LENIN'S TOMB WATCH

Chavez defeated - they voted for George Bush!

2007-12-03T06:39:00.000+01:00

As you know, TombWatch was supposed to be going into semi retirement. We still plan to, but we would be failing in gloating duties if we didn't point out that, on top of everything I listed previously, that a defeat for the dictator Chavez is a great note to go out on.

He tried every trick in the book to con voters into making him president for life, including shutting down opposition TV stations and whipping up supporters into a frenzied state of anti American paranoia not seen in our life times; he said voting 'no' was a vote for George Bush and would endorce an American invasion, and said this is why he has been training the army to fight a civil war. But due to the predictable food shortages due to his Mugabe style price control policies, and the increasing awareness amongst his people that democracy was under threat like never before, even the fatwa style obligation his goons always use to get out the vote in his strong holds wasn't enough to get a majority.

There is strong speculation that he may resign within 24 hours (I doubt he will), given the hints he made that he would if he lost during the campaign - that's how big a defeat this is. Certainly this is a turning point for his regime whatever he does.

Venezuela, the region and the wider world - lets not forget his support for the axis of evil and his meddling in the internal affairs of foreign countries - is a safer place today because of this result. A dictator has been faced down and the Tomb has paid a terrible price for it. Let this be a lesson to them.

Update:

The Guardian have egg on their faces too. They changed the early edition, which gave a neutral report, to a report that stated he looked set to win.

Seymour attacks Muslims

2007-12-03T02:11:00.000+01:00

The tomb is once again engulfed is a race controversy by claiming white Serbs in Kosovo are being driven from their homelands by Muslims.

This BNP style rhetoric from the Tomb - where Muslims who fight back against racism become the aggressors -is something we have become all too accustomed to. But it's no less shocking.

Back again (updated)

2007-12-02T17:55:00.000+01:00

Richard tries some atheist baiting.

Hitchens says he is an anti theist, but contrary to what Seymour claims, I have never seen Dawkins claim this. Dawkins starts from the standpoint that it would be very comforting and assuring to believe in god, and indeed it's a natural impulse that is part of evolution. Most atheists share this view.

Sartre's view on choices appears to entirely contradict Seymour's own views about material circumstances being responsible for everybody's behaviour. Marxism, that teaches the human being is a sort of hapless ping pong ball that is driven to do all sorts of things wouldn't be doing if they weren't in bad circumstances, is his comforting religion.

Update.

Seymour writes in the comments: I will add that generally speaking militant atheists are a fucking embarrassment who are every bit as fetishistic about God and religion as their foils

Well, being a militant atheist myself, I'm sort of proud of that fact; I enjoy giving people a taste of their own medicine and fighting fire with fire. For me that's part of it.

But to say it's all stupid, boring and stating the obvious, is like saying being anti capitalisism is all stupid boring and stating the obvious. Pretending that capitalism is the root cause of all oppression and conflict is equally as silly as claiming religion is the root cause of everything.
You're argument here really boils down to you believing that liberal (capitalist) imperialism is worse than extreme right religious ideologies, therefore everybody needs to pipe down about these religious ideologies. That's the sum of it.

Religions are ideologies like any other types of ideology. If we think of the type of language you use about white fascism - that they make everything up and set out to deceive, and seek to control our thought sytems - there couldn't be a more striking difference with your take on Islamism. With the BNP you take the Hitchens approach, but for Islamism suddently it's back to the root causes game.

What geopolitical circumstances are really to blame for the BNP then? You show extraordinary hyprocrisy on this.

Tomb tedium

2007-12-01T07:07:00.000+01:00

I'm finding the tomb increasingly tedious recently. Now that the SWP, Respect and the antiwar movement have all imploded and are fighting amongst themselves, Iraq is recognisably on the mend, 'Tomb goon' Tony has been executed, Brown now has a worse poll rating than Blair (just kidding), and Islamists, who already support genocide against Muslims in Darfur (which removes the 'oppressed Muslims fight back' line the tomb likes to peddle in their defence on these occasions) are now threatening to execute teachers for what they name teddys, there seems less of a point to Tombwatch itself. (Add on anything else to the list if you want)

I mean, it's always fun slagging off the tomb and reminding it of its obvious contradictions, silliness and hypocrisies, but given how obvious they are already to everybody, rational thoughts are finally creeping through about its productiveness - when I think about it, I only really set it up because that fucker Tony started deleting all my posts.

Watching Galloway's speech to Respect Renewal conference the other week was a bit of a catalyst for this. He said something along the lines that the SWP are such a tiny representative of opinion even on the far left and are so far of the radar map that nobody could ever possibly take up their views or think them serious. Now, of course, I already knew this. But to hear even a nutter like Galloway, of all people, say it, was strangely clarifying.

I am actually quite busy at the moment too with work and it's of course boozing season, so what I've decided is that, for now at least, I'll probably put my spare time into slagging off Medialens instead, the lucky devils. At least with them you know you're countering propaganda that tries to pervert the course of the free media, so there is more of a point to it - some people actually do take Medialens seriously, believe it or not, (thought bizarrely I think in many ways they're more crazy than Seymour) so Mike Clark is geniunely needed to set the record straight.

But don't forget we're still out there, Seymour....... ***Sinister laugh echoes into the night***

Former Tomb goon claims Seymour is nuts (exclusive)

2007-11-23T04:12:00.000+01:00

Crank pot former Tomb moderator, 'tomb goon' Tony, who was stripped of his moderating rights recently for spreading rumours about lenny's SWP, unleashes a bitter, drunken tirad of abuse against his former comrades. Amongst the charges he claims the SWP are deliberately being nasty to him in order so his new project cannot function, he says lenny now bans him from posting at the Tomb - how ironic is that for Mr IP nut - so he doesn't even visit the site anymore (yeah, right!); and he implies that Tomb agents have been passing his emails to third parties.

Attacking another SWPer over at Socialist Unity called 'Canadien', Tony begins...

Jesus, Canadien, what the fuck happened to you? Just take a look at the nasty, sneering, muck-raking shit you’re posting these days.

The issue I have with people like you, Richard and others is, you are making it impossible to discuss this in a friendly way with you. You really have adopted a scorched earth policy of destroying as many working relationships as you can and simply posting to cause trouble. It’s not even to do with the actual issues we disagree on - it’s an entirely sectarian, sneering sort of behaviour that you’re engaged with.

There is a massive space open to all of us to talk about what’s happened and to move forward. Andy (Gallowayite who runs the SU blog) has started deleting comments because people are just continuing to *only* post non-political abuse, which to me is a deliberate ploy of theirs to STOP us moving on and developing new working relationships.

Richard at Lenin’s Tomb is even deleting my comments now, despite me not having changed my politics one bit - I speak the same as I always have, I argue the same as I always have, yet cos I disagree, what was acceptable when it was aimed at one side is now a “sectarian attack” when it’s aimed at the other side.

That’s not even an “editorial policy”. It’s just nuts.

It’s designed to make me not want to debate with SWP members (certainly I no longer visit, let alone attempt to comment on, Lenin’s Tomb - another victory for you guys). Ditto the behaviour of Michael Bradley towards me at the conference at the weekend, refusing to shake my hand, looking down at the floor when I said hello to him twice (similar behaviour from everyone except one other person, who spoke to me when I registered her, but only to attack Kevin Ovenden).

It’s not gonna work. I’ll talk to and work with any serious activist. The people who were passing my emails on to the CC, the people who delete my comments etc., they can go whistle.

But that leaves the other 99% of the SWP, who are good people with whom I simply disagree on the future direction of a few things.

I don’t feel the need to go onto Lenin’s Tomb and say “why did the SWP remove Lutfa’s video, huh? HUH? HUH?” or “what about Ahmed and his call for Galloway to be ‘put down’? HUH?” - yet that is what you, “The East Is Red” and the other people from Lenin’s Tomb are choosing to do.

Remember, you talk of witch-hunts (and it’s rich to use the example that you did, given your recent behaviour on here), but the SWP has a leader who has tried to drag Linda Smith through the mud; the leadership of the SWP has lied about and smeared leading comrades, denied others access to the democratic bodies of the party and is now busy cutting out people who disagree but have stayed in the party.

If you want to just stop trying to cause trouble, there is big room for us to debate things.

I’ve not changed my politics at all. I’ve not changed my allegiances at all. I’ve not even changed my wish to work with as many people as possible. And I’ve not changed my behaviour towards people.

You should question the way you have switched from being willing to discuss things openly (even when I’ve disagreed with you on LT, it’s always been friendly), to only firing pot-shots at people who have clearly decided are an “enemy” to be at war with.

What the fuck is up with people that that is their political method of dealing with things?

(Thanks, tipster)

Richard gives his account of the Respect split to far left mag

2007-11-22T19:51:00.000+01:00

A few comments on it. Why does he describe Michael Crick as a "right wing journalist?" Crick does the same style of reporting on every political party, and ripped it out of Kilroy when he left UKIP in a mirror type move to what's happened to Respect. He also famously took down Jeffery Archer and sparked off the revolt against Iain Duncan Smith that overthrew him. Crick actually used to support Labour before he became a top journalist too, you know.

Seymour also comes across as humorous by dissing the monty python sketch. The truth is, there is something to it; you only have to have seen how Seymour himself suddenly changed his tune on Galloway after the SWP committee told him the new line to how fickle and sectarian the far left can be. Before that occurred there wasn't a peep out of him on the whole crisis, and he had gained a hard earned reputation as being the most sycophantic pro-Galloway blogger on the web.

A poster in the Seymour's thread links to a story on Galloway going to Syria to defend his pro-Saddam bent mate who made money at the expense of Iraqi children, to which Seymour retorts that he's not going to start demonising him on that score - politics is what this should be about. However the reality is Seymour couldn't attack Galloway on that whole thing even if he wanted to - given the endless posts defending every detail of his personal dealings that remain in the Tomb archives. That would be too hypocritical even for him. But you still have to pinch yourself to see the terms in which Seymour now describes the "maverick MP" (medialens would say "maverick" is a propaganda term).

Check out the last section where he lays into the Respect Renewal conference and Galloway's style of working.

Tomb breaks silence on DataGate

2007-11-22T04:52:00.000+01:00

A few points we need to remember. The civil service had seen massive expansion since Labour's time in office. That's why all sides of the political debate welcomed Brown's decision to shoot the Tory's fox by make a culling of his own, pledging to plough the money into front line services else where, announced shortly before the last general election. How much this policy has to do with this latest crisis is unknown at this stage, however the principle of cutting bureaucrats in order to maintain the extra funding to front line staff in the key public sector areas is one that the public think is an excellent idea; we should remember that amid the tabloid fury about DataGate.

I can understand why this policy has made civil service union leader Mark Serwotka in particular very bitter and twisted towards Labour - how could he not be overcome with irrationality when his people are being cut whilst all the other unions have seen massive increases in pay and staff. That doesn't automatically mean the policy is wrong for the country though. He is running a vested interest group with narrow concerns; he if were to ask the TUC if Labour is doing a good job for working people overall, he would get an emphatic positive answer. You can't please everybody I'm afraid.

On top of that, Serwotka is a bit of a far left fanatic (he was spotted speaking at the SWP Respect conference last weekend) who is on record stating that strikes are automatically good because they happen rather than because they achieve anything - a moronic concept. And he has tried, unsuccessfully, to bully the other unions into adopting this ruinous madcap position. I'm sure the tomb understands why the bulk of the unions are sensible and intelligent enough not to be taken in by this sort of dangerous nutteristic stance.

What about black Zimbabweans today, lenin?

2007-11-21T02:41:00.000+01:00

lenin provides us with a breathless and damning obituary of white bogey man, the eviiiil Ian Smith, the much reviled former white leader of Zimbabwe, who, like Mugabe today, opposed British attempts to make the country democratic. (Many of us thought he was already dead).

What's immediately striking is how much effort lenin puts into condemning this relic of the past compared to his utter silence at the far worse situation in that country today. lenin has never mentioned, and doesn't here, that Zimbabwe now has the lowest life expectancy in the world, terrible human rights abuses, or the ongoing destruction of the model economy, free press and first class democratic institutions it inherited. It really is one of the great crimes of our times what has happened to that country in recent years, yet none of that is of the remotest interest for lenin compared to the much more important task of looking back in great detail at Britain's wrong doings 50 and 100 years ago. His only comment about the present situation is to make the obscene claim that getting rid of the hand full of white farmers that remain will solve the countries problems; he knows full well it a policy that has created famine.

It echoes precisely the sort of language Mugabe uses as cover every time he launches a new crack down on his people.

Of course debating British history is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, but put in the context of the Tomb's other-worldly agenda - i.e pretending that the modern day world is no different from the height of the British empire therefore we need to support any old racist despot who oppresses their people as long as they oppose whitey's capitalist ways - puts a rather sinister slant on these things. That is unfortunate.

lenin opposes French working people

2007-11-21T02:18:00.000+01:00

lenin has jumped on the French strike bandwagon. This is the same country he was condemning as white supremacist last year during the Islamist uprising, but now we are told that "France is amazing. I don't want to eulogize, but..."

The strikes in France are the normal state of affairs, of course. The question for Sarkozy and the left forces in favour of progress is whether they can break the habit of French government's going back decades and not cave in to the fascistic minority who are once against holding the country to ransom. And that's an important point; the majority of the French people support reforms, including the working class, who have suffered terribly from unemployment, so this really is a question of who runs France; the democratic government backed by the majority of the people, or the vested interest groups fighting to leave the EU, retain protectionist measures that hurt the third world, and generally impose their backward agenda on the country - whether they voted for it or not.

There was the amazing statistic on BBC Newsnight last night that only 8% of the work force in France are members of a union. Put in that light you can see how unjust it is for any government to surrender to people who have nothing to do with even the majority of working people.

lenin's voodoo economics

2007-11-19T15:58:00.000+01:00

lenny writes:

"The credit crisis, if it is resolved in a capitalist fashion, will see large amounts of public wealth transferred to the private sector. Every previous crisis has resulted in the taxpayers bailing out massive corporations - whether it is Reagan bailing out Chrysler, Clinton bailing out the hedge funds, or Bush bailing out the airlines in 2001. The alternative of public ownership is obviously forbiden by neoliberal ideology, but there isn't a single good reason why nationalisation cannot or should not be carried out extensively."

lenin seems to be missing the rather obvious point that nationalisation across the board would lead to far more of the public's wealth being wasted on companies, since the state would own absolutely everything. Where's the logic in that?

Whilst there may be an isolated case for nationalising Northern Rock - which has found itself in a somewhat unprecedented situation for a bank - wholesale nationalisation of key industries in general would take us right back to the mass unemployment, low productivity and vast waste of the 1970s.

I'm sure when lenin reflects on this properly he will remember the difficulty failing industries got themselves into when the state would come in to prop up sectors that the market couldn't sustain in the long run, thus making the pain a lot bigger and more expensive when they finally had to pull the plug. That type of misery is not something lenin wants British tax payers and workers to return to for one second, thus I'm sure he will withdraw these unfortunate remarks.

Revolutionary achieves self determination - no thanks to the Tomb

2007-11-19T02:15:00.000+01:00

A party led by a former Kosovo Albanian guerrilla leader has won the breakaway province's parliamentary election, according to unofficial results.

Hashim Thaci has promised to declare formal independence from Serbia after 10 December - the UN deadline for Albanians and Serbs to reach a deal.

Cunts

2007-11-19T02:10:00.000+01:00

No, not the Tomb this time.

Hilarious

2007-11-18T01:13:00.000+01:00

Sorry but it really is. Two Respect conferences. Lib Dem/SWP (breathless report from lenin) on the one hand, and Galloway/Islamist on the other. They both claim great success and predict huge gains in the future.

A party couldn't have conspired to better discredit themselves with the general public.

What's the betting that both organisations will not exist, or at least be significantly smaller than they presently are, a year from now? I'd put money on it.

'Tomb goon' Tony removed as Tomb moderator

2007-11-15T15:13:00.000+01:00

I bring you stunning news, readers. The tomb moderator that turned the tomb into a censorship hell hole in the first place - known as TonyC - has been stripped of his moderating rights by Richard Seymour!

Tony is not happy about it:

"I am massively fucked off at all of this - fucked off that I get removed as a moderator on Lenin’s Tomb cos I’m on the “wrong” side (despite it not affecting my role there), fucked off at the abusive emails, fucked off at the attempts to undermine my credibility in the RMT, fucked off at the SWP leadership lying to activists about me and others."

Whatever one thinks of lenin and his politics, this is an excellent decision for which he should be commended. Tony's sole purpose in life was to try and get other commentators banned and harass anyone who didn't follow the editorial line; he would sneakily remove messages before Seymour got to see them, so its no wonder Seymour has decided he can no longer be trusted given he is now on the opposite side of a dispute. What other comments providing sensitive information could he be intercepting?

It's irritating people like Tony who motivated me to start this watch site in the first place; hell, I might even close it down now. (Well, I probably won't yet)

Whilst I don't expect the censorship policy to change at the Tomb - lenin is in way too deep now to change that - it's nevertheless excellent news that this odious individual has been sacked.

(Thanks to the tipster who alerted me to this)

Mark Steel slams SWP members who hype the antiwar movement

2007-11-15T15:02:00.000+01:00

Here:

"...the Stop the War Coalition began as a magnificent example of how the ideas of the SWP can influence a movement in the most exhiliarating fashion. But as the massive anti-war march receded into the past, relating to those people who went on it became more complex.
The most typical attitude seemed to be that while no one regretted going on the march, they couldn’t see that it had made any difference. But instead of analysing how to address this sentiment, the SWP seemed to repeat the tone that suited the frenetic weeks before the war. Every march and protest was depicted as a triumph. And there was no acknowledgement of the process in which Stop the War meetings and rallies became smaller, and almost devoid of anyone under forty."

Who could he be talking about?

'The extraordinary successes of the antiwar movement'

2007-11-13T20:33:00.000+01:00

Richard has been set the odious task by the Socialist Worker of pumping up the antiwar movement, which everyone knows has long been dying on its arse for some years now - a process that has speeded up recently with the collapse of violence in Iraq. It's of course the root cause of why the Respect coalition couldn't bury its differences for the greater cause anymore too. On every issue they failed - whether on forcing Blair to resign, defeating Bush, stopping the surge or overthrowing Iraq and Afghan democracy, they have taken a fatal beating. Even the runaway Dem front runner candidate is the most prowar and centrist of the bunch, whilst the likes of Edwards, who has taken a rather desperate antiwar position, completely bombs. Who would have predicted that?

Anyway he gives his best shot to a dreary and tired readership who know the game is up. Unfortunately for him their failure is everywhere - even the post below his on the Medialens message board where he plugs his blog charts the failure of the Irish antiwar movement, which was rather unfortunate timing.

If this is what extraordinary success means then I hope they will deliver a whole lot more of it.

Non-neo con Brown

2007-11-12T23:06:00.000+01:00

What is neocon about vastly increasing the size of the state, linking pensions to earnings, making great steps in ending low pay and child poverty, increasing workers rights and trebling aid to the third world?

You twat, Seymour. Stick to your backward looking 90 year anniversaries.

lenin can't mention the war

2007-11-08T12:06:00.000+01:00

You can tell how weak the argument is against Sir Ian Blair by the fact lenin can't bring himself to mention, even in passing, what happened the day before the unfortunate Menezes incident occurred, on 21/7, or what happened on 7/7 just two weeks before that. Not one little mention from him. Surprising, no?

One would have thought if the argument against Blair is so good then lenin would have no problem in mentioning the context that Islamists, who are at war with us, had tried to massacre hundreds of innocent civilians on the tube the day before, two weeks after another group had successfully taken out 52 people, and that at the time of the shooting the police were engaged in an unprecedented race against time to try to hunt down these four loose suicide bombers before they struck again.

Instead he is reduced to parroting some of the absurd media criticism, such as the criticising of Sir Ian Blair's rational call to postpone the IPCC investigation in the immediate aftermath while the hunt was still going on (something obviously the IPCC have a vested interest in being critical of), and other nonsensical baloney where he refers to an entirely different incident where child pornography was indeed found on a terror suspects computer, contrary to what lenin claims.

If Sir Ian Blair does go it will be a huge shame since he has, by and large, been an excellent commissioner that has a very good record in busting terror plots and lowering crime. People like Seymour and his partisan allies the Lib Dems and Conservatives are simply using this for shameful political reasons, and as even Ken Livingstone says are only helping the terrorists by doing so. They have absolutely nothing on him - ziltch, zero - as Seymour displays.

The people who tried to murder hundreds of Londoners have already gotten around 40 years each - who were caught just a few weeks later by the same officers involved in Stockwell - so accountability has already occurred. That is that.

Now, I have a couple of other general comments relating to this issue.

Another interesting aspect of this whole thing is those moronic type people who go around saying they are scared of getting shot in the head by the police for no reason thanks to the Stockwell incident. Yet these are usually the very same people who are the first to cry 'scaremongering' when anyone warns of the much more likely event that a suicide bomber could blow them up on the tube. Suicide attacks have much worse consequences for real social cohesion in this country as well, other than the manufactured outrage you get from community leaders when the police screw up, so if people were really interested in an easier life for Muslims then they should befirmly anti terrorist. Why are you not, lenin?

lenin also complains that the police get far too much respect in his post - after all they are not the only people to have dangerous jobs he says. Well firstly, most dangerous jobs don't include running after suicide bombers. But even so the reason police hold a special role in public service is, without them, society would quickly turn into chaos and anarchy, as we saw in Baghdad and New Orleans. They play a very important moral role that does indeed deserve some respect.

Another question I have for lenin in relation to Islamism is why he has never touched on his blog, that I would like to see a post on, is his take on why Britain was the soft touch of Europe, and indeed the world, on Islamism during the 1990s - a policy that continued until about 2003.

So how did such a bunch of "white supremacist" bigots allow this country to become the most important terror centre in the world out of the training camps of Afghanistan? It doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps lenin could explain?

Richard's racism

2007-11-06T12:10:00.000+01:00

lenin has a fresh rant about some BBC programme that apparently doesn't stick to strict tomb-dogma that capitalism and whitey are responsible for allthe major atrocities in the history of the world, ever. We are told the programme is utterly reprehensible for leaving out the Tomb-known-fact that the white man and his capitalism invented racism, genocide and of course the dreaded imperialism, and were brutal in a way no other part of the world had ever experienced before he set foot on their lands.

Yes, indeed.

Of course, you and me both know that racism and genocide is far more a key part of the history of communist and fascist states; capitalism certainly has nothing on them when it comes to such matters. But we already know that; what's more fascinating to me is how the anti-imperialist mindset can quickly default into a racist mentality towards the west and believe in all sorts of mumbojumbo conspiracy theories. As Nick Cohen once wrote, anyone who thinks nothing good can come out of the west is just as racist as someone who believes no good can come out of the non-western parts of the world. He was right. It used to be tempting to believe lenin was just an opportunist - after all he did support Serb fascism in the Balkans against eastern looking Muslims, so racism couldn't be at the root of his thinking, or so we thought. But as it has emerged recently that, just like Hitler before him, he doesn't consider Slavs or Eastern Europeans to be white people at all.

It's hard to conclude that racism is not at the heart of much of his views on present day activities of the west, and why no matter how bad the non-western despot and tyrant he will always support them against whitey,and repeat revisionist versions of history as fact. I know some of you will try to blame it all on Marxism instead; but you can't since I know plenty of Marxists who don't share this deep hatred of everything western and are totally colour blind. No, it's something more sinister than that.

lenin's imperial problem

2007-11-04T17:23:00.000+01:00

First you need a definition of imperialism if you are to investigate 'imperial denialism'.

The tomb's definition of imperialism includes any type of UN peace keeping mission, the global economy, the notion of human rights and even international law itself.

It would be much more interesting and valuable to have an investigation into how somehow could get themselves into such preposterousness.

The idea that every country in the world could live in North Korean style isolation from each other is just totally unrealistic in this day and age - you've really got to get up to date.
These days this 'imperialist' crap is the last refuge of tyrannts, terrorists and despots. You're fooling nobody.

Galloway does a Musharraf on Tomb

2007-11-04T00:11:00.000+01:00

What can one say about it really? Everything is perfectly obvious.

lenin isn't keen on the reported alliance with Lib Dem councillors so maybe there will be yet more splits in Respect to come!

Tomb bottles out of immigration debate, admits to being racist

2007-11-02T16:48:00.000+01:00

This piece seems a mighty bit absurd in the context of recent news. Even if you are for the unprecedented levels of immigration Britain is currently experiencing that is due to increase further, the argument now is on how best to prepare communities across the country and improve services by arguing for greater government cash, such as the news story yesterday where councils are asking for an extra 250 million pounds. Nobody in their right mind is still pretending its not happening and smearing anyone who says it has consequences as being a white supremacist - it's the very opposite of what people like Jon Cruddus are arguing for. But that's the silly moronic position that the Tomb finds itself in.

He seems to think it's all something cooked up in the Daily Mail. Maybe he didn't know yesterday's story on councils pleading for cash was the top story on the BBC (watch report); and having been away, maybe he didn't know about last weeks news on the projected population level increase, and the fact half of all jobs in the last ten years have gone to foreign nationals. And perhaps he didn't see Jon Snow's documentary a few weeks back, where the pros and cons of immigration were spelt out in clear, honest and undeniable terms. (Must see)

Look, I'm not saying I am totally against Eastern European immigration - indeed, along with American immigrants, statistics show they are the hardest working people in the country, and apart from the drain on services, socially they do this country a lot of good. Indeed they balance out at lot of shit if you think about it. But lets not kid ourselves; they are being used because its easier than to train unskilled working class Brits. Whatever ones view, lets at least have the argument based on the facts and not on some outdated 1960s mumbjumbo that doesn't apply to the modern age. As the government has found out, being in denial is just not an option.

Lastly, the reason there was prejudice against Irish people is due to the fact we were at war with Ireland in one way or another for hundreds of years; we occupied them, and more recently they were launching terror attacks on the mainland. Basically they were a classic local tribal foe, like the French, so of course you can look back and find a lot of bigotry against Irish people in British history. However there's nothing remotely comparable with eastern Europeans as far as Britain is concerned. The comparison doesn't stand up on any level.

The only person here who is racist against white people is lenin himself, as he now openly admits in the title of this piece.

Update:

Something tells me that Poles won't want to buy into the victimhood crap lenin wants to sell to them.

Psyops

2007-11-02T14:38:00.000+01:00

lenin reveals a Psyops technique of the late Respect party, where to disguise the fact they were a bunch of middle class liberals and top down Muslim community leaders who relied on fatwas to get out the vote, they would make home made banners that made it appear like a spontaneous working class movement:

"Aesthetically, holding open space rallies, and putting up handmade banners of the red and green all over the place, have been a way of accentuating the fact that Respect is a movement coming from (sic) up from the streets."

Trick to fool the public

Cunt face in Paris

2007-10-28T02:01:00.000+01:00

The Tomb has turned up at a gay Islamist festival in Paris.

We are halting further announcements until we have further information. (Which suits us because we are mother fucking fucked this weekend.)

PS. We are unable to change the music channel at the moment due to a dispute with the hosting company. If I had my way it would be 'Hey Joe' at present.

Why Islamofascism matters

2007-10-25T18:29:00.000+01:00

This guy.

Respect supporters blast 'bottler' Seymour

2007-10-24T02:55:00.000+01:00

lenin finally breaks his long silence on the Respect crisis only to waste the opportunity by writing this vague tosh, sparking outrage amongst Respect supporters for refusing to take a proper stand on the issue, then closing down the comments for anyone who criticises the SWP!

Some reaction here.

Passionate Respect supporter Tony T says:

Richard Seymour has been lent on - hard. Lenin’s Tomb has said nothing about the current crisis and Seymour’s only comment to date was a freelance character reference for the expellees - Kev, Rob and co - on this august blog. Someone from the Central Committee probably told him today that his public silence was being interpreted in some quarters as a lack of support for the SWP leadership. So he has at last piped up - “I direct you to this editorial in Socialist Worker, which I agree with wholeheartedly.” - to save his own bacon within the SWP. By doing so, he’s probably avoided the purges but his hesitancy and confusion will have been duly noted by the hard men of the CC. I think we can safely predict that there will be no fast track to the inner circle of the revolutionary party for the Ballymena poseur.

Then Andy wades in:

The comments on Lenin’s Tomb are very interesting, because it is so bland.

Richard also says this: “I appreciate the problem especially since the discussion ends up being monopolised by the gossip-mongers. I myself have had countless problems keeping up with what is happening. But there’s little that can be done about it: internal arguments shouldn’t be conducted through the media, and there are serious consequences of allowing it to be done this way.”

Now I know that Richard is insufferably smug, but he isn’t stupid. What other mechanisms for having the debate are there except “via the media”? - Media presumably including newspapers like the Morning Star, Red Pepper, and Green Left Weekly, and also the blogs. the alternative to having a debate “via the media” would be to have the discussion via an internal Respect discussion forum, but there isn’t one. Or via a Respect publication, but there isn’t one.

This is how “Lenin” argues the debate should take place: “. I also expect many people have different arguments and positions they would like to state, which aren’t to do with sectarianism. I respect all of this, but I would urge people to take these arguments to Respect branch meetings and argue them democratically with the membership ”

I find this astounding. Because “lenin” knows full well that the SWP are discussing this via their own internal caucuses, Party Notes, phone calls from full timers, e-mails, etc. So we have a charactature of democracy being explicitly argued for by “Lenin”. Non-SWP members of Respect are encouraged to only discuss it in branch meetings, but SWP members get to discuss it in their own caucus and then turn up all at the Respect meeting having already decided what they want to come out of it. Russian Dolls indeed.

So we are left with the impression that the correct way to have the discussion is via SWP’s internal structures, or not at all.

Tony again:

Richard Seymour is indeed insufferably smug, but I wouldn’t be too quick to acquit him of the charge of stupidity, Andy. His performance during this crisis has been exceptionally lame, including several obvious blunders. Dispite his pretensions, Seymour is fundamentally unserious.

Respect supporter Mike:

It is interesting to note that many comments here and on other fora remark that if the SWP withdraw or are pushed out of respect, which will happen mark you, then their only alternative to wholesale capitulation to GG is isolation. Frankly a period of isolation would be a good thing for the SWP IF that organisation can utilise such an opportunity to understand how they got into the mess they are in. One can but hope that the fools responsible for the current fiasco would then be demoted or expelled from the SWP.

The slow death of the Tomb

2007-10-23T00:25:00.000+01:00

lenin has been in full self justification mode of late with the collapse of the SWP's involvement in the Galloway project, with a post detailing how a red/brown alliance is still in the interests of the left, and now today we have his class warfare thesis for why being on the loony left still matters.

A couple of points. He has no basis for knowing if social mobility is going down. The people who are in a position to better themselves, or not, today were educated in the 1970s and 80s, not over the past decade, so it's far too early to tell where we are a present. If anything the anecdote evidence points to social mobility going up as people enjoy the benefits of a New Labour government who have given people more access to choices than they have ever had; this, combined with the joys of capitalism, that with all its faults gives people expectations and ambitions that would never have been dreamed about under any other type of system, bodes well. It's time to cheer the fuck up.

Today the working class themselves are the Tomb's biggest obstacle to making headway on the anti capitalist front; they love consumerism more than anyone and know full well the importance of having a cohesive society that is not a war with itself in this increasingly diverse age, being, as they are, on the front line of the changing world. Indeed, if there is an issue that effects white working class people, lenin often attempts to close down the debate and dismiss them as racists; in fact everything he says about them seems to indicate he rather despises them. That somewhat undermines his protestations to being the great working class champion - they've got to be the right sort of working class for the Tomb.

lenin throws around the term class with absurd liberalness. He complains about the notion put forward by the Eustonites that there are 'democrats' that need to be supported, as though this can only apply to certain group of people, but he himself refers to this vague notion of a 'capitalist class' all the time without any substance behind it. It's really tosh if we think about it as we sit here enjoying the benefits of our latest Microsoft products.

You've got to remember its a difficult time for lenin. He's obviously going to be very defensive; you can expect more bluster as things continue to collapse on the pro-Islamist front. Behind the scenes, though, Tombwatch sources say old ideas are being quietly dropped as the house crumbles.

We say good luck to him; it's about fucking time we stopped naval gazing and faced up to the real world out there; increasingly people are voting with their feet and junking this 19th century version of anti imperialism, an early 20st century view of class, and a simplistic 1960s view of race relations solutions as a way of viewing the present world.

Say it aint so?

2007-10-20T14:56:00.000+01:00

lenin calls on the left to model themselves on the tactics of Henry Kissinger, where it is legitimate to work with racist far right Islamists to assassinate democratic leaders and governments, persecute gays and women, in the aid of achieving wider geopolitical objectives (i.e fighting the yanks and whitey), despite this contradicting everything the left is supposed to stand for.

It's an interesting proposition.

Unfortunately for Seymour, though, this piece comes at a particularly bad time for him, since it turns out that he likes Islamists a great deal more than Islamists like him.

Oh dear.

Sadegh Khalkhali & Henry Kissinger.

Update: I replied to Johng in the comments:

Johng, working with Islamists to thwart popular liberation struggles in Muslim countries is not left wing. In fact its positively Islamophobic. You and lenny need to deal with the facts on the ground in the 21st century.

Devastating for the Tomb - Afghans speak out

2007-10-19T15:06:00.000+01:00

How is Seymour going to live this one down?

The people of Afghanistan:

51% say that the country is heading in the right direction

59% believe that President Hamid Karzai represents their interests

60% say that the foreign presence since the fall of the Taliban has been a good thing

60% feel that they are better off now than they were five years ago

64% say that those foreign countries are doing a good job fighting the Taliban

65% say that foreign countries are doing a good job providing reconstruction assistance

71% have a very or somewhat positive view of their government

73% think that women are better off now than under the Taliban

84% have some or a lot of confidence in the Afghan national army

Eric Lee:

Unsurprisingly, when comparing the results by gender it turns out that women “tend to be more negative about the Taliban.”

Now imagine if the same poll were conducted among, say, readers of the Guardian or Independent in the UK. Would it show huge majorities expressing support for and confidence in both the Nato mission and the elected Karzai government? Probably not.

In fact, in most of the countries that are participating the Nato-led effort, there are majorities that want to see that mission come to a very swift end. Yet when pollsters asked Afghans if they wanted the foreign forces to leave immediately, only 14% said yes.

We all know that the Afghan war has been another huge failure for George Bush and the USA – and we know this because we are told it every day by mainstream media in our countries. But the Afghans seem to have a somewhat different view and it just might be possible that they know what they are talking about.

Maybe it's time we listened.

lenin highlights Iraq propaganda film

2007-10-19T05:04:00.000+01:00

Even lenin is surprised this got onto the New York Times website. It's simplistic and misleading gibberish. It splices together a few Iraqi Sunnis telling us how upset they were when American troops invaded the mother land, claims everybody is fighting for "Iraq" - rather than the reality it is a particular Sunni supremacist ultra nationalist view of Iraq these people are fighting for - and then selectively cites opinion polls with false conclusions. It's no better than those BNP political broadcasts that tell us professional people up and down the country support them.

The terrorists certainly did not doom the war from the start - even matey in the clip says that they could easily have "cooled down" after losing their privileges as Iraq's whites if the aftermath had been handled properly. This entirely squares with other Sunni groups which openly admit that the terrorist war would never have begun without the help of Al Qaeda; first all the aid agencies, the UN, the reconstruction efforts and public service infrastructure had to be blown to kingdom come by Al Qaeda, and the majority population had to be terrified into fearing the process. It was the cruelest type of war ever fought by an insurgency.

We know Iraqis disagreed with them as, according to the very opinions this film now cites, showed that Iraqis wanted the troops to stay for at least two years after the original invasion.

The majority of Iraqis do not supporting killing foreign troops as the film asserts. They support having the right to attack foreign troops, which is wholly different - of course Iraqis want the right to defend themselves if they feel their local militia has a justified grievance, but that's a long way from supporting the despised national terrorist groups who don't even recognise the political rights of three quarters of the population.

No, this won't do. lenin should have the courage to come out and admit that the war he has supported for the last five years has been a complete failure for the Iraqi people; it has only led to civil break down, more foreign troops and hundreds of thousands dead, and terrible ethnic cleansing - something that the coalition is fighting tooth and nail to pretend in the face of his opposition. How many more will have to die before it is brought to an end?

No thanks to lenin, violence has dropped like a stone since the surge began. It will continue to go down.

Update: The more one looks into this film, the more other worldly it becomes. It's like the naive antiwar arguments you would hear a few years ago before events on the ground finally got through and forced them to face reality.

Nevertheless, I want lenin to answer the central question the film asks: what would you do if your country was invaded?

Please answer that, lenny.

'Hater' lenin's free market problem

2007-10-19T04:08:00.000+01:00

To be a Marxist you famously have to have a shit grasp of basic economics, it's part of the gig, and lenin demonstrates this for us perfectly here. What a silly arse.

lenin doesn't seem to know that capitalism has 1) lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in history - China and India have seen the fastest drop in poverty ever recorded due to free market reforms 2) that there is this thing called the exchange rate which is why crap sounding figures in our money is often rather good in the third world, so you cannot compare like with like in the misleading fashion that he does, and 3) the very huge sums of money he cites as having gone 'missing' wouldn't even have existed in the first place under his chosen system, so the cunt hasn't lost anything to begin with and should stop moaning.

Even so, yes, there are millions of people living in poverty in third world countries and this very much this needs to change. But that's precisely why they need more free trade, not less, and why it is right that we have trebled aid to deal with it. lenin needs to stop spouting such economic horseshit that just puts sand in people's eyes. It's one thing to say we need to improve the system and think of ways to make it fairer - perhaps arguing for a global maximum wage - but lenin won't have any of that. All he does is bitch; he's not a solutions man.

Phippe Legrain explains a bit here. And here on where the blame lies for lack of progress.

PS. Bill Gates built the very windows system you are using right now, knob head. Get down on your knees and thank him.

HitchensWatch confirms hoax

2007-10-19T02:56:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well. Turns out somebody else at the event has refuted the bogus review that the Tomb readily posted up, leaving egg on his and Sonic's fat faces. Let that be a lesson to them both.

lenin's masculinity issues

2007-10-16T22:56:00.000+01:00

lenin has owned up to having a bizarre fetish with American masculinity. Who'd have thought it?

It's immediately striking to me that the far more extreme 'masculine' societies in the Muslim world don't get any attention from Seymour - other than to be defended hook, line and sinker - but he has this self indulgent obsession with tough guy Americans who he can't get off his mind. Strange eh? It's just like the way the people who actually commit genocide in the real world take second place to all sorts of theoretical genocides that whitey might support given half the chance. The priorities of the lad are extraordinary.

Those pesky Muslims had to go and spoil his ancient anti American student game thing, eh? Oh the bad luck.

I think this post also rather reveals his own insecurities. Ooow eeer, misses.

De Menezes was coke head

2007-10-16T19:30:00.000+01:00

This explains his suspicious behaviour on that day.

Now Seymour hit by Hitchens fabrication scandal

2007-10-16T01:02:00.000+01:00

Fresh from his humiliating climb down on the phony Mandella letter, the Tomb is engulfed in a new fake storm. No, not just the laughable hatchet job Seymour wrote about Hitchens a while ago,that friends tell me he is deep down rather embarrassed about these days, but he also cites a lazy review of a recent talk given by Christopher Hitchens where the partisan reviewer fraudulently claims Hitchens talked of killing all Muslims everywhere.

Now, you don't have to be Cluedo to ascertain that Mr Reviewer replaced the word 'Islamist' with 'Muslim' - a common slander - then added a few blood thirsty exaggerations to spice up his point. That's why he doesn't quote Hitchens actual words once in the piece.

Richard likely got into this mess by taking the story from "HitchensWatch", where its estranged and famously ignorant founder is rather embarrassed after another contributor allowed someone to give Hitchens a fair review of another recent Hitchens talk and posted it up. So it's no surprise he came out of enforced retirement to copy and paste this latest smear.
It's funny how everyone is genocidal to Richard Seymour other than those people who actually commit real life genocide. Very interesting.

Update:

Part five of Hitchens' talk is up on youtube and there is still not a shred of evidence that Hitchens said anything about killing all Muslims. Indeed, it sounded like a pretty good talk to me; Hitchens was on good form.

Tomb in fabrication storm

2007-10-15T21:37:00.000+01:00

David T of HP:

"Lenin", the verbose and pompous blogger from the now-disintegrating totalitarian Socialist Workers' Party, has a post up entitled Palestine, apartheid and colonialism.

The measure of this piece can be had by a quick skim of his first paragraph, which goes as follows:

"Nelson Mandela says so, and even wrote an elegant letter to Thomas Friedman to this effect. Israel is imposing apartheid on the Palestinian people"

Lenin is talking about this letter. As you will see, it was written by a man called Arjan El Fassed, who runs "The Electronic Intifada", the nature of which you can determine from its name.

El Fassed is very clear that his intention was not to distribute a fake letter, purporting to be from Nelson Mandela, and I find his explanation credible. There are certainly a number of forged letters doing the rounds on extremist sites: the most notorious one being from Benjamin Franklin warning the American People about the pernicious jews. Unlike the author of that letter, I very much doubt whether El Fassed intended to fool the guillible. He posted a very clear article about this piece on his own website back in 2002.

Unfortunately, over the past six years, a succession of idiots have attributed this letter to Nelson Mandela: sometimes maliciously but usually in all innocence. Those idiots include Jimmy Carter, who referred to the letter in a speech at Brandeis University last year.

To that list of idiots, we can now add our own dear "Lenin".

The truth about Columbia

2007-10-13T19:30:00.000+01:00

Seymour is still terribly upset at the treatment the president of Columbia University gave to ultra conservative holocaust denier, Ahmadinejad, when he gave to give his notorious speech a few weeks back.

It's left to TombWatch to clear this up. The reason Bollinger was under pressure to make such a direct statement is due to the fact his university has become famous for shouting down US conservatives and even invading the stage and attacking them, which is what happened when the leader of the Minuteman border watch group was invited to give a speech there last year. Indeed, anyone slightly to the right of Dennis Kucinich literally has to bring body guards with them. So the idea of a nice sweat and polite chat with someone who has murdered 4000 gay people and makes most US conservatives seem like weak kneed liberals, was a hypocrisy too far. That was the root cause of the statement.

Also in lenin blogpost he refers to another 'noose incident' at Columbia university and tries to use this as a metaphor for the increasing racism that plagues American campuses. This is tosh. Clearly the incident was totally out of order, but to try to draw any wider meaning from this isolated incident is absurd. We can all take incidents of black or white people being beaten up, or something like this, and pretend it means something wider. The reality is Universities in America are bastions of liberalism and enjoy far more academic freedom than their counter parts in Iran. (That's your cue to go red faced.)

Lastly, to clear up another point, lenin, rather longingly, claims that Pervez Musharaff of Pakistan is a "much more brutal dictator" than his hero Ahmadinejad - something which I don't think he really expects anyone to buy; it is really slipped in to remind people that the world is not black and white. Musharaff has constantly argued the case for tolerance in his country and does have the backing of the majority of liberal people. That's why he may well win the election when it comes. That country does have many aspects of old British law in place and still enjoy a free media; the comparison with Iran is obviously bogus on every level.

What happens to US conservatives at Columbia University:

How many lives has Blair saved?

2007-10-13T18:55:00.000+01:00

Seymour links to a fairly unremarkable and dreary review of Alistair Campbell's diary, but this passage, citing Neil Kinnock's early unease at New Labour, got me thinking:

"What is interesting is that Kinnock’s critique was absolutely spot on—with one important exception. He could not possibly have imagined that Blair, ably assisted by Campbell, and with Kinnock’s own acquiescence, would go on to kill considerably more people than Thatcher."

It is an often repeated mantra that Blair has killed more people than Thatcher, but precisely how is that worked out? Even if we were to take the ludicrous position that Blair is personally responsible for every death caused by the Al Qaeda sparked civil war in Iraq - that we are of course doing everything to stop and lenin is doing everything to support - does the claim stand up to scrutiny?

Lets see. We know that Blair has saved 240,000 thousand children in Afghanistan alone, stopped the bloodshed in the Balkans that would likely still be going on till this day had it not finally been knocked it on the head, stopped a brutal civil war in Sierra Leone, and has been instrumental in massively increasing British aid, and leading the world to do the same, to Africa and other war torn and backward parts of the world. We have literally seen a revolution in aid thanks to Blair. And lets not forget his leadership on global warming - something Al Gore has been giving the Nobel peace prize for because it is supposed to stop future conflicts. Really it should have been given to Blair as well if we're honest.

By any rational reading of the figures that's a massive net bonus in lives - there are many millions of people around the globe that are alive thanks to Blair. Can Thatcher really match that?

Seymour backs civil war plan

2007-10-13T18:25:00.000+01:00

This. Which is the same civil war plan Seamus Milne reported on some time ago.

As TombWatch said then:

"The rest of the interview is about trying to get together a united terrorist front that can put forward plans to scrap the UN backed free and fair democratic process and the government that has resulted from it, and exclude all of the main political parties in Iraq for working with the international community, who should be murdered for 'collaboration'.

Now, we at TombWatch have said before that we actually quite like the idea of a united terrorist front where they all get together and agree to stop killing each other, announce that genocide and ethnic cleansing is wrong and say they will just oppose the American presence instead. It would be much preferable to the current blood bath and make things a lot simpler for all concerned as we all go forward. But this guy is saying they won't even work with the antiAmerican Madhi army, so his plan doesn't bode well for a united front or a resolution to the conflict. It's one thing to claim to be against sectarianism but proposing an 'election' where only Sunnis are effectively allowed to vote, and where Shiite and other voters are all murdered for supporting the main political parties in the country, is much worse than the present situation. No, he'll have to go back to the drawing board."

BBC sets Tomb straight on Dannatt speech

2007-10-11T12:43:00.000+01:00

Richard Seymour has got himself into a terrible muddle about this speech by General Dannatt a few weeks back; he keeps referring back to one section of it as if it were proof that UFOs exist. So he is particularly upset that the BBC's head honcho has gone and burst his bubble by highlight precisely what Dannatt meant and it not squaring with what the Tomb believes.

To be fair, Dannatt's remarks were open to misinterpretation. Dannatt referred to 'nationalists' who oppose us in Iraq, and hardcore Islamist terrorists who oppose us, and said the nationalists were probably the majority. I took him to mean, as Helen Boaden of the BBC has understood, that the vast majority of the people who are committing the violence are hardcore terrorists, however there are also a wider group of people opposed to the coalition - more than the terrorists - who are simply misguided nationalists who care about the future of their country. We know from opinion polls that the majority of Iraqis now oppose the coalition in some form, however they oppose the terrorists even more. There is a group in the middle who sometimes have a foot in both camps; this will be what Dannatt was talking about.

When Dannatt refers to nationalists, who does the Tomb think he is talking about? The nationalists in the centre of the country want to rule the rest of the country by force and have little respect for the rest of the population or democracy. That's fascist nationalism. The nationalists in the south are backed by Iran, as Dannatt points out in the same speech - if that is not a contradiction in terms. At the very least Seymour and Dannatt have a very different understanding of what they mean by nationalism.

Though Dannatt's remarks were accurate if we take the logical BBC interpretation, one might speculate that their confusing nature were a bit of anti Americanism, wanting to show we have a more nuanced understanding of the situation than those fabled simplistic Americans. Remember this is the same General who apparently wants us to get out of Iraq as quick as possible to go to Afghanistan. But why? We all know why someone like Seymour wants us out of Iraq, but it makes no sense at all for someone who supports the mission in Afghanistan as well to want to pullout of Iraq - they are precisely the same battle with the same consequences for British interests, as the Tomb would recognise.

Dannatt is just a soldier and his speech was a bit incoherent. Even his main remarks, which were actually very good and that we have praised - about how we have a selfish culture in this country that doesn't appreciate the work of the troops - were actually copied and pasted from an interview Sir General Mike Jackson gave a few weeks earlier on Newsnight.

That's why the BBC's clarification is most welcome.

Tomb says the revolution will not be televised!

2007-10-10T13:02:00.000+01:00

Well, he's right that if there wasn't such an anti power, gotcha, type mentality in the media against whoever is in Number 10 there'd be more coverage of this story. It's just come at a bad time with the whole humilitating Brown thing. These days the media are also bored stiff of doing the 'winter of discontent' stories since they never come true - it just doesn't work.

Anyhow I don't see why wild cat strikes that have been condemned by the union leadership are any sort of victory for what the Tomb stands for. Surely this is a sign of failure? It just shows that the unions are more sensible than ever.

Lastly, we must remember postal strikes cause a lot of hardship for people - even important people like myself. My dog didn't get her test results back from the lab for two weeks thanks to this. That's not good.

Tomb signals end of era

2007-10-10T11:14:00.000+01:00

Having discovered his "antiwar movement" has been reduced to the same couple of hundred cranks that will turn up to any anarchist type event, that he all knows by name, Seymour lashes out at the world's most popular journalists as a sort of defence mechanism, in the spirit of a demented last gasp of a failed Iraq war protester.

Now a couple of points. The Hitchens article is quite moving. Hitchens himself is saying Orwell had to go through precisely the same thing as he did during the Spanish civil war - Hitchens and Orwell's lives are now running similar courses. They are one in the same thing and that article confirms it.

Seymour says that people like Thomas Friedman are using the 'Bin Laden made me do it' excuse, and asserts they must have known it was always a crazy idea to want to take out a Nazi style regime. One, that can never be a crazy idea, two, you admitted yourself that Al Qaeda started the sectarian violence - indeed you said they "couldn't have done a better job of starting a civil war" - and thirdly, we're undoubtedly now winning the war, no thanks to people like you who shamefully called for the troops to be pulled out before they stopped the Tomb backed killing and trained the much needed security forces.

It's time you took responsibility instead of constantly moralising to others, Seymour.

Mikey nails Tomb for hypocritical gagging boycott policy

2007-10-10T07:36:00.000+01:00

Mikey in the Tomb comments:

"The decision was actually to campaign for "A moratorium on research and cultural collaborations with Israel." What the boycotters clearly wanted to do was to exclude Israelis from the international field of academia. As is clear from the motion passed and in the line I have quoted, Israeli research would not get published in UK academic journals and that there would be no joint research with Israeli academics. i.e if say a journal was run by a UK university and it published an article and an Israeli academic read it and wanted the journal to publish a response then it would not as there would be no one to referee the work of someone from a Israeli university. It is quite clear that this was shutting Israelis out of debate and you are complaining that you cannot have a debate about doing exactly that.

It seems to me, as far as you are concerned, it is an attack on academic freedom to prevent others from having academic freedom. Hence my accusation of hypocrisy."

Oona King goes to the heart of power

2007-10-10T06:01:00.000+01:00

"It is going to be officially announced tomorrow that Oona King will be joining the Downing Street Political Office to work on "engagement and diversity"."

Where is George going these days?

Richard Seymour, son of two English teachers, had a Greek girlfriend who dumped him

2007-10-09T01:22:00.000+01:00

This comment from Brownie in the comments at HP, answering similar charges to the Tomb, goes the same for Richard Seymour's whiney and disgraceful post that falsely claims David T has used underhand tactics.

Brownie: "Sorry, I just don't see this. We're talking about people who volunteer to publish their views, both online and in print, using their real names and even invoking their professional status and/or specialism as some kind of validation. They obviously have no issue with their professional identities being associated with their views on Israel-Palestine, so why should you?

The idea there is anything comparable with, say, exposing the real name and employment details of a blogger who, almost by definition, is moonlighting and therefore needs and prefers to stay anonymous, is just laughable."

BBC say antiwar rally 'helped' Brown

2007-10-08T19:35:00.000+01:00

Richard Seymour, son of two English teachers, is trying to pretend it would have been an achievement to even get 12 people out for an antiwar protest. Who is he trying to kid; these protests used to get millions out, knob brains. Everyone knows that. Now you can only manage a couple of hundred.

When the protest flashed up for half a second on the BBC news report, Nick Robinson said it was "a welcome distraction for Brown today".

Did you hear that, Seymour? Your protest actually helped the government divert attention away from the much more damaging election story to the good news story about bringing back our boys! That's got to sting.

One of the best sporting moments of all time...

2007-10-06T03:56:00.000+01:00

Mike is told this...

"The Tomb is fucking crap, bollocks, and is talking about utter shit at the moment. You must watch this video or you are a fucking cunt that I will never speak to ever again and I will delight in punching Benji in the fucking face...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTjk770KoR0

Massive drop in Iraq civilian casualties is slap in the face for Tomb

2007-10-01T23:41:00.000+01:00

BBC:

"The number of Iraqi civilians killed per month in bombings and shootings has fallen to the lowest level this year, the Iraqi government says.

In September, 884 civilians were killed by violence, less than half the figure for August, the government said.

The BBC's Jon Brain in Baghdad says the figures suggest the so-called surge involving 30,000 extra US troops is having some success.

September also saw the lowest number of US troops killed for more than a year."

Iraqis chant: "Petraeus! Petraeus! Petraeus!"

TombWatch TV pics

2007-10-01T04:01:00.000+01:00

Two programmes that TombWatch will be Sky Plusing tonight. Jon Snow has a controversial documentary (that probably won't be that controversial when you watch it, type thing) on the pros and cons of immigration which some MPs are outraged about, accusing Jon Snow of being in league with the BNP - and over on the Beeb's Panorama we have a former radical Islamist spilling the beans on the whole Jihadi deal again. Great stuff.

Something for the weekend - Andrea Corr

2007-09-28T02:21:00.000+01:00

Tomb backs Bush against Senate partition plan

2007-09-27T17:34:00.000+01:00

Having passionately opposed with every fibre of his being Bush's call to back the pro democracy protesters in Burma, the Tomb now finds itself in firm agreement with the Bush administration on the issue of being dead against the Senate plan to partition Iraq. It's a fast moving world, kids.

It's just posturing politics from the Senate at the moment in any event - they are desperate to look proactive and have an substantive answer for the question 'what would you do?' The Bush administration would never accept it while it is still in power. However if the situation doesn't continue to get better I don't think we can rule anything out in the long term if it helps Iraqis resolve their problems. Some sort of partition was always the inevitable consequence of the fascist Sunni supremacist insurgency that the Tomb supported from the outset, that sparked the backlash from the Shiite militias in the first place; the Sunni decision to reject majority rule if continued will automatically mean some self governing zones, quite obviously.

People used to say that you couldn't possibly partition Iraq because Baghdad is a mixed city - what would you do with it? But before the extra troops got to Baghdad to stop it, it became a almost completely ethnically cleansed city into Shiite and Sunni areas, so it's not as hard to thing to contemplate these days. As we have seen in the Balkans and former Soviet union when police states fell apart, sometimes different sects, religious minorities and ethnic groups simply do not want anything to do with each other anymore and there comes a point where there is nothing we can do to stop that.

Bit it's not like the US has not done all it can to stop this; lenin opposed the liberation of Falluja which was all about trying to rescue Iraq as a single state, and the Tomb opposed the constitution which Iraqis overwhelming voted for in a landshide, so lenin cannot take any sort of credible stand against this now or claim America has not moved heaven and earth to try to keep that country together in the teeth of his oppositon.

One more thing. Which of this countries lenin cites were one big country before imperialism started? Where is his starting point for imperialism? I thought anti imperialists were supposed to be in favour of smaller, more democratic, countries anyway?

Update: A nit wit in the comments says the plan was to divide up Iraq from the beginning in order to help Israel. TombWatch responded thus:

Castellio, do you seriously think the US would invade Iraq and spend years trying to create sectarian division, using trillions of dollars to do this and almost getting Bush thrown out of office and using thousands of American lives in process, just to break up the country? The more you think about it, the less it makes sense. For a start they would have started by trying to divide it up rather than only coming up with the plan five years after the fact, if they wanted to do this. Some half arsed bit of posturing from the Senate now hardly proves your point.

Meanwhile...

2007-09-27T03:10:00.000+01:00

"Former prime minister Tony Blair was among world leaders, celebrities and scholars who are aiming to tackle the world's problems.

The third Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York is expected to raise billions of pounds to help tackle the issues of global warming, poverty, health and education.

More than 10 billion dollars (£5bn) was pledged in the first two conferences, and participants were expected to pledge more this year.

Mr Blair joined celebrity couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, tennis star Andre Agassi and media mogul Rupert Murdoch on the conference's guest list this year."

Tomb backs Burmese military junta

2007-09-26T13:12:00.000+01:00

Like many on the antiwestern left, the Tomb has been floundering around in recent days trying to find the antiwestern line on events in Burma. They have watched on in horror not at the scenes of the Burmese military junta cracking down on freedom protesters, but at the sight of the free world - led by the US, Britain and France, as ever - condemning the dictatorship, calling for sanctions and whole heartedly backing the democrats. The Tombites naturally feel guilty that whilst they were self indulgently bleating on about Iraq, it's been left to the western powers to once again argue the case for freedom, shaming them for being such a bunch of shits.

So now the Tomb has to smear the democratic movement with the worst crime in antiwestern ideology - of supporting the global economic system like everybody else. Apparently that's the only reason the west is backing democracy in the country - after all why hasn't the situation in Thailand received more attention, they say?

What an absurd thing to say; how on earth can you compare the Islamist separatist movement in Thailand with the pro-democracy movement Burma? Since the coup in Thailand - that was roundly condemned by the west - the military have put in place a PM that wants to talk to the terrorists and try to reason with them. Is he saying the west should speak out against this policy? Clearly the Tomb hasn't thought this through on any level.

This should be a situation where we can all unite together and thank people like George Bush for coming out so strongly in favour of the revolution, yet the Tomb would rather smear the democrats as western stooges, thus in effect giving comfort the Burma Generals and their Chinese backers, than accept that the west can ever be a force for good in any circumstance. It's the worst sort of destructive nihilism.

"More whites than Asians stopped by antisuicide bomber police"

2007-09-26T13:11:00.000+01:00

Whilst the Tomb keeps on lying about British society and the west in general being "white supremacist" - a line he repeats regularly - TombWatch is forced to keep on countering these smears. We make no apology for this. We are not white supremacists and the facts prove this:

The Times:

Police on the lookout for potential suicide bombers in London stop more young white males than anyone else, according to figures released by Scotland Yard yesterday.

More than half of the 32,000 people stopped under the Terrorism Act between April and August this year were white. The largest proportion of those were aged between 21 and 40.

For the first time Scotland Yard published a breakdown of its stop-and-search figures to show who is being stopped and where those stops are taking place.

Police stopped 17,348 whites, 6,755 Asians and 4,287 blacks. Males were far more likely to be stopped than females, with 28,022 men asked to account for their movements compared with 2,489 women.

Ethnic breakdown

17,348 - White

6,755 - Asian

4,287 - Black

1,806 - Other

2,199 - Not recorded

Source: Metropolitan Police

Racist attack caught on tape - will the Tomb mention it?

2007-09-25T16:19:00.000+01:00

lenin's tomb claims that America is a white supremacist society, and the media in particular, despite giving huge coverage to stories where racism is alleged against minority groups, is deeply racist.

This is totally wrong. Even Fox News - the only channel to run this story - can barely believe that a racist attack could possibly happen the other way around....

Out comes the vulture - updated

2007-09-24T02:44:00.000+01:00

lenin has just discovered the long running Jena case in the US so naturally, and quite predictably, wants to exploit it for all its worth, in order to whip up whatever division he can to promote his cult theory that the most anti racist, tolerant and liberal part of the world is actually running a racially supremacist system. That will be why refugees from Iraq, Darfur, Zimbabwe, China, North Korea, etc, all want to come here because of our tolerance, is it? You big loon.

I always find reflexive exploitation of racially charged incidents by Tombites to be utterly repulsive; people like Seymour latch onto them in the same way as the far right use a case where black or Asian youths have stabbed some white kid to death. It's the same tactic: use something emotive - did you say a noose!! - to divide people and pretend everything is out of control so they will turn to your propaganda and believe it is the solution. The reality is, of course, that he doesn't give a shit about them; for all his scaremongering about needless deaths in hurracaine Katrina, for instance - which he casually calls "murder" - you'd never hear a peep out of him today about the all time high murder rate. Call on the US government to fund extra police so black people could stop getting murdered? Not a bit of it.

He writes his piece on the Jena as if somebody is pretending that the racist prank of putting nooses on a tree was okay. Clearly it wasn't okay and it was totally right that the children involved were suspended. They possibly should have been expelled too, but personally as I don't believe in suspending black kids for making a silly mistake and thus changing the course of their life, I am also not too keen on ruining white kid's lives forever for stupid mistakes either. But whether you think the children should have been expelled or suspended, it doesn't excuse GBH. Attempted murder can never be justified for a prank, racist or otherwise. That's just obvious, isn't it?

Nor do I think it was appropriate that a mob, many of which were part of the sadly large black separatist movement in the US, descend onto the town to press this point of view. Yes it's a huge media issue - as you can imagine the story is as sexy as hell and is getting huge coverage in the US white supremacist media, just as any race case does (who can forget the bogus Duke rape case that lenin would never dream of mentioning?) but that's no excuse for people totally unconnected with the area jumping on the bandwagon to draw attention to themselves without a care for the people involved. Just look what happened when white football fans started marching through Oldham after a white pensioner was beaten up? They were shortly followed by the BNP and then all hell broke loose.

We are very lucky in the UK that we don't have the sort of society they have in the US in many respects, but boy would lenin do everything he could to try to change that.

Update: It has come to my attention that a couple of facts in this case are actually false. It is said that the students who committed the racist prank of putting a noose on a tree were only suspended for a few days. This is wrong; they were actually sent to a reform school for a month and suspended for two weeks. What's more it was only after a black teacher spoke up for the boys did the school board decide not to permanently expel them.

Also, largely unreported, is Mychal (correct spelling) Bell has a long history of violent assaults so this was not his first offense.

Still in the mix!

2007-09-24T02:08:00.000+01:00

As Brown makes his first historic speech to Labour's conference today, let us take a moment to remember that Blair is still bringing peace to the world, moving and shaking at the UN, thus shaming the Tomb.

Tomb latches on to Dannatt remarks

2007-09-22T01:41:00.000+01:00

lenin highlights a speech in which General Dannatt says not all of the insurgents are bad people. lenin claims this means Dannett thinks they are 'decent'. Hmmm, no, I think he is saying that many of them are misguided nationalists in the same way as the BNP are misguided nationalists, but not all in the same league as Al Qaeda. Are the majority of the people who vote BNP "bad people"? Of course not; they are worried about their jobs and country also, but have been diverted down a dangerous road. It's no different to that.

Nevertheless, lenin and others have used this part of the speech to distract from its main message, which was a very good one about how we view and treat our troops in this country. I have long thought we are extraordinarily selfish and narrow minded in this society generally and this really shows itself in our attitude to the troops. Where is the pressure on the government to give them better equipment and pay, for instance? Why don't people value those who are fighting in their name much more than they do? A former General yesterday commented that this culture of coldness came out of the situation in Northern Ireland where belonging to the army became a grim job that you didn't like to talk about, replacing the sense that the army are people who heroically go off to war. Maybe. It's has certainly got nothing to do with how popular the current wars are as others have suggested; when Iraq and Afghanistan were popular wars there was still this same detachment from the sacrifices they make; it goes back much further than that.

It's not that I don't think most people think of the troops highly - they do - but they need to express it more clearly. It's no wonder families of the troops often fall in with the antiwar movement types when they feel their son made their sacrifice for such a bunch of ungrateful moaners.

John Rees: white working class and progressive Muslims hate Respect

2007-09-20T00:50:00.000+01:00

John Rees: "We believe that the constant adaptation to what are referred to as ‘community leaders’ in Tower Hamlets is lowering the level of politics and making us vulnerable to the attacks and pressures brought on us by New Labour. It is alienating us not only from the white working class but also from the more radical sections of the Bengali community, both secular and Muslim, who feel that Respect is becoming the party of a narrow and conservative trend in the area."

David T highlights more money quotes.

I should add that this is a fundamental political issue that goes to the heart of everything Harry's place, Nick Cohen and Mike Clark and others has been talking about for many years.

Remember this. Every time we said it would alienate the white working class and progressive Muslims if the left went into a political alliance with bigoted 'community leaders', the Tomb shouted back that we were racist. Indeed, this has been a constant running theme from Tombites - just to warn against allying yourself with hardline conservatives is a deeply racist thing to do, they say.

But now we have the general secretary of Respect himself backing up the very thing that HP and myself were saying all along!

A little apology is order from the Tomb. Or is John Rees now a racist too?

Tomb backed military coup backfires on Hamas

2007-09-18T11:46:00.000+01:00

The Associated Press:

The popularity of Hamas has fallen far behind rival Fatah, according to an opinion poll released Monday, and Palestinians were overwhelmingly opposed to the Islamic group's heavy-handed tactics in the Gaza Strip.

The poll, conducted by A-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, was the latest sign of public discontent with Hamas following its violent takeover of Gaza in June, when its gunmen defeated pro-Fatah security forces.

In the poll, 78 percent of respondents said they didn't approve of the practices of the Executive Force, the paramilitary Hamas force policing Gaza.

Although Hamas leaders have said the Executive Force have returned law and order to chaotic Gaza, 65 percent of respondents said security was deteriorating in the strip.

Just 21 percent said they believed Hamas is capable of governing the Gaza Strip.
.....
According to Monday's poll, 50 percent of respondents said they would support Fatah if elections were held today, compared with 14 percent support for Hamas. Similar numbers said they would support a Fatah presidential candidate over a Hamas candidate.

Harry's place slams Tomb & associates for Respect crisis silence

2007-09-18T00:16:00.000+01:00

Marcus' turn.

MedialensWatch

2007-09-16T20:32:00.000+01:00

Over at the MedialensWatch hangout Mike Clark has written to Peter Barron.

lenin in Tariq Ramadan hypocrisy

2007-09-16T09:43:00.000+01:00

lenin tries to get all high and mighty defending Tariq Ramadan from attacks on him from Christopher Hitchens. But if the truth be known, Tariq has got it both barrels from lenin as well for speaking out against the appalling victim culture that has scarred Muslim life around the world, virtually calling him a race traitor for not sticking up for his own people.

If a Muslim doesn't toe the victimhood line, and tick all the boxes on foreign policy, plus pretend the reason their religion says it's okay to martyr yourself killing unbelievers is all down to George Bush, then you're not a real Muslim at all in lenin's book. That is real racism.

Update.

lenin says it was John Game who was responsible for the racist attack on Tariq Ramadan I linked to, not him. John Game then posts in the comments:

Not at all to suggest that he was an 'uncle Tom'.

Oh of course not.

another connection is the way in which Muslim's have come to symbolise all that right wingers fear and despise: 'multi-culturalism', 'soft' liberals

lenin has just claimed you were attacking "soft liberals" yourself in your vicious attack on Tariq, so clearly somebody hasn't got their story straight.

But it's not just right wingers - like yourself - that have a problem with aspects of multi culturalism; right across the political spectrum - from the commission for racial equality, most of the left and centre ground - there is a consensus that promoting integration and a sense of nationhood is very necessary and crucial to maintaining a peaceful multi racial society. David Blunkett's last book covers the change in liberal thinking on this from the 60s to present day.

We do have the most successful multi racial society in the world - you will find less racism and prejudice here than any other country - and we want to keep it that way, in spite of 1980s throw backs like yourself that have long been proven totally wrong. Your attempts to protect racists and whip up social division, promoting this classic old NF doctrine that racism is always a response to changes in society, has been swept away never to return.

Good riddance.

Further update:

The west is an extremely tolerant place that is not against any particular religion or lifestyle. That's why Muslims are treated better in this country than in Muslim countries, and why so many Muslims would give their arm to be here with us. Let us never forget this indisputable fact - a fact that we should be proud of.

"Blair makes presence felt in the Middle East"

2007-09-15T10:53:00.000+01:00

Can you believe this is the same Independent newspaper that slagged off everything Blair did on the Middle East?

I knew this would happen.

Tomb in melt down on Galloway or SWP choice

2007-09-14T22:32:00.000+01:00

David T of Harry's place has all the latest on lenin's tomb's devastating choice between the SWP and Galloway.

Ask lenin this: will you be attending the George Galloway Party Conference at Blackpool, or will you be staying with the SWP?

lenin does his bit to propagandise in favour of the surge

2007-09-14T09:44:00.000+01:00

By citing an obscure poll that claims the terrorists have killed millions of Iraqis.

However, to be fair, given that the population of Iraq is millions down since the invasion of Iraq - at least 4 million refugees thanks to the terrorism - this will massively effect the polling reliability; if you and your family have left the country then you are not dead, obviously, meaning those who remain are more likely to be victims. Most opinion polls from Iraq are also wildly contradictory.

And why is it that only the highest estimates are used to confirm each other? What about the lowest estimates? Why don't the Iraqi ministry of health and IBC confirm each other?

Illinformed opinion polls and Islamists

2007-09-12T11:54:00.000+01:00

lenin cites an Iraq opinion poll to claim the surge is not working in Iraq. But most people in the UK think crime is out of control as well due to Daily Mail scare stories and the tight media focus on certain crimes - the facts, however, tell a different story. In Iraq the facts are as clear as mud; thanks to the US surge crime is down across the board, whatever Iraqis reacting to emotive Iraqi tabloid headlines tell opinion pollsters. That's just the price of a free press I'm afraid.

Methinks the Tomb is using this to try to cover up the crisis it is in on the Islamism issue; yet another Islamist turn coat spilled the beans on BBC Newsnight last night. How many more will there be?

TombWatch celebrates the good news

2007-09-11T10:05:00.000+01:00

Not only has General Patrious confirmed that the US are winning in Iraq, reducing the Tomb to a state of gibbering nonsense that has stunned regular readers, but much more importantly we now find out that the EU has rolled up the white flag on imperial measurements in the UK - a cause that is close to the heart of every progressive.

Turn on TombWatch music and celebrate with us!

SAS operating in central Iraq, world begs US to stay the course

2007-09-07T19:58:00.000+01:00

BBC:

"A British soldier thought to be serving with the Special Air Service (SAS) has been killed in central Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence says the soldier, a member of the Parachute Regiment, died on Wednesday.

It is understood he was on a special forces mission. The MoD said the operation was "in support of ongoing coalition activity in Iraq".

Details of the death were withheld for operational reasons."

Also, a majority of the world opposes immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Racist preachers of hate takeover half of British Mosques

2007-09-07T06:38:00.000+01:00

The Times frontpage:

"Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.

Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.

The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers.

Mr ul Haq, 36, was educated and trained at an Islamic seminary in Britain and is part of a new generation of British imams who share a similar radical agenda. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are “proud to be British” and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion”."

Continues.

Police chief takes taser for Tomb

2007-09-06T06:45:00.000+01:00

To show the Tomb that tasers are safe and not torture, North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom takes a 50,000 volts shot.

Tomb announces McCarthyite list of non-racist, racist activities

2007-09-06T00:33:00.000+01:00

You read right. lenin wants his goons to set up a list of statements and actions that, although are not actually racist in themselves, can be declared racist anyway by him and his mates. This list will naturally include any criticism of racist Islamofascism, the mildest of support for freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, voting for mainstream political parties like the Labour party, and things like watching the wrong Hollywood film or condemning gang violence and terror attacks. If you do any of these things then you will be declared a "white supremacist" guilty of "race hate". I know, it sounds like I am making it up, or a joke, but sadly it's really true.

The hypocrisy of this is mind blowing of course. More than anyone else, lenin despises the way some of the more extreme Zionists declare nearly all criticism of Israel, or criticism of someone who happens to be Jewish, as anti semitism, yet now he is proposing to do precisely the same thing with his gestapo list. (Incidentally, lenin doesn't appear to know that "hate crimes" were legal offenses set up in the US to deal with the far right).

Yes I know it doesn't really matter what a hand full of far left activists with mental issues get up to, but for those who genuinely care about increasing equality and ending bigotry in all its forms, and want Britain to remain the most liberal and tolerant society in the world, seeing people desperately trying to dilute the term racism with this bizarre warped McCarthyism designed to close down debate is never nice.

Blair's Northern Ireland legacy may solve Iraq, stunning Tomb

2007-09-04T04:27:00.001+01:00

Stunning development:

"Representatives from Sunni and Shia groups in Iraq agreed on a road map to peace based on the experience in Northern Ireland after four days of secret talks in Finland, reconciliation group the Crisis Management Initiative said last night.

The meeting brought together 16 delegates from the feuding groups to study lessons learned from successful peacemaking efforts in South Africa and Northern Ireland. The factions were convened by the John W McCormack graduate school of policy studies at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. The former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari organised the seminar but was not present.

"Participants committed themselves to work towards a robust framework for a lasting settlement," a statement issued by CMI said. It added that the participants "agreed to consult further" on a list of 12 recommendations to begin reconciliation talks including resolving political disputes through non-violence and democracy.

Politicians from Northern Ireland including the unionist Jeffrey Donaldson and the Sinn Féin leader Martin McGuinness also attended the talks."

Continues.

The face of Iraqi freedom

2007-09-04T04:04:00.000+01:00

Incredible stories of heroism from Tom Newton Dunn.

UPDATE: And lest we forget that despite the withdrawal from Basra, British troops are still being sent to Iraq.

Victory! Blow to Tomb as British handover Basra to trained security forces, just as Blair promised.

2007-09-03T03:03:00.000+01:00

The Sun were the only news team there as the troops left.

"BRITISH troops took the first steps towards handing power back to the Iraqis last night — feeling proud of a job well done.

The Sun was the only media organisation with Our Boys when the last of them quit the southern port city of Basra.

A massive operation was launched under cover of darkness to move the 600 garrison troops manning Basra’s palace.

They will stay with the rest of the 5,000 UK forces in the south of the country — at a giant base at the airport ten miles from the city — and security will be in Iraqi hands.

Soldiers celebrated as they arrived at their new home.

With a huge grin of relief, Rifleman Rusiata Korobasagna, 26, gave a thumbs-up.

Lance Corporals Daniel Lewis, 24, and Alex Lee, 26, trailed a Union Jack between them in jubilation.

Corporal Andre Zwijnen, from Somerset, told The Sun: “We’ve all lost good friends so it’s a sentimental moment. But we’ve worked pretty much without stop, and we’ll be further out of harm’s way now.”

Private Paul Brankworth, 28, from South Wales, added: “It feels like a job well done. We’ve achieved so much and we’re coming home.”

The move will lead to an immediate reduction of 500 British personnel in southern Iraq — and be greeted with delight by Forces families.

The first soldiers to head home, military postmen, will leave in a few days.

The 600 men based in the palace, 4 Rifles Battle Group, spent four months in intense battles with militias desperate to push them out.

The pull-out, Operation Blenheim, involved a dangerous road journey in one of the largest British armoured columns ever on Basra’s streets.

The convoy, led by Challenger 2 tanks, stretched more than a mile and a half.

Jets and attack helicopters circled the skies above.

The rearguard reached the airport after dawn.

The palace was the last of four Basra bases handed over to Iraqi forces. It has been made possible thanks to a dramatic political breakthrough, The Sun can also reveal.

Mehdi Army leaders halted their attacks in a deal with Iraqi security chiefs. It is thought months of fighting tenacious British troops showed the rebels they would never win military victory.

A massive new clampdown has also been carried out with the appointment of new security chiefs in the city.

Tough-talking General Mohan Al-Furayji was sent from Baghdad two months ago to take charge.

He brought with him a battalion of elite Iraqi special forces to target militia leaders.

General Mohan has now asked British commanders for the chance to prove Iraqi forces can run Basra.

The British will watch how the Iraqis perform in a trial period of a few weeks.

Our Boys will only leave the airport now for self-protection operations, convoy escorts or on a specific request from Iraqi generals for help.

An official transfer of power is expected in October.

This summer Iraq has been the most dangerous posting for British troops anywhere — with casualties topping even those in Afghanistan. A total of 41 Brits have died, with 1 Mechanised Brigade losing 20 in the last three and a half months alone. A further 184 have been seriously wounded.

Recent criticism from retired American generals of British strategy has left officers in Basra angry. Problems US forces face in Baghdad, where rival Shia and Sunni Muslim extremists are waging a bloody war, do not exist in Basra.

In a dig at the retired motormouths, senior sources have pointed out that the murder rate in Basra is half that of Washington DC, and violence in Basra is mainly against UK troops. The commander of our troops in Basra last night stressed that their mission had been a success.

Brigadier James Bashall told The Sun: “It is entirely unfair and untrue to say Basra has been lost, or that the British Army has been defeated here.

“There is no crisis here, and there is very little gangland violence. Ninety per cent of the violence in Basra is directed by militias against us.

“Basra is being recreated from the bottom up, and there is every confidence that the Iraqis will be able to manage security on their own. Success can only be achieved through Iraqi solutions by Iraqis. Therefore, by removing brigade units from the city we are helping Iraq to move forwards.”

Control of security has already been handed over successfully to the Iraqis in three out of four provinces in the UK-controlled south of the country.

The decision on how much longer troops will remain at the airport will be taken by PM Gordon Brown on advice from generals early in the new year, The Sun has been told.

British troops rejoice at their victory last night

The game is up for Mike Blogger

2007-08-31T17:31:00.000+01:00

I've been getting emails from people over the last few days suggesting this Neil Clark article is about me.

Oh, I very much doubt it. For a start I never went to university so that is wrong - it's no biography - and I knew the difference between right and wrong well before the Kosovo war. However, I quite like the idea that I may form the generic basis for some type of character that is despised by the antiwar left and is written about, so we can only live in hope that I inspired this piece in some way.

Tomb in complete disarray as Al Sadr rolls up the white flag

2007-08-29T22:51:00.000+01:00

The surge forces Al Sadr to suspend terror operations.

Tomb goon Tony has orgasm over illegal prison strike

2007-08-29T22:24:00.000+01:00

You don't have to read more than a few sentences of Tomb goon Tony's piece to realise the idea of actually assessing whether this strike is correct or not is not of the remotest concern for him. All he wants to do is express an immature, rather childish sentiment that all strikes are automatically good simply because they happen, hence "the biggest success of this action so far is the fact that it has taken place." Er, right. So it wouldn't matter if they have a cause or not, the fact that they decide to hold a strike is a success in itself. This mentality is the worst type of 1970s backward thinking that has thankfully been banished to the history books for most union people.

I think it's totally fair enough that these guys have a pay dispute - they can argue it out between themselves and the government, though illegal strikes are never desirable to achieving these aims. I also think all of us who want an expanded prison system are in favour of paying the guys who run it a little more, though current spending commitments are aimed at improving services over simply increasing pay, which has already happened across the public services in recent years, so the dilemma for the treasury is understandable. But why the fuck does Tony think it's anything to do with him? The prison service can do well without Tony sticking his ore in and jumping on the banwagon with his anti state propaganda. Keep your nose out.

I can't also help but note the irony that usually prison officers would be regarded as white supremacist torturers no different to those running Abu Ghraib at the Tomb. Many of them are ex forces too so are especially evil in the Tomb's world.

Tomb called on state terror hypocrisy

2007-08-28T16:22:00.000+01:00

What's irritating about far left apologism for the likes of Lenin and his reign of terror is the people who do it are always precisely the same people who claim we're living in a police state today if the government tries to take sensible anti terror measures, and are the first to jump on our troops if they break even the slightest of regulations in the battlefield. They're such a bunch of hypocrites.

Look at yourselves; here you are enjoying the internet - a very capitalist, free market, mechanism if ever there was one - peddling communist mumbojumbo propaganda. How could it get more self indulgent?

Tomb criticised on death and democracy

2007-08-27T02:41:00.000+01:00

It's cheeky lenin again, posting amongst other things a new Iraq death toll that, logically, shows how unreliable these types of surveys are, given they all wildly contradict each other. Plus lenin uses debate in the US over whether democracy can work in the middle east to pose as if he is somehow some sort of democrat himself. Oh, I hear you say, the the boy does try it on, doesn't he? Yes he does.

Firstly, it's extremely naughty of lenin to pretend that the terrorism in Iraq hasn't been responsible for whatever figure you want to put on the Iraq death toll - from year one, as the insurgency grew, all of the figures show so did the civilian casualties, and lenin supported this policy of terror right the way along despite the growing evidence it was hurting Iraq's poorest. Today he vigorously opposes the surge policy that has finally managed to reduce the terror and bring down those casualties - forcing Hillary Clinton to admit that progress is being made - finally ridding towns of the hated insurgency and restoring security to neighbourhoods so their children can play in peace. What type of maniac would do that?

lenin also points to the growing elitist antiwar view in the US, increasingly adopted by Democrats, that the rest of the world maybe right and that Iraq's culture simply isn't up to democracy after all. Well, that's hardly fucking surprising really; if you help set up a free and fair democratic process in a Muslim country, as the US has, but a minority community decides that they don't want to have anything to do with it because they will lose dictatorship privileges, and therefore go about killing perhaps a million Iraqis according to lenin, then you'd have to be brain dead to imagine this wouldn't spark a rethink in the US on the idea that democracy can work anywhere in any circumstance. lenin's policy of supporting that fascist counterrevolutionary movement in Iraq brought this about; there's no point pretending you're on the side of the good guys when you don't even recognise the elected Iraqi government, you ding bat!

One thing we do know, however, is that Bush remains firmly in the pro-democracy side of the argument and is continuing to vigorously defend the concept of democracy in backward societies against his mainly Democratic, left wing opponents, and socalled geopolitical experts. Here is an excerpt from George Bush's surprisingly excellent speech (I loved the Vietnam thing too) just a few days ago:

"At the outset of World War II there were only two democracies in the Far East -- Australia and New Zealand. Today most of the nations in Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region. Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have parliaments, and some have presidents. Some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, and some are Buddhist. Yet for all the differences, the free nations of Asia all share one thing in common: Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors.

Along the way to this freer and more hopeful Asia, there were a lot of doubters. Many times in the decades that followed World War II, American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive. And when we listen to criticism of the difficult work our generation is undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same arguments made about the Far East years ago.

In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom.

Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States ambassador to Japan who served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President flatly that -- and I quote -- "democracy in Japan would never work." He wasn't alone in that belief. A lot of Americans believed that -- and so did the Japanese -- a lot of Japanese believed the same thing: democracy simply wouldn't work.

Others critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that allowing Japanese women to vote would "retard the progress of Japanese politics."

It's interesting what General MacArthur wrote in his memoirs. He wrote, "There was much criticism of my support for the enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any degree of political independence." That's what General MacArthur observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's minister of defense is a woman, and just last month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House. Other critics argued that democracy -- (applause.)

There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion -- Shinto -- was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard Russell denounced the Japanese faith, and said that if we did not put the Emperor on trial, "any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed to failure." The State Department's man in Tokyo put it bluntly: "The Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be democratic."

Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken, and fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the democratic political system.

And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne and Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions, and stands as one of the world's great free societies.

You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. An interesting observation, one historian put it -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts" -- he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage."

Instead, I think it's important to look at what happened. A democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the lynchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. And I want you to listen carefully to this final point: Japan has transformed from America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.) "

Go on and read Bush's remarks on democracy and Korea.

Andrew Anthony blasts Tomb for racial sterotyping

2007-08-25T01:07:00.000+01:00

"Question to blacks: what’s so wrong with coconuts?"

He makes some interesting points on how well meaning white liberals like the Tomb, and the black community themselves, end up reinforcing racial stereotyping through their low expectations and the way they promote a 'black consciousness' and black cultural solidarity, that has the affect of meaning that unless a black person is stereotypically black then they're not supposed to be black at all. Sarfraz Manzoor recently referred to the same problem in the Asian community.

In Anthony's piece he refers to Derrek from Big Brother a few years ago - the posh black gay Tory - as someone who he once thought was part of the problem, using that silly liberal sterotyping, but now sees as the solution - a race can never be free until it is free to reject 'their own' culture, Anthony says.

He's right, and this got me thinking about the story in the news of C4's decision to axe Celebrity Big Brother largely due to the socalled race row with Jade Goodie and Shilpa Shetty and the different standard that is being applied compared to the latest series.

Jade Goodie is mixed race and has a black farther, just as the girl Charlie in the latest series is mixed race and has a black father and white mother. But unlike Jade, who looks white, Charlie very much looks black. Now, whilst Jade undoubtedly did bully Shilpa Shetty a bit, out of class envy, and there was one major argument as I recall where voices were raised, compared to the actions of Charlie from the latest series it was a storm in a tea cup - nobody could deny that Charlie has out done Jade on the bullying and nastiness stakes by about ten times - perhaps by twenty times - doing it on a much more persistent and far more abusive basis, making several people cry, hinting at later violence and using outrageous libels. But there hasn't been any outrage at all about this in the media - presumably on the basis that because she looks black it's therefore somehow okay behaviour.

Surely that is a classic example of what Andrew Anthony is talking about? How can it be right that, on the basis of looking white, Jade Goodie's actions were a national scandal and was the talk of every radio station and newspaper, leading to channel four being subsequently heavily criticised by Ofcom and fined, yet somebody who is far worse is not even seen as a problem just because they look black?

And get this! Channel four also left out a scene in this latest series where Charlie was mimicking the voice of an Asian shop keeper during a story she was proudly telling of her getting thrown out of a corner shop for steeling. Where are all the MPs saying this was disgraceful of both Charlie, and of Big Brother for not revealing this on air? Why isn't Keith Vaz on the Today programme again demanding answers? Where are all the columns in the Guardian telling us this is a damning indictment on the nation? The double standard is grotesque in its obviousness.

George Monbiot condemns Medialens

2007-08-24T16:24:00.000+01:00

lenin's tomb is boring as fuck at the moment, so check out the action on MedialensWatch.

Kamm pulverises Tomb on hiroshima again

2007-08-22T14:25:00.000+01:00

Read here.

Climate Camp slammed for police state media policy

2007-08-21T15:24:00.000+01:00

Excellent Guardian article by John Vidal on the Climate Camp's Stalinist media policy.

You see, it wasn't just lenin's tomb watch who noted how ridiculous and counterproductive this was.

Loons

Two lenin's tombs

2007-08-20T10:50:00.000+01:00

Just found another blog calling itself 'lenin's tomb':

http://www.leninstomb.org/

We need another lenin's tomb watch!

New book bombshell rocks Tomb to the core

2007-08-19T05:22:00.000+01:00

Everybody is talking about it.

Tomb cites Hari report from 'climate camp' flop

2007-08-19T00:50:00.001+01:00

You know those bunch of idiots who have barricaded themselves in a field next to Heathrow airport, calling it a 'climate camp', and have run it like a Stalinist police state where the media aren't allowed to roam free and interview people in the normal fashion that you would expect in a free country? Yes, the one that has been a miserable washout. Well, check out Johann Hari's fantastical, other worldly, account from inside, which the Tomb naturally cites. You imagine correctly.

Now, if the Labour party used such bully boy tactics against the media at one of their conferences as this climate camp have done, then we'd never hear the end of it. But just because most of these nit wit protesters hypocritically fly every year themselves, as one hapless protester admitted when a journalist caught him going in, and can easily be stumped by asking them a simple question like: why aren't you campaigning outside computer shops given that they release the same amount of C02 as airlines, it's seen as perfectly alright to hide them away from the normal media and only allow in propagandists like Johann Hari - who is desperate to pander to trendy extremism and notoriously alters reality to suit his latest perspective. The hypocrisy of these people is mind blowing.

Thank the figurative god they've all got a damn good soaking.

lenin says the future is bad for Chomsky's famed share portfolio

2007-08-19T00:04:00.000+01:00

Doom and gloom. But will it happen? Of course not.

Johann Hari worked for Jeffrey Archer

2007-08-18T01:21:00.000+01:00

Will from Drink Soaked Trots for War has helpfully put up an article on Johann Hari from the latest edition of Private Eye that reveals he used to be a researcher for Mr Archer, and wonders aloud if this is where Hari learnt to threaten litigation at the drop of a hat.

On a totally related note, just the other day I recalled another incident where Hari was caught bending the truth. The first Lancet study in Iraq, detailing the terrible toll the insurgency was having on the country, had been out for only a few weeks and was hugely controversial. Hari naturally jumped on it in one of his articles - no doubts for him - but I noted he used the figure 150,000. I corrected him on the error on his website, that used to allow comments, reminding him that the study came up with the number 98,000, not 150,000. He didn't respond. After I hounded him a few times on it, he eventually blathered back that the extra 50,000 were put in because they were going to be the casualties from cluster bombs exploding over the decades to come.

Now, one might expect this sort of sloppy propaganda over at the Tomb, or for that matter on a number of blogs, but one would think that someone writing for a national newspaper wouldn't invent a death toll all of their own and not even try to explain to their readers how they came to their wild calculations.

Hari still spreads misinformation that chemical weapons were used in Falluja - a story that have long been debunked.

Fair enough that Johann Hari believes that Al Qaeda's decision to create sectarian strife in Iraq means he no longer thinks it was right to support the war - lots of people share that morally bankrupt view - but to also propagandise for the enemy is totally unforgivable.

Now Mahmoud Abbas is a white supremacist

2007-08-16T01:23:00.000+01:00

To the Tomb's eternal shame, lenin fully supported the brutal military coup against the democratically elected president of the Palestinian people. Now that very same lad bitches that the President's government is to blame for the mess Hamas have brought to Gaza. This boy has some nerve or what?

Tomb mispresents New York Times, is called on death count hypocrisy

2007-08-16T00:40:00.000+01:00

lenin is happy to highlight the Save Darfur campaign being rapped for an advert that they apparently are unable to substantiate. TombWatch does not know the details of why this is the case, but we do know that lenin is of course the same person who often claims a "million" people have been killed in Iraq.

Now, it seems the terrorists are doing their best to get the numbers up there with their inexplicable genocidal attacks on civilians that have shocked the world, but there is nothing to substantiate the million figure he freely uses - meaning, of course, that lenin is guilty of gross hypocrisy.

Not only that, he also claims the New York Times "criticised" the Save Darfur campaign, when in fact the reality is it was a nit wit writing an op ed piece for that paper, not the paper itself. Who does he think we are?

In any event, I'm sure the people of Darfur are happy that a true "lefty" like lenin is campaigning against ending their misery.

Refugee says she hopes student bloggers in the west play down her suffering as part of an internal political game

Tomb humiliated on Hiroshima

2007-08-14T16:31:00.000+01:00

Here.

Also, the BBC report on the day it happened.

Hitchens smashes Tomb myths on Al Qaeda

2007-08-14T01:45:00.000+01:00

Fighting the "Real" Fight
Foolish myths about al-Qaida in Mesopotamia.
By Christopher Hitchens, Aug. 13, 2007

Over the past few months, I have been debating Roman Catholics who differ from their Eastern Orthodox brethren on the nature of the Trinity, Protestants who are willing to quarrel bitterly with one another about election and predestination, with Jews who cannot concur about a covenant with God, and with Muslims who harbor bitter disagreements over the discrepant interpretations of the Quran. Arcane as these disputes may seem, and much as I relish seeing the faithful fight among themselves, the believers are models of lucidity when compared to the hair-splitting secularists who cannot accept that al-Qaida in Mesopotamia is a branch of al-Qaida itself.

Read on now.

Tomb left reeling as Iraq surge produces surge of support in US

2007-08-13T16:37:00.000+01:00

The Times:

President Bush plans to continue his Iraq troop surge well into next year after a string of positive reports left Democrats increasingly powerless to end the war.

Mr Bush, bolstered by growing public support for the surge and recent admissions from war critics that military gains have been made, has begun a campaign to talk up the strategy before General David Petraeus’s critical progress report next month.

General Petraeus, the US ground commander in Iraq, is expected to tell Congress that military progress is being made and that the surge should be given more time. Mr Bush used his weekly radio address to capitalise on a palpable shift in attitude on Capitol Hill about the war in recent days to state: “Our new strategy is delivering good results, and our commanders recently reported more good news.” ....continues.

Tomb shamed as truth outs on C4 Dispatches doc

2007-08-12T03:20:00.000+01:00

Andrew Anthony in the Observer rocks the Tomb: "Channel 4's controversial documentary Undercover Mosque was great investigative journalism. That the CPS thought it incited racial hatred beggars belief".

This whole thing is rather funny. We have the west Midland's police, not having caught up with the Met in London on why its very important to crack down on hate speak wherever it comes from, making a tit of themselves over this. Then we have the Tomb being forced to cite the police - the same people lenin and co continually claim are a bunch of racists at the heart of the white supremacist war against Muslims everywhere for daring to arrest terror suspects - for why a C4 documentary team must be racist for dealing with hate speak in precisely the same way as they have done with the far right. It's a bundle of hypocrisies alright. Next you'll be telling us lenin thinks the actions of minority fascists in Iraq, who are blackmailing the rest of the country by bombing them into changing their view about the need to rebuild their nation and support democracy, are the acts of a resistance movement!

Think about it. Nick Griffin is taken to court because of a short quote in a BBC documentary claiming "Islam is a wicked faith". There were no complaints about this from lenin or anyone else, but now it's supposed to prove that racism is abound everywhere because the same standards are not applied to Muslim hate speak of a much worse variety. The only thing this proves is there is still an obvious double standard the other way around; do you seriously think, for instance, this wouldn't be a national scandal if the Church of England were caught with their pants down making bigoted comments in this way?

You may also want to refresh your memory on the types of documentaries C4 would run about the government and the different responses to that as well. After the Hutton inquiry didn't go the right way and the Butler inquiry was set up, this time C4 weren't going to take any chances and commissioned a programme entitled "What Butler won't tell you" designed for the ignorant prejudices of people who had already made their mind up, using a string of misrepresentations on the much more complex issue of back room government emails and diplomatic speak. Not a peep out of lenin about that. Lets also remember how the news every day will only use a tiny section of an interview with an MP of any party, or show only a small part of a speech, yet this is seen as perfectly acceptable.

TombWatch won't stand for this hypocrisy.

Police to fuck up white supremacist 'climate camp'

2007-08-11T05:01:00.000+01:00

Hopefully this is true.

These white supremacist global warming imperialists think that its okay for them to stop ordinary working class people from going on their holidays, and that they can impose their economic and social system on the rest of the brown world, who they say should not be allowed to develop as the west did, using bullying tactics. They must not succeed.

Short break

2007-08-08T17:33:00.000+01:00

I will be hanging out at the beer festival at Earls court for the next couple of days, so hopefully I won't be stupid enough to try posting anything on my trips back to base camp.

Tomb given bloody nose on 'climate camp'

2007-08-08T03:53:00.000+01:00

I speak for most people when I say how delighted we were when the courts ruled in favour of allowing Heathrow airport to ban some groups from that awful "climate camp protest" thing that is being held to disrupt millions of people's holidays and trips, many of then working class people, in a few weeks time. Global warming is of course a pressing issue that we're all concerned about, but middle class students attacking ordinary families and shaking airport fences, distracting much needed security people away from their duties in these dangerous times, and setting up a dirty camp with scruffy tents and papermache puppet shit everywhere at our major national airport, is no way to do it. If they were really concerned about carbon emissions then they'd start by highlighting the fact that computer companies are the fastest growing form of carbon emissions in the world and therefore everybody should turn off their computers as much as possible, but obviously Medialens, lenin et al have a vested interest in making sure the computer companies are left well alone, so they won't be telling you about that.

Anyway, lenin is of course all in favour of some bit of student agit prop, and warns that the Independent newspaper's delight that the court injunction didn't go much further actually means they are waging of pro-market campaign to protect the capitalist system. Hmmm. The Independent is a left wing Daily Mail type paper that attaches itself to any cause they see as trendy or anti establishment, and spouts its views in a nonthinking, simplistic and non-principled way; there is no strategic ideological vision at that paper in any sense. Yes, they have always been very open about having a vaguely pro-market theme - which has led to some puzzlement on my part over why so many people on the liberal left think it better than the Guardian, which is at least has a bit of loyalty and principle about it occasionally, something they hate. The Guardian from time to time will remember that it's supposed to be a Labour paper, but the Independent doesn't have a principled bone in its body and will stab anyone in the back given half the chance; Johann Hari is a columnist for them, for crying out loud. They're just a bunch of shrills who would have allowed Blair to be impeached, Labour lose an election, and Britain lose in Iraq, without blinking an eyelid for the wider consequences.

Therefore I strongly suspect the Independent will have latched onto the Heathrow camp thing because it sits in the same category as the general 'freedom to protest' bandwagon that has caught on in liberal left cycles since anti terrorism legislation has prevented people blocking off white hall without a permit - a move apparently that is being reversed to show the right 'signals'. This airport protest just sounded like the same sort of thing as that to them, so they went with it. That's all there is too it.

Lastly, lenin claims that the Mirror's readership is way to the left of the journalists who work for it. This is completely untrue; the Mirror is most popular in the Labour right heartlands in the north east and lost lots of readers under Peers Morgan for being so hysterically anti government. I recall when camp Xray, as it was called then, was set up, they made a big deal of having a phone vote asking readers if they were in favour of it, obviously presuming they could do the usual '98 percent of you oppose it' frontpage that we often see on tabloids. But to their horror, the poll came back 92 percent were in favour of it!

Now, after all the propaganda that's been floating about since, it's unlikely that sort of result would occur today, but it just goes to show how out of touch the urban liberal intelligentsia, that lenin and co are apart of, can be with the ordinary man. Remember that when you see the Independent and other media delighting in the fact more Taliban are being sent back to Britain in the next few weeks, with special inteviews on C4 news. Oh Yippee do.

Tomb claims ending WW2 was 'racist'

2007-08-07T05:14:00.000+01:00

lenin explodes in a ball of liberal moralistic indignation by asserting the US decision to end a world war that was claiming tens of millions of lives and was a huge threat to the freedoms lenin liberally enjoys today, by dropping the A bomb on Japan, is no different to a pack of brainwashed Islamist bums blowing up some civilians on the tube for the caliphate, and if you don't believe this you are racist.

Even the former Japanese defense minister believes they deserved to get nuked - something quite extraordinary to admit in Japanese culture where wrong doing is never contemplated and people would rather commit suicide than 'lose face', so you can workout for yourself if the situations and circumstances are equivalent.

But this statement from lenin did catch my eye:

"I will add that it is despicable and outrageous and implicitly racist, since it applies a standard to an Asiatic society that I submit would not be applied to a largely Anglo-Saxon apartheid society."

Really? So what would lenin think of the situation in Darfur if Darfur were based in Europe? What would the Tomb think of the Taliban if they were based in the US deep south? What does lenin believe the attitude would have been to Saddam Hussein's government if they were the government of Holland? How much would he talk about Mugabe or the Burmese dictatorship if they were part of the EU? What if Scotland had China's human right's record?

Somebody certainly does display racist double standards, and has done for many years.

Tomb in Michael Ignatieff "recant" storm

2007-08-07T04:24:00.000+01:00

"Recant" is a religious term that is all the rage with stoppers at the moment. It summons up images of sinners genuflecting before some extremist Catholic, Islamist type god, and begging for forgiveness for taking out Saddam, so we can see why they might fantasise about such an event. But as the Tomb goes on to point out, Ignatieff doesn't really do a lot of recanting in this article; he mainly provides a lot of rather interesting waffle on how politics is very different game from intellectual life; in politics you are constantly having to justify acts everywhere as if you were responsible for them, and you must talk in absolutes, which is very different from theories and general principles of a life as an intellectual.

This is very true. The main reason why Bush and Blair abandoned claiming that Iraq had WMD, for instance, was not because they believe that he did not - they believe he did - but because it had become a political liability to continue to have to justify why they believed this. In the same vein it's not hard to see why Ignatieff, being in a leadership position of a famously anti American Canadian political party, would want to cut his loses on 'the decision' and move on, as if it were as simple as that.

A couple of interesting quotes.

"The decision facing the United States over Iraq is paradigmatic of political judgment at its most difficult. Staying and leaving each have huge costs. One thing is clear: The costs of staying will be borne by Americans, while the cost of leaving will be mostly borne by Iraqis. That in itself suggests how American leaders are likely to decide the question."

Unfortunately it does, but not if Bush has anything to do with it. Of that we can be sure; what comes next remains to be seen.

"We might test judgment by asking, on the issue of Iraq, who best anticipated how events turned out. But many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong."

Then surely they showed poor judgement. These people only opposed the war because they thought it would go too well; they didn't oppose it because they feared Rumsfeld and the anti imperialist neocons would scrap the war plan that had been on the shelf for the previous ten years before the invasion, at the last minute dump the state department rebuilding plan and slash the number of troops. They never in a million years thought that Muslims could be so cruel to fellow Muslims, and that Mosques, funeral marches and market places would become daily targets, thus causing a sectarian civil war. Their judgement was by far the worst, which is why they will one day recant before TombWatch, just as they have on Kosovo, WW2, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and so on.