Hey, Hey LBJ . . . how many kids did you kill today?

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Inevitably, the brave Australian journalist Mike Carlton has lost his job because, sickened by the slaughter of innocent children in Gaza by the IDF, he wrote the strong article criticising Israel and the Likudites of Netenyahu. He was subjected to a torrent of abuse, and death threats from the Jewish lobby and their apologists. He responded with some robust language and was suspended by FAIRFAX Media. He chose to resign because of their lack of support for his right to Free Speech.

FAIRFAX have of course denied that he was suspended because of pressure from the Jewish lobby but because he was rude to their readers. Pull the other one it has bells on.
Close to 2,000 Palestinians have now been killed by the IDF’s latest furious attacks on Gaza. Seventy percent were civilians, and almost 300 of them were children. And their blood lies not only on the hands of the Israelis – but also on the hands of American politicians with their blind and unconditional support of Israel.
But this is not the first time, and sadly it will not be the last, when America has sponsored the killing of children (think Iraq, think Afghanistan, think Viet Nam). One of the stories in my book THE GULF is about Carter “Call me Buddy” Scruggins who was a sharpshooter during the Viet Nam War. He was under orders to “take out” (What a delightful euphemism for Kill) children who approached US patrols through the villages in case they had explosives strapped to them.
This why anti-Viet Nam War activists used to taunt President Lyndon Johnson with the chant “Hey, Hey, LBJ . . . How many Kids did you kill today.
How many more children have to die before American politicians in general, and Barak Obama in particular, says enough is enough? What is the tipping point? 2,000 children, 20,000 children, 2 million children? There is no valid excuse in the world for killing even one child. It is barbaric and inhuman – and America could, and should, stop it in its tracks regardless of the power of the Jewish lobby.
Obama is no Mandela – but if he wishes to go down in history as some sort of statesman he should stop the Israelis in their tracks by cutting all US Aid to Israeli until they conform with international law. It is US Aid of more than US$ 20 Million per day that is enabling and prolonging the ongoing battles in Gaza. Cut off the aid and it will stop. There is a precedent.
For 25 years the IRA was allowed to raise funds in the USA to enable their terrorist tactics in Northern Ireland because of the power of the Irish Lobby. But when the Kennedy Era faded the USA found the political will to condemn the IRA and stop the fund raising. The IRA decommissioned their weapons within a year and there is now peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland
The final chapter in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” deals not with the dead Palestinian children (unfortunately they are beyond our help) but with the orphans who receive equally heartless treatment in this atavistic battle in The Holy Lands. The protagonist Layla, a Christian Palestinian who runs a Church of England orphanage in Ramallah, puts it into context. She says that this conflict (just like Northern Ireland) is not really a religious or idealogical battle between Judaism and Islam: it is an ancient and atavistic blood feud over territory and resources between Arab tribes – and the West do not understand and should not be involved.
You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope it touches your heart and leads to action. As Noam Chomsky said “knowledge of the world is of no use unless it leads to action.”

For the Love of Money is the root of all Evil . . .

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And is there anything more evil than the killing of innocent children such as is happening every day in Gaza.

The shooting down of MH 17 that killed so many young children was gruesome enough – but at least there is the possibility that this was a mistake and the terrorist thought he was shooting down a Ukrainian military plane. No such mitigating circumstance exists in Gaza where the Israeli forces are indiscriminately killing women and children with a ferocity that is unbelievable given that they claim to be a civilized society.
This weekend there was an article in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald that compared the policies of Benjamin Netenyahu and his LIKUD party to the Nazis, and their arrogance to that of Fascists. The savagery of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) retaliation to the HAMAS rockets smacks of the Nazis policy of shooting 100 innocent hostages for every German soldier killed. The recent wave of rockets killed 2 or 3 Israelis. The IDF response has been to kill almost 1,000 Palestinians (mostly civilians) including about 200 children.
This is barbaric and obscene. But what is even more obscene it the refusal of the USA to sanction Israel. Russia’s complicity in the shooting down of MH 17 has brought about a huge wave of sanctions orchestrated by the USA. Yet Israel has bulldozed 400 Palestinian villages, sent 1 million Palestinians into exile to live in the misery and squalor of refugee camps, laid siege to Gaza, continued to build illegal settlements on the West Bank – and continues to slaughter Palestinians: all with with the complicity of the USA, and with weaponry and ammunition supplied by them using the US$20 million per day of aid the USA provides to Israel. Why?
Because all American politicians know that without the support and the finance of the Jewish lobby they will not get re-elected. Shame on you for your inhumanity and putting politics before people. May you rot in Hell.
Is it any wonder the Arab Street refers to America as The Evil Empire and fundamental Islam is on the march. Some years ago an Arab friend of mine said that Israel would never be satisfied until they owned the whole of the Middle East and its oil wealth. At the time I thought that was an extreme view. But the Israelis seem intent on annihilating Gaza and annexing The West Bank. What is next? Jordan? Iraq? Syria? Tomorrow the World?
The Biblical quotation about the love of money ends like this:
“ . . . which some coveted after have erred from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.”
And while it seems that the majority of Israelis support Netanyahu and LIKUD, there is a sizeable minority who are sickened by their inhumanity.
The final chapter in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” tries to set this in context with the story of Layla, a Christian Palestinian who quits her career as a cabin attendant and runs a Church of England orphanage in Ramallah which is eventually closed by the IDF scattering the orphans to the wind. This is just one story of many of that turbulent region where millions of lives have been shattered by the blunderings of the Foreign policies of the super powers.
Perhaps God in His wisdom has forgiven Sykes and Picot and James Balfour. Millions of Palestinians cannot, and their dead and maimed children cannot.

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope you enjoy it.

Fascism, Communism . . . and Picasso

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Yesterday I happened on a book about Picasso’s creation of his Civil War masterpiece GUERNICA. In a series of brutal images etched in black across a huge stark white canvas he expressed the rage he felt at the carpet bombing of a small town in Spain that killed 80 percent of the inhabitants. This, the first time bombing had been aimed at civilians in order to terrorise them – and a precursor to the carpet bombing of Coventry, Liverpool and London by the Nazis, the 1,000 bomber raids of the Allied forces that flattened Dresden and Berlin – the ultimate horrific atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and the American bombings of Hanoi, and the NATO terror bombings of Belgrade.
America and The West wants to spread democracy and freedom, as long as it is the democracy and freedom they want. And if hundreds of thousands of people are killed and maimed in the name of freedom so be it.
How quickly the momentous events of the 20th Century have become history, and how quickly in this age of the triumph of Capitalism have we forgotten the struggle of Communism versus Fascism that dominated the last Century.
The Spanish civil War was a consequence of extreme right wing Monarchists refusing to accept the will of the people in electing (twice) a Socialist government and replacing it with a Fascist dictatorship by force of arms. And this has been replicated in Latin America many times, particularly in Chile, where President Allende was assassinated by the CIA and replaced with the military dictator Pinochet, and in Iran where the legitimate elected government of Mossadeq was replaced by the vainglorious and corrupt Shah – and now in Egypt, where the elected Muslim government of Morsi has been replaced by a military junta.
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I have tried to set in the political context of the 20th Century a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Arabian/Persian Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arena of international significance fueled by the Western greed for cheap energy supplies. The history of that turbulent period is shown through the stories of archetypal expatriates who washed up in The Gulf, their lives shattered by the blunderings of US (and British) foreign policies in the region.
In particular one story “If You Don’t . . . Someone Else Will” set during the First Gulf War deals with the American massacre of Iraqis fleeing from Kuwait to Baghdad along Highway 80 – an infamous stretch of road littered with burned out trucks, cars and buses, and hundreds of bodies including women and children that came to be called “The Mile of Death”. It sickened the military into telling the politicians “Enough is enough” and brought that war to an end.
You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope you enjoy it.

The rich ARE different

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At the moment I am re-reading THE GREAT GATSBY – and maybe one of the reasons it is a classic is that it resonates well above the hedonistic world of the Long Island uber-rich, and their Broadway showbiz sycophants, that is its setting. Truly the microcosm reflects the macrocosm.
 In the denoument the narrator reflects on the behaviour of the vastly wealthy couple who are at the centre of the book:
“They were careless people Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and people and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ,
And so it is with US foreign policy. In their greed for cheap oil they have literally killed hundreds of thousands of people and smashed up the lives of millions more in the Middle East – deposing a legitimate democratic government in Iran and installing the corrupt and despotic Shah, blindly supporting Israel’s destabilization of Lebanon and annexation of the West Bank, thereby enabling the rise of the Shia Ayatollah and Sunni militant Islamic extremism.
Look at the chaos now in Syria and Iraq caused by America’s naïve belief in their “exceptionalism” and their “Manifest Destiny” to bring freedom and democracy to the world. A belief that smacks all too sadly of the Divine Right of Kings, much as their use of drones to subjugate and suppress anybody who opposes them smacks of 19th Century British Imperial Gunboat diplomacy. (Plus ca Change . . . plus c’est la meme chose). And what will happen when they leave Afghanistan?
But so what? With the discovery of vast deposits of shale oil and coal seam gas America is no longer reliant on cheap MidEast oil. And their focus is now switching to the rise of China that must be contained if they are to retain their exceptional hegemony. And so, like the uber-rich nation they are, they will just walk away and let others clean up their mess.
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I also tried to show the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm. It is a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arena of international significance. But the history of that turbulent period is told through the stories of archetypal expatriates who washed up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf, their lives shattered by the blunderings of US (and British) foreign policies in the region. The proxy wars of the Buraimi Oasis and the Dhofar campaign, and the corruption of the UN in evading the oil embargo in Iraq etc., etc.
You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope you enjoy it.

I Love Americans . . . except when they behave like Yankees

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         This is one of Winston Churchill’ s (a politician intelligent enough to write his own speeches) pithy comments – and I understand exactly what he meant. Presently I am reading Oliver Stone’s (the film director of the “Greed is Good” movie WALL STREET) book The Untold History of the United States in which he explores the delusional, and sometimes hypocritical, “exceptionalism” that dominates American foreign policy. The idea that the USA has a “Manifest Destiny” to bring Freedom, Justice and Democracy to the world no matter what the cost.

         This is of course what led to the wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other proxy wars too numerous to mention. But what surprised me was that this is not a recent idea of the Bush/Cheney Neo-Cons and their Zionist Co-conspirators. Oliver Stone starts with Woodrow Wilson, and his statement that it was legitimate to bring about regime change in foreign governments in order to prise open markets for American goods. Typical Yankee greed cloaked in self righteousness.

    And he joined WWI at a very late stage, not for any moral reason, but to ensure that America had a seat at the Versailles Conference so that America could exert influence in Europe. Typical Yankee hypocrisy.

        And that brings me to believe in the American Southerners who call the Civil War The War of Northern Aggression. In their eyes it was not at all about freeing the slaves – it was the Yankees’ greed to get their hands on the tobacco and cotton wealth of the South.

   It was Winston Churchill when he was First Lord of The Admiralty who made the comment that “Oil is the ultimate prize equated with World Mastery” . And it was the Yankee greed for World Mastery (an abundance of cheap oil) that led to the rapid development of the Arabian/Persian Gulf and its consequences. The deposing of a legitimate democratic government in Iran and support for the despicable Shah that led to the Ayatollahs, and the support for corrupt and despotic monarchies that has led to fundamental Islam and Al Qa’eda.

        The thread that Middle East politic is “All about Oil” runs through my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. It is a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arenas of international significance in stark contrast to the harsh, barbaric and unforgiving deserts that surround them.

          You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

Lest We Forget

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Here in Australia ANZAC day, commemorating first of all the carnage of the failed landing at Gallipolli in WWI and then the many Aussies and Kiwis who fell in WWII, Korea, VietNam, Afghanistan and Iraq – is a valiant attempt to prevent people forgetting the terrible sacrifice and struggle that has created and maintained this amazing Western civilization we are living in. But people all too easily do forget, and live in a world of endless entertainment and denial.

          WWI slaughtered 10 million people and was supposed be the war to end all wars and create a world fit for heroes. No such thing happened.

          Quite apart from all the fallen heroes, there are many more who remain alive but whose lives have been shattered by the horrors of war. What used to be called simply shell shock, and is now labelled as post traumatic stress disorder, is affecting more and more veterans in this better educated and informed world as they realize the futility of fighting in the dirty wars of vainglorious politicians.

         In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” there are two stories that deal with the effects of war on young men.

        The first concerns Dudley, a young British cavalry officer who fought in the Battle for the Buraimi Oasis, a proxy war between the USA and Britain fought in the Trucial States of the Arabian Peninsula to gain control of the massive oil deposits of The Empty Quarter.

        The second concerns Buddy, an American volunteer Marine who fought in VietNam. He went away a hero and returned to the booes and jeers of the anti-Vietnam college boy intelligentsia.

       All too soon these wars have been forgotten to be replaced by the futile wars of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq.

      And without wanting to trivialize the horrors of war – was it only 2008 when the GFC happened? Already the stock market is being pumped to unsustainable highs, and the real estate market is booming because interest rates are low. What will happen when (not if) they rise: another toxic mortgage/banking scandal.

      And one of the stories in my book concerns Captain Bob (Robert Smith) a supertanker captain who lost his life savings in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the Dubai based bank that went under in yet another banking scandal. And Dubai almost went under a mountain of debt in the GFC, and yet here it is again powering ahead with yet another property boom.

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET

 

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

The sound of Axes being Ground is DEAFENING (Part 2)

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Following on from my comments on the MH370 hijacking I had completely forgotten that the Prologue to my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” starts from the premise of a possible hijack that causes the protagonist, a world weary journalist who thinks he is about to die (and is not unhappy about that), to review his life in the Middle East – and the roller coaster ride of his past life in all of its exhilarating and frightening diversity in that atavistic and brutal part of the world.

This was my fictional means to present a series of linked stories that are authentic and journalistic based on events that I witnessed myself, or were reported to me by reliable sources. Each story features a character typical of the sorts of expatriate who wash up in the Arabian/Persian Gulf for whatever reason. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances trying to survive in a rapidly changing and hostile world.

It is in such situations that the surprising strength (or weakness) of characters shows through – revealing the truth.

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

The sound of Axes being ground . . . is DEAFENING

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Normally I do not comment on current affairs that are not directly related to my particular interest (obsession)with the Arabian/Persian Gulf. However I do have some personal experience of the type of situation that now surrounds the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370.

Early in my career I was in charge of SHELL’s jet fuel quality control laboratory at Heathrow airport. During that time a BA jet that we had fuelled crashed just after take-off killing everybody on board. Within a few days my laboratory was swarming with an accident investigation team that included engineers from the airframe and engine manufacturers.

I was amazed, and scared, of how aggressive they were. They demanded all my documentation and fuel samples. Fortunately my documentation and fuel quality was perfect – and one of the Government investigators took me on one side and explained their attitude. Because of the millions of dollars involved in potential lawsuits and loss of business, they were not looking for the truth – they were looking for somebody to shoulder the blame. And in these situations they usually blame the pilot, because he is dead and cannot defend himself. And that is what happened in my case, and is happening now with MH370. Every effort is being made to blame the poor pilot.

To me it is a bungled hijack. Somebody with flying experience took over the plane, but unlike the 9/11 hijackers did not have the skills. Hence the rapid rise to 42,000 feet and then the descent to 5,000 feet, and then the crazy navigation that took them out over open ocean until they ran out of fuel. Presumably the hijacker(s) were supposed to head for Australia, or The Maldives, or Sri Lanka to land and make their demands.

In my career in the international oil industry I travelled millions of miles on long haul jets – and experienced several frightening emergencies. One such emergency, when my flight was hit by lightning and tipped on its side and fell 1,000 feet, I have used as a basis of a story in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. It is only in such situations that the true strength or weakness of characters shows through.

The book is a series of stories spanning 40 years about the archetypical characters who wash up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf trying to survive in a rapidly changing world. They are people drawn to a highly paid and dangerous life-on-the-edge where men are men and women are no better than they ought to be.

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

It’s all about OIL

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The lust for war that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 has never been satisfactorily explained. The blatant lies about WMDs and Saddam’s links to Al-Qa’eda were soon discredited.

Certainly the neo-Cons led by Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz had an agenda to protect Israel from Iraq’s growing regional power (and his long barrelled gun)- but is the Jewish lobby that powerful that the US would enter a full scale war on their behalf? And regime change was the feeblest excuse thought up as a knee jerk reaction to the scorn heaped on Bush & Blair (aka Laurel & Hardy: “Another fine mess you got me in Ollie”)

From my perspective as a long time Middle East oilman it’s all about oil.

When the US troops invaded Baghdad they immediately threw a cordon around the Oil Ministry – but totally failed to protect the Ministry of Antiquities. Presumably while thieves looted the museums of their priceless treasures the US authorities looted all the seismic data about Iraq’s oil reserves? Recent events are proving that the US was right about Iraq’s importance to the international oil market.

Iraq has now replaced Iran as OPEC’s second largest oil exporter and is earning oil revenues of some $200 Billion per year predicted to double to $400 Billion by 2020.

Will this fabulous oil wealth help relieve the violence and corruption that engulfs Iraq at the moment, or only deepen the divide between Sunni and Shia, Kurds and other minorities?

When I published my book THE GULF 3 years ago it was prescient.

The pitch on the back cover says:
“It’s all about oil. If there was no oil the only foreigners in the Middle East would be a few biblical scholars and archaeologists, being driven mad by the heat, the flies and the dust – and thieving Bedouins who can steal the wheels off of a truck while it is still in motion.”

My book is a series of stories spanning 40 years highlighting the archetypical characters who wash up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf trying to survive in a rapidly changing world. They are people drawn to a highly paid and dangerous life-on-the-edge where men are men and women are no better than they ought to be.

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle. Or if you prefer a real book you can order the edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

Are some (sweaty) Animals more equal that others

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While not wanting to suggest the ultimate male fantasy that all women want to be ravished is correct, there is strong anecdotal and scientific evidence to suggest that they do prefer a dominant male partner in their sex life.

In a recent article a female journalist said that among her friends – professional couples both in well paid jobs who shared everything equally (paying the mortgage and household bills, housework and taking care of the kids) – the women were dissatisfied with their sex life. It lacked a frisson (sexual tension?) because their relationship was based on friendship and mutual respect and had become almost platonic. One woman said it was like sleeping with her brother. This feeds into the fantasy that women do not really want a caring, tender and supportive partner who is in touch with his female side – not when the lights are out. They really want someone more animal. One woman actually said she only fancied her husband when he came home straight from the gym all hot and sweaty. Are modern Western women in denial?

A recent scientific study in America supports this. A series of erotic images was shown to a group of men and a group of women hooked up to sensors measuring their physical and emotional responses. The men and the women responded almost exactly the same way to the images. But when questioned 75% of the men were honest about their arousal – but 75% of the women lied and said they were not aroused. In Saudi Arabia a dominant male society where women are repressed (at least in public) women exploit the males’ outstanding weakness – his desire to see females in the flesh, and have sex – to wield a surprising amount of power. Read the story I’VE NEVER KNOWN A WOMAN WHO WOULDN’T DANCE in my book THE GULF about a new wife performing an erotic dance of arousal.

In some ways I am ashamed of this story because it is not a work of fiction. It is an account of that dance by a Western cameraman who filmed it; and it was validated by a Western woman who had played flute at many Saudi weddings and seen this many times. The cameraman said it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen.

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle. Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from: http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.