did not have any shares or otherwise in a tax haven, now he has had to clarify again to say that he nor his family benefit from any such accounts, in the future- meaning they have in the past, obviously when it was his Dad who had it and they are all filthy rich.

More to come on this yet I will wager.

The other reason he is in the shit here is that most of the British overseas territories are on the list as tax havens! The government has been caught out in its own hypocrisy on tax in the most blatant way possible.}}}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{{Time lines of obfuscation from Cameron}}}


-Asked on Monday whether she could confirm that no family money was still invested in the fund, Mr Cameron's spokeswoman said: "That is a private matter"

-Then in an interview on Tuesday, Mr Cameron said: " I have no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that. And, so that, I think, is a very clear description"

-Downing Street issued a statement later that day: "To be clear, the prime minister, his wife and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds. The prime minister owns no shares. As has been previously reported, Mrs Cameron owns a small number of shares connected to her father's land, which she declares on her tax return"

-No 10 then released a further clarifying statement on Wednesday, saying: "There are no offshore funds/trusts which the prime minister, Mrs Cameron or their children will benefit from in future"

-On Thursday the PM told ITV News: "We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010"

{{{I wonder if these sort of schemes are still morally wrong, as he claimed when tv stars were found to be using similar schemes}}

'it was ‘unfair on the people who pay to watch him (Jimmy Carr- comedian) perform that he is not paying his taxes in the same way that they do’.
The PM also slammed Gary Barlow over a similar avoidance scheme and went on to say ‘The government is acting by looking at a general anti-avoidance law but we do need to make progress on this. It is not fair on hardworking people who do the right thing and pay their taxes to see these sorts of scams taking place.’
At the same time, (as reported by the Guardian Newspaper) a Downing Street spokeswoman had said Cameron backed George Osborne’s description of aggressive tax avoidance as “morally repugnant”.

However, in an amazing turn of events, the Prime Minister today claimed that Jimmy Carr has done nothing wrong and tax avoidance is OK, ‘as long as you don’t really benefit from it in the future, much’.


You couldnt make it up}}}}}

[azriel]

Ive been listening to this on the radio each morning as I bash away at the washing up That sleazeball standing proud & magnificent on his lily white ivory tower is ONE of the biggest money grabbing bastards of them all. How he keeps his ""trust me, Im sincere"" face going IL not know. The words should choke him ! Ive always thought that Politicians are a screwed up devious lot. They sing the songs you wanna hear, 'you' believe they are there for you (ha!) & relax so then you dont bother to look further than surface value at all the dodgy goings on they ALL get up to. They are a bunch of snake charmers & will happily strangle anyone to get to the covenant of the Ark. Heres my distrust of them...if they were on fire I wouldnt waste spit to put the flames out. ....( No, officer, honestly, I was just filling this petrol can with water ! )

[azriel]

And saying that Cameron had knowledge of funds & sold this or that BEFORE he became PM !!!!! Oh well thats ok then, he obviously was allowed to fiddle because it happened BEFORE his Holy & Angelic rise to power !!

[Mrs Figg]

its almost as bad as billions of pounds of UK cash going to corrupt African rulers to build new swimming pools and swan around in private jets. All politicians have got their finger in the pie they just don't get found out.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{Well they have been found out a bit here, and Cameron is squirming pretty bad at the moment on the end of its hook!}}}

[Lancebloke]

They are all at it. Not sure why people expect any different. The only way to do it is to put trade embargoes or sanctions on countries that act as havens... they will soon change their tune.

[halfwise]

Um...isn't it politicians who have to enact those trade embargos?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{So now what anyone with half a brain could see at the time- Saudi's involvement in 9/11- looks like its going to be officially recognised, if they release the redacted portion of the 9/11 report- what should the US do?
America justified the military invasion of two countries and the toppling of two legitimate governments by force as a response (and in violation of international treaties) - and they were not even responsible- if it turns out Saudi is behind it, should America act the same way?- or will the hypocrisy be there for all to see as Saudi is treated with kid gloves whilst others countries lives were used for political expediency and as a balm for poor upset Americans.}}}}

[Mrs Figg]

I suspect everyone knew already.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{{Well, yes, but there is a big difference between suspecting they are behind it, and knowing and and having proof they are behind it.
If America knew at the time, which seems likely, then they went to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq on false pretences- and they only got a coalition of countries to go along with them because it was presented as retaliation for an unprovoked attack.
It was already illegal under international law as regime change by force is illegal. But if it turns out they also knew those countries were not responsible then that's a hole other ball game- and might even leave the US open to international sanctions if the countries invaded want to take it to the international court as war crimes.
But of course Saudi can wreck the US economy if they dump all their US assets at once on the markets- which seems to be the fear which has led both right and left wing Presidents to keep the Saudi involvement a secret. I can think of any other reason why Obama didn't publish right away hen he got in office- Bush its understandable, his families has ties with the Saudi Royal family and the Bin Ladens family in particular going back three generations, they were up to their necks in it with the Saudi's- there was personal vested interest for Bush in not revealing who was behind 9/11,but Obama? Unless the Saudi's have a serious threat over the US I don't see why else he is reluctant.}}}

[Mrs Figg]

I suspect the west has turned the other way when atrocities happen in SA for a long long time. what with arms deals and oil they feel untouchable. they are allowed to get away with it because of vested interests. that's why millions of refugees don't escape to SA because they know their 'brothers' will treat them like slaves. great place.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/16/politics/saudi-arabia-government-9-11-congress-bill/

[David H]

You're not imagining that there's a secret report that says, "Saudi Princes A, B, and C masterminded the 911 attack" are you? Sure the Saudi's were involved. They'd been putting billions of Saudi oil dollars into funding the Afghan resistance to the USSR at our request, allowing us to build and operate air bases within their country, continuing to expand the US military presence in a country that historically hated foreign "occupation". So a backlash was inevitable, but I suspect that US analysts were expecting it to be Saudi against Saudi rather than reaching across the ocean to hit the USA.

My guess is that such a report would be fascinating reading and would probably name a lot of people in this country as well as Saudi Arabia who are still alive and would rather not be implicated, whichever side of the covert war they were on.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{I expect the report, if its ever released to be circumspect- its been written by civil servants afterall. But it clearly does point the finger for funding at elements in the Saudi regime and possibly the Royal Family. And it seems equally clear the US believes the Saudi threat about asset dumping enough to sit on that information all this time. But regardless of if it comes out or not I think its clear to everyone now that the Bush Administration lied to the American people and to the world about who was responsible, and all the action which followed, all the war and death and displacement of millions was a direct result of that lie.}}}

[halfwise]

It's not so much that the Saudis were directly responsible - it was very clearly Al Queda as directed from Afghanistan. But there were enough ties of support from Saudi money flowing to Al Queda that they can be implicated for at least turning a blind eye to the obvious.

I don't think the attack on Afghanistan to uproot Taliban support for Al Queda will come to be seen as a fraud the way Iraq was. I suspect the lack of equal attack against Saudi Arabia for monetary support and the subsequent cover-up was part of a very Machiavellian deal: note how hard the Saudis have come down on terrorist cells within their own country since 9/11. I think the deal was that if the Saudis don't crack down, the papers will be released.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{I don't think the Taliban were any more responsible- they were guilty of the same as the Saudi's- turning a blind eye, allowing the climate in which terrorist groups could train and recruit and no doubt some tacit funding for some government officials- but unlike the Saudi's the Taliban have a very good excuse, they never were in control of their whole country- hell look how long its taken since the war for the new government to get control of just some of Afghanistan. The Taliban were just the same- local war lords had more influence and power in their jurisdictions than the Taliban as a government ever had.
And the ultimatum given to the Taliban was one no country would accept- turn over a citizen to us, no we wont provide you with any evidence of guilt we just want him or we star bombing you (imagine that in reverse- a Muslim country demands a US citizen for suspected crimes under threat of military reprisals if not, but they refuse to provide any proof at all of their guilt- there is no way in hell the US would hand them over in those circumstances).
Not that the Taliban were ever in a position to get get him and turn him over even if they had wanted to. And the US new this. It was just an excuse.}}}}}

[halfwise]

While I agree it's not reasonable to expect the Taliban to give up a citizen under threat, I think it's fair to say they were quite happy to watch 9/11 happen. The same can't be said of the Saudis. They were funding Al Queda to attack the more immediate enemies of Wahabbism, not America. Still funding terrorists, but not as obvious a target for US counter attack.

[Eldorion]

Interesting discussion. I remember criticizing the invasion of Afghanistan on here before and was surprised how many people had forgotten that the Taliban did offer to give up bin Laden, they just put conditions on it, like showing evidence that OBL was responsible (since he was still denying involvement in 9/11 at the time) and wanting to give him to a Muslim country first. Hard to imagine any regime in the world just rolling over completely, but the US was mainly just looking for an excuse to start attacking. Shades of Austria-Hungary and Serbia in 1914. History will not be kind to the War in Afghanistan and its contemporary cheerleaders.

(I hope it's obvious that this isn't a defense of the Taliban as a regime, since they were horrible. Of course, so is Saudi Arabia and many other governments that we haven't attacked, so that's not really a justification for invasion.)

[Pettytyrant101]

'was part of a very Machiavellian deal: note how hard the Saudis have come down on terrorist cells within their own country since 9/11. I think the deal was that if the Saudis don't crack down, the papers will be released.'- Halfy

{{{I think you are right about that part of it. The Saudi's it seems have been told to get their house in order- not sure they have though, especially as they are currently fighting a proxy war with Iran in someone elses country which isn't doing anyone any favours in getting Syria sorted as its just not a priority right now for them. They are busy elsewhere in a much bigger regional powerplay.

Reminds me of the deal in the UK in London- where Muslim cells could operate pretty much with impunity on the basis they didn't do anything to UK interests- so long as it all happened among their own, far away and to johnny foreigner, we'd leave them alone.
The London bombings changed all that and tore up the clandestine deal, and we started going after folk like Abu Hamaz.

Maybe America releasing those pages tears up the clandestine deal with Saudi}}}}

[halfwise]

History will not be kind to the War in Afghanistan and its contemporary cheerleaders.

I don't think history will ever reach a consensus on the decision to invade Afghanistan.   Failures in the aftermath will be documented, failures in original execution will be documented, and the debate will be whether it would have been worthwhile if done 'right'.  There's too many examples and counterexamples to come down definitively on this issue.

[Eldorion]

I think the question is less "what if it had been done right?" and more "is it possible to ever do an invasion 'right' when your motivation is blind revenge mostly directed against people who weren't even responsible?".

The response to 9/11 should have been handled as an intelligence matter: CIA, maybe bombs and special forces if necessary, but not while still negotiating with the Taliban. A full ground invasion was a wildly disproportionate response and made the high costs to the US in terms of lives and money inevitable.

[malickfan]

I think the question is less "what if it had been done right" and more "is it possible to ever do an invasion "right" when your motivation is wildly disproportionate revenge, not even directed primarily against the people responsible.

IIRC The US and it's Nato allies deployed less than 20,000 ground troops to Afganistan in 2001, compared to around 150,000 for Iraq in 2003, which was fairly restrained for revenge purposes...

[Eldorion]

If the US had been paying attention in the intelligence sphere, we would have been able to exploit the tensions that existed between the Taliban and al-Qaeda (including Mullah Omar being pissed at OBL doing 9/11 without clearing it with him first) and it wouldn't have come to an invasion at all. But I think it's fairly well established that US intelligence c. 2001 had its head firmly planted up its own ass.

Instead, we went in with the view that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were this monolithic front, thereby violating the first rule of counterinsurgency warfare (keep your enemies divided) and ignoring the fact that the Taliban is and always has been primarily a Pashtun nationalist organization. The misreading of the situation in Afghanistan in 2001 was as bad as anything Bremer and co. did in Iraq a few years later.

[malickfan]

If the US had been paying attention in the intelligence sphere, we would have been able to exploit the tensions that existed between the Taliban and al-Qaeda (including Mullah Omar being pissed at OBL doing 9/11 without clearing it with him first) and it wouldn't have come to an invasion at all. But I think it's fairly well established that US intelligence c. 2001 had its head firmly planted up its own ass.

Instead, we went in with the view that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were this monolithic front, thereby violating the first rule of counterinsurgency warfare (keep your enemies divided) and setting the tone for the years of tone-deaf blundering that followed.

Yeah agreed, no offense, but I would have thought you guys would have learned from Vietnam, disbanding the entire armed forces of Iraq after the invasion was not a smart move...