Public bodies in Britain are to be prevented from boycotting “unethical” goods, such as those from illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, under a plan expected to be announced later Monday, local media reported.
Publicly funded institutions such as local municipalities and universities will face “stiff penalties” if they bar products from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco or West Bank settlements, The Independent newspaper reported, citing ministers.
The proposals – due to be announced by Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock – are being put forward on the grounds that bans on products are harming community relations and fuelling anti-Semitism.
“The new guidance on procurement combined with changes we are making to how pension pots can be invested will help prevent damaging and counter-productive local foreign policies undermining our national security,” Hancock told The Independent.
Some public bodies around the U.K. have refused to buy goods from Israeli settlements in recent years and they would have to reverse those decisions under the plans.
In Leicester, a city in the East Midlands, elected officials agreed in 2014 that the municipality would not buy settlement produce. That year the devolved government in Scotland issued a notice discouraging trade and investment with settlements by Scottish councils.
The government’s plan was criticized as an attack on local democracy.
Amnesty International’s Economic Relations Program Director Peter Frankental said the proposal could encourage human rights abuses.
“All public bodies should assess the social and environment impacts of any company with whom they choose to enter into business relationships,” he told The Independent. “Where’s the incentive for companies to ensure there are no human rights violations such as slavery in their supply chains, when public bodies cannot hold them to account by refusing to award them contracts?”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights — lands occupied by Israel in 1967 — are considered illegal by the international community and a major impediment to peace with Palestinians.
February 15, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Human rights, Israel, Israeli settlement, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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A schoolboy has been questioned by anti-terrorism police because he wore a “Free Palestine” badge to school, The Independent newspaper reported.
Rahmaan Mohammadi’s teachers at Challney High School for Boys in Luton referred him to police under Prevent – the controversial government anti-radicalisation programme.
The pupil was also wearing pro-Palestine badges and wristbands. He had previously requested permission to fundraise for children affected by the Israeli occupation.
Mohammadi said he had previously been warned by police not to talk about Palestine in school, and claimed that staff members approached his 14-year-old brother and pressured him to tell him to “stop being radical”.
February 15, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia | Human rights, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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US and NATO officials are “very anxious” about Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, specifically the Labour Party leader’s aim to scrap the UK’s four Trident-armed submarines, as well as his “support for Russia.”
According to a senior government source asked by The Independent on Sunday, foreign diplomats had voiced fears about Jeremy Corbyn’s agenda to pave way for nuclear disarmament, and also his settled approach towards NATO-Russia relations.
In August 2015, Corbyn, then the left-wing frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, used the 70th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima to declare that if he were prime minster he would not replace the Trident nuclear weapons system and would get rid of nuclear weapons entirely.
“Britain should accept that such weapons are impossible to use with any guarantee of safety and we should scrap plans for renewing the Trident nuclear [defense] system, freeing up £100 billion to spend on our national wellbeing,” said his policy paper, entitled “Plan for Defense Diversification.”
Speaking to the Independent, former NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson confirmed that there was “a great deal of nervousness” among the alliance’s members, who see Britain’s nuclear capabilities as a security guarantee.
“It’s coming from the Americans, but other countries too. People forget that the British deterrent, as well as the American deterrent, is committed to NATO.”
In a clear intervention in domestic UK politics, Lord Robertson said that Corbyn’s policies would damage Labour’s chances of winning the next general election in 2020, because of the party’s “increasingly radical stance” on defense and security issues, The Telegraph reported.
His comments came after Labour MP Madeleine Moon, also a member of the House of Commons defense select committee, told a private party meeting she was approached by NATO diplomats in Washington.
“So many delegates wanted to speak to me about the Labour Party and the stance we are taking on NATO and Trident. They were very, very anxious,” she said.
Countries in Eastern Europe rely heavily on the nuclear deterrent the UK has, Moon said, and they are “nervous about what they are hearing,” citing “much more assertive, aggressive and belligerent Russia.”
Corbyn is a long-standing advocate of peace and nuclear disarmament, saying in one of his interviews that opposing violence and war has been “the whole purpose of his life.” As chair of the Stop the War Coalition, he campaigned vigorously against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2014, when the Ukrainian crisis unfolded, he wrote an article in the Morning Star, arguing that the main cause of the war was rooted in “the US drive to expand eastwards.”
A year later, when NATO-Russia dialogue deteriorated, he told parliament that “there would be a better chance of reaching some kind of agreement with Russia if there was a clearer statement that NATO does not intend to expand into Ukraine, and that in return Russia should withdraw from its border regions.”
The latest YouGov poll suggests that Corbyn’s policies on defense issues are strongly supported by a majority of voters. Sixty-seven percent said “Yes” to Britain leaving NATO, while 65 percent and 52 percent, respectively, support significant defense budget cuts and scrapping the Trident missile system.
February 14, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | European Union, Jeremy Corbyn, NATO, Trident II, UK, United States |
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Professing one’s love for Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during World War II, is shorthand in U.S. politics for: “I think killing Nazis was good.” Churchill is a pugnacious old man with a cigar in his mouth, more an inspirational poster—”Never Give In”—than a real human being, with all our human flaws. Still, it was nonetheless a little strange to hear Bernie Sanders, the social democrat campaigning to be the presidential nominee of the Democrat Party, describing the symbol of giving-it-your-all as one of his two “heroes” at the last debate.
“Winston Churchill’s politics were not my politics,” Sanders began. “He was kind of a conservative guy in many respects,” having been the head of the Conservative Party, “But nobody can deny that as a wartime leader, he rallied the British people when they stood virtually alone against the Nazi juggernaut and rallied them and eventually won.” Along with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the former U.S. president who also killed Nazis, “These are two leaders that I admire very much.”
That the Vermont senator did not name Hugo Chavez or Karl Marx, or even U.S. socialist leader Eugene Debs, is not surprising: Sanders is on the radical left only in relation to the center-right politics of the United States in 2016. Naming Churchill, in this center-right country, is playing it safe, akin to—and another way of—coming out against Adolf Hitler.
But if, as Sanders contends, the former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is a vile war criminal responsible for an illegal bombing campaign in Cambodia that aided the rise of the genocidal Khmer Rouge (“Not my kind of guy,” the senator said), then he should be made aware: Winston Churchill, too, was responsible for many crimes as a wartime leader, beyond just what he himself described as the Allies’ “terror bombing” of German civilians in Dresden.
“I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes,” Churchill declared in a 1919 memo, referring to the unlucky people of occupied India. Using chemical weapons “would spread a lively terror,” said Churchil—ever the humanitarian, he maintained that the “moral effect” of terrorizing the “natives” would ultimately reduce the loss of life, or so he claimed to believe. As a young man, he gladly took part in “a lot of jolly little wars against barbarous peoples”; as a white supremacist, he believed these people had a “propensity to kill” those attempting to steal their land, thus justifying the civilized white man’s efforts to kill them.
As secretary of state for war in the summer of 1919, Churchill would in fact authorize the use of toxic gas, planning and executing “a sustained chemical attack on northern Russia,” according to The Guardian, in an attempt to terrorize the Bolshevik government into collapse.
Despite his confidence in the humaneness of the weapon—”Why is it not fair for a British artilleryman to fire a shell which makes the said native sneeze?”—contemporary accounts suggest it was devastatingly lethal. Historian Gles Milton, the author of a book on the matter, noted in an interview with The Telegraph that “one soldier said that all 50 of his comrades were wiped out. It’s difficult to know how many fatalities there were but they dropped thousands of these things on various villages.”
Just as carpet bombing Cambodia did not aid the cause of moderation, dropping toxic gas all over revolutionary Russia did no favors to those revolutionaries who preferred the direct democracy of the soviets to the top-down, and decidedly more austere Stalinism that unsurprisingly prevailed with the help of a bloody civil war fueled by imperialism that left millions of people dead.
At the debate, Sanders said it was “rather amazing” that his rival, Hillary Clinton, would accept the advice of a man like Henry Kissinger, cast today as a round and cuddly figure but in fact “one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country,” with the blood of tens of thousands of people on his hands. “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend,” said Bernie, and bully for him. But if Kissinger’s crimes still matter, so should Winston’s.
Bernie may have just been fishing for a name that wouldn’t peg him as a no-good commie, falling back on an anti-communist that most are unaware was also a criminal white supremacist. But just as Hillary could use better advisers, Bernie should be reminded that he can find much better heroes. Clinton did, playing it safe and less problematic: She went with Nelson Mandela.
February 13, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Bernie Sanders, UK, United States, Winston Churchill |
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The UK must renew its submarine-borne Trident nuclear weapons system if it is to maintain its “outsized” role in the world affairs, said US Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
He went on stating that the deterrent allowed Britain to “continue to play that outsized role on the global stage that it does because of its moral standing and its historical standing.”
Carter said the submarine fleet helped the “special relationship” Britain enjoyed with the United States.
The statements come as a decision on replacing the aging fleet of four submarines which carry nuclear warheads is due to be made this year. While Prime Minister David Cameron is committed to renewal, the issue has caused deep divisions in the opposition Labour Party.
The Conservative government has said replacing the submarines will cost 31 billion pounds while media reports put the overall cost of renewing and maintaining a successor to Trident at more than 167 billion pounds over 32 years.
“It’s important that the military power matches that standing and so we’re very supportive of it. We depend upon the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom depends on us, that’s part of the special relationship,” the US official added.
While most lawmakers in Cameron’s party support keeping nuclear weapons, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn supports unilateral disarmament and is holding a review of the party’s policy.
That has led to deep divisions among its lawmakers and earlier this week Labour’s home affairs spokesman Andy Burnham said it might be impossible for the party to agree a position.
February 13, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | UK, United States |
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Former cabinet ministers have urged the government to set up an inquiry into the way UK counter-terror laws are affecting the humanitarian work of Islamic charities, many of which operate in Syria.
Two former international development secretaries have discussed the issue with parliamentary officials and have written to the Commons International Development Select Committee to call for an inquiry into complaints that Islamic charities are being treated unfairly.
Clare Short, who was international development secretary from 1997 to 2003, and Andrew Mitchell, who served in the same job from 2010 to 2012, have responded to concerns that Muslim charities are being discriminated against by banks or members of the authorities who worry funding could make its way to extremist organizations.
Almost one-fifth of government development aid goes to charities, and Islamic charities are some of the few British aid organizations that can operate in Syria.
Short wrote that the issue needed examining.
“This is an issue that needs clarifying and sorting out. It has been around as a problem for some time, but it has been getting worse and worse. We have got this enormous capacity in the UK of these Muslim humanitarian charities, yet they are struggling with one hand behind their back. We need a proper scrutiny and examination bringing all this out. It is preventing efficiency.”
Mitchell said: “These are some of the few charities that can get into Syria and help the benighted people of that country, yet they are being held back due to misunderstandings and banking bureaucracy.”
Commons International Development Committee chair Stephen Twigg said he would examine the request “very sympathetically.”
One charity which has complained of discrimination is Islamic Relief, one of the largest Muslim charities, who say their work is being hampered. The charity is funded by the Department for International Development, yet has had one of its bank accounts closed by HSBC.
Other charities have reported the closure of bank accounts, Pay Pal accounts and the blocking of financial transactions.
The government set up a working party to examine any issues after the complaints were made.
Short and Mitchell also travelled to Turkey to see some of the charity work by the Muslim Charities Forum, an umbrella organization for nine charities, being done to get aid into Syria. They returned with praise for the organization and its work.
Omayma El Ella, the operations manager of the Muslim Charities Forum, explained that there was no one to hold to account for the problem.
“No one is accountable for what is going on right now. Every time we speak to the government about this, they say it is a private sector issue and they cannot get involved. That is not good enough anymore. We are told no one will be prosecuted for ‘benign engagement’, but what is ‘benign engagement’? That has not been clarified.”
February 12, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia | Human rights, Syria, UK |
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The publication on 21 January 2016 of the report by British Judge Sir Robert Owen on the death of Alexander Litvinenko was predictably seized upon by anti-Russian elements as confirmation of their conviction that Russia in general and President Putin in particular were the personification of modern day evil.
Almost completely absent amidst the anti-Russian hysteria was any perspective on the history of Mr Litvinenko1; the circumstances leading up to his death; and any understanding of what a totally flawed exercise Owen’s inquiry actually was.
Who Was Alexander Litvinenko?
Litvinenko was generally described in the western media as a Russian defector, vehement critic of Vladimir Putin, and the victim of polonium 210 poisoning delivered to him while taking tea at an upmarket London hotel by his teatime companions Andrei Lugovoi and Dimitry Kovtun.
The motive for his killing was generally portrayed as the removal of a critic by the Russian power structure in general, and President Putin in particular, via the use of the two Russian agents.
The actual evidence to support any of these contentions was never better than murky at best. That murkiness was not resolved by the publication of Sir Robert Owen’s report, which in many respects, sets a new low in inquiry procedures and the reports that flow from them.
Litvinenko was formerly a low level KGB officer whose main tasks seem to have been in the investigation of organized crime. There was much to be investigated in Yeltsin’s Russia in the 1990s.
Litvinenko resigned from the KGB and through most of the 1990s he worked for private security firms. The frequent media descriptions of Litvinenko as a “spy” therefore seem somewhat fanciful.
Litvinenko fell foul of the Russian authorities and spent some time in jail. He fled to the United Kingdom in 2000 (having had his asylum application turned down by the Americans). Again, the description of Litvinenko as a “defector” is also somewhat fanciful. He was, in fact, a fugitive from the Russian justice system.
Between his flight in 2000 and 23 November 2006 when he died, presumably by poisoning from Polonium 210, Litvinenko lived in London. During this time he had contact with, and worked for, a number of people and organisations. The persons who feature most prominently in this history are the aforementioned Lugovoi and Kovtun with whom he had numerous dealings; convicted felon Mario Scaramella (of whom more below), and fellow Russian émigré Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky was also a notable critic of Mr Putin.
Berezovsky was also Litvinenko’s employer for several years in London although precisely in what capacity remains unclear. Litvinenko also had business dealings with Lugovoi, Kovtun and Scaramella. Significantly, after years of denial by his widow Marina, it was acknowledged that Litvinenko was also working for the British Security Services MI5 and MI6, although the details remain suppressed by Judge Owen.
Evidence given to the Owen inquiry by both MI5 and MI6 were given in closed session, and the report merely says that it cannot publish the details of that evidence. The suppression orders were made pursuant to a directive from the Home Secretary Therese May. The western media saw no reason to comment on this direct interference in a judicial proceeding by a member of the executive branch of government.
Because of these suppression orders we do not know what the MI5 and MI6 witnesses said or whether they were cross-examined by counsel assisting the inquiry. It is only one of the many unsatisfactory aspects of the inquiry.
How did Litvinenko Die?
Even the exact details of Litvinenko’s death are classified. We are told it was from polonium 210, but the autopsy report itself remains classified. This is an extraordinary situation, given that Owen used the alleged fact of polonium poisoning to attribute responsibility to Russia and its alleged agents. It is also extraordinary given the propaganda purposes to which the Owen’s report has been put.2
If, in fact, Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning, diagnosed only two hours before he died and three weeks after it was ingested, the obvious question is how was that polonium ingested? That in turn would be strong evidence as to who was responsible for causing the ingestion, assuming for the moment that Litvinenko did not poison himself, either deliberately or accidentally as has been frequently suggested.3
The popular version much liked by the western media and duly reported by Owen himself as to causality, was that the polonium was somehow slipped into his pot of tea at the Millennium Hotel where he was with Lugovoi and Kovtun. Despite the presence of video cameras at the Millennium there is no evidence available to show how this was actually done.
This hypothesis of polonium in the teapot is a good example of the fantastical nature of the Owen Report. Polonium is a rare, hugely expensive and highly dangerous substance. It glows blue when exposed to the air which would itself presumably excite curiosity. It cannot be handled with bare hands and even exposure to the air creates a danger for the perpetrator.
A measure of its dangerousness is that later investigators, when examining possible sites associated with Litvinenko’s presence, wore protective clothing with the utmost security. That was weeks after the ingestion, which one will recall, was only diagnosed two hours before death and hence three weeks after it as ingested.
There are other problems with the alleged scenario presented by Owen. The teapot, into which the polonium was allegedly slipped, was not examined until several weeks after the alleged poisoning, at which time we are told that it had readings “off the charts”. This is in spite of multiple washings in the intervening six weeks, and not a single case of a staff member at the Millennium being affected. That alone would be a fruitful area for cross-examination in a proper inquiry.
The problems do not end there. Litvinenko had been overseas prior to the meetings with Scaramella in the early afternoon and later Lugovoi and Kovtun at the Pine Bar of the Millennium on 1 November 2006. He arrived at Heathrow at approximately 11.30 am. The plane tested negative for polonium, which would appear to rule out Litvinenko carrying it into the country.
Litvinenko then went to the Itsu sushi bar for a lunch meeting with Mario Scaramella. This sushi bar tested positive for polonium. This is hours before Litvinenko had contact with Lugovoi and Kovtun. I will come back to this point.
Precisely where Litvinenko spent the hours between his meeting with Scaramella and his later date at the Pine Bar is unclear. There is some evidence to suggest that he was at Berezovsky’s office, which was nearby. Litvinenko was known to use Berezovsky’s photocopying facilities. That office also tested positive for polonium, which again raises a number of possibilities other than the scenario that Owen was determined to portray.
This evidence strongly suggests that Litvinenko was, in fact, contaminated prior to his tea meeting with Lugovoi and Kovtun at the Pine Bar. In a proper inquiry this fact alone, if established, would be of huge significance and utterly destroy the Owen scenario.
Immediately prior to his death it was initially reported that Litvinenko had made a death bed statement in which he accused Mr Putin of being responsible. Litvinenko had a track record of making bizarre allegations against Mr Putin, unhindered by any need to produce actual evidence.
That death bed allegation, made to an employee of Berezovsky, was later admitted to be completely fabricated. In the interim, however, it became fodder for the hysterical anti-Putin, anti-Russia campaigns of the tabloid press and those of Rupert Murdoch in particular.4
Part of the media disinformation at the time following Litvinenko’s death was that polonium was exceedingly rare and produced only in Russia. This is simply untrue. Any country with a nuclear reactor can produce polonium. Among the countries that had nuclear reactors in 2006 but were not subject to IAEA inspections, were South Africa, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.
Russia is a producer of polonium, as are France and the United Kingdom. A fact not mentioned by the western media at the time was that Russia exported polonium to the United States at a cost of $2 million per gram.
That raises another obvious question. Why would an assassin use such an inherently dangerous and highly expensive substance when a bullet through the head is quicker, highly effective immediately, does not leave the same scientific trail and can be done well away from the world of closed circuit cameras that are ubiquitous in London?
Although there has never been an inquest into Litvinenko’s death that reached a conclusion the British government leapt to the conclusion that Lugovoi and Kovtun had been responsible and filed an application for their extradition with the Russian authorities.5
The most reasonable inference open on this evidence is that the purpose of the extradition request was to set the scene for further denunciation of the Russian government for “not co-operating” when the extradition request was denied as it was bound to be.
The reason for the refusal was not because of any lack of willingness to co-operate by the Russian authorities, but because there was no legal basis upon which the request could be granted. Article 61 of the Russian constitution prohibits the extradition of any Russian citizen, as the British surely knew.
Even without the constitutional prohibition it is doubtful that the extradition request would have been granted. In order to persuade a court to grant an extradition request, the requesting authority must adduce sufficient evidence that there is at least a prima facie case against the accused.
In a homicide case, one of the essential documents required is the autopsy report showing exactly how the victim died. The British request did not enclose such a report, and even today it has still not been released.
One of the prime reasons for the continued suppression of this vital document is reported in the Daily Telegraph (hardly a supporter of modern Russia). It was reported that there were two separate polonium “spikes” in Litvinenko’s body.
The compelling inference from that evidence is that Litvinenko was exposed to polonium 210 at two different times. That immediately undermines Owen’s case of the poisonous teapot and the culpability of Lugovoi and Kovtun.
It is not only the timing of the ingestion that is crucial. The ancillary question is how the polonium was ingested. For that, one needs at a minimum the autopsy slides from the forensic examination of Litvinenko’s vital organs. That information was also absent from the British extradition request. Neither is it to be found in the Owen report.
On that basis a Russian Judge would be entirely justified in asking the obvious question: where is your evidence for your allegation that Litvinenko was fatally poisoned at the Pine Bar by polonium 210 administered to him by Lugovoi and/or Kovtun?
The Coronial Process
In all cases where a person’s death is unusual in any way a coronial inquest is held to determine the circumstances under which the person died. The coroner is specifically prohibited from establishing criminal liability for the death.
The original coroner did not reach a conclusion of any description. Sir Robert Owen replaced him. It was clear that Owen sought to circumvent the legal limits placed on the coronial inquiry. He began to carry out what amounted to a criminal investigation. As the American writer William Dunkerley makes clear in his two books6 on the subject, Owen was acting outside his jurisdiction to such an extent that he was officially reprimanded by the Home Secretary Therese May in July 2013.
Again according to Dunkerley, May was resisting Owen’s request that the coronial inquiry be converted into a “public” inquiry, which would have given him vastly greater powers as to the taking of evidence and other matters.
The British government maintained their opposition to a public inquiry until July 2014 when the government did a volte-face and authorised a public inquiry. Rather astonishingly, Owen was appointed the inquiry head, notwithstanding his manifest bias as what Dunkerley describes as a “man on a mission” to pin the blame on Russia.
What brought about this sudden change of heart by the British government, nearly eight years after Litvinenko had died? It is probably a fair inference that the shooting down of MH17 over Eastern Ukraine on 14 July 2014 gave rise to a fresh outburst of anti-Russian hysteria. That hysteria was assiduously cultivated by the same elements of the western media that had promoted the notion of Russian responsibility for Litvinenko’s death.
The Inquiry Report
The UK government passed the Inquiries Act in 2005. This Act permits the setting up of an Inquiry in lieu of a coronial inquest. The Act has been used on other occasions where inquiries into well-publicized deaths were preferred to be kept hidden from too close a public scrutiny.7
Where the Litvinenko case differed was that there had been a coronial inquiry in existence from the time of Litvinenko’s death in 2006 right up until July 2014 when the inquiry was set up.
A British coronial inquest has a number of advantages. The evidence is given in public. Relevant witnesses can be cross-examined by counsel for all legally interested parties. A jury gives the verdict. Apportioning guilt is specifically unavailable to a jury. The available verdicts are natural causes; suicide; misadventure (which includes murder but also accidents); or an open verdict where the evidence is insufficient to point to a cause.
The public inquiry has none of these advantages or safeguards. The term “public” is itself a misnomer. It can, and in this case certainly did, hear evidence in secret, hear it from unidentified witnesses, and have evidence suppressed. Further, the evidence is not open to cross-examination from counsel for persons potentially subject to an adverse finding. Even when cross-examination occurs, that in turn can be suppressed.
In the present case neither Lugovoi nor Kovtun were present at the hearings, nor did counsel represent them. Their initial willingness to attend and give evidence in addition to the statements they had already given to the Police disappeared when the nature of the inquiry was changed in July 2014.
They were refused the right to know the nature of the evidence against them (as was the case with the extradition request). This was a fact the Judge omitted to mention when criticizing them for their non-attendance. They were not permitted to be represented by counsel in their absence, something that is permissible under the rules.
In many respects an Inquiry is akin to the infamous Star Chamber Courts in the UK from the late 15th century until the middle of the 17th century. Witnesses and defendants were examined in secret, although they did have notice of the charges against them. They also had the right to be legally represented. Over time the Star Chamber evolved into an instrument of repression and abuse of power by the monarchy and the Courts. Juries that returned unfavourable verdicts (from the executive’s point of view) were punished. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1640 abolished them. They have now returned in modern form.
The Inquiries Act removed the possibility of inconvenient jury verdicts by abolishing them in the case of inquiries.
Even given the latitude of a public inquiry to conduct its proceedings in secret, if its findings are to have any credibility it must nonetheless observe some basic legal principles.
Under British law an accused person has as a minimum:
- The right to know the evidence against them beforehand.
- The right to challenge by cross-examination the witnesses for the prosecution.
- The right to be legally represented.
- The right to challenge the admissibility of evidence on the grounds, for example, that is irrelevant, inadmissible opinion, hearsay or otherwise contrary to the rules of evidence.
- The right to a finding that is only open on the admissible evidence to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
- To begin the trial with the presumption of innocence that is only rebutted by the weight of evidence to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
- The onus of discharging that burden of proof rests with the prosecution from beginning to end.
It is not an overstatement to say that the Owen Inquiry violated each and every one of those basic principles. As such, this was not so much an inquiry to establish the truth, but a travesty of what was once favourably known as “British justice”. Alexander Mercouris rightly called it an absurd show trial.8
I also agree with Mercouris’ analysis when he says that the inquiry was a farce, and just the latest twist in a long running smear campaign against Russia and its President. Cunningham reached a similar conclusion.9
One aspect alone illustrates many of these points. The Judge concluded that the murder was “probably” carried out by Lugovoi and Kovtun; was “probably” ordered by the head of the FSB; who in turn “probably” took his orders from President Putin.
“Probably” is not a word that belongs in a finding of criminal liability. Either it is proven beyond reasonable doubt or it is not, in which case the presumption of innocence prevails.
And the evidence Owen presented for this remarkable conclusion? If there is any, Owen did not cite it other than by reference to secret evidence that we are not allowed to know about. There is no possible reasonable basis upon which one can test the veracity of claims such as these.
In order for Nikolai Patrushev (the head of the FSB) and Mr Putin to be held liable as the principals for the crimes allegedly committed by Lugovoi and Kovtun there has to be evidence that they were acting on the instructions of, or on behalf of, the former. There is no such evidence. Assertions of “probability” are in this context farcical.
On the other hand there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that Lugovoi and Kovtun were two of the most unlikely assassins. Neither had any known training in carrying out such a dangerous task. Neither had any links to the FSB although Lugovoi had been with its predecessor the KGB until the mid-1990s in what appears to have been a bodyguard role.10
Nor could any plausible motive be attributed to the Russian State for eliminating Litvinenko. During the six years Litvinenko lived in London prior to his death he had made a number of allegations against Mr Putin, but then so had a lot of other people who are alive to this day.
If Russia had wanted to eliminate Mr Litvinenko, there were vastly better ways to do it rather than use two amateurs with a volatile, highly dangerous and expensive substance to carry out the task.
There was, in fact, evidence of motive before the inquiry. It came from Dr Yulia Svetlichnaya, a London based post-graduate scholar, who gave evidence that the Judge accepted. That evidence was to the effect that Litvinenko had been talking about blackmailing persons before his death.11
Those persons included criminal elements that Litvinenko had been investigating (also his task with the KGB) who have a well-documented propensity for eliminating people who threaten their activities. Yet the Judge considered none of this worthy of further examination.
The Judge did, however, place considerable weight on the evidence of Boris Berezovsky. Quite why he should do so remains a mystery. Berezovsky himself is now dead, allegedly by suicide, so he is not around to enlighten us as to his change of character.
The Judge did have the benefit of previous judicial views on Mr Berezovsky. In the case of Berezovsky v Abramovich Her Honour Mrs Justice Gloster had this to say about Mr Berezovsky:
An unimpressive and inherently unreliable witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept which could be moulded to suit his purposes.
This less than flattering assessment did not seem to deter Justice Owen.
Mr Litvinenko lingered painfully for three weeks before dying, the medical staff inexplicably unable to identify polonium as the cause of his illness. Had they done so in a timely fashion he might have been saved.
Before he died, however, Litvinenko did nominate his killer and I am not referring to the manifestly false allegation referred to above.12 The man he pointed to was Mario Scaramella, a convicted felon who also happened to be an expert in nuclear waste.
Litvinenko had lunch with Scaramella at a sushi bar before his evening meeting with Lugovoi and Kovtun at the Pine Bar. Scaramella apparently did not eat or drink anything at that lunch, but he did require hospital treatment shortly thereafter for a mild case of polonium poisoning.13
Disregarding the wildly improbable, the logical possibilities therefore seem to be:
- Litvinenko was himself carrying the plutonium, which was shown to Scaramella thereby causing Scaramella’s later symptoms. This does not explain why Litvinenko would ingest the substance voluntarily. Recall also Litvinenko pointing the finger at Scaramella as the source of his illness and there seems no other plausible explanation for that accusation.
- Litvinenko was already infected when he met Scaramella. This would be consistent with the twin “spikes” of polonium poisoning said to have been found in Litvinenko’s body.
- Litvinenko deliberately ingested the polonium himself. This seems the least likely hypothesis.
- Litvinenko was known to be trading in nuclear materials (but ignored by the media) accidentally poisoned himself. This was the hypothesis most favoured by Epstein in his 2008 article and it still best fits the known facts.
- Scaramella poisoned Litvinenko at some stage through the course of the sushi lunch (which he himself did not partake of). Scaramella’s abstinence from food or drink is odd to say the least.
This is not to accuse Scaramella of doing the deed, but it is a logical possibility that the Judge did not seem to consider despite the supporting evidence, including Scaramella’s own illness that is otherwise difficult to explain.
Instead the Judge relied upon a series of bizarre conclusions that paid scant regard to logic, the evidence, or even the most basic principles of criminal procedure. As such the real victims here are not only the unfortunate Mr Litvinenko but also to what was once known as “British justice.” In the light of this travesty of a report, that term now seem to be an oxymoron.
James O’Neill is a former academic. Since 1984 he has practised as a barrister, first in New Zealand and since 2002 in Brisbane, Australia. His special area of interest is international law, and he writes on geopolitical events from a legal perspective. James has been published in New Eastern Outlook, Counterpunch, New Matilda and elsewhere. He can be reached at joneill@qldbar.asn.au.
February 12, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Litvinenko, MI5, MI6, Russia, UK |
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One could hardly find a person both within the UK or outside it that would look positively at the steps that have been taken by David Cameron and his government if, of course, we’re not talking about members of the Conservative Party and certain military circles. The reasons are plenty, but the most obvious ones are the crimes against humanity committed by this government, along with a total disregard for the social needs of UK citizens and the revanchist policies it pursued in the Middle East and Africa.
It will suffice to note that Cameron’s government is going to cut its social spending to the lowest possible level to be able to carry on foreign military campaigns. The Guardian notes:
Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the all-party Commons select committee on health, is calling for the government to act, saying that social care providers are reeling from rising costs and declining fees from cash-strapped local authorities.
As a direct result of the steps that are being taken by British government, those citizens that are facing retirement today will lose all means to pay their expenses in the next 10 years.
The benefits cuts on sheltered housing that have been recently announced by the UK government will literally make tens of thousands of those in dire need homeless. Those that are forced to experience the consequences of the shortsighted policies of London are to be the most vulnerable, namely older residents, domestic violence victims and people with mental illness. Those caps were first announced last autumn by the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.
However, the Guardian refuses to mention that the army is still enjoying substantial budgets just as it always has, to the benefit of countless military contractors and those politicians who represent them in the parliament. It is therefore not surprising that these lobbyists are among the most ardent supporters of David Cameron’s plan of the possible British military engagement in Syria, despite attempts of some sane politicians to put an end to airstrikes that the UK is carrying out in this Arab country, calling them “infanticide“
The above mentioned activities predictably result in an ever growing body count that British troops are producing with their “fire and sword” across the world in the name of vague “democratic principles”, while actually protecting the interests of the City of London.
Therefore, the British political elite are putting every effort into a bid to prevent the investigation of their criminal policies in the Middle East, Africa and other regions around the world. For instance every possible step has been taken to derail an inquiry of the commission headed by Sir John Chilcot that was entrusted back in 2009 to give an answer on how justified Tony Blair’s decision was to go to war against Iraq, which resulted in 179 British soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis left suffering in lawlessness and bitter misery to this date. Moreover, a few days ago it was announced that the British Ministry of Defense was going to close the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) that was created in 2010 to study at least 58 allegations against British servicemen allegedly involved in murder cases in Iraq. And although the IHAT was investigating the deaths of 1,500 possible victims, out of which 280 were allegedly unlawfully killed, there’s every reason to believe that it won’t be funded up to 2019 as originally intended.
David Cameron is anticipating complete impunity for his actions, therefore refusing to launch an investigation of war crimes that were carried out with the use of British weapons, especially those supplied by the British to Saudi Arabia. Cameron excused himself for this decision by announcing that arms exports are being “closely monitored”.
Lately Amnesty International has been vocal in condemning the UK role in the Yemeni conflict, while directly pointing to the shameful support of routine brutality that the Saudi regime has been exhibiting. At the same time The Independent published an article that stated a member of the British government, while staying in Riyadh, praised Saudi authorities for the “remarkable progress” in the field of human rights, a month after the public execution of 47 people!
As for the British responsibility in the massive civilian killings in Yemen, it is necessary to recall that during the first nine months of 2015 the United Kingdom supplied Saudi Arabia with 2.95 billion pounds worth of arms, which were used to launch airstrikes against heavily populated urban areas. The total worth of weapons sold to Saudi Arabia throughout all of Cameron’s premiership amounts to 7 billion pounds, including a contract to supply the regime with 72 Eurofighter Typhoons. Numerous media sources have been calling repeatedly to bring to justice those responsible in the bloody conflict in Yemen. So there’s little wonder that the UN Security Council decided to form a special committee to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law by all the parties of the Yemeni conflict to identify those responsible. And the UK is not particularly happy about that fact.
As it was reported by The Independent :
An influential joint committee of MPs is set to investigate claims that British-made weapons may have been used for strikes against civilian targets. The Committee on Arms Export Controls (CAEC), made up of members of the Foreign Affairs, International Development, Defence and Business select committees, has not sat so far this Parliament, but will be re-established.
Crispin Blunt, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Stephen Twigg, chair of the International Development committee, have both indicated that they want the CAEC to investigate whether UK arms have been used for military strikes against civilians, and also to scrutinise the role of UK personnel working in Saudi command and control centres orchestrating airstrikes.
Taking into account the steps that David Cameron has made to hide numerous crimes committed by him and his government both in the UK and abroad, it’s about time for the international community to take such investigations into its own hands, to ensure that no felon, whether a politician or not, escapes justice.
Martin Berger is a Czech-based freelance journalist and analyst.
February 11, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Afghanistan, Africa, Human rights, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UK, Yemen |
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In an interview with RT, Russian military analyst Alexander Zhilin said that US media allegations that Russia is pursuing its own interests in Syria are “absolute nonsense”, given that Moscow “cooperates there with the legitimately elected president.”
He also pointed to Washington’s hypocritical statements about the necessity of fighting terrorism, saying they came as the White House continued to use terrorism as a major mechanism of its foreign policy.
“Just think about it: if a country with a military budget exceeding the consolidated budget of all the countries in the world uses terrorism as the main instrument of its foreign policy, fighting terrorism is almost impossible”, Zhilin said.
He also lashed out at US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly calling for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“My question is: who are you to make such calls? It means Obama who bombed out half the world’s territory must not step down, while Assad must step down, right? It is the wrong approach,” he said.
According to him, Washington currently wages so-called network-centric warfare against Moscow, a military doctrine pioneered by the US Department of Defense in the 1990s. The goal is to translate an information advantage, enabled in part by information technology, into a competitive advantage through the robust computer networking of a well-informed, geographically decentralized force.
“The United States has started a propaganda [war] against Russia, which is why it is creating an anti-Russian coalition with the participation of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US private military companies,” he pointed out.
Zhilin expressed regret about foreign media outlets, including CNN and the BBC, being involved in this war and misinforming their readers about Russia’s air campaign in Syria. He recalled that Russia’s “participation in Syria suggests the support of the legitimately elected president,” and that “it was Washington which started the invasion without getting the UN’s go-ahead.”
“You know, I’m very sorry that the BBC and CNN, once respected media outlets, have turned into primitive propaganda and disinformation news agencies,” he said.
Zhilin’s remarks came shortly after CNN reported that the Russian air support had allowed the Syrian Army to begin liberating the strategic city of Aleppo, which was seized by militants several years ago. At the same time, CNN alleged that in Syria, Russia does not only struggle with Daesh militants but also pursues its own interests.
February 10, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | BBC, CNN, Obama, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UK, United States |
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Nearly every western country has an Israel lobby
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom recently suggested an inquiry into a surge in Israel’s reported extra-judicial killing of Palestinian demonstrators after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a harsh response and told his police and soldiers that those opposed to the continued occupation of the West Bank were “terrorists.” Almost immediately, the Israeli government denounced Wallstrom as engaging in “political stupidity,” banning her from travel to Israel, while one newspaper close to the government suggested that she might be assassinated, as fellow Swede Count Folke Bernadotte was by Jewish militants in 1948, because anti-Semitism appears to be in the Swedish DNA.
All of that outrage and personal ridicule is pro forma for an Israeli government that reflexively smears and denigrates any and all critics, but the more interesting epilogue was the unanticipated discovery by the Swedish and international media that Wallstrom has not been paying the full rent on the subsidized government apartment that she occupies. The revelation follows a familiar pattern, where critics of Israel suddenly find themselves being discredited for something completely unrelated to the Middle East. President George H. W. Bush (the good Bush) suffered a similar come to Jesus moment in 1991 when he went on national television to denounce the pressure tactics of the Israel lobby. The Israeli government was demanding U.S. Treasury backed loans to construct illegal settlements. President Bush, who was running for reelection and far ahead in the opinion polls, suddenly was confronted by a well-funded and organized opposition raising doubts about him and his record. And President Bush was not reelected, presumably learning along the way that one does not trifle with the Israel Lobby, to be replaced by the enthusiastically Zionist Bill Clinton.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also wondering about Israel’s alleged commitment to peace. On Tuesday he said “it was human nature to react to occupation,” following up with a comment on Wednesday regarding Israel’s “stifling” occupation of Palestine. Netanyahu reacted with his usual over the top rhetoric, stating that Ban “was encouraging terror.” One might also anticipate, as in the case of Wallstrom, a well-orchestrated media blitz questioning Ban’s motives or explaining how he has always been a closet anti-Semite. It is par for the course and fully expected when one criticizes Israel.
Indeed, it is a global phenomenon. Wherever one goes – Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States – there is a well-organized and funded lobby ready, willing and able to go to war to protect Israel. Most of the organizations involved take at least some direction from officials in Tel Aviv. Many of them even cooperate fully with the Israeli government, its parastatal organizations and faux-NGOs like the lawfare center Shurat HaDin. Their goal is to spread propaganda and influence the public in their respective countries of residence to either hew to the line coming out of Tel Aviv or to confuse the narrative and stifle debate when potential Israeli crimes are being discussed.
Israel’s diaspora allies are backed up by a formidable government organized machine that spews out disinformation and muddies the waters whenever critics surface. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has a corps of paid “volunteers” who monitor websites worldwide and take remedial action and there is a similar group working out of the Prime Minister’s office. That is why any negative story appearing in the U.S. about Israel is immediately inundated with pro-Israel comments, many of which make exactly the same coordinated points while exhibiting the same somewhat less than perfect English. On sites like Yahoo they are actually able to suppress unwelcome comments by flooding the site with “Dislike” responses. If a comment receives a large number of dislikes, it is automatically blocked or removed.
The sayanim, local Jews in their countries of residence, are essential to this process, having been alerted by emails from the Israeli Foreign Ministry about what to do and say. The reality is that Israel has lost the war of public opinion based on its own actions, which are becoming more and more repressive and even inhumane and so are difficult to explain. That means that the narrative has to be shifted by Israel’s friends through subterfuge and the corruption of the information process in each country. In some places the key media and political players who are engaged in the process can simply be bought. In other places they can be intimidated or pressured into taking positions that are neither in their own countries’ interests nor morally acceptable. In large countries like the United States, Britain and France a combination of friendly suasion and coercive elements often come together.
In all cases, the objective is the same: to repress or misrepresent any criticism of Israel and to block any initiatives that might be taken that would do damage either to the Israeli economy or to the country’s perceived standing in the world. In some countries Israel’s advocates work right out in the open and are highly successful in implementing policies that often remain largely hidden but that can be discerned as long as one knows what to look for.
Recent Israel Lobby activity in the United States has included legislation at state levels to make illegal divestment from Israel or to promote boycott of Israeli products. A trade pact with Europe will reportedly include language requiring the United States to take retaliatory action if any European country tries to boycott Israel, to include the West Bank settlements, which the empowering legislation regards as part of Israel proper.
Israel is also working to create a mechanism for global censorship of the internet to ban “incitement,” which clearly is a euphemism for material that is critical of its policies. Recently Facebook has begun to delete from its site any “hate speech” and “terrorism” related material but what has not been widely noted is that the apparent restrictions also have involved sites critical of Israel including Christians United for Peace.
Many prominent critics of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) are unaware that AIPAC exists in various forms in a number of other countries. BICOM , the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, is located in London. The French equivalent is the Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF). In Canada there is a Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) , in Australia a Zionist Federation of Australia and in New Zealand a Zionist Federation of New Zealand .
While AIPAC is specifically focused on the U.S.-Israel relationship, its counterparts in Europe often deal with a whole range of issues that they define as Jewish, but protecting Israel is always part of their agenda, particularly for those groups that label themselves as Zionist. The political power and financial muscle of the groups gives them access to government far beyond the actual numbers of their supporters. In France this has led to the legislation of hate crimes that de facto exist to protect Jews that have also been interpreted as limitations on one’s ability to criticize Israel. In its most recent test, a French court declared that a peaceful protest promoting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) directed against Israel was illegal.
Many believe that France now has less free speech than any other European country. Recently, the alleged humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, ran a revolting cartoon showing the little Syrian boy Alan Kurdi who drowned in Turkey last summer as all grown up and sexually assaulting a woman in Germany. There was considerable outrage throughout the world but no sign that the French government will do anything to prosecute the magazines since it was Muslims who were being ridiculed. Charlie Hebdo frequently insults Muslims (and also Christians) but rarely lampoons Jews.
In Britain, Jewish organizations uniquely are allowed to patrol heavily Jewish neighborhoods in police-like uniforms while driving police type vehicles and there have been reports of their threatening Muslims who enter the areas. Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, which is responsive to a Conservative Friends of Israel lobbying group, has also done its part to create official barriers to any spread of the BDS movement. It is proposing legislation that will enable it to overrule decisions by local government councils that seek to cut business or investment ties with Israel and, more particularly, Israeli settlements, under the pretext that such action interferes with the conduct of foreign affairs. The British government is also considering its own brand of hate speech legislation, banning from social media any commentary that is considered to be anti-Semitic, which will almost certainly extend to criticism of Israel.
Canada’s government has also threatened to use hate speech laws to block criticism of Israel and forbid BDS related activity. Australia meanwhile, has ceased referring to east Jerusalem as “occupied” and is apparently leaning towards similar “non-pejorative” language relating to the militarized occupation of the West Bank, preferring the neocon favored dodge “disputed.” New Zealand has proposed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that specifically demand that participants “refrain from referring a situation… to the International Criminal Court,” which would effectively decriminalize war crimes committed by both sides during the two recent invasions of Gaza. As a United Nations investigation determined that Israel was disproportionately responsible for what did occur, the proposal eliminates accountability and is effectively a get out of jail free card for some Israeli government officials.
And so it goes. Criticize Israel and there will be a comeuppance by virtue of a highly developed international system that relies on government direction as well as volunteer supporters who are able to shape both the media message and the political response. Accepting that as a given, I suppose one should be proud of being called an anti-Semite every time the label is misapplied to stifle dissent, but it all sadly reflects a lowering of the discussion to a dirt level. This might just be because there is no justification for Israeli behavior. The fact is that in terms of systematic human rights violations Israel is something beyond an apartheid state, frequently engaging in open racism and, in the opinion of many observers, crimes against humanity. It is furthermore a persistent source of instability in the Middle East and even beyond.
Israel is a liability to the United States and to the European nations that it has successfully manipulated into acquiescence regarding its bad behavior. When AIPAC and its overseas clones act for Israel the host nations in which these organizations exist should recognize exactly what is taking place. … Full article
February 9, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | AIPAC, CRIF, France, Human rights, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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Britain has refused to sign up to a UN agreement on protecting schools in wartime, which has been signed by 51 states, despite the fact it was drawn up by a former UK military officer.
The agreement was championed by the UN children’s fund UNICEF to protect schools from attack during conflicts. It aimed to set out a “safe schools declaration” and provide guidelines for military forces.
However, it was reported on Tuesday by the Telegraph newspaper that Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond had effectively vetoed the move after having opposed it as head of two government departments.
Already signed by 51 nations, the initiative was developed in response to deadly attacks on schools in Syria and Yemen.
In a statement on Monday, Amnesty International senior crisis advisor Lama Fakih reported how schools were being targeted with deadly effect in Yemen, where a Sunni/Shia proxy war is currently being fought with Saudi and Iranian backing.
“The Saudi Arabia-led coalition launched a series of unlawful airstrikes on schools being used for educational – not for military – purposes, a flagrant violation of the laws of war,” she wrote.
“Schools are central to civilian life, they are meant to offer a safe space for children. Yemen’s young school pupils are being forced to pay the price for these attacks,” she added.
It was hoped Britain would be a leading voice in the campaign to protect schoolchildren and schools after the high-profile campaign against sexual violence in warzones led by Phillip Hammond’s predecessor William Hague and movie star Angelina Jolie.
But Britain, like the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, did not sign up.
It is rumored that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Foreign Office have been put off by fears of litigation given the volume of cases brought against the military for alleged crimes in the Iraq and Afghan occupations.
Initially it appears that of the three government departments whose support was needed only the MoD – then under Hammond – was resisting, while the Department for International Development (DFID) and Hague’s Foreign Office were supportive.
Hammond’s subsequent shift from defense to the Foreign Office is felt to have poisoned both the military and diplomatic ministries against the initiative, despite the fact the agreement was drawn up by a former British naval officer.
Steven Haines, who drew up the British military rulebook for the 2003 Iraq invasion, is now a professor of international law at the University of Greenwich.
He told the Telegraph of his disappointment at the government’s response to his proposals.
“The stumbling block was Philip Hammond at Defence,” he said.
“It’s very frustrating.
“There’s no way that I was going to draft something that would embarrass the British government.”
The declaration, which was launched in Norway in 2015, commits governments to six guidelines including one which prevents military forces for using from using active schools as military bases.
It was thought that if Britain signed up then its role as a trainer of foreign troops would help to engender respect for schools and schoolchildren among military forces globally.
A Foreign Office spokesman defended the move, telling the paper that while they “support the spirit of the initiative, we have concerns that the Guidelines do not mirror the exact language and content of International Humanitarian Law.
“Therefore the UK, along with several other countries, was not able to sign the Safe Schools Declaration in Oslo in May 2015,” the spokesman said.
Britain’s concern about future legal cases may spring from its controversial military support for regional ally Saudi Arabia in the Gulf theocracy’s war in Yemen.
That support has included both material backing, in the form of weapons and munitions traded by UK arms firms subject to government license, and the presence of British military personnel as advisors to the Saudi military.
The UK government maintains the military advisors are present in Saudi headquarters to ensure international law is followed.
February 9, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | Afghanistan, Human rights, Phillip Hammond, Saudi Arabia, UK, Yemen |
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Once again, Russia is being featured as Dr. Evil Incarnate, the villain that regularly plays opposite peace-loving NATO nations, in a BBC program that has Moscow initiating an invasion on Latvia followed up with a nuclear strike on Britain.
And just in time for the military-industrial shopping season.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has failed Western analysts and political pundits in spectacular fashion. Despite a full-court effort to portray Russia as a barbaric, land-grabbing nation obsessed with the idea of restoring imperial real estate, Russia has stubbornly refused to play along.
Why, even dangling the fat bait of Ukraine before Russia’s nose could not get Moscow to react the way NATO had hoped it would.
In fact, while NATO has been hot on the warpath against a number of shell-shocked nations across the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, Russia has gone to war on just one (1) occasion, and that was against Georgia, and only after the egomaniacal leader of that tiny Caucasian country tempted fate by stupidly poking the Russian bear first.
Thus, the BBC has apparently found it necessary to contrive an altered state of reality, a veritable twilight zone, to convince its audience of Russia’s ‘real’ intentions: The result is a military contractor’s wet dream, an apocalyptic bunker buster, unsubtly entitled ‘World War Three: Inside the War Room,’ that depicts a sweat-inducing showdown between Russia and NATO and the beginning of WWIII.
It’s probably safe to say I would not be playing plot spoiler by revealing here that Russia has been typecast as the aggressor.
To briefly summarize: After the Russian military rolls over little Latvia for no good strategic reason whatsoever, British military commanders and graying bureaucrats with furrowed brows huddle themselves in a bunker, deciding whether to launch Trident missiles at Russia in response.
The Daily Mail breathlessly described the tax-payer paid performance as “an utterly realistic ‘war game’” which presents “deeply troubling questions, not least with the current political row over Government plans to spend £100 billion replacing our fleet of Trident submarines.”
Eureka! At the very same time UK military contractors are salivating over the prospect of winning billion-dollar contracts to replace the Queen’s collection of Trident nuclear-armed submarines, along comes a state-funded scaremongering film, starring arch-villain Russia to lend some credence to the initiative.
Russian lawmaker Frants Klintsevich told the Russian News Service radio station the film will give NATO an opportunity to remind member states that they should crack open their tattered purses and boost their military spending.
“They [West] have always demonized Russia trying to show that it is uncontrolled and non-European. As for what happens recently… we qualified this a long time ago as an information war, a very serious and a profound one,” said Klintsevich, the first deputy chairman of Federation Council’s committee on defense and security.
“Today the US has a very serious problem of rearmament, the military and industrial sector needs to get financing. A mechanism of the corrupt American elite has been launched. This was in Iraq, is in Syria and around Europe,” the senator said.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has provided a tongue-in-cheek critique of the BBC film.
“Unfortunately, our colleagues from the BBC have lately resorted to making public products, of quite low-quality. Therefore, we haven’t always been in a hurry to familiarize ourselves with them,” Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked whether the Kremlin has stayed up late to catch the film.
“It’s simply not worth the time it takes to watch,” Peskov said.
On the same day the BBC thriller was released, a report by the totally unbiased Rand Corporation – invoking sexed-up memories of Saddam Hussein’s alleged ability to strike the UK in 45 minutes – said that it would take just 60 hours for Russia to occupy Estonia and Latvia, and that’s not taking into account Riga’s rush-hour traffic.
“Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours,” Rand said in its report.
“Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad.”
It might be worth noting in closing that former RAND chief strategist, Herman Kahn, once forwarded the insane idea of a “winnable” nuclear exchange in his 1960 book ‘On Thermonuclear War.’
This led to Kahn being the inspiration for the title character of Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy satire Dr. Strangelove.
As far as the BBC’s latest anti-Russia production goes, well, it’s just plain strange.
Robert Bridge is the author of the book on corporate power, “Midnight in the American Empire”, which was released in 2013. @Robert_Bridge
February 8, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | BBC, RAND Corporation, Russia, Trident, UK |
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