The War for Greater Israel

Craig Murray | craigmurray.co.uk

"Iran has provided, directly and through proxies, the only military opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. This war is for Greater Israel. But it is also a wider effort to re-establish the failing economic dominance of the United States by military control of key resources.

There is no part of the world which will be safe from the fallout".

There has scarcely been an attempt to pretend any justification in international law for the attack on Iran and murder of its leader. The response of the UK government, focusing almost entirely on condemning Iran for exercising its legitimate right of self-defence, takes the Starmer dishonesty meter further off the scale.

The RAF has been actively involved in genocide in Gaza for two years with its surveillance and logistic support for the IDF. It is now fighting for Israel again; intercepting Iranian missiles is not defensive; it is joining in the attack on an already vastly overmatched opponent.

I am afraid that the truth is the Iranian attempt to defend itself militarily will be less impactful than many anti-imperialists hope. The astonishing amounts of money spent by the US government on military and surveillance technology simply do have real-world effect.

Here in Venezuela, having seen the major sites struck by the US on 3 January, I have concluded that no act of betrayal was needed. Just overwhelming force and precision technology applied against a technologically unequal opponent whose key capabilities were all on open hilltops or in unhardened barracks.

Iran is much more militarily sophisticated, but facing exponentially more force. Khamenei was killed in his own home, not hiding away. He is going to prove a lot more powerful as a martyr than as a ruler with his internal critics.

We are facing not only a period of unapologetic imperialism to which virtually all Western countries are prepared to defer, but a return of medievalism, both in the sheer barbarity and scale of physical abuse, as witnessed in Gaza and in general Israeli brutality, and in use of kidnap and murder as methods of high policy. Legitimising the killing and kidnap of leaders of opposing states is of course a double-edged sword.

Having sanctioned genocide, mass killings and deliberate destruction of medical facilities and staff, the mass murder of children, as well as the kidnapping and murder of Heads of State, it is hard now to imagine almost any atrocity which the Western powers are in any moral position to condemn.

While Iran's military ability to strike back is limited, the ramifications of this attack will not be. The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have reverted to the norm of being not only reliable US and Israeli satraps, but promoters of atavistic hatred of Shia Muslims.

The West is deliberately exploiting the Shia/Sunni divide, as it has for centuries; but this will now destabilise the region for decades. Iraq in particular is going to be convulsed, and so will Pakistan. In Bahrain, the Shia population has been held in check by its Sunni rulers using systematic Western-sponsored murder and torture. Using it as a base to murder the Ayatollah is going to blow back.

It would appear that we are going to witness an aerial campaign to destroy Iran's civilian infrastructure, as in Iraq where 65% of clean drinking water, 50% of hospitals and clinics and 80% of electrical generation was destroyed by "liberation" by the NATO powers.

The object is the destruction of Iran as a viable state. 

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Britain's spiral down towards civil war is no accident

The Daily Sceptic | Michael Rainsborough

Having lived in Australia for the past three years, I sense that this country is the least advanced down the road towards the multicultural dystopia confronting much of Europe. That is not to say there is room for complacency: Australia has its own canaries in the coal mine, echoing trends observable across the Western world. Yet relative prosperity, firm immigration policies, a distinct welfare regime (mandatory health insurance, means tested pensions), a robust federal system, and above all a unique electoral framework of three-year cycles and compulsory voting all help, willy-nilly, to keep politicians on a short leash and broadly tethered to the popular will.

The greatest safeguard against social fracture and disintegration in Australia, however, is not institutional design but rather watching Britain implode in real time. Many Australians, still bound by ties of kinship and tradition to the old country, see in the United Kingdom both a cautionary tale and an anti-role model: a once-settled, relatively harmonious state busily teaching the world how to dismantle itself through the enthusiastic embrace of liberal dogma.

As an observer no longer resident in Britain, I am reluctant to pontificate on the fate of my homeland. Yet it is a sight to behold: an establishment seemingly bent on self-destruction, clinging to an incontinent immigration system and an almost devotional attachment to international and human rights laws that disadvantage its own citizens. The Epping hotel protests — complete with the Home Office's recourse to legal appeals — illustrate the point. No doubt the legal complexities are real, as David McGrogan rightly pointed out in these pages, but such manoeuvres only pour petrol on an already combustible national mood.  

One is left to wonder whether Britain's Labour Party, now so hopelessly enthralled by socially progressive ideology, will ever rediscover the ability to represent anything resembling national sentiment — or whether it will, like the Conservatives, simply perfect the art of political self-evisceration. 

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Graham Linehan arrested at Heathrow over his X posts

Comment: Another example of British tyranny with police arresting people for having the wrong opinions. Forget serious crime, trawling x feeds is a far better use of tax payers' money. A dangerous red flag for our immediate future. The Clown World continues...

BBC News

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to his posts on X.

He was arrested by five officers after arriving on a flight from the US, and said in an online Substack article that officials then became concerned for his health after taking his blood pressure, and took him to hospital.

The Metropolitan Police said that a man in his 50s was arrested on 1 September at Heathrow Airport and taken to hospital, adding his condition "is neither life-threatening nor life-changing" , and he was bailed "pending further investigation".

Linehan said in an online article on Substack that his bail condition stipulates he is "not to go on Twitter" and that his arrest related to three posts on X from April, on his views about challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".

The arrest prompted a furious backlash from figures including author JK Rowling.

Linehan shared screen shots of the posts he said he was arrested for on Substack, the subscription-based online platform.

The first post, from his X feed, called it a "violent, abusive act" for a trans-identified male to be in a female-only space. He suggested: "Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."

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Money laundering - Why the UK does not prosecute it

"Despite the UK’s rhetoric about wanting a “world-leading reputation for integrity” as a financial centre, it has never prosecuted a single company or bank for money laundering."

True Publica

A study by the CCP Research Foundation – which analyses banks’ so-called ‘conduct costs’ – revealed that the biggest 20 banks worldwide, including the biggest four in Britain, had paid or set aside £264 billion for fines in the five years to 2017. Britain’s biggest banks have paid out £71 billion for misconduct in the decade since the financial crisis. Much of these fines have related to money laundering but they were not prosecuted in the UK.

Lloyds is the bank that has suffered the heaviest penalties with at least £23.4 billion in conduct-related costs and write-offs since 2008.  RBS is second on the list. Its conduct and litigation costs since 2008, including amounts it has earmarked but not yet used, add up to £20.6 billion. The bailed-out bank also agreed to pay £3.6 billion to settle an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for misselling mortgage-backed securities – the bonds at the heart of the 2008 crisis in America.

RBS and Lloyds were bailed out when the financial crisis broke out to the tune of £45.5 billion and £20.3 billion respectively.

Barclays avoided a UK state bailout – but only by taking £12 billion what looks like illegal emergency funding from the state of Qatar. The Serious Fraud Office is involved.

HSBC has forked out nearly £10 billion in fines and other costs for its conduct since 2008.
In the last few weeks – Standard Chartered, the British bank has been ordered to pay $1.1bn (£842m) by US and UK authorities to settle allegations for breaching sanctions against countries including Iran.

But it doesn’t end there does it – it just keeps on going.

In 2019 alone, leaving aside Standard Chartered, the Financial Conduct Authority has dished out fines to the financial services sector at the rate of more than one a month. In total, to the 9th April, they have fined the industry or people in it collectively to the tune of £272,487,887.

What is interesting here is the missing link. British banks are world leaders in shovelling trillions into tax havens, most of it to evade taxation but a very good chunk of it is pure money laundering. 

Tyrants, despots, mass murderers, terrorists, traffickers – they are just as good a customer as any as far as the banks are concerned. Here, the British government and its toothless Financial Conduct Authority fail in every sense of the word. Money laundering through British tax haven islands and crown dependencies is something the state approves of – hence the lack of fines or punishment dished out for it.

Donald Toon, director at the National Crime Agency, admitted that money laundering in the UK was “a very big problem” and estimated that the amount of money laundered here each year has now risen to a staggering £150 billion. I would think that is on the light side.

Susan Hawley is Policy Director of Corruption Watch. She worked for six years at the Corner House on corruption issues, having previously worked in the policy team at Christian Aid on ethics and corruption issues. Here is her take, (originally published a year ago), on money laundering by British banks.

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UK Israel Lobby Adds Muscle as US Lobby Weakens

JonathanCook 
Jonathan-Cook.net 

For decades it was all but taboo to suggest that pro-Israel lobbies in the United States such as AIPAC used their money and influence to keep lawmakers firmly in check on Israel-related issues — even if one had to be blind not to notice that that was exactly what they were up to.

 

When back in February U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar pointed out the obvious – that U.S. lawmakers were routinely expected to submit to the lobby’s dictates on Israel, a foreign country – her colleagues clamored to distance themselves from her, just as one might have expected were the pro-Israel lobby to wield the very power Omar claimed.

But surprisingly Omar did not – at least immediately – suffer the crushing fate of those who previously tried to raise this issue. Although she was pressured into apologizing, she was not battered into complete submission for her honesty.

She received support on social media, as well as a wavering, muted defense from Democratic grandee Nancy Pelosi, and even a relatively sympathetic hearing from a few prominent figures in the U.S. Jewish community. 

The Benjamins Do Matter 

Omar’s comments have confronted – and started to expose – one of the most enduring absurdities in debates about U.S. politics. Traditionally it has been treated as anti-Semitic to argue that the pro-Israel lobby actually lobbies for its chosen cause – exactly as other major lobbies do, from the financial services industries to the health and gun lobbies – and that, as with other lobbies enjoying significant financial clout, it usually gets its way. 

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Jeremy Hunt is lying about Britain’s role in Yemen

Stop The War Coalition

In a recent Politico article Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary, has defended the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and The UAE. Arms that are often used in perpetuating Yemen’s civil war. Hunt claims the UK-Saudi relationship ‘Helps us influence their leaders’ toward peaceful resolution. In reality, Britain’s supply of arms only feeds the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The multi Billion pound Al Yamamah (The Dove) arms deal provides Saudi Arabia with 25% of its arms imports for use fighting Houthi forces in Yemen. As the second largest arms supplier to the Saudi led coalition Britain is culpable in its infamous war crimes. Such atrocities have included bombing a wedding party killing 20 civilians; bombing a funeral killing 140 civilians and wounding 600 more; and even an air attack on a school bus leaving 40 Yemeni children dead. British firm BAE systems provides the typhoon jets used for this type of air to surface attacks. No wonder that the UK wouldn’t back a UN investigation into Saudi war crimes.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis have been killed in the conflict, and millions more displaced. Combined with mass starvation and a cholera epidemic Yemen is now the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. 

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Rogue State? – Britain Railing Against International Norms and Laws

truepublica.org.uk

Leaving aside Britain’s past, most particularly that of empire, the country is not just continually moving towards authoritarianism it is beginning to demonstrate all the early signs of a rogue state. These are strong words but the actual definition of a rogue state is – “a nation or state regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations.” Examples such as the illegal invasion of Iraq, Syria and latterly Libya are very clear. Irrespective of the technicalities, they all broke the rules of International laws or norms. But other examples demonstrate how lawless Britain as a state really is.

Chagos

Here, an entire population were forcibly removed from their island homeland at British gunpoint to make way for a US Air Force nuclear base, the people were dumped destitute over a thousand miles away, their domestic animals gassed by the British army, their homes fired and then demolished. To achieve this, Britain maliciously threatened the Mauritian government into ceding the Chagos Islands as a condition of its Independence.

Recently, the International Court of Justice found that the British occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful by a majority of 13 to 1. Britain rejected this ruling.

Ex British ambassador Craig Murray wrote – “this represents a serious escalation in the UK’s rejection of multilateralism and international law and a move towards joining the US model of exceptionalism, standing outside the rule of international law. As such, it is arguably the most significant foreign policy development for generations. In the Iraq war, while Britain launched war without UN Security Council authority, it did so on a tenuous argument that it had Security Council authority from earlier resolutions. The UK was therefore not outright rejecting the international system. On Chagos it is now simply denying the authority of the International Court of Justice; this is utterly unprecedented.”

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An Al Jazeera Reporter Went Undercover with the Pro-Israel Lobby In Washington

The Intercept

Britain’s broadcasting regulator on Monday concluded that Al Jazeera did not violate any rules in its controversial undercover investigation exposing the Israeli embassy’s campaign to target British citizens critical of Israel, a campaign that included attempts to destroy the careers of pro-Palestinian British politicians.

The move by the communications regulator, known as Ofcom, clears the way for a follow-up documentary focused on Israeli influence in the United States, the existence of which has previously been suspected but had yet to be made public. Clayton Swisher, director of investigative journalism for the Al Jazeera Media Network, confirmed it on Monday to The Intercept. The goal of the British complaint may partly have been to delay publication of the follow-up American version, he said. “At the very same time [as the London investigation]–and we can safely reveal this now–we had an undercover operative working in tandem in Washington, DC. With this UK verdict and vindication past us, we can soon reveal how the Israel lobby in America works through the eyes of an undercover reporter,” he said.

The four-part series “The Lobby” dug into the Israeli embassy in London, as well as several other pro-Israel lobby groups, and their campaign to “take down” British Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan. 

The investigation led to the resignation of a top Israeli official in London, as well as a high-profile complaint that Al Jazeera had broken broadcasting regulations in the United Kingdom. One of the complaints charged the investigation with anti-Semitism, but the government board ruled that imputing such a motive to a film critical of Israel would be akin to calling a series on gang violence racist. 

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London Police Ink Shadowy Deal with Industry on Website Takedowns

EFF

 

We've previously highlighted how payment service providers like Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and others go beyond the law to isolate and effectively censor websites that infringe their sometimes arbitrary standards. This has resulted in websites that provide information on sexuality, pharmaceuticals, or whistleblowing, suddenly finding themselves cut off from their sources of funding, and left with no clear recourse.

How RogueBlock Works

One of the other reasons why websites can find themselves losing payment services is if they are accused of being associated with the sale of goods that infringe copyright, patents, or trademarks. One program used to accomplish this is a shadowy agreement between the payment processors and the private International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) called RogueBlock.

In what the IACC euphemistically describes as a "streamlined, simplified" process, it notifies the payment companies that a website allegedly offers goods that infringe a trademark, patent, or copyright, and encourages them to suspend their payment services to that website, usually without any court judgment verifying the allegation.1 The RogueBlock program is self-described as having been "highly encouraged and supported" by the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. Encouragement (and tacit pressure) from government is typical of these private enforcement arrangements, deals that EFF describes as Shadow Regulation.

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UK child poverty hits highest level since 2008 financial crisis

The Independent

The number of child in poverty has risen by 100,000 over the past year, new Government figures reveal. 

The numbers, released a week after a Budget in which the issue was not mentioned once, show 30 per cent of children are now classed as being in relative poverty.

A total of four million children are now in families struggling to make ends meet, the worst figures since the financial crisis.

And the overall number of people in poverty in Britain has risen to 10.4 million, the highest level this decade.

The news comes amid Tory cuts to working-age benefits, which the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) warns will affect millions more children by 2022. 

In 2015 the Government moved to scrap its legally binding child poverty target. It no longer officially recognises household income statistics as a measurement of child poverty.

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Brexit increasing tensions in Franco-German relations

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation

Berlin and Paris have long been seen as the main political drivers for the European Union project. When Britain voted last month to quit the 28-member bloc, it was German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande to whom the leadership role beckoned for rallying a 'united Europe' and defending the core concept of the EU.

However, this circling of wagons by the EU's top two nations is prone to debilitating competing nationalist interests. And those diverging interests will tend to undermine the much-heralded unity of purpose between Berlin and Paris. What we can expect, in the aftermath of the Brexit, is increasing tensions between Germany and France that could, in turn, lead to further fracturing of the EU.

Already a notable divergence of positions has emerged. When Britain's new Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May embarked on her first foreign visit last week she was scheduled to meet Chancellor Merkel in Berlin, followed the next day by a reception with President Hollande at the Élysée Palace, Paris. May had to wait until the evening on the second day to be received by Hollande who had earlier that same day gone on an official visit to the Republic of Ireland. His strange absence looked like Hollande was sending the British leader a sly snub.

More substantively was the contrasting German and French positions on the Brexit process. The British premier had announced that there would be no formal commencement of Britain's departure from the EU until early next year. Britain, said May, needed to formulate suitable economic terms with the EU before it would sign Article 50 of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, thus triggering the exit process.

On this delayed departure from the EU by Britain, the German chancellor appeared to be in comfortable agreement with her British counterpart. Merkel said she understood the importance for Britain to obtain economic matters in order.

By contrast, Hollande reportedly adopted a much more vexed attitude, demanding 'the sooner the better' Britain leaves the EU. While the French president appeared to soften his hardline stance on meeting May, he nevertheless continued to express his government's frustration with Britain. Speaking alongside the British leader, Hollande said that Britain cannot continue to avail of the single market while imposing restrictions on freedom of movement.
This differing position between Berlin and Paris towards the Brexit was apparent immediately following the British referendum result. The French have been pushing a policy for more abrupt termination in Britain's membership of the EU compared with the Germans.

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Brexit, Globalization and the Bankruptcy of the Globalist “Left”

Takis Fotopoulos
Global Research

(First published by global Research in April 2016)

The June referendum on whether Britain will remain a member of the EU or not is in fact the second referendum on the issue. The British people was asked again to vote on the same issue some 40 years ago, in 1975, when they had to decide on whether to stay in the “Common Market” (the precursor of the present EU) or not. At that time, the Left was not yet integrated into the New World Order (NWO) of neoliberal globalization expressing the interests of multinational corporations, which were just emerging en masse.

This was reflected in the fact that not only the antisystemic Left but also the Left of the Labor party under the leadership of Tony Benn was fighting for a British exit. Today, Benn’s son is one of the strongest opponents of Brexit and supporter of all the wars by the Transnational Elite (TE) i.e. the network of economic and political elites based mainly in the G7 countries, which effectively rules the world today. In fact, the entire Labor party and the Trade Unions controlled by it are now against Brexit, apart from a handful of its members in Parliament. So, what has changed since 1975? Has the EU moved to the Left, or is it the other way round, i.e. the Left is today theoretically and politically bankrupt and has been fully integrated into the NWO of neoliberal globalization?

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UK dropped charges against two alleged terrorists when it was determined Govt. supported the same terrorist groups in Syria

Uprooted Palestinian's Blog

Terror trial collapses after fears of deep embarrassment to security
SEE ALSO Putin warned Cameron about arming Syrian terrorists
Syrian archbishop exposes the UK’s support for Syrian terrorists
I think we already knew this, UK Government supporting some Jihadis in Syria

Swedish national Bherlin Gildo’s lawyers argued British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was

The prosecution of a Swedish national accused of terrorist activities in Syria has collapsed at the Old Bailey after it became clear Britain’s security and intelligence agencies would have been deeply embarrassed had a trial gone ahead, the Guardian can reveal.
His lawyers argued that British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army.

Moazzam Begg: ‘I’m not a fighter’ – extended interview 

Mr Begg was charged with terrorist offences, including attending a jihadi training camp, following two trips he made to Syria between 2012 and 2013.

And yet before he went, he had met with MI5 officers and discussed his plans. Speaking to me at his home in Birmingham, Mr Begg told me the security services had given him the “green light to go.” The meeting was documented by lawyers for both parties.
A year after his trip to Syria, during which time he had freely visited other countries, he was arrested and charged with seven counts under the terrorism act. Why did the security services fail to tell West Midlands Police about their meeting with him? It is understood that the force and prosecutors were furious at the late disclosure, with the CPS issuing a terse statement saying: “If we had been made aware of all of this information at the time of charging, we would not have charged.”

But Mr Begg told me he believes this was not the only reason his case was dropped. The 46-year-old believes it would also have raised uncomfortable questions about government policy on Syria and why not all Britons who go to fight there should be criminalised.

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Diary of the Damned

 

Daily Mail

Never seen before, a lost diary of the Great War so brutally vivid you'll feel YOU are there in the trenches


After volunteering as an Army private following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, former grammar-school boy Harry Drinkwater, 25, joined a ‘Pals battalion’ — so-called because the men were encouraged to join up with local friends and work colleagues.

A few months later, his conversion from Stratford-upon-Avon shop assistant to soldier was complete. 

In this extract from his remarkable diary – which it was strictly against the rules to keep and which has been published for the first time – Harry writes about his brutal introduction to the trenches at the Somme in Picardie, Northern France…

Thursday, December 16, 1915

Arrived in [the hamlet of] Suzanne today, after a very hard march. We’re billeted in tents, 12 men in each, encamped between the enemy and our own heavy guns.

At night-time, one sees little slits of light shining from the tents on the puddles of water outside, which give the impression of a fairy land.

Rolling into our blankets, we occasionally hear the ‘splash, splash’ as some fellow moves from one tent to another, or the plod of the sentry. Plus the continual shriek of shells.
Tomorrow we go into the trenches. I wonder what sort of a show we will make.

Sunday, December 19

No words can adequately describe the conditions. It’s not the Germans we’re fighting, but the weather. Within an hour of moving off, we were up to our knees in mud and water.
The mud gradually got deeper as we advanced along the trench.

We hadn’t gone far before we had to duck; the enemy were sending over their evening salute of shells.

To move forward, I had to use both elbows for leverage, one each side of the trench. After about one and a half hours of this, we reached the firing line. Later, I groped my way to our dugout. What a sight.

Imagine a room underneath the ground, whose walls are slimy with moisture. The floor is a foot or more deep in rancid-smelling mud.

Monday, December 20

The trenches are in a terrible condition — anything up to 4ft deep in mud and water. We’re plastered in mud up to our faces. 

Our food – cold bacon, bread and jam – is slung together in a sack that hangs from the dripping dugout roof. Consequently, we eat and drink mud.

Tuesday, December 21

Heavy bombardment at about 11am. Heard a fearful crash. The next dugout to ours blown to blazes, and our physical drill instructor Sergeant Horton with it.

I helped dig him out. But before we could get him anywhere, he’d departed this life – our first experience of death. I’m tired out, sick of everything.

Saturday, December 25

After five days in the trenches, we’re thankful we can still walk.  I’ve had approximately an hour’s sleep a day – always standing up.

Often, when from sheer exhaustion I doze off, I’m awakened by a fat squeaking rat on my shoulder or feel it running over my head.

Most of the rations fail to arrive – because the communication trenches are water-logged and being continually shelled. We eat with hands caked in mud, which has caused many cases of acute dysentery.

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The Golden Rule Of State Violence: Terrorism Is What They Do; Counterterrorism Is What We Do

Media Lens

A defining feature of state power is rhetoric about a ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ role in world affairs. Errors of judgement, blunders and tactical mistakes can, and do, occur. But the motivation underlying state policy is fundamentally benign. Reporters and commentators, trained or selected for professional ‘reliability’, tend to slavishly adopt this prevailing ideology.

Thus, on the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an editorial in the Independent on Sunday gushed about ‘Bush's desire to spread democracy as an end in itself’. It was, the paper said, ‘the germ of a noble idea’. There was  ‘an idealism’ about Blair’s support for Bush. The drawback was that the execution of the righteous vision had been ‘naive, arrogant and morally compromised by torture and the abrogation of the very values for which the US-led coalition claimed to fight’.

But now we have Nato’s ‘successful’ mission in Libya to help wipe the slate clean. The paper writes that ‘the deserts of North Africa ... turned out to be more fertile soil for democracy than could have been imagined.’ Libya is the great cause ‘where the idea of liberal intervention could be rescued and to an extent redeemed from the terrible mistake of Iraq.’

Note that the invasion-occupation of Iraq is described as a ‘mistake’, not the supreme international crime as judged by the standards of the post-WW2 Nuremberg Trials.

The horrendous murder of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian, by British soldiers ‘was a reminder of how much the Iraq war tarnished Britain's reputation abroad.’ The implication is that Britain’s ‘reputation’ is fundamentally decent, only occasionally ‘tarnished’.

The paper concludes:

‘there is a hope that Britain, with a more realistic understanding of its capability, could regain some of the ethical role in the world that it lost after its mistaken response to 9/11.’

In the wake of all that has happened in the past ten years (and more), it takes a committed form of self-deception to cling to the shredded image of Britain’s ‘ethical role in the world’.

In several powerful books, based on careful research of formerly secret UK government documents, historian Mark Curtis has laid bare the motivations and realpolitik of British foreign policy. Ethics and morality are notable in these internal state records by their absence. Curtis observes:

‘a basic principle is that humanitarian concerns do not figure at all in the rationale behind British foreign policy. In the thousands of government files I have looked through for this and other books, I have barely seen any reference to human rights at all. Where such concerns are evoked, they are only for public-relations purposes.’ (Unpeople, Vintage, 2004, p. 3)

But the myth of benevolence must be maintained, even to the extent of active deception of the British public:

 ‘in every case I have ever researched on past British foreign policy, the files show that ministers and officials have systematically misled the public. The culture of lying to and misleading the electorate is deeply embedded in British policy-making.’ (Ibid., p. 3)

In his political work, Noam Chomsky often cites a definition of terrorism from a US army manual as:

‘the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear.’

By this definition, Chomsky points out, the major source of international terrorism is the West, notably the United States.

As for Britain, Curtis says:

‘The idea that Britain is a supporter of terrorism is an oxymoron in the mainstream political culture, as ridiculous as suggesting that Tony Blair should be indicted for war crimes. Yet state-sponsored terrorism is by far the most serious category of terrorism in the world today, responsible for far more deaths in many more countries than the "private" terrorism of groups like Al Qaida. Many of the worst offenders are key British allies. Indeed, by any rational consideration, Britain is one of the leading supporters of terrorism in the world today. But this simple fact is never mentioned in the mainstream political culture.’ (Web of Deceit, Vintage, 2003, p. 94)

In Unpeople, Curtis estimates the number of deaths in the post-WW2 period for which Britain bears significant responsibility, whether directly or indirectly. He tabulates mortality estimates for all the wars and conflicts in which Britain participated or otherwise played a significant role, for example in covert operations or diplomatic support for other governments’ violence. The examples include: war in Malaya (1948-1960), war in Kenya (1952-1960), the Shah’s regime in Iran (1953-1979), Indonesian army slaughters (1965-1966), the Indonesian invasion of East Timor (1975), US aggression in Latin America (1980s), the Falklands War (1982), the bombing of Yugoslavia (1999), the bombing of Afghanistan (2001) and the invasion of Iraq (2003).

As Curtis acknowledges, estimates of deaths in any conflict often vary widely and he does not pretend to be offering a ‘fully scientific analysis’. But erring on the side of caution, he arrives at a figure of around ten million deaths in the post-war period for which Britain bears ‘significant responsibility.’ Of these, Britain has ‘direct responsibility’ for between four and six million deaths. These are shocking figures, and essentially unmentionable in corporate news and debate.

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UK Training Saudi Forces Used to Crush Arab Spring

Via: Guardian:

Britain is training Saudi Arabia's national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom's human rights record is "a major concern".

In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in "weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training". The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.

The MoD response, obtained yesterday by the Observer, reveals that Britain sends up to 20 training teams to the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for "all BMM personnel, as well as support costs such as accommodation and transport".

Bahrain's royal family used 1,200 Saudi troops to help put down demonstrations in March. At the time the British government said it was "deeply concerned" about reports of human rights abuses being perpetrated by the troops.

"Britain's important role in training the Saudi Arabian national guard in internal security over many years has enabled them to develop tactics to help suppress the popular uprising in Bahrain," said Nicholas Gilby of the Campaign Against Arms Trade. ...