Activists to continue fight against UK drone secrecy
Press TV – October 31, 2013
Campaigners have vowed to continue fighting for greater transparency over the use of deadly British drones overseas despite losing an appeal calling for the UK involvement to be disclosed.
Anti-drone campaigners said they would pursue an end to the “culture of secrecy” surrounding London’s drone attacks in Afghanistan.
This came after the Information Tribunal agreed the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) refusal to reveal information on the deployment of remote- controlled unmanned warfare in the Asian country.
The appeal body said that the MoD can withhold basic details about its drone strikes in Afghanistan.
“The MOD referred to the disclosure of the requested information as involving ‘risk to life and limb’, the Commissioner used the phrase ‘life and death,’” the ruling stated.
However, strategy director of legal charity Reprieve Cori Crider described the ruling as “disappointing”, saying “the US-UK drone wars must be brought out of the shadows.”
“We know that the UK is closely involved in supporting the CIA in carrying out these illegal strikes, yet they are still refusing to come clean,” Crider said.
Recently, it was revealed that the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) assassination drones, used in missions over Afghanistan, are controlled from British soil for the first time.
The MoD confirmed that its new aircraft, known as XIII Squadron, started flying missions over Afghanistan earlier in April from RAF Waddington base in Lincolnshire.
According to media reports, Britain has spent more than £2 billion over the last five years, developing its unethical assassination drones.
The deployment of assassination drones by the US and its allies has led to deaths of at least hundreds of innocent civilians, including many women and children, in the Middle East.
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UK drone strikes violate international law: legal opinion piece
Press TV – June 8, 2013
Britain’s operating of killer drones in Afghanistan may be violating the international law, a legal firm representing peace campaigners has argued in an opinion piece.
The legal opinion by Public Interest Lawyers argues that the use of killer drones in Afghanistan is a breach of the international law under the European Convention for Human Rights (ECHR).
The document says that the ECHR’s article 2 requires the governments to use “no more [force] than absolutely necessary” during conflicts.
“Only when it is absolutely necessary to kill someone rather than arrest/disable them will the use of drones be lawful. And even then, drones may only be used for … self defence under 2(2)(c),” it says.
According to the Public Interest Lawyers, this means that the ECHR obliges Britain to the use of killer drones only in “situations in which there is an immediate threat to life” that “prevents the carrying out of ‘targeted killings’ and narrowly circumscribes their use even on ‘the battlefield'”.
“There is therefore a strong presumption that the UK’s drones programme is in breach of international law,” it adds.
The British Ministry of Defense announced back in April that they are operating killer drones in Afghanistan by remote-pilots from RAF Waddington base in Lincolnshire.
The ministry claims its operations are in accordance with applicable international humanitarian law.
This comes as drone attacks normally come with extreme “collateral damage” to the civilian population even when taking the American and British claims that they are targeting terrorists by terror drones as true.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed the remote-controlled killer drones strikes on various parts of Afghanistan over the past years.
Civilians’ casualties have triggered widespread protests against killer drone attacks in the Asian country with the Afghan government repeatedly calling for an end to the deadly assaults.
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Charities condemn switching foreign aid to military
Press TV – May 2, 2013
UK charities have criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron for signaling that the foreign aid budget could be diverted to the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Leading British charity against global poverty Oxfam reacted angrily after Cameron hinted Britain’s foreign aid budget could be spent on the country’s military adventures.
“The Prime Minister needs to be categorical that not one penny of aid can be raided by the MoD”, said Oxfam spokesperson Emma Seery, emphasizing that Britain must stick to his commitment.
Ben Jackson of Bond, representing 350 British aid groups and trustees, also condemned the decision to divert foreign aid budget to military and said, “There are strict definitions of aid that clearly preclude it from being spent on military equipment.”
Earlier in February, Cameron indicated that he is ready to divert aid budget to military.
The British PM said the Department for International Development works closely with both the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Defense, adding that foreign interventions to prove a “basic level of stability and security” would be part of Britain’s “foreign aid”.
The decision to divert foreign aid to military seems primarily aimed at pacifying members of Cameron’s own Conservative Party, who oppose the prospect of cuts to the country’s military budget.
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British soldiers in Afghanistan accused of killing four Afghan boys
Press TV – December 5, 2012
British forces in Afghanistan have been accused of killing four boys in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand in October.
According to a report published by the Guardian on Tuesday, a group of lawyers recently sent a letter to British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, demanding that the UK government investigate the alleged killings.
The lawyers, acting on behalf of the relatives of two of the victims, said that during an operation in the village of Loi Bagh in the Nad Ali district of Helmand on October 18, the UK troops shot dead the Afghan boys while they were drinking tea.
The victims were identified as 18-year-old Fazel Mohammed, Naik Mohammed, 16, Mohammed Tayeb, 14, and 12-year-old Ahmed Shah.
The British troops were on a joint operation with Afghan forces.
“We submit that all of the victims were under the control and authority of the UK at the times of the deaths and ill-treatment,” the letter to Hammond read.
“The four boys killed all appear to have been deliberately targeted at close range by British forces. All were killed in a residential area, over which UK forces clearly had the requisite degree of control and authority.”
Major Adam Wojack, a spokesperson for the foreign forces in Afghanistan, has confirmed the operation. However, he has claimed that four “Taliban enemies in action” were killed.
The letter also includes a statement by the relatives of the victims, rejecting “any suggestion that any of the four teenagers killed were in any way connected” to the Taliban. “All four were innocent teenagers who posed no threat whatsoever to Afghan or British forces.”
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- British forces accused of killing four teenagers in Afghan operation (guardian.co.uk)
UK Former General Greases Skids for $1-Billion Helicopter Deal Benefiting Israel’s Elbit Systems
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | October 16, 2012
Elbit Systems is one of Israel’s largest defense contractors, something like Lockheed, General Dynamics and Boeing rolled into one. It has its tentacles in virtually every high-tech weapons system developed by and for the IDF. Like its American counterparts, it also has an extensive overseas customer base to whom it exports those weapons it’s developed for the IDF.
The Times of London has just broken a massive story detailing a secret lobbying campaign that brought Elbit a large share of a $1-billion helicopter contract awarded by the House of Commons. The campaign was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. Richard Applegate, former chief of army procurement. The details are so jaw-dropping, I’ll quote extensively from the article:
He boasted how he had pulled off a coup in a covert political lobbying campaign which had secured 500m for the benefit of his Israeli arms company client.
Applegate…admitted he had applied pressure by “infecting the system at every level” using politicians and former colleagues still serving in the forces.
…He…confided that he had persuaded MPs to ask questions in the Commons and arranged for the chairman of the defence select committee to raise the issue with the defense secretary in a move to shame the government into releasing the funds.
Applegate was pushing for an increase in MoD spending on helicopter safety systems, believing it would benefit Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms company he chairs in the UK.
The MoD earmarked 500m in June after months of lobbying by Applegate. He said he expected a substantial portion of the cash to trickle down to Elbit through the military supply chain.
Boasting about his success…he said: “There was no programme, there was no money and we had been sidelined. There is now a programme, there is now money and we have the ability to win and grow.”
He confided that he used Westminster Connection, a discreet lobbying firm with Israeli links as a “firebreak” to ensure “that my fingerprints weren’t over any of it.” It could gain access to anyone “from the prime minister down.” He said the firm, based in Victoria and co-owned by Scott Hamilton, a former Conservative staffer, had used links with Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) to persuade MPs in the Commons to assist in his campaign.
The lobbying firm mentioned is co-owned by two leading Conservative staffers, one of whom, Stuart Polak, has been the director of CFI since 1989. The Jewish Chronicle lists him as one of the top 100 most influential Jews in the UK. He has led more than 50 such missions to Israel as the two mentioned in the passage above. So we can see that these junkets not only bring political benefit to Israel and its UK agenda, but they also can bring huge financial and trade benefits as well.
The Times expose notes that two well-connected MPs carried water for the project, asking pointed questions on the floor and in committee. These members of parliament were sent to Israel by CFI on two separate junkets during which they visited the Elbit headquarters and were briefed on its UK projects.
I hate to say it but Applegate’s full court press makes Aipac look like pikers by comparison:
The former procurement chief claimed his lobbying campaigns operate “at every level,” so by the time he had inspired a minister to ask his advisers about an issue they [the adviser] had been prepped to give the right answer. “I like the minister to be asking the questions [of] the person down here who’s his expert. The expert knows about it, is comfortable with it and you know in terms of, if he doesn’t like it, you make sure he’s no longer the expert…and you position someone else in there to give a different story.”
The entire campaign is one of breathtaking cynicism, but also breathtaking ambition and precision. You have to hand it to Applegate and Elbit. They show you how a master lobbyist does his job. In fact, when he retires Applegate should write a book about it. It would be bound to become the lobbyists’ bible.
Unfortunately, the Times story doesn’t outline Applegate’s direct financial stake in the Elbit deal. Given that it involved $1-billion and a substantial portion would eventually flow to the Israeli arms dealer, one has to assume that the former general would himself earn a substantial fee. How much we don’t know.
In case anyone wonders whether such a system of legalized graft works in Israel, it certainly does. Every retired general joins an Israeli arms or security consulting company. Ehud Barak managed to become a millionaire several times over after he became a private citizen. Even Meir Dagan joined two such U.S. based companies on his retirement.
Unlike the other UK generals caught in the Times sting, Applegate is the only one who hasn’t lost his job. That’s because he was the only one working for an Israeli firm. The others made the mistake of working for UK defense contractors who have to consider the appearance of matters described in the expose. Elbit has no such compunctions. You’ll never hear about the wheeling and dealing it engages in around the world because such shenanigans are accepted and even embraced in the security Wild West that Israel has become.
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UK’s nuclear test victims to sue government
Press TV – June 17, 2012
Thousands of veterans of Britain’s atomic and hydrogen bomb tests are to take the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to the European Court of Human Rights, accusing it of exposing them to radiation.
Over 1,000 victims of UK’s nuclear tests, which were carried out in the South Pacific in the 1950s, will ask Europe to intervene, as the British premier David Cameron ignores the terms of the Military Covenant and courts ban hearings into their cases.
Servicemen, who were ordered to witness nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific, have since suffered cancers and rare medical conditions, with their children suffering from leukemia and birth defects.
Describing the news as “brilliant,” widow Shirley Denson, whose RAF ace husband was ordered to fly through mushroom clouds at Christmas Island in 1958, said, “This is one of our final chances to appeal for the right to present our case.”
“We have tried for 30 years to be heard, and every time the MoD has denied there is anything wrong with us. Now we have vital scientific evidence, and they say we have left it too late,” she added.
Earlier on May, Britain’s former Prime Minister Gordon Brown also criticized the MoD for trying to evade its responsibility for cleaning up the radioactive waste contamination from old military bases and factories.
According to a survey conducted by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), the number of contaminated sites across England and Wales was far higher than previously estimated.
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- Nuclear waste ‘may be blighting 1,000 UK sites’ (kractivist.wordpress.com)
- Mustard gas scare hits Scottish RAF base (guardian.co.uk)
Toby Harnden’s anti-war book wins Orwell Prize for political writing
Press TV – May 26, 2012
An anti-war book, once pulped by the UK Ministry of Defense, has won the Orwell Prize for political writing by the judges’ unanimous vote.
Dead Men Risen by Toby Harnden is about the death of British officer Lt Colonel Rupert Thorneloe in Afghanistan in 2009.
The book “takes us into the hearts and minds of the Welsh Guards in a way that is both interesting and visceral,” the judges said.
“It challenges every citizen of this country to examine exactly what we’re asking soldiers to do in Afghanistan,” the panel continued.
“Rather than offering easy answers it lets the soldiers speak for themselves.”
The book was published by Quercus in amended form after the MoD bought the entire first print run and destroyed them.
Since the start of the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, 412 British service personnel have been killed.
Britain has more than 9,000 troops stationed in the war-torn country.
Founded by Bernard Crick in 1993, the Orwell Prize is considered the pre-eminent British prize for political writing which honors a writer, a journalist and a blogger each year.
Winners are short-listed entries which come closest to English novelist and journalist George Orwell’s own ambition to “make political writing into an art.”
Britain’s MoD uses torture systematically
Press TV – September 9, 2011
Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has decided to shake off allegations of systematic abuse at any cost, as hard evidence corroborates the British Army’s use of torture techniques.
The findings of an inquiry into the death of an Iraqi civilian at the hands of British soldiers has sparked widespread criticism, even condemnation, of the treatment of Iraqi detainees by British soldiers.
Baha Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, was detained when soldiers from the First Battalion of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment in the Iraqi city of Basra raided the hotel at which he worked. Two days later, Mousa died while in British Army custody.
The MoD was optimistic about the findings of the inquiry into Mousa’s death trying to bypass any allegations of systematic torture. Nevertheless, as the MoD tries in vain to persuade the public that its detention policies have undergone systematic reforms, analysts have come up with evidence that contradicts any such claims.
A high profile British human rights lawyer, Phil Shiner, has provided several reasons supporting the systematic use of torture and abuse in the British military during the Iraq war.
First, Shiner asserts that the detention policies, which involved torture and abuse, were not restricted to just one battle group, namely 1QLR, as he states that such practices were common, at least, at 14 UK facilities over the period between March 2003 and December 2008.
Shiner asserts that the set of techniques and practices included “unbelievably debased sexual behaviour, mock executions, vicious threats of rape of detainees’ female relatives, and systematic use of hooding, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, temperature manipulation and solitary confinement for weeks.”
Second, Shiner says that the shameful techniques and practices were systematically taught, as the Joint Forward Intelligence Team was the mastermind behind the techniques used by British troops.
Furthermore, as the British Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, refused to accept a key finding of the inquiry, Shiner is of the opinion that the MoD has no intention of implementing the “73 carefully measured recommendations” made by the chairman of Mousa’s inquiry, Sir William Gage.
Shiner predicts that the MoD “will continue to hide damaging documents, mislead our courts, run unworthy legal arguments and use its mighty coercive power to keep the public in the dark, not just about Iraq but also Afghanistan.”
More importantly, Shiner argues that the MoD still approves the very same shameful techniques employed by interrogators in Iraq, though Sir William has severely criticised such practices. Forcing a person or two into a sandbag, harshing, and hooding are techniques that are still used by the MoD.
Video Report
Press TV News/Analysis on September 8, 2011
What do Baha Mousa, Ian Tomlinson, Smiley Culture and Mark Dugan have in common? They are people who have died because of tactics used by UK police and in Baha Mousa’s case, British soldiers, why are “unlawful killings” as they are called taking place in the first place? Whether inside Britain or in war zones, it has put the spotlight on UK’s disproportionate and excessive use of force, as was evident in the recent unrest in the UK.
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From the Archives
Is this a War?
Resetting the relationship between The State and The Citizen
LIES ARE UNBEKOMING | NOVEMBER 6, 2021
I’ve been wondering for quite some time about whether we are in a War and the resolution of my thoughts on the subject has recently improved.
Oddly enough, I have some standing on the subject.
I lived in Iraq between 1981 to 1991, a period that covered almost all of the Iraq/Iran War and all of the Gulf War, the original, not the sequels.
It was an old school type of war, with two parties fighting over territory and trying to redraw a border. A lot of people died over 8 years and the border stayed the same. But weapons were sold, and internal power was consolidated.
That’s really what war is about, territory. You have something that I want, and I will fight you for it.
So, if this is a war, who are the warring parties and what is the fight over?
The war is between “the state” and “the citizen”. The latter is YOU and ME… continue
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