[0762]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43523811

So a Spanish judge in a Spanish Supreme court makes a 'political judgement' rather than a judicial one!!!!! IMO this is definitely a right-wing, politically driven move to 'get a reaction' and some Catalans have 'taken the bait' and it has turned violent. The whole separatist movement in Catalonia has been driven by a peaceful policy of protests, demonstrations, rallies and voting in the face of some retaliatory aggression and intimidation from Rajoy's Spanish govt and it's 'enforcers'. Rajoy and his cohorts can't 'get their heads around' the fact that a quest for independence is politically predominant in the Catalan political establishment and within the Catalan population!!! What we are observing is an affront to democracy and democratic values - absolutely shocking and there should be widespread condemnation of these shenanigans!

[0762]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cat...e7e31aa196
Amid more huge demonstrations in Barcelona, and elsewhere,
Puigdemont arrested in Germany while in Scotland a female ex Catalan minister, Clara Ponsati,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-43529496
now a lecturer at Saint Andrew's  university, has a Euro arrest warrant issued against her and 'hands herself in' to the Scottish Police - shocking events and all I can say is 'this is not gonna end well'!!!!! So much for peaceful indy policies when dealing with a fascist govt!! Let us now see how the Catalan indy movement and people seriously take on this new challenge, an affront to the democratic right of any people to gain self-determination! Time to arm the nation? I hope not but I see similarities to infamous far gone events in this region that still leave a 'bad taste in the mouth'!
Lastly I wanna add a famous quote made by Edmund Burke that epitomises the situation in Spain/Catalonia and perhaps also in the USA - 'For evil to flourish, it's only necessary for good men to do nothing'! I don't regard Puigdemont and his followers as evil people! I despair watching such inaction! I hope the German judiciary release Puigdemont, dismiss the charges and cite the words 'unfair trial' before dismissing extradition. I hope other Euro judiciaries do likewise and f### the extreme political call being made by a fascist country!

[0762]

Now these fascist clowns have charged the ex Catalan Chief of Police, Josep Trapero, who dealt with the recent Barcelona//las Ramblas terrorist and refused to deploy strong arm tactics against innocent voters - faces trial for sedition(???). What an absolutely laughable and false charge that Rajoy's own judiciary should be 'throwing back in his face'!

[0762]

http://www.catalannews.com/society-scien...lona-today
Reckoned to be about 3/4M people massed in Barcelona yesterday in protest against the Spanish govt and support for the immediate release of the jailed Catalan politicians detained on 'bumped up' charges. Great to see this independence movement not 'sitting still' and demanding a release of all the victims of a fascist govt, one that is supported by our current shit British Tory govt, the same one that preaches about human rights and humanitarian response in Syria by bombing the country - what hypocrisy and double standards for all to see eh!

[St Charles Owl]

To be a little more accurate and inclusive it should also be noted that the EU and most of the leaders of EU countries also support Madrid, this is not just a UK Tory party line!! Also, whatever anyone's stance on the bombings in Syria, it was hardly "bombing the country", which makes it sound as though it was a carpet bombing raid. It was very targeted against specific targets and buildings and even from Russian military reports there were no casualties on the ground.

[0762]

Read previous threads re the EU intransigence, violation of their own ethical rules/standards covering human right re self-determination, democratic rights etc mentioned by myself, hibeejim and others! You are not really trying to justify this type of bombing, are you??? The words and reasoning being expressed by said government leaders is what to focus on and the hypocrisy and double standards are there for all to take heed of! The great peace makers of the west at work AGAIN and full of moral standards - utter bullshit and full of self-interest and significant links to their own arms industries! SUCH BOMBING ACHIEVES NOTHING AS PROVED TIME N TIME AGAIN! Tony Bliar and that ill-advised Iraq war is the 'bench mark' held by a significant proportion of the UK population - previous lessons learnt and May's excuses/reasoning definitely 'falling on deaf ears' esp as she knew her allied tie in with the USA AGAIN would have been rejected 'out of hand' if she'd consulted parliament on the issue - May the 'chancer' exposed for what she is - a weak British leader who should know better going anywhere near Trump and his right-wing cohorts!!

[St Charles Owl]

No I'm not trying to justify the bombing, I am neutral on it to be honest. The use of chemical weapons is horrible, particularly on civilians, and I think there is enough evidence to show that Damascus ordered their use once again. So what do we do about it?? Thats the hard question we need to be answering and I for sure don't know the answer to that. Will bombing these particular targets achieve anything, only time will tell but as we have seen in previous bombings I suspect the heads-up was given to the Russians and thats likely why there were no casualties.

I'm not convinced this type of keyhole bombing ever works, the idea of military action is it should drive fear into the hearts of those who are being targeted, whether that be civilians or in particular those in power. If we actually threatened the use of bombs directly against the leaders in Syria if they ever use chemical weapons again, then we might actually see a change but I am not sure there is an appetite nor need for anyone to do that, so we will likely keep bombing these "key targets" as a proportional response to event such as this. None of the Nato countries want to put feet on the ground in any great numbers over there, so we will end up leaving it to the Russians to ultimately sort it out and as a consequence we will see regime after regime that essentially is a puppet of their government instead of ours!! That is all the Middle East has become, fake allies for each side of a fake cold war, and a ton of rhetoric coming out of both sides!!

[0762]

Yep! It's very clear that Assad and his Shia backed regime are not the future govt preferred by the west and particularly the USA but they'd better become accustomed to it because Assad is winning the war and that is what baffles many people like myself who wonder logically why on earth he should use a chemical weapon at this stage of the war. Also one must mention that both sides in this conflict appear to have used chemical weapons! Is there really a good side in what I regard as a complex 'tribal war'? We are observing one 'bad guy' v other worse opponents who are not nice people either! I perceive that people in the west randomly observe lotsa kids affected by such events like this chemical attack and our humanitarian instinct wants to do something to help 'make things better'. However, we have a habit of 'making things worse' in such an intractable and complex conflict that has now passed the seven year mark! IMO talking is better than resorting to the use of bombs and Winston Churchill famously changed the 'talking' word to 'gabbing' when uttering a similar line re such folly.

[hibeejim21]

Robert fisk's article in the independent is very interesting on the subject,and casts doubts if chemical weapons were even used in douma.

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.independ...html%3famp

[St Charles Owl]

The problem these days is we live in a world where everyone seems to have an agenda, and we seem to live in a world where everyone's agenda is reported by someone as being fact!! By there very nature Politicians tend to make decisions for political reasons, these reasons can both help their own personal agenda or that of the country they represent, but there is nearly always an agenda. The media these days are also just as guilty of this, look at the Daily Mail or even the left wing papers, all of them have a desired outcome to their reporting, some political, other financial but always an agenda. Look at CNN over here, used to be excellent at reporting news (and still are when they actually do it) but the doubt cast over their "role" in the Parkland shooting in FL is troubling for such a big and very visible news network.

Virtually every "Western" country in the whole world has had a hand in making huge parts of the Middle East war zones or dictatorships at one time or another. I used "" around Western as Russia, China, India etc are just as likely to meddle in the ME as other countries are when it suits them. Over the years we have forced change in a country in the ME, supported a rebel with a cause or a promise of better democracy or trade or access to oil etc only to then a few decades later have to go back or interfere again to have this regime removed!!! And we have seen successive British, French, Russian, US etc governments make the same decisions time and again and still there is little solution in sight to avoid conflict.

We all want countries across the globe to be democratic in the way they treat their citizens and how they govern. We want Governments to be accountable to their own people first and foremost, and we want the people to have the rights to decide their future like we do generally. We have spent decades trying to impose this on countries, but a lot of these countries are simply not set up that way nor is it their history to run themselves by our standards or democratic governments standards. Just like we cannot impose a religion on a country, nor can we impose a form of governing on them either. We need to work with these countries, we need to encourage them to be good countries but we cannot and should not impose civil war or overthrowing of governments as our way of dealing with them.

For me education is the bedrock of all decent societies. Instead of going to war or invading or bombing these countries we should be working with them to create seats of learning, a school system, a curriculum that encourages math and science and generally over a few generations giving the average man in the street decent education to allow him to be able to make educated decisions about his own future and that of his country. The success of countries such as Jordan should be held up as a model not in terms of their political structure but in terms of their success in being stable, of being for education for all and for being a beacon within a very large war zone!!!! I would rather see us put money into schools and universities.

I don't know the answer but its time for something different. Talking hasn't worked that well, neither has bombing, but money does and always will talk so lets use that in the right areas and maybe, just maybe we might see things improve.

---

Robert fisk's article in the independent is very interesting on the subject,and casts doubts if chemical weapons were even used in douma.

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.independ...html%3famp

Excellent article, doesn't prove anything one way or the other but certainly throws up some questions!!