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Tony Blair denies ordering burning of document ruling Iraq war illegal – claims

RT | November 2, 2015

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has denied ordering the burning of documents drafted by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith which argued the Iraq war would be illegal weeks before the invasion began in 2003.

In a statement responding to allegations made on Sunday, Blair’s office said: “This is nonsense as far as Tony Blair knows.

“No one ever said that in his presence and in any event it would be quite absurd to think that anyone could destroy any such document.”

“Mr Blair and Lord Goldsmith dealt with all the circumstances surrounding the advice at the (Iraq) inquiry at length and with all the documents. The fact is the advice given was that the action was legal and it was given for perfectly good reasons,” the statement added.

The Mail on Sunday newspaper had reported that on the eve of the war Downing Street was gripped with panic as Britain’s top lawyer declared any such move illegal in a 13 page document.

An anonymous insider told the Mail that ministers and aides in possession of a copy of the document were told to “burn it. Destroy it.”

Ten days after the events are alleged to have taken place, Goldsmith u-turned on his original advice and declared the invasion legal.

Defence secretary Geoff Hoon is said to have been one of the ministers who refused to obey the burning command – a move which allegedly saw Blair trying to kick him out of cabinet.

“Geoff received the ‘burn it’ order second-hand,” the Mail’s source claimed. “He did not regard it as an instruction to be followed.”

“Downing Street was very keen at the time that the document should not have wide circulation, but Geoff would argue that the remark should not be interpreted as a sign that they were determined to get the Attorney General to rewrite the advice.”

A senior figure who served at No. 10 at the time told the Mail : “There was pandemonium. The date when war was expected to start was already in the diary, and here was Goldsmith saying it could be challenged under international law.

“They said ‘burn it, destroy it’ and got to work on the AG [Attorney General].”

It is widely thought that Blair’s inner circle applied serious pressure on Goldsmith at the time to ensure that he advised in favor of invading Iraq.

“Peter [Goldsmith] did say in that original advice that as long as certain conditions were satisfied then war was legal, but it did not give an absolutely clear view which could be used by the military,” the source said.

“The later summary was much clearer,” the unnamed individual added.

November 2, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Save The Apologies, Just Stop Promoting War!

By Ron Paul | November 1, 2015

Usually when politicians apologize it’s because they have been caught doing something wrong, or they are about to be caught. Such was likely the case with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who recently offered an “apology” for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair faces the release of a potentially damning report on his government’s conduct in the run-up to the 2003 US/UK invasion of Iraq.

Similarly, a batch of emails released from the private server of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton show Blair pledging support for US military action against Iraq a full year before the decision to attack had supposedly been made. While Prime Minister Blair was assuring his constituents that he was dedicated to diplomacy in the Iraq crisis, he was communicating through back channels that he was ready for war whenever Bush decided on it.

A careful observer of public opinion, Blair took the surprising step of “apologizing” for the Iraq war during an interview on CNN last month.

However, there are two other characteristics of politicians’ apologies: they rarely take personal blame for a misdeed and rarely do they atone for those misdeeds.

Thus Tony Blair did not apologize for his role in pushing the disastrous Iraq war. He did not apologize for having, as former head UN Iraq inspector Hans Blix claimed, “misrepresented intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to gain approval for the Iraq War.”

No, Tony Blair “apologized” for “the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong,” on Iraq. He apologized for “mistakes in planning” for post-Saddam Iraq. He boldly refused to apologize for removing Saddam from power.

In other words, he apologized that the intelligence manipulated by his cronies to look like Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the UK turned out to not be the case. For Blair, it was someone else’s fault.

But if we are waiting for any kind of apology from George W. Bush for Iraq we shouldn’t hold our breath. Likewise if we are looking for any kind of apology from President Obama for a similarly disastrous war on false pretext against Libya we shouldn’t bother waiting.

If they ever did apologize, we can be sure that like Blair they would never really confess to their own manipulations nor would they seek to atone for the destruction their manipulations caused.

In fact, far from apologizing for leading the United States into the Libya war based on a false pretext, President Obama is taking US ground troops into Syria on a false pretext. Let’s not forget, this US military action was sold as a limited operation to save a small religious minority stranded on a hilltop in northern Iraq. After one year and thousands of bombing runs against Iraq and Syria, Obama announced last week he is sending US ground troops into Syria after promising no fewer than seven times that he would not do so.

Here’s an idea: instead of apologies and non-apologies from politicians, how about an actual debate on the policies that led to such disasters? Why not discuss why the US keeps being drawn into wars on false pretexts? But that is a discussion we will not have, because both parties are in favor of these wars. They are ready to spend us into Third World status to continue their empire. When we get there, we will never hear their apologies.

November 2, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fighting a Cultural Boycott of Israel

By Lawrence Davidson | Consortium News | October 30, 2015

There is a new British organization called Culture for Coexistence with the aim of ending the cultural boycott of Israel, which has been relatively effective in raising public awareness of oppressive Zionist policies, and replace it with “open dialogue” and “cultural engagement.“ A “galaxy of 150 British artists and authors” signed an open letter published in the Guardian newspaper on Oct. 22 announcing the group’s position:

“Cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory and will not further peace,” while “open dialogue and interaction promote greater understanding and mutual acceptance and it is through such understanding and acceptance that movement can be made towards a resolution of the conflict.”

While concepts such as open dialogue and cultural interaction are, in principle, hard to disagree with, their efficacy as agents of conflict resolution has to be judged within a historical context. In other words, such approaches are effective when circumstances dictate that all parties seriously dialogue and interact meaningfully – in a manner that actually promotes “mutual acceptance.”

Is this the case when it comes to Israel? The burden of proof here is on Culture for Coexistence because they are the ones asking the Palestinians and their supporters to put aside a strategy (boycott) that is actually putting pressure on Israel to negotiate seriously.

The Culture for Coexistence signatories do not address this question of efficacy. Instead they make the simple assertion that cultural boycotts are bad and won’t help resolve the conflict while cultural interaction is good and will work to that end. How do they know this? Without evidence of its workability, such an assertion is merely an idealization of cultural engagement that ignores that pursuit’s historical futility during a nearly century long conflict.

Do Israeli Leaders Want a Just Peace?

Cultural interaction with Israel went on for decades before the boycott effort got going. It had no impact on the issue of conflict resolution. Such cultural activity certainly did not change the fact that Israel’s leaders have never shown interest in negotiating a resolution with the Palestinians except solely on Israeli terms.

And, that stubbornness is a major part of the reason why peace talks (and also the Oslo agreements) never worked. There is a whole set of histories, written by Israelis and based on archival research that support the claim that Israel has not sought a just resolution to the conflict. Here I would recommend the Culture for Coexistence signatories read the books of the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

Given this historical Zionist attitude, what sort of “greater understanding and mutual acceptance” does Culture and Coexistence expect to accomplish by swapping the boycott for “cultural engagement”? It is a question the signatories of the open letter might address to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who just recently was reported to have proclaimed that Israel will control all Palestinian land indefinitely.

The “galaxy of British artists and authors” aligned with Culture for Coexistence seems oblivious to all these contextual issues. Of course, there is a good chance that some of them are more interested in undermining the boycott of Israel than in the alleged promotion of peace through “cultural engagement.”

As the Guardian article discussing the group notes, “Some of the network’s supporters are closely aligned with Israel,” including individuals associated with Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel.

Does Cultural Contact Lead to Peace?

There is another, more generic misunderstanding exhibited in the group’s statement. It is found in the letter’s closing assertion that “cultural engagement builds bridges, nurtures freedom and positive movement for change” – a position reiterated when Loraine da Costa, chairperson of the new organization, told the Guardian that “culture has a unique ability to bring people together and bridge division.”

No matter how you want to define culture, high or low, there is no evidence for this position except on the level of individuals or small groups. On the level of larger or whole populations, the assertion that “cultural engagement builds bridges” is another naive idealization that is belied by historical practice. Historically, culture has always divided people (both across borders and across classes) and acted as a barrier to understanding. At a popular level, most people are uninterested in, or suspicious of, foreign cultures and are unwilling to try to pursue cultural interaction.

Israel is a very good example of this cultural xenophobia. Historically, the European Jews who established the state despised Arab culture. They tried to eradicate it among the Mizrahi Jews who came to Israel from Arab lands. This intra-Jewish Israeli prejudice is still a problem today. What aspects of Arab culture (mostly having to do with cuisine) Israeli Jews are attracted to they try to repackage as “Israeli.”

There are two final considerations here: First is the need to be serious and clear in the use of language. One can, of course, say “culture has a unique ability to bring people together” but is this a statement that has any real meaning or is it just a platitude?

And second: If you are going to give advice about a century-old conflict you should know enough about its history to be sensible in your offering. Thus, in this case, if you know that high or low cultural intercourse with Israel (and, as suggested above, there has been plenty of it since the founding of the state in 1948), has actually improved the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, you should lay out the evidence. However, if one is just offering a banal cliche, well, only the ignorant can take that seriously.

Those who first proposed the cultural boycott did not do it out of some anti-Semitic dislike for Israeli artworks, music, literature or theater. They did it because cultural interaction with Israel had not only failed to promote an equitable peace, but in fact camouflaged the policies of a nation-state that practices ethnic cleansing and other destructive policies against non-Jews.

The logical conclusion was drawn that if you want to pressure the Israelis to change their ways, you withdraw from cultural contact and make any reconnection a condition of their getting serious about conflict resolution.

How is it that the 150 artists and authors who signed the Culture for Coexistence open letter do not know the relevant facts? Setting aside the confirmed Zionists, whose ulterior motive is pretty clear, do these people take this stand because it “feels right” – that is, because they believe cultural interaction ought to, or even must, promote conflict resolution? Alas, this is wishful thinking and, taking history seriously, Palestine may go extinct before such an approach actually helps lead to a just peace.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest;　America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism.

October 31, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Can Jeremy Corbyn make a difference to Palestine?

Press TV

The pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel candidate Jeremy Corbyn has become the new leader of Britain’s second biggest political force, the Labour Party.

Corbyn has often demonstrated against Israel’s wars on the Palestinian people. And he’s called for an economic boycott against Tel Aviv. When it comes to Palestine, historically there has been little to choose between Labour and the Conservatives, with both following a pro-Israel line for decades or more.

But now that Corbyn is Labour leader, will there at last be clear blue water between the major parties on this issue? And what implications does this have for British foreign policy and the Palestinian cause?

October 30, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

High Court lifts ban on protests at Israeli drone factory

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A UK arms factory was recently occupied by nine British activists in protest against the company’s alleged complicity in Israel’s Operation Protective Edge
RT | October 30, 2015

An injunction banning protests from taking place outside a drone factory in Staffordshire has been thrown out by Birmingham High Court. The factory has produced parts for drones used to attack Gaza in 2008, according to Amnesty International.

UAV Engines Limited in Shenstone, owned by an Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, is one of the world’s leading drone producers. The company says it produces “engines for various size tactical armed unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs], target drones and single mission platforms.”

Angered by the factory’s unethical behavior, hundreds of protesters have staged demonstrations outside its industrial unit, calling on the manufacturer to stop contributing to the death of Palestinians.

In June, campaigners shut down UAV and another Israeli arms factory in Kent as part of a protest marking the one-year anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza.

Soon after, it became illegal for activists to protest within 250 meters of the Shenstone factory. The ban came in the form of a temporary injunction granted by the High Court.

However, Birmingham High Court scrapped the ban on Tuesday, ruling Elbit had failed to disclose information on the history of protests which have taken place at the factory since 2009.

Judge Purle at the High Court said the injunction is dismissed “as if it never existed.”

“I think it inconceivable you would have got the same injunction, possibly even any injunction, if you had disclosed relevant information to me,” she told the court. “Accordingly the injunction I granted on 30 June is dismissed ab initio [from the beginning] and it is as if the injunction never existed.”

‘It shouldn’t have been introduced’

A spokesperson for campaign group Block the Factory said the injunction should not have been imposed in the first place.

“This injunction should never have been imposed.It seems to have been designed to deter protest and campaigning around ending the UK’s deadly arms trade with Israel,” they told IBT.

“It’s Elbit Systems and its arms factories that should be facing a ban, not our protests. Today’s decision will bring even more energy to our campaigning in solidarity with ongoing Palestinian resistance and for a two-way arms embargo on Israel.”

War on Want, a charity fighting against the root causes of poverty and human rights violations, said it is pleased the ban has been lifted.

“It would have been a travesty for people to be criminalized for protesting against the sale of arms that are killing Palestinians. It just goes to show the depths UAV Engines will stoop to in order to protect the profits they make from the sale of deadly drones,” campaigner Ryvka Barnard said.

“We welcome the news that the judge has binned this draconian injunction and we will keep up the fight for an immediate two-way arms embargo between the UK and Israel,” he added.

In July, hundreds of activists protested outside the factory, which led to 19 people being arrested by Staffordshire police.

Photo © londonpalestineaction.tumblr.com / Tumblr

October 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraq War Inquiry report to be published June or July 2016, Chilcot tells Cameron

RT | October 29, 2015

Sir John Chilcot has told Prime Minister David Cameron that the long-delayed, highly controversial report into the legality of the Iraq War will certainly be published in June or July 2016.

In an official letter to Cameron, Chilcot said the text of the report would be completed by April 18, 2016, at which point “national security” checking of the content will commence.

Chilcot said that given the sheer size of the document, which he says will run to more than 2 million words, the intervening time will be required check the text before printing and publication.

In his correspondence, Chilcot tells Cameron that the process of ‘national security’ is distinct from the process of declassification.

It concerns the preparation of material to avoid endangering Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – in effect, the right to life – and to ensure the nation’s security as a whole is not breached by anything made public.

Blair’s office released a statement claiming the former-Prime Minister had always been keen to see the report published as soon it “properly” could be.

The statement claimed that delays over the report had not been due to the nature of past correspondences between himself and former-President Bush or because he had contested findings.

“It is our understanding that other witnesses also received information very late in the process, so any suggestion that witnesses have been the cause of the delay is categorically incorrect and this has again been stated clearly and publicly by Sir John,” the statement reads.

In mid-October it was revealed that, contrary to his claims at the time, former-Prime Minister Tony Blair had committed the UK to joining the US invasion of Iraq a year before it began.

The memo was obtained by the Daily Mail as part of the batch of emails from the private server of former US State Secretary Hillary Clinton, which US courts have forced her to disclose.

Among the leaked papers is one written in March 2002 by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell to then-President George W. Bush, in which he said: “On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary … He is convinced on two points: the threat is real; and success against Saddam will yield more regional success.”

At the time Blair was quoted by the British media as saying: “This is a matter for considering all the options.”

“We’re not proposing military action at this point in time.”

Following the release of the memo, Blair appeared to apologize for some parts of his involvement in the Iraq War and concede that the 2003 invasion and occupation led to the rise of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Reg Keys, whose son Tom was killed in Iraq in 2003, dismissed former Blair’s apology aired on CNN as an attempt to shift the blame and spin the long-overdue Chilcot Inquiry report into the war.

He told the Telegraph he felt Blair’s apparent apology was a political move, and not a heartfelt one.

“I feel that he’s obviously pre-empting the Iraq inquiry’s findings. It’s finger-pointing. He’s blaming intelligence chiefs for giving him the wrong intelligence. He’s not [apologizing] for toppling Saddam.”

“What about [apologizing] for the unnecessary loss of life? The reason we went to war was weapons of mass destruction, not to topple Saddam,” Keys added.

“I feel revulsion. This man [Blair] certainly got it wrong.”

Despite widespread opposition to the Iraq War, Blair is not without his defenders.

Michael Gapes MP, one of most hard-core Blair loyalists in the Labour Party, questioned whether the report should be published at all, tweeting “the hysterical Blair haters have decided already” and that “most journalists and commentators have made up their minds already so won’t bother to read it in any case.”

October 30, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Police seize BBC journalist’s laptop using special terror power

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BBC’s Secunder Kermani
Press TV – October 29, 2015

British police have come under sharp criticism for seizing a personal laptop of a BBC journalist over the suspicion of his alleged links with Daesh or ISIL terrorist group in Syria.

It has emerged that the police seized the laptop belonging to Secunder Kermani earlier this year to ascertain the type of communications he had with a terrorist in Syria.

Kermani has been working for the current affairs program, BBC Newsnight for over one year and has extensively covered British ISIL recruits in the Middle East.

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UK’s counter-terrorism squad during a maneuver (File photo)

The police say they used special powers from the counter-terrorism laws in order to read communications between Kermani and a man who featured in his program and had publicly identified himself as a member of the Takfiri terrorist group in Syria.

“While we would not seek to obstruct any police investigation, we are concerned that the use of the Terrorism Act to obtain communication between journalists and sources will make it very difficult for reporters to cover this issue of critical public interest”, Ian Katz, the editor of Newsnight said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the British police have come under sharp criticism over the seizure of the laptop. “A hysteria around terrorism” is how Jo Glanville, director of the campaign group English PEN described the incident.

According to a BBC spokesman, the police had every right to use the special power but said “the man featured in Newsnight reports was not a confidential source.”

Orders obtained under the Terrorism Act leave journalists with little or no comeback when police use them to seek access to material. By contrast, a public interest defense has been used in the past to contest attempts by the police.

October 29, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Documents Reveal: West Plotted False Flag to Justify War Against Syria… In 1957!

Britain and America sought a secretive “regime change” in Syria involving false flags and the assassination of key government officials… in 1957

Russia Insider | October 29, 2015

If you are a dutiful western television viewer, you might think that moderate, amphetamine-fueled foreign fighters only recently began to cry out for democracy in Syria. But you are dreadfully mistaken. Syria has demanded freedom from its oppressive legitimate leaders for more than fifty years. According to a 2003 report in the Guardian, Syria has been on Democracy’s “to-do list” for a long-ass time! Check this out:

Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria’s pro-western neighbours, and then to “eliminate” the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.

…

The report said that once the necessary degree of fear had been created, frontier incidents and border clashes would be staged to provide a pretext for Iraqi and Jordanian military intervention. Syria had to be “made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments,” the report says. “CIA and SIS should use their capabilities in both the psychological and action fields to augment tension.” That meant operations in Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, taking the form of “sabotage, national conspiracies and various strong-arm activities” to be blamed on Damascus.

The plan called for funding of a “Free Syria Committee”, and the arming of “political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities” within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

Ah, history. In 1957, it was PG-13 “border clashes”. Now we have “government chemical weapons attacks against orphans”, which, despite whatever evidence Bellingcat found on Facebook, have been completely debunked, and by actual experts.  Instead of the “Free Syria Committee”, we now have the “Free Syrian Army”. Oh, and we saved the best for last. Here’s why the 1957 plan fell apart:

The plan was never used, chiefly because Syria’s Arab neighbours could not be persuaded to take action and an attack from Turkey alone was thought to be unacceptable.

Acceptable in 2015, though! Good heavens, nothing changes.

Our current nightmare is nothing more than a poorly-conceived lie gathering dust in a CIA archive.

October 29, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK supports Dubai police fair, despite UAE torture record

Reprieve | October 28, 2015

UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) is supporting a trade fair hosted by the Dubai police this week, despite widespread use of police torture in the UAE.

The event, the Emirates Security Exhibition and Conference (Emsec), is said by its organizers to be ‘designed to support and encourage UK exports’. It is officially hosted by the Dubai police, though UKTI has organized a reception at the British embassy in Dubai for UK companies taking part.

Human rights organization Reprieve – which assists British and other victims of police torture in the Emirates – has previously raised concerns with UKTI about its support for the event. Reprieve’s research has found that some 75 per cent of prisoners in Dubai Central Jail reported having been tortured into ‘confessing’. They include British citizens who say they were subjected to electric shocks. Despite this, a recommended ‘product requirement list’ given to UK companies ahead of this week’s event included the category ‘Public Order Equipment – Electronic’.

British student Ahmad Zeidan, from Reading, was arrested and tortured in December 2013, and was eventually convicted on the sole basis of a ‘confession’ he signed in Arabic – a language he neither reads nor writes. Ahmad, who initially faced a potential death sentence, recently learned that he was not included in a royal pardon that saw hundreds of other prisoners freed – despite his requests to the UK Foreign Office to support his case.

A 2013 UKTI strategy document unearthed by Reprieve lists security export events such as Emsec as a new priority for the Government, and a Reprieve Freedom of Information request has revealed that last year the government spent £12,000 on encouraging British companies to attend.

The event comes as the UAE was expected to secure re-relection to the United Nations Human Rights Council, in a vote today. In a submission to the body in support of their bid, Emirati representatives said: “Our wish to serve a second term on this esteemed body reflects our view that societies that uphold human rights are more resilient, more sustainable and more secure.”

Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “The Emirati authorities have boasted to the UN about their human rights record, but the reality is dismal. The UAE systematically uses torture to secure convictions – and death sentences – based on bogus statements. British student Ahmad Zeidan is still languishing in prison after he was forced to sign one of these ‘confessions’. Instead of lending UK support to the Emirati police responsible for his torture, the British Government should make clear that we want no part in such abuses – and should demand the release of victims like Ahmad without delay.”

October 29, 2015 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s Poppy Fascism

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By Finian Cunningham – Sputnik – 28.10.2015

It’s that time of year again – when Britain’s “poppy fascism” dominates public life. Television presenters are perhaps the most conspicuous exponents, whereby the paper facsimile of the little red flower must be donned on all lapels.

Now weeks ahead of the official commemoration day, more and more Britons, including TV personalties, are pinning the poppy in public.

It may seem innocuous, but there is a disturbing authoritarianism to the increasing custom. Those who don’t wear the symbol commemorating Britain’s war dead are liable to be castigated and abused for being “traitors”.

The BBC is a classic example. The publicly owned state broadcaster says that its presenters and reporters have the option of not wearing the red poppy. But in practice such is the peer pressure and jingoistic mood of modern Britain that all BBC staff will have to conform to a personal display of the red floral tribute. Bet on it.

Some brave television figures refuse to go along with the established “norm”. It was Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow who coined the phrase “poppy fascism” a few years ago when he was publicly berated by BBC journalists and other media outlets for refusing to don the flower during his nightly broadcasts. It remains to be seen if the Channel 4 news anchor will this year cave to public pressure – a pressure which seems to be growing every year.

Ever since 1919, Britain and its Commonwealth states, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand hold Remembrance Day on November 11.

It marks the armistice of the First World War in 1918. The first commemoration was held by Britain’s King George V who wore a red poppy, thus inaugurating a tradition that continues to this day. The delicate flower was commonly seen on the battlefields of Belgium and France and came to symbolise the millions of soldiers killed during the four-year-old war.

Across Britain, Remembrance Day is marked by sombre ceremonies in towns and cities during which poppy wreathes are laid at war memorials. The biggest event is held at the Cenotaph in London’s Whitehall. Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister David Cameron and other political leaders will be among the chief dignitaries, along with senior members of Britain’s armed forces.

So what, you may ask, is objectionable about Britain’s annual Remembrance?

In its early observance, the event was indeed a momentous mourning for the millions who died in the First World War. It was an occasion to vow “never again” should mankind be plagued with such horror.

However, the massive demonstration of grieving and repudiation of war has since given way to an obscene glorification of war. The danger of such co-option was there from the beginning when King George V led the first Remembrance Day. For the British monarch – whose cousins included Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II and other European aristocrats – personified the basic background to the conflict. It was an imperialist squabble that exploded into a conflagration that consumed up to 18 million ordinary civilians among the warring nations.

From the very outset therefore, the British commemoration was an opportune way to rehabilitate the monarch and the state’s ruling class who had largely precipitated the war, along with their European elites.

It is a heinous indictment that only two decades after the end of the First World War, the world would be plunged into an even greater conflagration of the Second World War, which resulted in nearly 80 million dead – more than four-fold more. The subsequent war had its antecedents in the imperialist rivalries of the first. Why a second more terrible war should happen was because the war-making imperialist state apparatus had never been held to account. The British rulers were able to deftly reinvent themselves in the eyes of their public as “victors” instead of being seen, as they should have been, as warmongering villains.

To be fair to honourable exceptions, many genuine anti-war Britons were aware of the disgraceful and dangerous co-option by the ruling class. During the 1920s, a movement began which saw war remembrances conducted with white poppies, instead of the red ones that came to be associated with the official event. White poppies are still worn to this day and that tradition has been reinvigorated by campaign groups like Stop the War Coalition.

Nevertheless, Britain has become a discernibly more jingoistic country in which the red poppy has taken on an Orwellian symbolism. Television presenters are dragooned into wearing it, schools and workplace are expected to display it. It has become a badge of loyalty to the state, and those who decline to wear the poppy are fingered as treacherous or disrespectful to “our troops”.

A major cause of the cultural shift is that Britain has become a more warmongering state over the past 20 years. True, it was always a belligerent state, playing the bulldog role to the more powerful and even more warmongering United States.

But former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s criminal partnership with Washington in invading Afghanistan and Iraq has unleashed a virtual permanent state of war. British troops are still stationed in Afghanistan and will be for at least another year. Blair’s warmongering has been continued by David Cameron who launched NATO strikes on Libya in 2011 and who is moving to deploy British warplanes to bomb Syria – without the consent of the Syrian government.

When Cameron joins Queen Elizabeth in laying wreathes at the Cenotaph in London, they will be followed in their footsteps by former British prime ministers, including Tony Blair. Together, they will be honouring not only the dead of the First World War, but British veterans who took part in all subsequent wars, including the destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and countless other colonial wars in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Britain’s dirty war in Northern Ireland will also be exonerated.

In other words, this is not a solemn regret for the dead or for war.

Not a bit of it. It is the warmongering British capitalist state apparatus indulging in an exercise of sanitising Britain’s history of illegal wars, including its present role in Syria. It deifies the war criminal class, which is then “authorised” to keep repeating its crimes. If that’s not fascism, then what is?

Britain’s official war commemoration is certainly not a fitting tribute to victims of war. Because if it were then there would a commitment to stopping wars. But as history shows, Britain’s warmongering has proliferated over the years. That in turn is because the upper echelons of British class society use war commemorations as a cloak to hide their vile belligerence.

A fitting Remembrance Day would be for British citizens to call for the prosecution of Tony Blair and David Cameron as war criminals.

But when British news channels are falling over themselves to wear red poppies out of unthinking “loyalty” or fear of being labelled traitors – that shows how disturbingly authoritarian and conformist British society has become.

Photo – © Sputnik/ Evgenya Novozhenina

October 28, 2015 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Moscow demands US-led coalition in Syria ‘prove or deny’ allegations Russia is ‘bombing civilians’

RT | October 27, 2015

The Russian Ministry of Defense has summoned military attaches of NATO countries and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, asking the officials to clarify their countries’ allegations that Russian airstrikes in Syria have hit civilian targets.

“Today we invited military attaches from the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the NATO bloc to ask them to give official validation to their statements, or make a rebuttal,” Defense Ministry deputy head Anatoly Antonov said on Tuesday.

It particularly touches upon Western media’s “outrageous accusations” that the Russian Air Force has allegedly bombed hospitals in Syria, the military official said.

Information attacks on Moscow’s anti-terror efforts in the region have intensified recently, Antonov said, adding that the Russian military is “blamed not only for conducting airstrikes on the ‘moderate opposition,’ but also on civilian buildings, such as hospitals, mosques and schools.”

The MoD official stressed that such blame is put upon Russia not only by the media, but also officials and politicians from a number of Western states, including US Secretary of State John Kerry, US Department of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and the UK’s Defense Secretary Michael Fallon.

Allegations will be considered “stove-piping” should Russia not receive proof in the next following days, Antonov said, adding that the Defense Ministry “closely monitors and analyzes such statements.”

The MoD deputy head once again called on foreign military officials to join efforts in fighting Islamic State, saying that a wider international coalition should be immediately formed to defeat terrorists in the region.

“We are still waiting… for cooperation in defining concrete targets to be bombed in order to annihilate ISIS bases, or [providing] coordinates of facilities that should not be targeted by the Russian Air Force,” Antonov said.

Reports of a field hospital in northwestern Syria destroyed by Russian airstrikes, killing civilians, emerged last week, based on information provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Russian Foreign Ministry has disputed the media reports, having questioned the credentials of the source, which is based in Britain, has no direct access to the ground in Syria, and is run by one man.

READ MORE:

Kremlin dismisses HRW accusations that Russian strikes killed civilians in Syria

Drones in Turkey, missiles in Iran & ground op in Syria: More MSM bombs for Russia amid ISIS fight

October 27, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

J. K. Rowling and the Prisoners of Israel

By Omar Robert Hamilton | CounterPunch | October 26, 2015

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.”

— J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007.

How disappointing to see JK Rowling and Hilary Mantel signing this nefarious letter calling for the need for ‘cultural bridges’ with Israel.

The letter, assembled by a new organisation calling itself Culture for Co-Existence, is a litany of the tired tropes and doublespeak employed by Israel and her apologists.

It opens, point blank, saying, “We do not believe cultural boycotts are acceptable.” Within two sentences the reader finds herself in the patrician hallways of the British conservative, being simply instructed what to think, what is polite. Cultural boycotts are never acceptable? Ever?

The lazy argumentation continues, with the limp disbelief that “the letter you published accurately represents opinion in the cultural world in the UK.” This is in reference to a letter published by Artists For Palestine UK in which 1,000 UK cultural workers pledged to boycott Israel until it reverses its policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

The letter struggles on with a series of meaningless assertions about the need to “inform and encourage dialogue” to “further peace.” When you’re dealing with the mechanized destruction of an entire people by one of the most technologically advanced and diplomatically shielded militaries in the history of mankind then talk, in 2015, of ‘cultural engagement’ is nothing more than further cover for Israel’s continuing colonization of what remains of Palestine.

Let us consider what the last twenty years of dialogue, mutual engagement and negotiation have brought us. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 the Israeli government has constructed 53,000 homes to house 500,000 new settler-colonists in the West Bank, has subjected Gaza to a medieval siege for over 6 years, destroyed 15,000 Palestinian homes, expelled 11,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem and divided the West Bank into 167 segregated population zones that are divided from each other by a 440km concrete wall and 522 military checkpoints. It has suppressed a popular uprising and launched four major offensives that have left over 7,000 Palestinians dead.

Israel, for all of those years (and we’re not even going back to 1948 here), has enjoyed full diplomatic and economic relations with all the world’s major players, it is at the centre of global trade in arms, hi-tech and diamonds. It competes in European sporting and musical competitions and enjoys European trade benefits. It has the US Congress in thrall to its every whim and has an army of lobbyists at work in every Western capital. Israel does not suffer from a shortage of ‘bridges.’

Words such as ‘dialogue,’ ‘peace’ and ‘bridges’ are hallmarks of the peace industry that has built up around Palestine in these years since 1993. Development money was released in reward for the PLO signing Oslo and foreign NGOs quickly came pouring into the West Bank armed with a new lexicon designed for annual reports and donor drives and an ultimate perpetuation of conflict and salaries. In this new language ‘peace’ means ‘submission’ and ‘dialogue’ means ‘silence.’ It’s not an Apartheid Wall, it’s a Separation Barrier – sometimes even fence. It’s not a ‘massacre’ it’s ‘fighting.’ The word justice is nowhere to be found. When Rowling’s letter states that “cultural engagement builds bridges, nurtures freedom and positive movement for change” one can only applaud the crisp professional meaninglessness of it.

Who do we have to thank for this exercise in euphemistic insincerity?

They call themselves ‘Culture for Co-Existence’ and the coordinators include: an Executive Board member of One Family Israel, ‘a leading support organisation that deals with victims of terror in Israel’; the executive director of Friends of Israel Educational Foundation; an Israeli software designer whose Facebook profile picture is a big Star of David and an investment banker who assists campaigns for the charity Jewish Care.

Surely the Culture of Co-Existence Clan is missing something? Could they not find a single House Arab to sign on with them? Or did they decide that wasn’t even necessary?

Who exactly are they planning on co-existing with?

And then you realise. They are not actually talking about dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. They are talking about dialogue between themselves and Israel. The Palestinians are irrelevant. Peace, here, means being left at peace to keep doing business with the last apartheid state of the modern world. Dialogue and cultural exchange, in this lexicon, means that if you speak out about Israel then you can exchange your job for another one. In just the last week both the US State Department and MSNBC have had to retract statements that fell short of the Israel lobby’s standards. What chance, then, do independent institutions like London’s Tricycle Theatre have to exercise their moral right to refuse funding from an apartheid state? The answer: none.  Because, remember, according to JK Rowling, cultural boycotts are never acceptable. A travelling troupe of KKK improvistas wants to ‘re-interpret’ a lynching in your school’s theatre to show the other side of the story? Right this way, sir. A cultural boycott would only single out white men from Mississippi unfairly when the world is so variously filled with wrong.

The Tricycle Theatre, like several politicians, popstars and athletes, was laid siege to last year when it tried to turn down Israeli government funding. They were quickly dialogued into submission and bridges were forced onto them in a manner reminiscent of the British Opium Wars.

Considering that Ms Rowling’s trade is in language it is deeply surprising to see her name attached to such a letter. Clearly this Co-Existence Coterie, which consists of her agent and two trustees of her charity, Lumos, came into being entirely for her signature. Many of their fans hope, though, that Ms Rowling and Ms Mantel reconsider their position and remove their names from this document. It is nothing more than a plea to allow Israel to continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Economic and cultural isolation worked to end apartheid in South Africa and it can end it in Palestine too. If it is peace that people actually want, they have to recognize that it can only come with justice.

Omar Robert Hamilton is a filmmaker, writer and a producer of the annual Palestine Festival of Literature.

October 26, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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