Robert Fisk: Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more – providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs – who, as we all know, only understand force.
Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis – just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" – as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.
The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which ... See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and ... Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" – as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.
By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since – the 1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948 Independence/Nakba War? It's obscene, a gruesome game – which Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, unconsciously admitted when he spoke this weekend to Fox TV. "Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," Barak said.
Exactly. Only the "rules" of the game don't change. This is a further slippage on the Arab-Israeli exchanges, a percentage slide more awesome than Wall Street's crashing shares, though of not much interest in the US which – let us remember – made the F-18s and the Hellfire missiles which the Bush administration pleads with Israel to use sparingly.
Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome – we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?
Yes, let's remember Hamas's cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel's need to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching – come to heel or we will crush you – is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians – and relies on Israel to provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel obliges.
Not a whimper from Tony Blair, the peace envoy to the Middle East who's never been to Gaza in his current incarnation. Not a bloody word.

We hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's "research and assessment division" announced that "no country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.
Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism". So what was the reaction last night? The Israelis threaten ground attacks. Hamas waits for another battle. Our Western politicians crouch in their funk holes. And somewhere to the east – in a cave? a basement? on a mountainside? – a well-known man in a turban smiles.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-leaders-lie-civilians-die-and-lessons-of-history-are-ignored-1215045.html

Book Review : A Clockwork Orange By Anthony Burges

I have been meaning to read this novel for a long time now.I knew that the book received great criticism when it was originally published in the 1960s.Many audiences found it ultra violent and very scatological.Back in the 1960s when it was released it was a completely different time to where we are now.Our values and our culture has  changed considerably since then.At the time, the book was very outrageous because it talked of rape, gang culture,sinister government intervention, and yobs in disguise of the police. People back in the swinging sixties could not comprehend and absorb this book.It was ahead of its time, in talking about theses problems that society faces.Although, many of the problems in the book were present in the swinging sixties, it was very much less apparent and often hidden away from the mass audiences.When sinister stories did appear they received great outrage from the general public, an example, of this is Moor Murderers.People could not imagine that something so evil could happen.

It is quite fitting that I read this book at this time, because in our present cities many of the problems illustrated in the book are present today.Burgess study of violence and human choice is very relevant today as society's morality and ethics continue to be on the decline.Does anyone feel comfortable when they walk down the city centre at night ?

 

I certainly don't and I know many feel the same way.Just look at the gun culture in London.Even, in the United Kingdom so many young lives are wasted each year. For instance, Rhys Jones the young school kid who was brutality shot down while walking to his home from football practice aged 11. His murderer was suppose to shoot a member of a rival gang but missed his target and shot Rhys. Who was caught in the line of fire. (Many God grant Rhys Paradise and eternal peace).In the sixties, there was gangs, but it was less in the public domain.Now days, it is so easy for children to get guns and follow the wrong path.I think the blame should be on the media too, because of the way they make gang culture appear so pleasant and fun. I am sure young people ask themselves, why bother to study and work so hard to get lots of money, when you can get more money and instant respect from the streets for so little ?

This is a question that is going through the mind of youngsters today.A very recent movie about football hooligans is Green Street.This is a very interesting movie because it shatters the common notion that football hooligans are government dependants living on the dole but in reality they can professionals working in the highest levels of industry.It also shows how the gang culture offers a kind of security this appeals and attracts children.Its like they have joined something that is very special and only they can understand.However, we know the reality is very different.

The book tells a story the early life of Alex, a cocky, intelligent school boy thug and his relationship with his gang and "droogs" Pete, Georgie and Dim.The gang operate on a unknown city after school at night causing mayhem to anyone they choose, be it old women, couples or passersby.The book is very unusual because it is written in Anglo-Russian slang called Nadat.This makes it very difficult to understand by at the same makes it interesting.The more you read the book , the more your imagination runs wild , you can imagine it happening in the streets of Moscow or in the eastern European countries, or in London.

 

Alex and his droogs always start the evening in the Korova Milk Bar, and a spurred on to perform violence after having the drug spike milk.They beat up innocent pedestrians passing by and perform vicious fights with a rival gang of school kids called Billyboys. However, Alex's life takes a turn for the worst when the gang breaks into a writers home called Frank Alexander. The vicious kids ruined Mr Alexanders work called "A Clockwork Orange" thereby reducing the writer to nothing. They beat him up savagely and disgustingly gang-rape his wife.Thereafter, still not satisfied with their nights work, the school kids decide to break into an old women's home in a distinguished area of the city.This is where Alex's life dramatically changes and the book's story develops.

 

 Alex who is the leader of his group is betrayed by his brother droogs and arrested by the police. What Alex does not know is that while breaking in to the old women's home and beating her she unexpectedly she dies.Now Alex who is known to the police as a thug is arrested and sent down for murder and robbery at the mere age of 15.While in prison, Alex lives a life a deception by pretending to take up religion to reform him self and reduce his years and learns the sciences of criminality.From sucking up, unexpectedly Alex is nominated for the new Ludovico Technique aversion therapy, designed by wacky psychologists.This unusual technique works and Alex criminal tendices are completely washed away leaving him as a unthinking zombie.

 

The Ludovic treament is a government strategy where young juveniles are given nausea-inducing drugs and forced to watch violent scenes.After this treatment every time he tries or even thinks of committing a wrong he is suddenly engrossed in intense sickness.Alex can no longer listen to his majestic Beethoven, as the music accompanied the violent videos.The story shows that every bad action you undergo to others will come round to haunt you.When Alex is released  he is attacked in numerous ways by his former victims.He tragically meets the author whose wife he raped previously, he comes to an understanding and faces reality. He learns about what has happened to his droogs who betrayed him and what their lives how become.

 

After these experiences, surprisingly,  he still decides to start a new gang where he is the supreme leader.However, when one night he suddenly realises how dumb and stupid his life is and decides to start a ew.Great book, great story yet not so greatly written.

Al Ghazzali's Last Poem

One day the great Imam, Hujjatul Islam, Muhammed Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (peace be upon him) woke up one morning and offered his prayers.Next he asked for his white shroud, kissed it, and stretched himself out full length.Then said "Lord I obey willingly".He then breathed his last.
And underneath his headrest they found the following verses;

Say to my friends when they look upon me, dead
Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow
Do not believe that this corpse you see is myself
In the name of God, I tell you it is not I
I am a spirit and this is naught but flesh
It was my abode and my garment for a time
I am a treasure, by a talisman kept hid
Fashioned of dust, which served me as a shrine
I am a pearl which has left its shell deserted
I am a bird and this body was my cage
From which I have now flown forth, and it is left as a token
Praise to God who hath set me free
And prepared for me my place in heaven
Untill today I was dead, but alive in your midst
Now I live in truth with the grave clothes discarded
Today I hold converse with the saints above
With no veil between, I see God face to face
I look upon "Loh I Mahfuz"and therein I read
Whatever was, and is, and all that shall be
Let my house fall in ruins, lay my cage in the ground
Cast way the talisman, it is a token not more
Lay aside my cloak it was but my outer garment
Place them all in the grave and let them be forgotten
I have passed on my way and you are left behind
Your place of abode was no dwelling place for me
Think not that death is death, nay, it is life
A life that surpasses all we could dream of here
While in this world were granted sleep
Death is but sleep but prolonged
Be not frightened when death drawn nigh
It is but the departure for this blessed home
Think of the mercy and love your Lord
Give thanks for His grace and come come without fear
What I am now so shall you be
For know that your as I am
The souls of all men come forth from God
The bodies of all are compounded alike
Good and evil it was ours
I give you a message of cheer
May Gods peace and joy for evermore be yours

Muhammed Abu Hamid al Ghazli (1058-1111CE/450-505 AH) was one of the greaters thinkers and mystics of the 12 century.

Protecting Knowledge

Abu al Hasan Abd al Aziz al Jurjani said :

ON PROTECTING KNOWLEDGE

They say to me that you are withdrawn, but they saw a man more humiliated and withdrawn.
I saw people who belittle any humble soul who drew near to
them;
anyone who was exalted by pride they received with honour.
I gave not knowledge its due,
And every time a craving for the world came to me,
I used my knowledge as a staircase to attain it.
When it was said, “This is a fountain.” I said, “I see”.

I strove not in the service of knowledge,
Nor as a servant of the needy souls I met.
I sought, instead, to be saved.
Am I to be made wretched by the seedling I planted,
Harvesting only humiliation?
If this is so, it would have been better to have sought ignorance!
If only the people of knowledge had protected it,
It would have protected them.

If they had magnified it in their souls,
They would have been magnified.
To the contrary, they belittled it,
And thereby became despicable.
They disfigured its face with their craving for the world, leaving it frowning and dejected.

Demise of Woolworth : Analysis by Robert Peston

By Robert Peston

The manner of Woolworth's demise as a going concern was almost as shocking as the fact of its collapse into administration.
Although Woolworth had been one of the UK's weaker retailers for years - propped up by a decade of benign, debt-fuelled trading conditions which we now know to have been unsustainable - it was done in by a sudden deterioration both in the real economy and in financial markets that took hold four weeks ago.
And it's the suddenness of how everything turned bad that shocks - and means Woolies will not be the last casualty.
Up till then, Woolies sales had been broadly flat. Then, on an underlying or like-for-like basis, sales dropped off a cliff, falling by double-digit amounts in percentage terms.
Around the same time, many of its suppliers found they could no longer insure against the risk that Woolies would no be able to pay its bills. So Woolies was forced to pay suppliers in cash for all that important Christmas stock.
In the process Woolies maxed out its borrowing facility: its debt rose to the £385m limit imposed by its lenders, led by GMAC and Burdale (part of Bank of Ireland).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, GMAC and Burdale - each of which is owed around £70m - yesterday decided enough was enough, and pulled the plug. Other financial creditors include Bank of America, Barclays, GE, Wachovia and KBC, with GE owed the most of this bunch, or £50m.
Now what's significant is that Woolies is far from being the only retailer pummelled by the sharp contraction in Britain's economy and also by a sharp and painful rationing of credit insurance.
Many thousands of British businesses have had their insurance cover withdrawn for supplies to companies perceived by insurers as poor risks - and that's causing havoc on the high street.
Unless something can be done to persuade the big providers of credit insurance to reinstate cover - and that would probably require taxpayers to provide some kind of guarantee - Woolies will not be the last substantial victim.
Also, just because Woolies has been something of a lame duck for years, that does not mean its demise is somehow a self-contained episode, with little consequence for the broader economy.
The inevitable loss of jobs, perhaps 20,000 of them, will cause misery and hardship in itself.
There's a hole in the pension fund of £100m, so the Pension Protection Fund will have to pick up the bill for some of the group's pension liabilities - which drains the resources provided to the official protection scheme by other pension funds.
And then there's the knock-on to companies that supply Woolies stores with more than £1.5bn of goods every year. At a time when the UK economy is shrinking fast, the loss of these orders will be painful for hundreds of businesses.
Also Woolies owns a substantial wholesaler of books, music, games and DVDs, Entertainment UK, whose turnover is well over £1bn. Entertainment UK has also gone into administration, which has raised the alarming prospect for some big supermarkets and high street stores that they won't be able to get hold of vital stock during the all-important Christmas selling period.
The corollary is that publishers and music businesses are anxious they won't be able to get their stock on the supermarkets' shelves.
What's more, as Richard Fletcher points out this morning in the Telegraph (and on Tuesday night he made the correct call that neither Woolies or MFI could avoid administration), Woolies' collapse will probably spark a price war - since the administrators will probably keep the stores open for the next few weeks, and slash prices to shift all the stock.
That would be good news for shoppers, very bad news for weak competitors.
So perhaps we should all weep for poor, lost Woolies. As it happens, I love its eclectic mix of light bulbs, pic'n'mix and gadgets you never knew you wanted. And for many kids, it's a treasure chest.
But even if you wrote it off years ago as an anachronism, you can't be wholly insulated from the indirect damage inflicted by the manner of its end.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/11/weep_for_woolies.html

Poem about Bullying

A Poem by my little cousin, God bless her .........

They call me a megabyte
Because they think I am bright
The numbers on the page wave at me with delight
My literature continues to inscribe, my pen never stops; my literature points its pen at me

My cheeks are so very chubby
And my body is round
I get called fatty this makes me put on a big frown
What is the need to go to school?
When you just get shoved and pushed around like a fool
This matter is so frustrating, that my nights are getting freightening

I am always thinking thinking
Till my brain is going to explode
This drains me and makes me feel very low
Suddenly I feel the freeze
My legs are jelly knees

What a way to the day
Cyber, physical and verbal
What do you care?
Just remember if you
SEE IT, STOP IT, REPORT IT

By Shakeela Sheikh, Age 11

Sir Alan Sugar gives his career advice

How do you go from selling vegetables and car radio aerials to becoming a successful businessman?

I think you have to understand the background and where I lived and where I came from and the environment at the time. People think we're living in tough times now but they don't know what they're talking about. Back in the late '50s, they were really tough times where there were no employment laws. Take my father for example. He worked in a garment factory and literally never knew from one day to the other whether he had work the next day. He was literally told on Friday, 'Don't bother to come in Monday. Phone up on Tuesday to see if there's any work'.
That's how it was. That's the kind of environment that I was brought up in which made me feel, 'I've got to provide for myself'. It wasn't a case of the mums and dads didn't want to do anything. It's a case of, they can't. They're doing their very best, bringing up their children.
Wheeling and dealing came along from an entrepreneurial spirit that I had inside of me. I had a job in the morning going to work in a greengrocer's shop. You turned up at 6.30 in the morning, first thing you did was fill this metal bath up with water, chucked beetroots in, switch the gas ring on and off on to the next job. An hour later they'd been boiled, chuck 'em out on the front, get paid and go to school.

Was your motivation money or getting a better life for yourself?

Being self sufficient and having an understanding that it wasn't mum and dad's fault that one couldn't have things. It was the environment at the time. It was a case of having to fend for oneself. At school I was always making a few quid one way or the other.

Should you get an education or start working your way through a company as soon as you can?

There's nothing wrong in reading books about certain business practice. But I've said many times before, you can't go into boots and buy a bottle of entrepreneur or get a book or CD about how to become an entrepreneur in 48 hours. It's all rubbish. I can't play a piano but I guess, given enough time, someone could teach me to knock out a couple of tunes. Would I ever be a concert pianist? No. And I suppose that's the same kind of analogy. You can't be taught to smell a deal or innovate something. You've either got it or you haven't got it.

When you're employing someone, do you take qualifications into account or do you want people with experience. Or is it a mix of both?

I think the most important thing is the experience the person has amassed in what jobs they've been doing up until now, what they've achieved up until now. These certificates and qualifications, all they tell any employer is that the person's got a brain. It really doesn't matter whether someone comes to me with an MBA, an OBE, a KFC or a YMCA, as far as I'm concerned. They could just as well come to me and show me that they've excelled in metrology.
You can't learn business practices out of a book. The most important thing is what experience you've amassed and people have to decide what they want to do in life. I used to write articles for a national newspaper inviting people to write in. You'd get letters coming in saying, 'Hello. I'm John. I'm 16 and I want to start an airline tomorrow'. That is the naivety. It goes from that to very complex business plans.
There's nothing wrong in having those aspirations and being another Richard Branson (Virgin founder) or Stelios Haji-Ioannou (easyJet founder). But if he wants to do that, the first thing he needs to do is become a baggage handler and then become a check-in clerk at the airport and then maybe a managerial person in the airline and then up and up and up the ladder until he understands what the airline business is about. Or marry a rich sheikh's daughter and ask him to give him £500m.

Do people ask you how to become a millionaire?

I go back to John and his airline again. It's exactly the same thing. Sometimes people ask me how I started my business and I go into the story of telling them how I bought these car aerials for £50 and went and sold then the next day and got £80.
I then sold them for a bit more money, then went out and bought some more stuff. Then I got an automatic packing machine which enabled me to make them a bit quicker. And then my grandfather died and left me £500m. That's how silly it can be. How to you become a millionaire? It's a ridiculous question. It doesn't really warrant answering.

Can you apply the business philosophy to running a football club, like you did with Spurs, as any other business?

No because of the very weird nature of the football industry. It is an industry which is unique in the sense of the amounts of money that fly around in massive transactions that happen sometimes minutes of the sale of players.
Pressure's put to bear upon the owners of the clubs to perform, which make them do irresponsible and silly things because they're frightened of having their heads beaten in by a few yobs. Maybe it's more having their heads beaten in by the back pages of the newspapers.

It's a weird business. If you try and apply normal business principles in a football club, you end up getting criticised. Although that's what I did for 10 years in Spurs and that's why the club is still there, as far as a corporate entity is concerned.
But here's the point. Do the fans care whether it is financially stable? Not really. And why is that? It's because clubs have been allowed to go bust and then start again the next day. To the actual fan that turns up every Saturday, what does all this balance sheet nonsense mean? Nothing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/entertainment/newsid_7737000/7737098.stm