When Muammar met Mandela

Here's a fun clip with which to torment your favourite liberal - Gadaffi being welcomed to South Africa by Nelson Mandela. Going by the attire it seems to be this visit from 1999.

But, you may protest, 'The West cozied up to Gadaffi! Blair visited him!' They certainly did, and they were idiots to do so. But this isn't one of those awkward, staged, diplomatic/business trip encounters. The chemistry between these guys is electric.

Thanks to the peerless Peter Hitchens for the tip-off. He mentions the video in one of his posts on Libya, all of which are well worth your time.

Coincidentally, Thomas Friedman is hoping for some Arab Mandelas!

Just a reminder: the cuts aren't as bad as Labour and the BBC would have you believe

As London clears up after yet another anti-cuts riot, the Mail on Sunday's Stephen Glover reminds us how relatively minor the cuts actually are, and why they're necessary.

The extreme severity of the cuts is now accepted as universally as are the laws of gravity. Even many card-carrying Tories will unthinkingly assume that the marchers have a reasonable case, though they may disapprove of the way in which it is expressed.
 
No one, or almost no one, will point out the amazing truth, which is that these cuts — variously described as ‘savage’ or ‘draconian’ or, by the TUC, as a ‘massacre’ — are actually comparatively mild. Far from being ‘slashed’, public expenditure at the end of the process in 2014-15 will be a mere three per cent lower in real terms than it was in 2009-10 before the cuts began.

That wasn’t a misprint. Three per cent lower. In 2009-10, government spending was £669 billion. In 2014-15 it is projected to be £647 billion, if you strip out the effects of inflation, or an estimated £764 billion if it is included. Expenditure will be £710 billion in 2011-2012, so in money terms it has already gone up.

The above shouldn't detract from the real hardship that many people will suffer as a result of the cuts, but as Glover points out, the scale of the cuts is an order of magnitude less severe than Labour, the unions and their media allies would have you believe...

But the three per cent figure is not what the overexcited and angry marchers will hear from a succession of speakers during the marathon rally in Hyde Park this afternoon, who will include TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, as well as Ed Miliband.

The audience will be roused to a state of fury with scare stories about plummeting police numbers and the impending privatisation of the NHS. They will hear about libraries up and down the country closing as a result of wicked Coalition policies, and the hairs on the backs of their necks will bristle as they are told about the inevitable collapse of the welfare state.

Glover goes on to remind us how Gordon Brown, ably assisted but current Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, got Britain into this mess...

In other words, Gordon Brown went on a massive bender, splashing out ever larger sums of money on new hospitals and new schools — sometimes to dishearteningly little effect — before producing a final splurge in order to alleviate the worst effects of the recession. During these ten years, the proportion of GDP eaten up by public spending rose from 36 per cent to 48 per cent, the highest ever peace-time figure.

The report by Tim Morgan which Glover references is here.

BBC tries to play down violent aftermath of union-backed protests endorsed by Miliband

Peter Hitchens writes in The Mail on Sunday about the BBC's appallingly biased reporting in the build-up to yesterday's union-organised rally/family fun day/full-scale riot in London - you need to scroll a good way down the Mail's comprehensive report on yesterday's events to get to his contribution. Hitchens writes about how the BBC's Newsnight and Radio 4's Today programme gave predictably sympathetic coverage to the anti-cuts protestors.

This morning the Corporation (I used to use 'the Beeb' as an alternative reference for the BBC, but I've decided that's far too twee and cuddly-sounding – 'Corporation' better evokes the vast and sinister nature of the organisation) is in full damage-limitation mode, after the rally and march were followed by widespread violence.

The headline on the BBC's website (my bold) is 'TUC condemns post-rally violence', and the sub-heading is 'Union leaders who organised an anti-cuts protest condemn later violence in London's Trafalgar Square in which some 200 people were arrested'.

(The story itself is placed below a report on a murder which, horrific as it is, only affects and is of interest to a handful of people, in a further attempt to minimise its significance).

The second paragraph of the main report says: 'Hours after a peaceful march to Hyde Park, there were clashes between police and protesters in Trafalgar Square.

All of this is a lie.

Vintage Chomsky: Wisconsin the same as Egypt; Obama worse than Bush

Noam Chomsky shows he hasn't lost his sense of perspective as he discusses events in the Middle East with Jeremy Paxman for the BBC's Newsnight programme.

Amid the boilerplate about the West's support for dictators, and the perfectly sensible suggestion that the West shouldn't get involved in Libya because it's a civil war, there are a couple of Chomskyesque gems.

At around the 2.30 mark Chomsky relates how an Egyptian labour/labor leader sent a message of solidarity to protestors in Madison, Wisconsin. "In Madison they're trying to preserve aspects of democracy that are under serious attack," he tells Paxman. "In Egypt they're trying to gain rights that have been denied them. The trajectories are crossing but they're going in opposite directions."

You heard it here first. In a few short years the workers of Egypt will be enjoying a 30-hour week and universal healthcare, and retiring on final salary pensions at 50. Meanwhile those workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere in America who are lucky enough to have a job will be eking out a living selling kebabs, collecting scrap metal or hand-crafting clay bricks, and living in constant fear of arrest should they even think about protesting against President-for-life Palin.

Chomsky then comes out (at around the five-minute mark) with an observation that conservatives can at least agree on, albeit for different reasons. Asked by Paxman if Obama has proved to be no better than Bush, Chomsky replies "In many ways he’s worse".

For some reason Paxman - who you’d think would be familiar with Chomsky’s off-the-reservation brand of leftism - is taken aback with this and asks him to elaborate. It’s predictably downhill for there: “escalating war in Afghanistan... supporting criminal acts by Israel... Nuremberg trials... yadda yadda...”

Paxman has a reputation for being a formidable interviewer, so his inability - or reluctance - to seriously challenge the worst of Chomsky's nonsense ("Turkey is a respected country" was another corker) is disappointing. There's a fuller version of the interview here, but it's probably not available outside the UK.

 

Yes, of course it was The Constitution...

Via Hot Air, the Daily Mail reports that a book was thrown at President Obama as he spoke at a rally in Philadelphia. The Mail says it's "not clear" what the book was, but I think we can just make it out here...


Click the image for a better look. It's The Complete Idiot's Guide, naturally.

My favourite of the comments at Hot Air: I hope it wasn’t “Atlas Shrugged.” That would smart if it hit a person.

Mike on Blair and Iraq at Pajamas Media

I have a new piece up at Pajamas Media on Tony Blair's defence of the Iraq war in his memoir, and in interviews he's given to promote it. Blair is happy to concede that opponents of the war have a case to make, but wonders why they can't afford him and others who backed the war the same respect. He makes the case that the situation in Iraq was going to end badly one way or another, and asks only that his detractors concede that Saddam posed a dilemma for which there were no easy solutions, and acknowledge the complexity of the situation.

I suggest that Blair shouldn't pin his hopes on getting a fair hearing, or an honest debate, from the left:

Liberal-left types are of course fully aware of the “complexity” of the decisions that were taken, and are still being taken, over when and how the West should intervene to combat rogues states and terrorists. They just like to pretend that such complexities don’t exist; that there are no difficult decisions, and no consequences for doing what makes you popular, rather than what’s right. And hypotheticals only work one way, so opponents of intervention will ask “Would you do it again?” but never “What if we hadn’t done it?” or “What should be done next time?” The left has a vivid imagination when it comes to threats to liberty posed by conservative governments, or threats to the planet caused by global warming, but is unwilling to imagine what might have transpired in the Middle East had Saddam remained in power, or the consequences of Iran getting nuclear weapons.

The left can’t accept that, although they disagree with their opponents, those opponents might have a valid point, or might be motivated by something other than sinister aims. The arguments Blair advances are ones that are seldom aired outside conservative media outlets or in speeches by Dick Cheney and John Bolton. Blair has a platform that is rarely afforded to advocates of military action against Islamic extremists and their state sponsors, and his position flies in the face of the liberal-left narrative, which is why they hate him.

Blair points out that the West will soon face a similar dilemma over Iran's determination to acquire nuclear weapons. Don't expect the left to engage in that debate with any more honesty or decency than they displayed over Iraq.

Is Sky News pandering to British anti-semitism, or is just dumb, lazy journalism?

For much of today Sky News has been running the story of an female Israeli who posted picture of herself posing with Palestinian detainees. A story on Sky's website talks about photos and images without mentioning how many; it appears there were all of two, amongst an album containing a couple of dozen photos spanning the range of military life (At least they didn't stoop to the level of this French website which actually reproduced one of the pictures twice to pad out its treatment of the issue).

An accompanying video on the Sky website includes a bit of editorialising, or making things up, on the part of the reporter supplying the voiceover. She refers to the prisoner's 'confined' quarters, when the pictures make it impossible to judge the immediate surroundings (they actually look to have been taken outdoors), or how long the detainees were kept there. I say reporter when the mangled English sounds more like the work of a teenager on a summer work placement: "...on her lap, the plastic wrist tie used to restrain those over whom she is responsible..." (Just the one tie for all of them? Responsible over? But kudos for the correct use of the increasingly rare 'whom'). And in the inevitable comparison with Abu Ghraib, she refers to the U.S. soldiers jailed over that scandal as officers.

On the evening news version of the story, the correspondent even acknowledged that what occurred was not abuse and was not comparable to Abu Ghraib. So what could possibly explain a British news channel running this story as one of its leads all day, or the fact that it's the second most viewed item on the Sky website?

Hang on... Unless...

War in the Middle East... A win-win for Hillary

With some form of conflict between Israel and a variety of foes looking increasingly likely before the year is out, I predict victory for... Hillary Clinton, regardless of the outcome for the actual combatants.

If mosque boy fails to forcefully support Israel in a conflict, especially in the event that rocket attacks by Hezbollah or Hamas cause significant civilian casualties, Hilary could resign on this point of principle before the November elections, and thus avoid being tarred as disloyally kicking Obama while he's down by resigning to launch a challenge to him in the wake of the looming mid-term meltdown.

While this would be the most promising scenario from the point of view of a potential presidential bid, the other possibilities are hardly much worse. Robust US backing for Israel,while it wouldn't hurt Obama, would do nothing to save Democrats in the mid-terms; and it would give Hilary plenty of positive exposure as a tough supporter of Israel against common terrorist enemies. A third option, a bout of high-profile shuttle diplomacy leading to an end to fighting, would also enhance her credentials. In either of the latter two cases, thus bolstered, she could then leave the administration anyway next year if Obama's prospects for 2012 continue to deteriorate.

Yabba rages against 'Talibanisation' of British Muslim kids, neglects to offer solutions

This stirring call from left-wing columnist Yasmine Alibhai Brown for, er, somebody to, er, do something to stand up to Islamists in the UK is to be appreciated; but her moral authority is somewhat undermined by her willingness to abandon the Afghan people to suffer a far worse fate than the indignities that she complains are being inflicted upon Muslim women and children in the Britain. Apparently Yabba was all for the invasion of Afghanistan, but changed her mind when things got messy, without any suggestion of an alternative way forward. She's equally vague on how to tackle the domestic threat - "we", or "the powerful" must "find a way" to stop them (Heck, can't we just stop beating about the bush and declare resolutely that "A way must be found"?) - and one can't help wondering how long it would be before any decisive action against UK fundamentalists had Yabba experiencing a road-to-Kabul conversion and reverting to her default PC mode, whining about Islamophobia or the government's disregard for civil liberties.

Oh, and since she's calling for courage, how about not referring to Al Qaeda terrorists as 'operatives'?

The Russian Spies: Mission Accomplished?

So let's see. These Russian Spies were tasked, among other things, with influencing US policy at high levels. And...

1. America now has as president a man who counts a member of the US Communist Party as a mentor, who hung around with communists at college, who has appointed admitted Marxists such as Van Jones and others with Maoist/communist sympathies, such as Anita Dunn, to influential positions in his administration, and who counts domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as friends.

2. That president is driving the US economy into a ditch.

3. That president is at best refusing to confront America's enemies abroad (Iran, North Korea), and at worse cosying up to them (China, Russia) and enabling them to expand their spheres of influence.

4. That president wants to pursue an energy policy that will make the US more dependent on unreliable and potentially hostile foreign providers: specifically, cutting back on domestic oil and coal exploration and production while spending billions on 'green' alternatives that range from the unproven to the not-even-invented-yet (see also point 2).

5. That president and his administration officials rarely miss an opportunity to downplay notions of 'American exceptionalism', and are always ready to blame the US for everything from global warming to racism.

I would imagine they're hanging up the 'Mission Accomplished' banner at FIS headquarters.

Come to think of it, if they're still looking for more suspects, maybe they should try the Oval Office.

Thanks to Kate for the link.