Free Republic

This Russian risk could yet dwarf our blunder on Iraq Putin's belligerence is the upshot of inept western diplomacy. Following cold war with cold peace may prove a historic error Simon Jenkins Wednesday June 6, 2007 The Guardian Will history tell us we were fools? We worried about the wrong war and made the wrong enemies. In the first decade of the 21st century the leaders of America and Britain allowed themselves to be distracted by a few Islamist bombers and took easy refuge in the politics of fear. They concocted a "war on terror" and went off to fight...

The Guardian's obsession in adopting "Palestinianism", big words on empty reality * "Apartheid" -, the Guardian was/is obsessed to use it at any opportunity Israel's survival war against racist terrorism by Arabs (http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Guardian_Promotes_Apartheid_Slur.asp Guardian Promotes Apartheid Slur), long before the bribing by the Arab lobby of former US president, the infamous Jimmy Carter to use the word "apartheid" as a title of his anti-Israel bigoted book. Facts of equal rights & equal treatment of Arabs in Israel, that even Carter has admitted (interview with former President Jimmy Carter. ... "I recognize Israel is a wonderful democracy with freedom of speech...

What's wrong with this picture? & Just How Islamized is 'The Guardian'? Muslim organization to address Jewish audience Associated Press of Pakistan, Pakistan - Mar 18, 2007 LONDON, March 18 (APP): Britain's leading Muslim organization will tomorrow signal a radical shift in its position when one of its senior members addresses ... MCB at JCC event Something Jewish British Muslims extend a friendly hand to Jews Guardian Unlimited Instead of the MINORITY Jewish organization having a clean foot a sane voice in the dirty hate empire of Islamofascistic 'mainstream Islam' that teaches that non Muslims are apes & pigs, What...

I almost never do vanity posts but I have seen three movies lately that I want to comment on. I thoroughly enjoyed two of these movies, The Guardian, and Fly Boys, in spite of fact that the professional film critics were generally dismissive of them as being cliché ridden.

How you think Bush should fill his iPod George Bush may have to upgrade his iPod if he wants to take up all your suggestions for future listening. Thanks to everyone who contributed. Our panel of experts deemed the best choice to be George, Don't Do That by Joyce Grenfell - Sam, the Steve Bell book's all yours. But we also liked the following:

Fireworks in Washington, despair around the world The Bush administration is in denial about its disastrous failure in Iraq Robin Cook Friday January 21, 2005 The Guardian Inauguration does not do justice to the exuberant celebrations of this week. Coronation would come closer. Washington ended yesterday with nine official balls. The night before George Bush gave a new spin to the phrase moveable feast by fitting in three separate banquets. He then expended as much ordnance in peppering the sky over the Capitol with fireworks as would get his occupation forces in Iraq through a whole 24 hours. The contrasts...

Journalists' killers 'not being brought to justice' Dominic Timms Tuesday January 18, 2005 The culprits responsible for killing more than 100 journalists and other media workers worldwide last year are only half as likely to be caught as London burglars, a leading international press group claimed today. The International Federation of Journalists said most of the 129 deaths of media staff in 2004 - the highest on record - resulted from either "deliberate attacks" by gunmen, corrupt officials, armed gangs and governments, or "nervous, unruly and ill-disciplined soldiering". In most cases, the IFJ added, the killers were still at large....

Did Guardian turn Ohio to Bush? US journalists have identified the 'Guardian Effect' Was it "the Guardian wot swung it" is the somewhat tongue-in-cheek question for analysts following George Bush's presidential election victory. Specifically, was the "Guardian Effect" to blame for the pro-Bush swing in one Ohio county? In the run up to the US presidential election, the left-wing paper identified the area as a vote-swingers hotspot. Under Operation Clark County, it began a letter-writing campaign which aimed to give people outside the US a say in the election. Opposite result The project set up its readers as pen pals...

"Started by Arkel at 06:02pm Nov 3, 2004 BST" "Does what it says on the tin. Democracy has failed, the time must surely have come for a world patriot to perform this act for the good of humanity. " "You seem to be quite offended by this thread but don't seem to offer alternatives to mass murderers." Etc. . .

Clark County project backfired horribly.

Europeans may have trouble carving out a common foreign policy, but most agree on one thing: Bush must go. With US elections rapidly approaching, countless Europeans are fervently seeking to sway American voters. But can their efforts really make a difference? Even in Europe, there is no escaping it. The United States presidential campaign is everywhere. Every tiny change in the polls wins a spot on the evening news and not a day goes by without coverage of the campaign. Academics regularly bash heads over the latest campaign intrigue and a flood of titles critical of Bush and the Iraq...

Plenty of Americans believe it is none of our business whom they elect as their leader on Tuesday. But there are two underlying reasons why any presidential election matters to the rest of the world. The first concerns America's power. There is no nation in the history of the planet whose strength and actions more directly affect the whole human race than the United States. To an unprecedented degree, America makes the world's weather. Its economic, military and cultural might shapes our lives. If America goes to war, we are all embroiled, as the events of the past three years...

(CNSNews.com) - Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper said at the weekend that it and a columnist were sorry if anyone took offense at published remarks appearing to call for the assassination of President Bush. In a column published in the paper's entertainment guide section on Saturday, Charlie Brooker wrote that Bush would probably win the Nov. 2 election despite the prayers of "the entire civilized world," thus proving that God does not exist. "The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us," he continued. "John Wilkes...

Washington D.C.'s Secret Service is investigating Charlie Brooker of the UK Guardian. The entertainment writer's weekend, anti-Bush tantrum, ending with the words, "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr.--where are you now that we need you," was picked up by the Drudge Report,--using Brooker's provocative last words as the main headline. Citing federal statute 18 USC 879, Florida attorney John B. Thompson, called in the Secret Service Protective Intelligence Unit. "Please do whatever is necessary to punish the UK Guardian and to educate Matt Drudge on the meaning and scope of statute 18," Thompson wrote in a letter...

The British newspaper, The Guardian, recently asked its readers to write to citizens of Ohio in order to convince them to vote for John Kerry for president. Here is one of the letters sent by a Brit to a resident of the Buckeye state: Greetings my insufferable little Buckeye Twit, I have never been to Ohio nor do I have the slightest intention of ever condescending to visit your Midwestern cultural wasteland at any time in the future. However, I am writing you at the behest of The Guardian newspaper in order to properly inform you as to what is...

The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer. "Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

Dear Sirs: I am not a reader of your newspaper, I never have been, and I never will be. However as a public-minded citizen of this country, I must respond to your recent attacks on George W. Bush. Seldom in the history of newsprint has a publication been so arrogant in its presumptions, so tactless in its dialogue, and so witless in what it chose to be fit to print. First, let us begin with your ill-conceived campaign to write to voters in Ohio. I have to ask: what were you thinking? Anyone with a tangential awareness of American history...

British Newspaper Calls for Bush Assassination Written by Doc Farmer Sunday, October 24, 2004 We're just over a week away from the General Election, folks. As expected, it's been a hot and heavy campaign, and things are only getting more intense. Television ads, talk show pundits, newspaper editors, and online columnists have been laying it on thick. There have been calls for apologies when one wife says the other has never had a ''real job'' (though none for telling a reporter to ''shove it''), calls for apologies when the vice president gets a flu shot (though none for Clinton getting...

[snip] to last paragraph of snide article written by Charlie Brooker: "On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

Note: In late september / early october, the UK Guardian had a letter writing campaign. The purpose of this campaign was to influence the voters in the swing state of Ohio to vote for John Kerry. Over 10,000 people requested the address list, and I am sure that those writing wrote at least one or more letters to the citizens of ohio. The article that follows is Guardian printing some of the letters. Dear wonderful, loving friends from abroad, We Ohioans are an ornery sort and don't take meddling well, even if it comes from people we admire and with...

WASHINGTON - A liberal British newspaper's campaign to influence the White House race, by having its readers write to undecided voters in a key county in the must-win state of Ohio, has prompted senior Republican lawmakers to question whether the Capitol Hill press accreditation should be withdrawn from the publication's two Washington correspondents. The write-in campaign started this week by the London-based, 400,000-circulation Guardian, is focused on Ohio's Clark County and is seen as a bid to deliver the state to Democrat John Kerry. Readers are being encouraged by the paper to sign up by e-mail to receive the names...

'When ya gettin' rid of him?' Tony Blair has become an embarrassment to Labour's natural allies across the Atlantic - the Democrats Mark Seddon Friday August 20, 2004 The Guardian Out on the stump in Brooklyn with Democrat Congressional hopeful Frank Barbero came a chance to talk to the footsoldiers in an election that all agree is the most important in decades. America is polarised between red and blue - or, as some Democrats whisper, between progressive America and a revived Confederacy. With George, the Vietnam vet turned transit worker, and Jeff Gold, the eternally optimistic full-time organiser, we leafleted...

While Europe is a eunuch, America is our only shield We can't walk away from Bush's follies without a credible military alternative Overtaken on the motorway by a motorcycle weaving between lanes at reckless speed, we glance at the rider and mutter something about bloody fools. Curiosity focuses upon the pillion passenger. Is he or she enjoying this? Is it not ridiculous to put one's life absolutely in the hands of a reckless idiot? In other words: how does it feel to be Tony Blair in Iraq? So much bad news turned up at Chequers over the weekend that the...

Fraudsters have discovered that folly and greed are not so rare In the revolting world of spam, among the penis enlargements and worse, are the money laundering frauds so palpably absurd you might think only idiots would fall for them. An innocent Scottish chemist's shop is the latest to be caught up in these Nigerian frauds. Victims were promised they would inherit an oil company in return for an up-front fee. The fraudsters used the pharmacy's address, pretending it was a bank, and now dupes from Norway, New Zealand and the US have been turning up in Thurso to try...

How King of New York took battle to the Great Polariser Graydon Carter is one of the biggest names in US magazines. Now Vanity Fair's editor is gunning for George Bush Joanna Walters in New York Sunday December 7, 2003 The Observer He has been hailed as the King Of New York. With his charming manners and ability to make or break celebrities, Graydon Carter is to the magazine world what Jay Leno is to the American talk show - powerbroker to the formerly, currently and would-be famous. Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, was portrayed by some as a...

As you might have heard, I'm leaving the Guardian next year for the Times, having finally been convinced that my evil populist philistinism has no place in a publication read by so many all-round, top-drawer plaster saints. (Well, that and the massive wad they've waved at me.) Once there, I will compose as many love letters to the likes of Mr Murdoch and Pres Bush as my black little heart desires, leaving those who have always objected to my presence on such a fine liberal newspaper as this to read only writers they agree with, with no chance of spoiled...

"We are facing death in Iraq for no reason" A serving US soldier calls for the end of an occupation based on lies Tim Predmore Friday September 19, 2003 The Guardian For the past six months, I have been participating in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom. After the horrific events of September 11 2001, and throughout the battle in Afghanistan, the groundwork was being laid for the invasion of Iraq. "Shock and awe" were the words used to describe the display of power that the world was going to view upon the start...

Trading on fearFrom the start, the invasion of Iraq was seen in the US as a marketing project. Selling 'Brand America' abroad was an abject failure; but at home, it worked. Manufacturers of 4x4s, oil prospectors, the nuclear power industry, politicians keen to roll back civil liberties - all seized the moment to capitalise on the war. PR analysts Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber explain how it worked.Sheldon Rampton and John StauberSaturday July 12, 2003The Guardian"The United States lost the public relations war in the Muslim world a long time ago," Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, said...

Corrections and clarificationsThursday June 5, 2003A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the Department of Defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of...

US paper gripped by new crisis of ethicsAnother New York Times reporter forced to resign amidSuzanne Goldenberg in WashingtonFriday May 30, 2003The GuardianThe spectacle of a publishing institution in crisis moved to a second act yesterday after the bitter departure of a star writer from the New York Times. Rick Bragg, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his evocative features from the southern US, resigned on Wednesday night, days after the newspaper suspended him (with pay) and admitted that an unpaid assistant had done virtually all of the reporting for a story on oyster fishers in Florida for which Bragg...

TV watchdog checks claims of bias on Murdoch channel The Murdoch-owned Fox News Channel, whose determinedly patriotic stance during the Iraq conflict brought it critical notoriety but commercial success, is under investigation by television regulators in Britain for alleged bias. The independent television commission is investigating nine complaints by viewers of the channel, broadcast on Sky Digital satellite, also controlled by Rupert Murdoch. If the network is found to have breached the ITC's "due impartiality" rules, it could be forced out. In 1999 the ITC revoked the licence of Med TV, a channel aimed at the Kurdish diaspora, for failing...

Fox hunting We don't want biased news over hereLeaderThursday May 8, 2003The GuardianThe director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, was not one of the moral minority who complained to the broadcasting regulator about the lack of impartiality by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel. But Mr Dyke's comments on "gung ho patriotism" and "narrow pro-American agendas" at the end of last month about the way the Iraqi conflict had been covered by US networks aptly sums up British objections to the raucous conservatism and unabashed jingoism of Fox, which can be received in Britain with a Sky satellite dish. Mr...

The peace will give the final verdict on this war. The US is not the Great Satan, but it may again be the Great Gatsby America is on probation. That, in four words, is my verdict on Gulf war II. America can still prove, by what it does over the next few years in the Middle East, that it was right in what it did during this last month of war. On what I see at the moment, I fear that the United States will show itself to have been wrong. Not grotesquely, criminally wrong, but prudentially, politically wrong. Then...

I was only asking In the second of his dispatches from the million-dollar media centre at Qatar, Michael Wolff recounts how he angered the US right Monday April 14, 2003 The Guardian The sandstorms blowing through Iraq left a kind of mustard cloud over the desert flats of Qatar, creating a fair approximation of the end of the earth. Serendipitously, Midnight at the Oasis was playing on the car radio as I came up to the camp gate just before 5am - my 10th day in Doha. Then the cellphone was ringing with a nervous producer from CNN in New...

'A picture of killing inflicted on a sprawling city - and it grew more unbearable by the minute' Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad Wednesday April 9, 2003 The Guardian Death's embrace gave the bodies intimacies they never knew in life. Strangers, bloodied and blackened, wrapped their arms around others, hugging them close. A man's hand rose disembodied from the bottom of the heap of corpses to rest on the belly of a man near the top. A blue stone in his ring glinted as an Iraqi orderly opened the door of the morgue, admitting daylight and the sound of a man's...

CommentEmperor GeorgeWhat has become of American values and idealism? All swept away in this thoroughly un-American warJonathan FreedlandWednesday April 2, 2003The GuardianThis war is un-American. That's an unlikely word to use, I know: it has an unhappy provenance, associated forever with the McCarthyite hunt for reds under the beds, purging anyone suspected of "un-American activities". Besides, for many outside the US, the problem with this war is not that it's un-American - but all too American. But that does an injustice to the US and its history. It assumes that the Bush administration represents all America, at all times, when...

CommentIt will end in disasterThe US and British governments have dragged us into a mess that will last for yearsGeorge MonbiotTuesday April 1, 2003The GuardianSo far, the liberators have succeeded only in freeing the souls of the Iraqis from their bodies. Saddam Hussein's troops have proved less inclined to surrender than they had anticipated, and the civilians less prepared to revolt. But while no one can now ignore the immediate problems this illegal war has met, we are beginning, too, to understand what should have been obvious all along: that, however this conflict is resolved, the outcome will be a...

The Daily Star talks of our "brave heroes" - the SAS. The paper claims that members of the elite group of troops are already on the streets of Baghdad. Oh and there is a picture of a girl in a bikini.The Sun shows a British tank poised to attck Baghdad with the Allied army set to do battle with Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard. It uses the headline: "Saddam's Last Stand."The Daily Express is also looking at the main push towards Baghdad. It uses a picture of allied troops ready to go over the top.US and British warplanes, guided by...

The Daily Star claims Iraq executed a number of American prisoners of war in "cold blood". It also advertises its "Oscars Special" with a picture of Carmen Elektra."God Help Them" is the headline on the front of the Daily Express. It refers to the American prisoners of war that Iraq paraded on TV. It also claims a number of prisoners who were killed were shot in the head.The Sun also looks at the plight of the US prisoners of war being held in Iraq. It says they are being "Held At The Mercy Of Savages".The Daily Mirror continues with its...

Dramatic pictures have been coming out of Iraq since the bombing campaign began. The Sun carries perhaps the most dramatic yet - capturing the moment the "shock and awe" campaign began.The anti-war Mirror puts it another way. It describes last night's attack, which was beamed across the world as it happened, as "America's night of shame".The cruise missile blitz is captured in the two detailed pictures by the Daily Mail, which shows smoke pouring out of one large building.The Daily Express opts to carry a picture of Iraqi troops surrendering in southern Iraq, although the paper's picture desk has ignored...

The Sun reports on what it calls the "Battle For Basra". It says 10,000 British troops stormed into action to seize the key city in southern Iraq.The Mirror carries a full-page picture of smoke rising from a missile strike in Baghdad with the headline "Mass Destruction".The Star also leads with a picture of a burning Baghdad and says allies have blitzed Saddam's palaces and troops have warned: "You ain't seen nothing yet".The Express says 10,000 British troops have spearheaded a full-blown invasion of Iraq and says they have come under fire from "the missiles Saddam the liar said he never...

The Sun leads with the words of an army commander who told British troops to "Show Them No Pity... They Have Stains On Their Souls".The Mirror carries a nightime picture of a RAF Harrier over Iraqi oilfields.The Star claims that British SAS troops have already exchanged fire with Iraqi troops in what were the first shots of the "war against evil tyrant Sadddam Hussein".The Mail quotes from speech from a British commander to his troops - it says the impassioned speech brought tough infantrymen to tears and prepared them for the horror and the tragedy of war.The Express reports that...

The Sun is in no doubt that Tony Blair's passionate Commons performance carried the day against the "war wobblers". It says the Prime Minister delivered the speech of his life in a "brilliant, blistering offensive".The Mirror focuses on Cabinet minister Clare Short and claims she is now a political pariah after ditching her pledge to quit over war with Iraq.Under the headline "We're Gonna Get You Saddam", the Star says the most powerful invasion force in history is preparing to rid the world of Saddam Hussein.The Mail hails Tony Blair's "thunderous call to arms" and says his most powerful commons...

Out of the wreckage By tearing up the global rulebook, the US is in fact undermining its own imperial rule George Monbiot Tuesday February 25, 2003 The Guardian The men who run the world are democrats at home and dictators abroad. They came to power by means of national elections which possess, at least, the potential to represent the will of their people. Their citizens can dismiss them without bloodshed, and challenge their policies in the expectation that, if enough people join in, they will be obliged to listen. Internationally, they rule by brute force. They and the global institutions...