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Tuesday 31 August 2010

Sarah McDermott | 11:50 UK time, Tuesday, 31 August 2010

After seven-and-a-half years, the American military's combat mission in Iraq formally ends today, though approximately 50,000 troops will stay to train and advise Iraqi security forces.

Our Diplomatic editor Mark Urban is in Washington for us where he has been speaking to veterans about what the Iraq war meant for the US. We'll discuss the legacy of the Iraq war and what the nature of future US interventions will be with Senator John Warner and the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaida'ie.

Also tonight, conservative Americans flocked in massive numbers to the Lincoln memorial at the weekend, the site of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech 47 years ago. The rally which was hosted by the controversial Fox News TV host Glenn Beck, known for making racially provocative statements in the past. "It's like the damn Planet of the Apes," Beck said of America on his TV show recently in a segment on pension policy and President Obama.

The US is caught in a whirlwind of racially charged debates in the run up to the crucial mid-term elections, in which Republicans are battling to take control of Congress. Across the country there are heated debates over immigration and the building of mosques. America's conservative Tea Party supporters, worried about debt and government spending too, are portraying America's first black President as unpatriotic and "un-American" for his stance on these issues, and their message is selling.

Hilary Andersson will be considering how the Tea Party has captured many Americans' imagination by instilling fear of President Obama and his promise of transforming America, and asks to what extent racial fears are bound up with this.

The official memorabilia to mark Pope Benedict's September visit to Britain is already on sale - so if you purchase a papal t-shirt, a Swarovski bracelet or a baseball cap the proceeds will go towards the costs of hosting him. Tonight we'll be speaking to Chris Patten, who has been appointed by the prime minister to help arrange the tour, and we'll be asking him about the costs, the red tape, and the controversy surrounding the papal visit.

And we hope to bring you the latest on the revelations in Tony Blair's new book, being published tomorrow.

Do join Gavin at 10.30pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    MALE ANIMALS FIGHT - DUMB MALE HOMSAP FOLLOWS SUIT

    One lone and lowly American voice was heard to say he had 'discovered' that Iraqis 'are just like us'.

    Now look at politics - is it not ALWAYS about 'them and us' ultimately appealing to the beast in man (bypassing his higher self) to see threat - BECAUSE THEY ARE NOTHING LIKE US?

    Spot the difference. We have the mental capacity - we have cleverness (harnessed in war) BUT WE HAVE ESCHEWED WISDOM. Worse, we have espoused PERVERSITY, hence we elevate the dysfunctional, the deluded and the dangerous, on PURELY ANIMAL ATTRIBUTES (e.g. charisma). Rhetoric is a carrier wave for charisma - its content is not wisdom, but cleverness (cf Blair).

    Weep World.

  • Comment number 2.

    DON'T FORGET HOW IT STARTED THINK: 'BUILDING WHAT?'

  • Comment number 3.

    Newsnight wrote:

    "Tens of thousands of people attended a controversial rally in Washington DC"

    10s of thousands, really. Where exactly did you get that figure from. Can i hazard a guess, CNN, MSNBC, Fox. I checked this story and looked at the pictures, I think it was from the Drudge report and it looked like half a million, maybe more. Independent reports said up to a million people attended this rally. The establised media have already been accused of downgrading this rally. Oh the lies we hear eh. I liked Obama's little comment about it. How he hadn't paid any attention to it, apparently he was to busy riding his push bike. Funny that considering his willingness to get involved/pass remarks about the ground zero New York mosque recently. As for Glenn Beck, an entertaining enough chap from the right. He uses everyone else's stuff and lines and delivers it easy style with his chalk and black board. I'm not sure if he is a real conservative or phony, he could be a puppet dangled from the establisment. To his credit he has awakened the otherwise disinterested conservatives, and thanks to his popularity, is making politics more interesting for the average TV viewer but my gut feelings is that he's not to be trusted - something not quite right about him, when you study his form and comments over the past few years. The real conservatives/tea partiers should be a little bit wary of the man.

  • Comment number 4.

    #1

    Wouldn't you agree with me that male homsaps, as you call them, fighting over an unwilling partne. is nothing but a hopeless undertaking?

    As far as politics goes,a degree of acceptance of sometimes diametrically opposed ideas is ' built into' the system of liberal democracy?

  • Comment number 5.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 6.

    who benefited from this "war"?

    where has most of the american tax-payers money gone?







    what about US war crimes *before* the invasion?




    crimes against International Law; regarding the use of torture:



    chemical weapons:






    and oh what a different world it could have been:




    but yes, lets talk to Americans about "what this war has meant for Americans" - poor little wee suffering lambs, so they are.

  • Comment number 7.

    #6

    If Sadam Hussain hadn't invaded Kuwait in the first place there would be no war, real or otherwise. And on a bigger scale regarding wars and major conflicts, there isn't anything really much stronger than having a common enemy.

    It has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt.

  • Comment number 8.

    IMAGINARY MONEY LOST IN A FINITE WORLD (#6)

    What a splendid can of worms Mork.

    Let's not forget that Tony salved the wounds of his youth - for a while - and still has his medals. That is a gain. Sooo telling that he could not regret at Chilcot; thus devalued, he would have nothing left.

    I covered the rest at #1 above. Can we change the paradigm? YES WE CAN! Will we? Not while money (even the imaginary sort) is power to buy advertising (including speech-writers) - and to buy souls.

  • Comment number 9.

    #7: if we want to go back THAT far, mim, then why not go back further - to where the US supported the coup that brought the Baathists to power in Iraq in the first place? We could go back further, to British Imperial 'adventures' in the region, we could even look at the deliberate map-making that left the region likely to explode.

    we could look at the reasons why Saddam invaded Kuwait, having to do with war-debts to western banks that funded the Iraqi invasion of Iran, and Kuwait massively over-selling its OPEC limits on production driving down the price of oil, to weaken its northern neighbour Iraq.

    was saddam a nice man? Was he justified in invading Kuwait? Does the West have its hands covered in blood with its deliberate machinations in the region?

    no, no, and yes.

    and most of all, does saddam's invasion of Kuwait justify the incomprehensible horror the Iraqis have gone through ever since, especially considering they were ruled by a dictator, and had no say in the matter?

    and most most most of all, has the 'allied' invasion and occupation of Iraq been an improvement for the lives of 'normal Iraqis', and has the West lived up to the international rights and International Law that it has signed up to, such as the Geneva Conventions on warfare, and the treatment of civilians?

    i watch the news, i can only feel sorrow at the suffering so many American have gone through, the trauma this conflict has inflicted upon them, poor things. :(

    but nevermind, once they've eradicated 'terrorism' in pakistan, yemen, iran, sudan, columbia, syria, and wherever else there is opposition to US dominance, THEN they can sleep easy knowing the job was well done.

    i guess its a hard slog, but GloboCop has to do what Globocop has to do.

  • Comment number 10.

    #5

    Are you a 'fine' one talking of civil rights, 'globocop'?

  • Comment number 11.

    #8

    Mine is not for sale, singie, nor is any true soul. And there have to be quite a few of those. As Bob Marley sings 'you can fool some people sometimes but you can't fool all the people all the time' in his song 'Get up, stand up' on the subject of civil rights, in fact.

  • Comment number 12.

    ORSON SAYS 'AWESOME MORK' (#9)

    A cathartic post. Try sending it to your MP.

  • Comment number 13.

    'TOO LATE TOO LATE THEY CRIED'

    Oh Beeb! Did you need to wait for Tony's book before you moved into 'Blair revelations'?

    So much you could have done, years back, to dispel those charisma clouds from the eyes of the gullible, revealing the deluded Blair some of us had already defined.

    Might you, belatedly, point to his (now overt) obsession with money, celebrity, status, adulation; and absence of humility, honour, dignity and INTEGRITY? Or would that smack of quality public service broadcasting, in the flawed medium so recently eulogised by Mark Thompson?

  • Comment number 14.

    WAR ON TERROR (It's irony Blogdog.)

    Once the unspeakable terror of paedophile priests was uncovered, and the Pope's reluctance to purge them, was not invasion of the Vatican the correct response from the freedom-loving world of fairness?

    Come on Nick and Dave, lead the way. Far from welcoming a terrorist leader - SEND A GUNBOAT.

  • Comment number 15.

    ADDITIONAL TO #13

    Lest we forget: WE HAVE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE.

  • Comment number 16.

    #12

    It's done nothing for me, catharsis wise, singie, though gliding and twirling to Susan Boyles' 'Who I Was Born To Be' has.

    mim

  • Comment number 17.

    why don't the beeb do close of play results on the radio anymore....cricket is a forgotten sport....

  • Comment number 18.

    #17

    Can't help you with that, I'm afraid, stevie. I'm not a salary earner of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. But, who knows, one day I might do some paid work for them though probably on a FREE lance basis, so to speak.

  • Comment number 19.

    17

    to stop people betting on it?

  • Comment number 20.

    What about the IPCC review?

  • Comment number 21.

    17. At 8:07pm on 31 Aug 2010, stevie wrote:
    why don't the beeb do close of play results on the radio anymore....cricket is a forgotten sport....

    I say old chap, here’s a scoreboard (not quite close of play yet) that may take your mind off the lack of damn fine cricket, what …


  • Comment number 22.

    @ Stevie #17 (Other than watching the cricket matches on Sky), click onto

    for ALL cricket scores :o)

  • Comment number 23.

    #149 from previous page

    'mademoiselle'

    Have I read all his books looking at his face as well?
    Maybe you are jealous, is it it?

  • Comment number 24.

    was i mistaken or did that yankee hawk senator on tonight's NN state openly that America can and will invade any darned where it sees fit, and will do so under a claim of "National Security"?

    that's worth us looking at, especially as he clearly couldn't see anything wrong with it.

    it is OK for the US to invade *anywhere it wants*, if "national interests" are involved. The US could attack Mexico, if could attack Germany - it could even attack the UK - and apparently it feels no need to even pay lip service to International Law regarding rules preventing the initiation of Wars of Aggression by strong, militarised Nations.

    imagine if this was Russia saying this, or Iran?

    this is a Nation out of its mind, the US has *openly* become the World's number 1 Rogue Nation, and i was surprised that Gavin Estler did not pick up on that comment, and question in more detail.


    or are we just to accept that the US can do ANYTHING, including invading and occupying other Nations, as it sees fit? Because we are its "poodle", and only yap when we are told to by Washington?

    glad at least the Scots and Alex Salmond had the gumption to stand up to them and say, politely, "no." What a SHAME earlier UK Govts didn't have the bottle to do that.

    can anyone imagine the Millepede Bros or Burham ever saying it to the US in the future?
    ---------


    the tea-party folks: what utter fools. Its frankly embarrassing to watch fully grown adults mouthing platitudes and blatant idiocies with that open-eyed and gullible 'apple-pie-n-mom' stare that is such an American staple.

    a lot of it is actually Obama's own fault, for listening to the wrong aide advice during his election campaign. For instance, these idiotic claims "he is Muslim". When his former pastor hit the headlines, instead of cutting him off and denying him, Obama should have co-opted him, and put him in charge of poverty reduction for *all* races - his pastor's Christian convictions clearly outweighed his (experience-based) racial ones, and he would have been ONE voice in the admin that the American people would have come to trust - like an American Bishop Tutu. This REAL Christian in the Admin would not only have made laughable these claims (which EVERY President faces, due to their duties under the US Constitution to respect ALL religions equally, and to secure Secularism, religious freedom, within the organs of the US State), it would also has cast into sharp relief the comparison with the faked Christianity of the Bush years - and the tea-partyer leaders pulling strings behind the scenes.

    as for him "being a socialist" - the laughable thing is, if he WAS anything even slightly resembling a socialist, he would actually be vastly more popular with the voters than he is now.

    what these reactionary morons do not get, is that his "socialism" (ie Big Govt), has almost entirely gone towards handing mind-blowing amounts of money to the Banks. His 'Health Care Reforms' have handed mind-blowing amounts of money to private Health Insurance companies. In every essential way, he has merely continued the policies of the former Bush Regime, under whom the corruption level of the US became ridiculous even compared to former Imperial regimes - whilst ending some of the more notorious Bush policies, such as torture and Guantanamo Bay. GWB more than TRIPLED the military budget during his terms of office, and the amount of pork-barreling that has gone on ever since has ensured that America's wars are likely to be ongoing until the US suffers final bankruptcy as a nation. Barring a major (and frankly miraculous) upheaval in American society, such as America's Greens, Ralph Nader winning the mid-terms, there is simply no impetus for the US to change its course from the neo-con folly - no, *insanity*.

    and from the comments of that (senator?) tonight, essentially claiming the same right as German leaders did in the 1930s - the right to invade and occupy other weaker nations at whim, it should be seen that this rot is now widespread through US Elite thinking.

    also on the tea-partyers - whilst it is very likely that racism is indeed central to some of the tea-partyers political agendas, it is also likely that it is not the ONLY reason for the organisation. The economic package being pushed by the American 'elite' IS very damaging to the US economy - both options offered, like in the UK, are economically destructive. The 'Stimulus' is code for handing money to the ultra-rich, and 'Austerity' is code for cutting money going to the poorest. Both lead to the same, not very nice, place, whereas what is actually NEEDED, is stimulus to small and medium businesses, and taxes raised (and more scrutiny) upon the large corporations.

    at *most*, in the US as we have already seen in the UK, the public will hear rhetoric along those lines, quickly forgotten once election time is over again, and the public purse looting/callousness can begin again.

  • Comment number 25.

    #24

    'cathartic globocop'

    I've heard on the grapevine that the Americans are indeed planning to invade the UK and Obama himself claiming back the iPhone he gave to The Queen a few months ago. How about that? That should keep you 'busy'.

  • Comment number 26.

    #25: i would have thought the Queen uses a Blackberry, for the secure encryption?

    - but even so - a Declaration of War if ever i heard one!

    To Arms, Good Men and Women of England, and the Untied Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!!! :/



    "cathartic globocop" - i sense a future for that term.

  • Comment number 27.

    #26

    I get told off for not listening to the news while you can't remember that Her Majesty did get an iPhone from the current President of the USA? It was then that the First Lady of America embraced The Queen, something that is not normally allowed, without being told off. And anyway Her Majesty may not be using it as a mobile but to listen to iTunes.

    Re: your last sentence. No, your future is not by my side, if that's what you mean. Definitely not.

  • Comment number 28.

  • Comment number 29.

    TONY BLAIR: A COLD FUSION OF FOOL AND KNAVE.

    Time for Tony to receive the ultimate medal, for his take on Brown:

    "A STRANGE GUY WITH SELF-EVIDENT PERSONAL DRAWBACKS."

    Breathtaking. Gobsmacking. Showstopping. This from 'The Man' (Mullins) who would out-Pope the Pope! The Man who can never be too rich or too right.

    Britain's most notable export is sooooooooooo far from any trace of self-awareness, that he can 'see Brown as others see HIM' and yet(appear to) have no inkling. Britain made him - Britons elevated him - now the world must endure him.

    Oh - it's all going awfully well.

  • Comment number 30.

    NIGHTMARE ON WORLDSTREET (#28)

    Oh Lizzy - your link is depressing enough, BUT WHAT IF THE NOBEL COMMITTEE LIVES WITHIN THE LIE and, in consequence, Blair gets some especially devised 'Nobel Prize for Everything'?

    There are no words . . .



  • Comment number 31.

    Here's what one catholic thinks of Britain...

  • Comment number 32.

    #30 The Nobel "Peace" Prize Barrie?! ; )

    I think you'll find my #31 appropriate to Mr Tony (catholic) Blair as well. ; )

  • Comment number 33.

    #29

    Singie, you seem to have developed a worrying obsession with Tony Blair. I've never met either of them but would tend to agree with Blair on his take of Brown. In my view, they are very different indeed. Gordon has left the country in total disarray while Tony will always be remembered for bringing, relative at least, peace to Northern Ireland and personally I find him a much kinder and considerate man than the man who diposed him in a very underhand way.

    mim

  • Comment number 34.

    Good grief!

  • Comment number 35.

    #34

    Not that he's going to get it, Mistress76uk. At least I can't envisage it ever happening.

    mim

  • Comment number 36.


    #28 Sorry Lizzy I have to pull rank on this one. eg

    /blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/11/monday_23_november_2009_the_pl.html

    For a couple of years I have posted again and again on the climate models. Not once has NN contacted me. What do I know? I was only there.

    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 37.

    Ecolizzy & Singie

    Wasn't it Brown, in fact, who was hoping to have something to do with the Nobel Prize? I think he mentioned chemistry in the same breath while G W Bush, almost blinking, said on Newsnight before going that he hoped to build 'peace' in the world.

    There are lots of hopes that never ever get fulfilled.

    mim

  • Comment number 38.

    #37 addendum

    Quite a few of mine, hopes that is, have never been fulfilled and never will. One just has to learn to live with the loss. Having said that, I do have new hopes but then again they may not come true. C'est la vie.

    mim

  • Comment number 39.


    All genuinely moral people have an ethical duty to protest the Pope and the Catholic church:



    “The protest march will assemble at 1pm at Hyde Park Corner – Piccadilly Downslip (full details will be made available nearer the time). It will then proceed through central London and arrive in the vicinity of Parliament Square.

    Please put this date in your diary and make every effort to be there. Spread the news of this event as far as you can.

    If you cannot make then please help to spread the word:





    This is shaping up to be the news story of the year.

  • Comment number 40.

    Female Genital Mutilation - UK

    Today, over 500 British girls are estimated to have undergone the procedure of female genital cutting.
    The UK has more girls at risk of bring cut than any other European country and as yet no-one has been prosecuted for the crime.

  • Comment number 41.

    Are you into 'drilling' 'globocop'?

  • Comment number 42.

    Where is my mate Gango? Without him i feel like Cannon without Ball, Corbett without Barker, Peters without Lee (showing my age there), tooth paste without the flouride, Tobbacco without the nicoteen, a thermo-nuclear missle without guidence...Gango! where are you buddy?!

    Every body should have a Lib friend. A cat has a mouse, a dog has a bone..........

  • Comment number 43.

    #40 HHhhhmmm I've been posting about that very practice for ages on here JC, not that I expect my modest comment to make any difference!

    There will be even more just "done" during the summer holidays, went for a holiday to see grandma, and came back "fixed". Trouble is I think the average man here doesn't want a mutilated wife, so it's one from back home to bring in for the "FGM" girl.

    Mind you if they're not "done" they then won't behave, and have to have plastic surgery and have their hymen replaced, all a bit of a mess really. Why don't they leave nature alone, and just educate. Although our own education seems to be failing british girls!

    p.s. School teachers are supposed to keep an eye on the girls that might be mutilated, but there's no prosecutions, so why add another social burden to teachers?!

  • Comment number 44.

    The Demon Drink!



    Almost a million of us hospitalised for alcohol in 2009! Why is the self destruct button so high amongst the britsh?

  • Comment number 45.

    @ Lizzy #44 - it's to drown our sorrows!

  • Comment number 46.

    Eccolizzy@44

    The Brits like the demon drink because they need the regular escape of servitude and also its an ice breaker before sex with someone we've just met. Its also addictive so is a cash cow for the Govt. Have you seen the adverts. Everyone is so much more attractive, witty etc. The reality for many could be misery, mental illness, job loss and a sore liver. But the Ads tell us to pour more of this poison down our throats and keep the landlords up and down the country in foreign holidays. If you must drink. have a bottle of good quality wine occasionally and once in a blue moon, get rat-arsed, then remember the 2 day hangover, which will serve as a reminder that drink should be avoided.

  • Comment number 47.

    '3. At 12:47pm on 31 Aug 2010, kevseywevsey wrote:
    Newsnight wrote:
    "Tens of thousands of people attended a controversial rally in Washington DC"


    Where's that?

    I just ask, because I do find the assessment of supporter numbers revealing, especially of a medium's actual empathy, one way or another. Telling if meant to be objective at all times. Especially if oddly a few orders of magnitude out... potentially...

    '...10s of thousands, really. Where exactly did you get that figure from.... looked like half a million, maybe more. Independent reports said up to a million people attended this rally'

    Any links to the 'independent' figures by contrast?

    And if these two claims are borne out, Newsnight, any comment on the discrepancy?

    I just ask, as I have seen ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ reports of 'crowds' cropped to suit when the numbers were not quite as substantial to support a more favourable narrative.

    Which seems naughty.

  • Comment number 48.

    #43

    Ecolizzy


    Men may not want a mutilated wife but how about women not wanting self-mutilating not only husbands, partners or simply boyfriends?

    By the way, is your grandma alive? I thought you said you were of a retirement age even though you seem to have relatively young offspring, in their twenties, are they?

    mim

  • Comment number 49.

    #27: mim, then we shall repatriate this sacred iPhone at all costs! Bring the Troops ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, we have a new mission for them to achieve.


    #31: yes lizzy, Britain is a "moral wasteland". We have begun to prevent child-abuse by robed pedos, we allow women to control their own reproduction, and we even allow women into positions of authority, both religious and secular!!!

    how much more evil and hedonistic could the UK get??!

    "Culture of Death"? ROTFLMAO.


    henry 8th was a vile monster, but we have much to be grateful to him for.


    #33 we can only wonder what NOT having B'Liar as PM would have done for this country. John Smith was the person why brought Labour back from the cold, and a John Smith/Gordon Brown executive would quite likely have been a noble beast.

    tony blair was a tory-git from day one.


    #34: mistress, how exactly is that any different from France requesting help from the UK to deal with the refugees at Calais? I think his language, deliberately playing on white racist European fears is actually quite amusing - not in the language used itself, but in the way he clearly regards European racists as so utterly childish they could be swayed by such emotional appeals.

    -its almost like he reads the Mail!

  • Comment number 50.

    #39: CM: lol, the leader of a doomed authoritarian political organisation coming to the UK is HOPEFULLY not the greatest "story of the year" - i can think of many many other possibilities for that title, that are far more positive in tone.

    "Cameron fires Osbourne, and invites Labour Leader Abbott into coalition talks for a growth orientated, soft-left policy agenda platform" would be a very good one.

    ok, a somewhat less likely report, granted. :)

  • Comment number 51.

    49. At 3:34pm on 01 Sep 2010, Mindys_Housemate wrote

    "white racist European fears"

    Do you discriminate between 'fears', 'white fears', 'white racist fears' and 'white racist European fears'? If not, are you perhaps using pejorative terms in an elitist sense in order to discredit the views of a large group of people? There is now lots of evidence that Britons and Europeans of all colours are extremely concerned about uncontrolled immigration. Furthermore, how are fears ever 'childish', and how many adults in Britain and Europe do you think may have the mental age of children (by law, anyone under 18)? As to 'robed pedos', again, the evidence is that the frequency in this group is lower than in other groups, so what is the point of singling this group out? Does anyone look at the frequency amongst Rabbis etc? If not, why not? Might there be another agenda?

    You sneer, but can you analyse?

  • Comment number 52.

    #51 RN01:

    "Do you discriminate between 'fears', 'white fears', 'white racist fears' and 'white racist European fears'? If not, are you perhaps using pejorative terms in an elitist sense in order to discredit the views of a large group of people? There is now lots of evidence that Britons and Europeans of all colours are extremely concerned about uncontrolled immigration. "

    did you read her link?

    Qaddafi: "What will be the reaction of the white Christian Europeans to this mass of hungry, uneducated Africans?

    'We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and cohesive continent or if it will be destroyed by this barbarian invasion. We have to imagine that this could happen but before it does we need to work together."

    - did you spot his "white Christian Europeans" phrase?

    i did.

    yes, there are also many ethnic minority English/British that are worried by immigration (anyone remember the Kenyan immigrant who said Enoch Powell was right?), but Qaddafi's comments were clearly aimed at white Mail/Sun readers, or their French Le Pen follower equivalents.


    "Furthermore, how are fears ever 'childish', and how many adults in Britain and Europe do you think may have the mental age of children (by law, anyone under 18)?"

    if i read in the press that sparrows have become psychotic and we should be afraid of groups attacking people, it would be childish to accept such a ludicrous notion without checking it against observation - and also checking the claimed causes of this shift.

    if i then read later that this was based upon the theory that a flat earth will spin in a certain direction to the Sun, which will then *inevitably* cause sparrows to become psychotic, and i can observe those who swallowed this story hook-line and sinker tend to be really rather gullible and overly emotional rather than critical to such stories, i can easily observe that they are "behaving childishly". Because they are.

    and when there is no observable psychotic behaviour by groups of sparrows, i will further question the veracity of the source of media spinning these stories of fear and hatred.


    adults are supposed to be able to critique what they receive.

    ...at least, that's part of the definition of "adult" in MY world. Not so in yours?


    so fears CAN be childish - when they are artificially generated ones, accepted without the critical scrutiny that a full adult should do.

    how many there are? More than there would be without Murdoch and his media grip, to be sure.


    but having said all that, *everyone* has childish phobias and emotional reactions in some areas, and hopefully in some ways *everyone* has an adult perspective.

    but in fact none of this matters worth a damn to your question, because i was referring to *Qaddafi's* use of childish, immature media-inspired fears.

    are you trying to deny he had carefully structured his comments to appeal to white racist Europeans??


    "As to 'robed pedos', again, the evidence is that the frequency in this group is lower than in other groups, so what is the point of singling this group out? Does anyone look at the frequency amongst Rabbis etc? If not, why not? Might there be another agenda?".

    REALLY???

    as far as i am aware, actual pedophilia is a tiny slice of population, far far less than 1% amongst the general population. At least I hope so.

    as a study done 2 years ago by an independent UN body upon child abuse showed, far and away the greatest abuse upon children in the UK is upon children in care organisations - either borstals, orphanages, or in the care of the 'churches'. It is true that very little information has yet come out about child abuse in UK State bodies, despite the FoI, but much has come out about abuse by the catholic 'Church'. So "frequency less than other groups"? I doubt that very much, especially with the amount of cover-ups now coming out EVERYWHERE the catholics operate.

    feel free to back that claim up, if you wish.


    "You sneer, but can you analyse?"

    if you think i am only going to answer questions by you, or that i WILL always answer questions by you, think again. Having said that warning, i respect that you DO regularly post your own opinions - otherwise i wouldn't have bothered with this reply.

    make up your own mind as to what analytical abilities i have.

  • Comment number 53.

    47. At 1:08pm on 01 Sep 2010, you wrote:

    As an answer was provided from one quarter, it's worth sharing:

    /blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2010/09/wednesday_1_september_2010.html

    40. At 11:30pm on 01 Sep 2010, kevseywevsey wrote:
    Junkmail asked from yesterdays post.

    "wheres that?" RE my quote from NN web page feedback leader.

    The opening page was re written/revised. That sometimes happens, mostly an add on later in the day is what you normally get from the NN web page/team.


    I might have had another answer too, but suspect it is in a locked filing cabinet with a sign saying "Beware of the Leopard'.



    Or will, be in time. When all this is well moved on.

  • Comment number 54.

    I would like to make some comments regarding Hilary Andersson's piece on 'Newsnight', on the Glenn Beck Rally held on 28th August at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC...

    What has not been said is that a large part, maybe 50% of the presentation, was in fact in honour and celebration of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I think many people would be amazed to find that several of the key speakers at this event were in fact African-Americans, most notably perhaps Dr Alveda King (niece of Dr Martin Luther King Jr), who's speech on unity and 'content of character' was recieved with loud applause. Several African-American singers appeared onstage at various points, including R & B singer Angelica Tucker, who sang a song called 'Rebuild', and the Vernessa Mitchell harmony group sang of 'Unity' -later on everbody sang 'Amazing Grace'.

    link for Alveda King's speech...



    Those who may be curious can examine the event in detail, as I did, by using the following link...



    Contrary to the report, although the crowd were predominantly white, they were not 'all-white' -you can plainly see many African-American faces present in the crowd, responding enthusiastically -they do not look like they are protesting.

    By the way Glenn Beck often has African-American guests speaking on his TV program, and in fact has devoted several 'specials' to honouring 'Black Founders' -showing how Black leaders have been removed from American history books.

    The title of the rally was 'Restoring Honor', with the main theme, seemingly, that we all should all look at ourselves honestly in our day-to-day lives, and strive to become better people -that was the theme to which they repeatedly returned -nobody said anything horrible against anybody -in fact the atmosphere was warm and friendly throughout.

    I think really that the Newsnight piece was most unfair and misleading, and actually quite insulting to all the African-Americans who took part.

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