Aerial bombing from World War I to Iraq

From London daily The Morning Star:

Terror from on high

(Sunday 01 October 2006)

Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment by Beau Grosscup
(Zed Books, £15.99)

GEOFF SIMONS navigates his way through this compact history of aerial bombardment from the 20th century to the present day.

THIS is an ambitious attempt to chart the politics of strategic bombing from the start of the 20th century to the present day.

Since the text is less than 200 pages, the wars are handled with perfunctory haste and related topics such as race, class, gender and language are not granted much space.

Grosscup gives us many useful items, but he is occasionally careless.

He begins by dealing with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, before looping back into history.

It is interesting to learn that the British Admiralty ordered its first large bomber just 11 years after the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight.

The plane had a top speed of 72 miles per hour and carried six bombs.

Grosscup quotes Basil Liddell Hart, the British strategist who urged the dropping of gas bombs on cities, but he fails to mention the famous quotation from Winston Churchill in connection with the bombing of Iraqis and Kurds in the 1920s.

“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.”

It is useful to be reminded of the gross prejudice that has always permeated the propaganda of powerful states – talking of African “niggers,” Korean “gooks,” Japanese “yellow monkeys” etc – of the patriarchal misogyny of warmongers and of how Establishment strategists have always been keen to bomb population centres.

One of the main merits of the book is the clear documentation of how civilians, mostly working people, have always been targeted.

Related articles

• Beyond Double Standards – and Hypocrisy (dogmaandgeopolitics.wordpress.com)
• Sweden, while publicly protesting, aided US invasion of Iraq – report (rt.com)
• In depth: Was the 2003 invasion of Iraq illegal? (libdemvoice.org)

USA, UK: Bush did not even trust his poodle Blair on Iraq

From Blairwatch in Britain:

One of the advantages of the so-called ‘special relationship’ between Britain and America is the sharing of intelligence by the respective security services.

This has been proclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as vital, especially in the ‘War on Terror’.

So it is interesting to read that Blair has had to protest to Bush over America’s refusal to share intelligence on Iraq with its ‘closest ally’.

This revelation comes from Bob Woodward‘s new book ‘State of Denial‘.

TONY BLAIR was angered by America’s refusal to share intelligence on Iraq with Britain, according to a revealing new book by Bob Woodward, the veteran journalist who exposed the Watergate scandal.

The prime minister protested to President George W Bush about the way intelligence was routinely marked NOFORN (no foreigners), denying access to the US’s closest ally.

In State of Denial, published tomorrow, Woodward reveals that raw intelligence gathered by British operatives in Iraq and fused with the Americans’ own data was stored on the classified Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET).

“The British couldn’t see it, let alone get a copy, because it was marked NOFORN,” Woodward writes.

British pilots flying American warplanes such as F-117 Nighthawks and F015E Strike Eagles were even denied access to classified pilot manuals for the same reason.

“At times it went beyond absurd,” Woodward notes.

Bush, Blair, and ‘co-operation against terrorism’: here.

Related articles

• Blair could have stopped Iraq invasion, says Kofi Annan (itv.com)
• Should Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes? (japantimes.co.jp)
• Tutu: Bush, Blair should be tried for Iraq War (cbsnews.com)
• Tony Blair should face trial at the Hague over Iraq, says Desmond Tutu (itv.com)
• Archbishop Tutu: Try Blair for war crimes – Telegraph.co.uk (telegraph.co.uk)

Syria, most ancient Neolithic temple found

This video is called Some archaeological sites in Syria.

From Syrian Arab News Agency:

Ancient Temple Dating Back to Ninth Millennium B.C. Unearthed in Northern Syria Aleppo, north Syria, Sep. 30 (SANA)- The French-Syrian Archeological Mission for Excavations working at Ja’adat al-Maghara site in Manbej on River Euphrates in northern Syria unearthed a great temple dating back to the 9th millennium B.C. in Modern Stone Era, so far the most ancient discovery in Syria and the Middle East.

Head of the Mission French Archeological expert Eric Kiniou said the great temple consists of pieces of stones, bone appliances, walls decorated with geometrical shapes, in addition to an ox head with two horns in red, black and white colors still in their freshness. He said the ox painting indicates that this kind of animal was worshipped in that period.

Associated Press, quoted in Israeli daily Haaretz, has also a report on this. However, it speaks erroneously of the “ninth century B.C.” when the Neolithic was long past.

Also in Syria: giant camel fossil. See also here.

Also Syria: third millennium BCE graves.

Neolithic archaeology of Arab Gulf emirates: here.

Related articles

• Unearthed in ‘perfect condition’ after 4,000 years: Russian knight’s suit of armour made of BONE
• Ancient settlement of South Caucasus discovered in west of Azerbaijan
• World’s Oldest Sculpture Workshop Found in Göbeklitepe
• 7,000-Year-Old Metal Artifact Unearthed at Tel Tsaf, Israel
• Archaeologists in Syria find ancient ‘wand’ engraved with human faces

• Famous Archaeological Sites (famous101.com)
• Neolithic people didn’t eat like cavemen, ate spiced fish and meat (csmonitor.com)
• Ancient Humans Dined on Bacon from Weird, Spotted Pigs (livescience.com)
• ‘The Thinker’ of Hamangia: A Modern Statue of the Neolithic (theepochtimes.com)
• 5,000-year-old Neolithic art found in Orkney dig (scotsman.com)

South Africa: trying to recover anti-apartheid art

This video is about apartheid era posters.

Reuters reports:

S Africa hunts for lost apartheid-era black art

South Africa is scouring the globe to recover lost works by black artists that depict the turbulent apartheid era, in a drive to educate young people about the struggle against white rule.

Vivid paintings of Zulu warriors and strife-torn black townships were shunned as too controversial, or simply too African, by mostly white South African art collectors under apartheid. Some were even banned.

But many paintings were quietly snapped up by foreign diplomats or visitors and spirited out of the country to adorn the walls of homes and boardrooms around the world.

The Ifa Lethu foundation, supported by the ministry of culture, is trying to bring those works back to South Africa to display them in a touring exhibition of schools and community centres.

“This is about inspiring South Africans and forcing both black and white to confront their past and to celebrate what we have been able to achieve despite all the pain,” Ifa Lethu chairwoman Mamphela Ramphele told Reuters at the project launch in Soweto.

The travelling exhibition is also meant to educate young South Africans about the country’s violent struggle against white rule and the sacrifices made by their parents’ generation.

“It is making people aware of who they are and where they come from,” said jazz maestro Hugh Masekela, who is backing the project.

“If you don’t know where you come from then you don’t know where you are going.”

Australian’s donation

The project first started when Australian diplomat Diane Johnstone donated a collection of 17 art works, amassed during a posting to South Africa in the violent 1970s, to the Pretoria Art Museum.

That inspired a wider hunt for similar works.

Anti apartheid art in the USA: here.

From the Google cache, 1/31/05:

South African artist’s work finally comes home

Feni is one of South Africa’s leading artists

January 31, 2005, 13:30

He is hailed as one of the biggest African artist of the twentieth century. Yet most of the late Dumile Feni’s art work that was done in exile and has not been seen by a South African audience. But that is changing.

An exhibition of more than 360 samples of Feni’s art work was opened last night at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Private collectors and galleries in the USA and Europe contributed to make the exhibition possible. Many well known South Africans were there, not only to admire the work of an artist, but also to remember a friend.

This retrospective exhibition documents his work through four decades. Although he left the country in 1968, he remained an activist through his art. Feni died in 1991 in New York before he could return to his home country.

The exhibition will tour the country for the next year and a half.

Source: SABC

A Few Words About the June 16th Soweto Student Uprising: here.

Related articles

• BJ Vorster, PW Botha and the Broederbond
• Fifty years later, time for Nat Nakasa to return home
• South African artist David Koloane interviewed
• Nelson Mandela, eulogy by Barack Obama
• Thatcher let Mandela rot in apartheid prison
• On His 95th Birthday, the Story of Nelson Mandela’s Struggle Told Outside His Old Soweto Home
• The Cultural Legacy Of Nelson Mandela
• Praised by his persecutors

Fungi and hares

This is a video about the common stinkhorn.

Today in the nature reserve, five common stinkhorn fungi near a juniperus.

More on stinkhorns: here.

Also many other fungi on the forest floor and growing on trees.

In the meadow east of the reserve: hares.

Britain: police question another Blair aide in cash for peerages scandal

The cartoon is based on this painting about the poem The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

From British daily The Independent:

By Marie Woolf, Political Editor

Published: 01 October 2006

A second senior aide to Tony Blair has been questioned by the police under caution in the cash- for-honours affair.

John McTernan, the Prime Minster’s director of political operations, has been interviewed by Scotland Yard over links between Labour’s financial backers and honours granted by Mr Blair.

Mr McTernan is understood to have been questioned in the past 10 days by Metropolitan Police investigating claims that honours were granted to Labour donors and those who lent the party huge sums of money before the last election campaign.

The disclosure will place fresh pressure on Mr Blair and increase speculation that he is to be questioned personally by the police in the coming weeks.

Mr McTernan is one of the Prime Minster’s closest aides and works as a key liaison between Downing Street and the Labour Party.

He is thought to have been involved in the preparation of names to be nominated by Mr Blair for peerages.

The police are believed to have interviewed Mr McTernan on the same day as Ruth Turner, No 10’s director of government relations, who has also been questioned under caution.

The interviews follow emails seized by police.

Mr McTernan worked as a special adviser to Harriet Harman in the Department of Social Security, then as head of strategy for Scotland’s former first minister, Henry McLeish.

He once described working in government as like being in an episode of the West Wing.

Last week, the tycoon Sir Christopher Evans was questioned about whether he had been offered an honour after agreeing to loan the party money.

Sir Christopher, who was not on the last honours list, has expressed dismay at being arrested after he answered police questions willingly.

Lord Levy, the Prime Minister’s fundraiser, has also been interviewed.

Both men are understood to have had DNA swabs taken and their genetic details placed on a DNA database.

Update: here.

Another update: here.

And here.

Not just Blairized-Thatcherized Nu “Labour”, also Thatcher’s old Conservative Party in financial scandal, according to the BBC.