Devils we don't know

Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi is a bad man, he is a murderous dictator and long term (if allegedly now reformed) supporter of terrorism. A despot dubbed “the mad-dog of the middle east” by the last great US president, Ronald Reagan, al-Gaddafi is guilty of many crimes, both international and domestic, committed in the 40 or more years he has run the oil rich desert state of Libya.

Arguably he is committing further atrocities right now, today. as he launches missile attacks apon the rebel forces in his country who are seeking to overthrow him.

The world has turned against Gaddafi. US president Barak Obama has questioned his legitimacy and called for him to step down. The British army, behaving as if it were led by the sadly now dead Arthur Lowe of Dad's Army fame, have attempted to make uninvited secret contact with the rebel forces and become an international laughing stock in the process. Assets belonging to the Gaddafi family, including billions which the authorities had previously failed to notice they held in Britain have been frozen, and in the United Nations there are calls for no-fly zones, bombings and increased international sanctions.

In addition, our old friend's the media have turned against him and are currently engaged in scattering rose petals at the feet of the rebels. Throughout the region the rebels are the media's new pets. The international press report the Libyan rebels' acts in glowing terms, in rather the same way as they cheered on the protesters in Egypt, who's violent sexual assault on one of their own, South African born CBS News correspondent Lara Logan they first conspired to cover up, and then, after Logan herself insisted it the attack be reported, swiftly consigned to the hermetically sealed lock box labelled “Yesterday's unwanted news”.

Correspondents reporting on the sudden turbulence have their templates already written, they have determined which side is good and which side bad.

Does that fact not make you stop in your tracks and begin to doubt your own preconceptions? If the western media is so unified in their support of the uprisings in the Middle East, how likely is it either that their outcome will be in the West's best interests, and what are the chances we are being told the unmitigated truth?

Not good huh?

Anyway, how relevant are terms such as good and bad or right and wrong when applied to the Arab world?, is it not more apt to judge these thing in in degrees of badness, and if so might that not change our view of the status quo?

There is a popular misconception that because a regime is unpleasant, those who oppose it must necessarily be preferable and better, however, as history has repeatedly shown us, when the truth finally emerges out of the mist of media reporting, this is not always the case (let us see, for instance, what future historians make of Kosovo, and for that matter South Africa)

Between a corrupt media and a blood stained tyrant which is the best custodian of truth? Colonel Gaddafi has claimed that al-Quada is behind the rebellions, a claim which has been widely dismissed and ridiculed by the media. Gaddafi, of course, is well known as a liar, however, given the media's track record which side are you most inclined to believe?

In Libya, as happened in Egypt and other middle eastern states facing similar uprisings, the press have chosen to report demonstrations of support for the existing leadership as “staged” and to assert that the government's supporters have been "bribed" or “bussed in”, whereas the anti-government protests are portrayed as spontaneous expressions of public will. Which is true and which is lies ?maybe even they no longer know. They only know which side they support.

Any discussion as to how simultaneous and identical uprisings in half a dozen west supporting Arab nations all occurring at the same time and in the same form, could with any credibility be classed as spontaneous, would of course be blasphemous.

"Who is behind this and what is their aim?" is a question only a racist would ask, can we not see that this is the Muslim equivalent of a Prague Spring?

Amongst the other things which are quietly not reported about what is happening in the middle east in recent weeks has been Gaddafi's claim that his downfall could result in millions more black Africans flooding into Europe. There is credibility to this claim. It is a fact that in recent years many European governments, especially in those in southern Europe, have relied on Libyan help to stem the flow of sub-Saharan Africans migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean. Furthermore, current events in Libya have disrupted the flow of African illegal aliens from Europe to detention centers in Libya.

These facts are not widely reported, could it be that whilst the likes of John Simpson, famously the first European journalist to enter Kabul after the US led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Lindsay Hilsum, who's tasteful silk and chiffon outfits have graced many a war zone, or the BBC's moustachioed Middle East correspondent Jeremy Bowen are cheering on the Libyan rebels, they don't wish the viewers to question whether those seeking to replace the Colonel might be less cooperative than the “mad-dog” in controlling the already massive flow of sub Saharan Africans migrants into our continent.

"Libya plays a vital role in regional peace and world peace," said Gaddafi in an interview with the France 24 television station. "We are an important partner in fighting al Qaeda."

"There are millions of blacks who could come to the Mediterranean to cross to France and Italy, and Libya plays a role in security in the Mediterranean," he added

For all his crimes, what he says is actually true, will it be true of what replaces him?

In terms of the middle east, are we better off with the devils we know than the we will be with whatever devils come after them?

Whatever, the media would have you believe, the forces bringing change on the Southern side of the Mediterranean are not the forces of democracy, tolerance and the western way. The changes they will bring bear no comparison to what happened to the old Soviet Union in 1990 and it is laughable to suggest they will.

What is to come will be very bad news for the West

The media know this, but they are not our friends and have lied to us for decades. Obama knows this, but he uniquely among American presidents believes the world will be better when the West is weaker. Our own leaders know this, but they have become so accustomed to lying they know no other way.

Bad men have run the Arab world for decades and we have found a way to live with them, but now, beneath a protective fog of false reporting, far worse men may be taking their place, and they may be considerably less easy to live with.

Arab protesters in the streets

And at prayer

The Arab Uprisings, the Irish Potato Famine and the End of ‘Globalisation’

By Tim Heydon

Let them Eat Cake

Historians have studied the outbreak of the French Revolution by tracking the daily movement of the price of bread in Paris in the period preceding it. The same study could be made of the price of food in the days preceding the outbreak of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has said that world food prices hit a record high in January for the seventh consecutive month. It’s food price index was up 3.4% from December to its highest level since 1990, when its measurement of food prices began.

The Guardian reported that ‘food prices have hit record levels in recent weeks..soaring prices of staples such as grains over the last few months are thought to have been one of the factors contributing to an explosive mix of popular unrest in Egypt and Tunisia.

Importers Suffer when Food Exporters need their Produce for Themselves

Egypt is the world’s biggest importer of wheat. The biggest exporters to Egypt (63%) were Russia and the Ukraine. In 2010, Valdimir Putin banned exports of wheat because fires brought about by climatic conditions (climate change?) had devastated the crop. This move doubled the world price of wheat in two months. It was pushed to its highest level since 2008 when it hit a record high. As a result, other foodstuffs rose in price also.

In 2008 there were riots in Egypt and elsewhere in poorer parts of the world such as Mozambique. Food exports were banned. In a piece in the Observer, Raj Patel said that when droughts, floods and other natural phenomena put stress on the produce of food exporters – the most vulnerable countries, who depend on these exports, will be the most pronounced economic victims. In other words, in a system where African food is grown in Russia, a European heat wave can result in riots in Maputo. He remarked,
‘This may sound familiar. In 2008, the prices of oil, wheat, corn and rice peaked on international markets – corn prices almost tripled between 2005-2008. In the process, dozens of food-importing countries experienced food riots.’

New Labour and the Cameroons Have Made Us More Vulnerable to the Actions of Food Exporters.

Globalisation depends on the specialisation or division of labour and Ricardo’s theory of Comparative Advantage. New Labour positioned this country into the Global economy as specialising in financial services. Hence its love affair with the City which has brought us to such disaster, and its total lack of concern for the export of our manufacturng industry and the huge increase in the population of an already crowded country. (One of its idiot ministers, Alan Johnson, said that he could ‘sleep easy’ at the prospect of unlimited immigration. Ie the country could be concreted over from Land’s End to John O’ Groats so far as he was concerned.)

The assumption seems to have been and to be that in the new, fully integrated, globalised utopia of universal brotherly love, we would be able to buy our food from abroad for ever. The Globalising Cameroons led by the ‘heir to Blair’ are following in New Labour’s footsteps

The Most Vulnerable Countries will be the Ones to Suffer Most in an Era of increasing Food Shortages

The commentator Raj Patel tells us that when droughts, floods and other natural phenomena put stress on the produce of food exporters – the most vulnerable countries, who depend on these exports, will be the most pronounced economic victims. In other words, in a system where African food is grown in Russia, a European heat wave can result in riots in Maputo.’

But we are a food importing country and thanks to our ‘leaders’ are now increasingly vulnerable.

In the 1980s Britain produced 78 per cent of what it ate, ie a shortfall of nearly a Quarter. This fell to 58.9 per cent in 2009, the decrease being blamed on a change in EU subsidies. But the increase in our population has certainly also had an effect and we are going to be far vulnerable in the future because of this artificially-induced population surge and the disappearance of our own good food-producing land under the concrete poured to accommodate it. At the same time we can look forward to increasing instances of food shortages abroad and rising world food prices due to the increasing demand from ever-wealthier ‘third world’ countries like China, India and Brazil; rising populations in many third world countries; ever -increasing oil prices as a result of peak oil (oil is necessary to produce the fertiliser used in the ’green revolution’ and to transport it ). Food-producing areas in areas like Indonesia and Brazil are being turned over to crops for the production of ethanol, the petrol substitute. The apparent effects of climate change , whatever its cause, are severe.

The Lesson of the Irish Potato Famine

Being a comparatively rich country (for the present) won’t save us as (strangely for egalitarians) New Labour and the rest seem to have calculated. As we have seen, the first thing that happens when an area suffers from a food shortage is that it bans exports of that food.

It must do so because if it doesn’t, the authorities will be hated by the local populations. That was the fate of the British Government and the British people at the time of Irish Potato famine of the 19th Century when about one million people died. That government, directed by the Liberal ideology of ‘Free Trade’ (akin to the Globalising ideology of today) allowed the export of grain in periods during that terrible time.

There is dispute about how much damage this did to the Irish people, but it doesn’t matter much whether this was less than many think. The mere idea of exporting food at all was enough for the British to earn the hatred of the Irish, a hatred which helped to lead to Irish Independence from Britain.

Will We see Food Riots in Britain.

Will our country too be subject to food riots as have occurred abroad at some point in the future? Thanks to the ineffable stupidity, foolish optimism and lack of foresight of our oh-so smugly superior political class, this is eventuality is no longer quite the the far –fetched possibility that it once was. Much more likely though, at least in the near decades, are ongoing huge increases in the cost of food in the shops to the point that, for example, many of our more vulnerable people such as the old, who already count the pennies, will constantly be malnourished and on the brink of starvation.

It’s not just Food

It is not only food that will be in shorter supply in the near future. There is oil of course, which will continue to escalate in price as the world gets over the Credit Crunch, but there are other highly important products as well which will suffer the same fate. For example, China recently announced that it is cutting its export of Rare Earth Minerals by a further 10%. This may sound unexciting but is in fact of tremendous importance. Why? Because these minerals are used in a vast range of industrial and consumer goods like electronic items and China is the source of 97% of the world’s supplies.

There are other possible suppliers of some metals such as Russia and India, but the pattern remains: When produce is scarce, producers hug their produce to themselves, regardless of the price that others might want to pay. This is the very antitheses of the Globalised world envisaged by the Utopian lunatics like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the Cameroons.

The advent of a world of scarcity signals the end of the Globalising vision.

America a the Middle East

If anyone is watching the current turmoil on the streets in various Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia in the belief that this will lead to a happy Western style democratic outcome, I fear they will be sadly mistaken. One does not have to listen to the barley concealed note of excitement in the voices of the BBC reporters on the ground to know that things are about to get considerably less comfortable for that part of the world and for us in the West.

There are many factor and many players involved, however, here are a couple of articles giving unconventional, but thought provoking takes on the role of the current US administration.

The American Left's role in leading Mid-East Regime Change

Moslem led America seeks to destabilise Egypt